All Podcasts / 99% Invisible / Zone Zero
99% Invisible
99% Invisible

Zone Zero

November 03, 2026 • 37m

Summary

⏱️ 11 min read

Overview

99% Invisible explores how Berkeley, California's beloved hillside gardens, shaped by early 20th-century Arts and Crafts ideals, have become a wildfire hazard in the age of climate change. The episode follows French immigrant Michel Suwadi's journey from garden enthusiast to fire safety advocate, chronicling the contentious debate over Berkeley's Ember Ordinance, which requires residents to create defensible space by removing vegetation near their homes—fundamentally challenging over a century of landscape design philosophy.

Michel Suwadi's Love Affair with Berkeley Gardens

When Michel Suwadi arrived in Berkeley from France in 1984 for graduate school, he was captivated by the area's lush, phenomenal gardens where almost anything could grow. Having grown up in hot, dusty North African naval bases, the verdant Berkeley Hills seemed like a fairy tale. He eventually bought a fixer-upper in the hills and spent a decade creating his own dense, unruly garden with shrubs, fruit trees, and climbing vines—a perfect embodiment of Berkeley's garden city ideals.

  • Michel grew up in hot, dusty North African French naval bases with little vegetation
  • Berkeley's phenomenal plant variety and colors seemed like a fairy tale to him when he arrived in 1984
  • He spent 10 years investing every dollar and minute into turning his Berkeley Hills house into a place he loved
  • His garden featured dense shrubs against the house, persimmon and fig trees, and jasmine vines
" I remember being absolutely awed by that phenomenal richness of plants. Almost anything can be grown around here, you know. So the variety, the colors, the textures were extraordinary. It was almost like being in a fairy tale, you know, for me. "

The Arts and Crafts Vision: Bernard Maybeck and the Berkeley Hillside Club

The Berkeley Hillside Club, founded in 1898 by bohemian intellectuals, shaped the development of the Berkeley Hills with help from eccentric architect Bernard Maybeck. Rejecting San Francisco's grid-style development, they promoted Arts and Crafts principles where houses would be simple wooden structures integrated seamlessly with lush gardens. The club's philosophy emphasized landscape over architecture, with the famous motto that hillside architecture was essentially 'landscape gardening around a few rooms for use in case of rain.'

  • The Berkeley Hillside Club was founded in 1898 to prevent the hills from being disfigured like San Francisco
  • Bernard Maybeck was an eccentric architect who dressed in red robes and lived on fried potatoes, coffee, and donuts
  • Charles Keeler's 1904 book 'The Simple Home' became a manifesto for how to build in the Berkeley Hills
  • The club called for extensive planting of trees and shrubs right up to the edge of houses
  • Roads were designed to follow the contours of hillsides, going around rocks and trees rather than through them
" Beauty is the essence of architecture. In other words, it isn't a question of the man living in the building, or whether he has a refrigerator and all that sort of thing, but it's the man in the street who has to look at your building when it's done. "
" Hillside architecture is landscape gardening around a few rooms for use in case of rain. "
" With the help of the hill buyer, the Hillside Club can lay out on the Berkeley Hills a perfect landscape. Connecting green canyons with piling green forests. Making of the barren place as a park, with only here and there a tower or a glimpse of roof to tell of the city underneath. A city of homes in an immense garden. "

📚 7 more sections below

Sign up to unlock the complete summary with all insights, key points, and quotes

Listen on Apple Podcasts More Episodes from 99% Invisible