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Category Archives: Architecture
Urban think tank: Student visions for blighted Berkeley lot
By Rudabeh Pakravan
Empty lots raise questions. Projects take years to make progress, leaving people to wonder what ever happened to the ambitious images promised on signs surrounding the fences. Some of us daydream of transforming unused real estate into community gardens or public housing.
The City of Berkeley’s recent ultimatum to the owner of the site on Haste and Telegraph prompts another question: is there an ideal project for a given site? We typically trust city planners, architects, developers, and other experts to zone and build on the land around us. We may protest or applaud, but we usually let the decisions be made for us.
Students, however, can dream. Working outside of any parameters other than the physical boundaries of the site and the constraints set by their professor, students at UC Berkeley’s Department of Architecture spent the summer working on bold and unlikely proposals for the Haste and Telegraph site. Under the guidance of Professor Darell Fields, a lecturer on the design faculty at Cal, students worked on proposals for an “Urban Think Tank.”
“The project is conceived of as an opportunity to investigate the relationship between public discourse, architecture, and ideology,” said Professor Fields.
Students were encouraged to question how architecture can affect change in public spaces and create a link between research and community. Mainly unaware of the complicated and controversial transactions in the site’s history, students focused instead on issues such as the political legacy of People’s Park, sustainability, homelessness, and art as ways to generate an architecture that inspires public debate. … Continue reading »
Berkeley City Council to hold hearing on Safeway project
Even though the new Safeway store proposed for College and Claremont Avenues is in Oakland, the project will have significant impacts on Berkeley. To assess how the new supermarket will affect the Rockridge area, the Berkeley City Council will hold a special work session Tuesday night at 5:30 pm.
The city of Oakland sent a draft Environmental Impact Report about the store to Berkeley in July when the council was on recess. Berkeley is holding … Continue reading »
Tagged Farid Javandal, Safeway
Notorious Berkeley drug house now a real estate gem
Almost two years after a notorious drug house that spawned shootings and drug dealing was shut down, the Oregon Street home has been extensively remodeled and is on the market.
Passersby of 1610 Oregon Street in south Berkeley might not recognize the home from its heyday when it was a place that saw a constant stream of cars, visitors, and police. Once ramshackle and so filled with debris that city officials had to enter wearing hazardous material suits, the … Continue reading »
Berkeley’s Apple store: God is in the details
The flow of acolytes to the new Apple temple on Fourth Street is unabated, but most of them don’t pause to contemplate the dimensions of the sidewalk panels outside the store.
If part of your Apple love is the company’s attention to every detail in design, that’s a mistake. As ifoAppleStore.com recently explained, the new Berkeley store illustrates that obsession. The generating module for the design is the 76 centimeter square stone floor tiles in the store. The glass … Continue reading »
Berkeley settles contentious library lawsuit
The city of Berkeley has reached an agreement with Concerned Library Users over a lawsuit the group filed to stop the demolition and rebuilding of the South and West branches of the Berkeley Public Library.
In a closed session on Tuesday evening, the city council voted to settle the lawsuit by creating a $100,000 fund to provide grants to preserve historic buildings in the city’s south and west neighborhoods, according to Zach Cowan, the City attorney. The city also agreed … Continue reading »
A peek at the renovations at Berkeley’s branch libraries
The Berkeley Public Library has been writing a blog to keep patrons updated on the renovations to the North and Claremont branches of the library. These are photos from that site. The two branches were closed in April 2011. Claremont branch renovations should be done by end of year, according to library director Donna Corbeil, and the North branch will be completed by spring 2012. The library is also posting weekly updates on the construction on its website.
Claremont … Continue reading »
Berkeley Lab holds meeting for Emeryville/Berkeley site
Tagged Berkeley Lab, second campus, Wareham Development
Cannabis dispensaries display a stylish flair
After the Berkeley Patients’ Group’s plans to move into the old Sharffen Berger chocolate factory on Heinz and Seventh Street fell through in 2010, the medical cannabis dispensary turned its attention back onto its San Pablo Avenue home. If the organization, which serves hundreds of people a day, wasn’t going to be moving into larger digs, what could it do to make the experience better for patients?
In a word, remodel.
Over the last year, Berkeley’s largest cannabis dispensary … Continue reading »
Five Berkeley homes featured on new architecture tour
This year, the American Institute of Architects is launching an East Bay Home Tour to complement those it already organizes in San Francisco and Marin. The new tour, which takes place on August 13, features eight distinctive homes, five of which are in Berkeley — a sign, perhaps, that the city is alive and kicking with creative energy in the field of architecture.
All the homes on the tour — the three outside Berkeley are in Oakland, Lafayette and Orinda — share key characteristics: sustainability, open floor plans, connection of indoors to outdoors, abundant light and a mix of modern and traditional materials.
The five Berkeley homes — two of them the creations of Berkeley architects – each boast interesting stories of their own.
The “DIY House” was designed by Berkeley architect Endres Ware to be built by the owner, who had no prior construction experience. The result, a clever, energy efficient box, was built for just $175,000. … Continue reading »
Berkeley architect built, rebuilt Frank Lloyd Wright home
Berkeley architect Walter Olds built a spectacular Frank Lloyd Wright home not once, but twice.
The Buehler Home, commissioned in 1948 by inventor Maynard Buehler and his wife Katie for their 3.3 acre property in Orinda, was partially destroyed in a 1994 fire, and it was to 75-year-old Olds, who was supervising architect on the original construction, that the owners turned, as soon as the flames had been doused, with a request to oversee the rebuild.
The result — a magnificent example of Wright’s Usonian style — can now be seen by the public for the first time, as the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy is holding a Home Tour on Saturday July 30 to raise funds for Frank Lloyd Wright conservation programs.
Olds, who passed away in 2008, told the New York Times in 2003 that he received a call from Maynard Buehler, who was then 89, on the day of the fire. ”Well, Walter,” he said. ”You figured this all out in ’49. I don’t see why you can’t figure it out now.”
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