Featured events- 08/28/2013 - Free Outdoor Screening in the BAM/PFA Sculpture Garden
- 08/27/2013 - MARK EPSTEIN / The Trauma of Everyday Life
- 08/24/2013 - The goat Rodeo Sessions
- 08/03/2013 - Book Signing and Discussion with Dave Kehr, followed by The Lawless Breed
- 06/24/2013 - BERKELEY PRIDE 365! First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage…
Tag Archives: David Trachtenberg
Nine Berkeley buildings win ‘design excellence’ awards
Nine buildings have been singled out as representing the best new design work in Berkeley for 2010-2012. Berkeley Design Advocates, a volunteer group of architects and urban planners, selected three UC Berkeley buildings, a restaurant, a senior home, two retail spaces — one newly built, one restored — a wine store, and the renovation of a branch library from a list of 15 submissions, and handed out the award certificates at a ceremony on Thursday, March 28. (See the 2013 Awards Brochure for full details.)
This year threw up a particularly impressive crop of winners, according to Anthony Bruzzone, President of BDA, who said that two years ago, with the recession having put the kibosh on many construction projects, the group was concerned it might have no buildings to consider at all in 2013. … Continue reading »
Tagged 2050 Delaware, Anne Phillips Architecture, Berkeley architecture, Berkeley Design Advocates, Berkeley North Branch library, Berkeley Public Library, Blum Hall, Cal Memorial Stadium, Comal, David Trachtenberg, Energy Biosciences Institute, Kahn Design Associates, Keetsa, Panoramic Interests, Premier Cru Fine Wines
Sierra Nevada to open beer tasting room on 4th St.
Sierra Nevada, the craft brewing company known for its pale ale, is planning to open a tasting room on Fourth Street by the end of the year.
The Chico-based company will serve around 16 different types of beer in a 1,700-square-foot space in the Read Building at 2031 Fourth St., next door to Title Nine. There will be a long bar and a number of high tables. The emphasis will be on beer, not food.
“It will be a small, intimate tasting room,” said Sierra Nevada spokesman Ryan Arnold. “It will not be a place where you get a meal or lounge around. We want you to be next to the bar where you are engaged with the staff, learning about beer.” … Continue reading »
Comal: New restaurant takes a bet on downtown Berkeley
On Friday, John Paluska will throw open the heavy steel doors to his ambitious new restaurant, Comal, which he hopes will become a magnet for local residents and a cultural incubator. “I see it as a big tent that I hope will become the heart of the community,” he said last week as he stood in the expansive, airy space at 2020 Shattuck Avenue, overseeing a plethora of pre-launch preparations.
Comal will be cooking up Oaxaca-inspired Mexican food — masa-based dishes such as Tetelas, memelas, and tlayudas, whole grilled fish, chickens and fresh vegetables -- much of it cooked on an Italian wood-burning range and two “comals” — large round griddles which take center stage in the restaurant’s open kitchen and, says Paluska, also serve to evoke the “hearth as gathering place” ambiance he is seeking to create there.
Chef Matt Gandin, formerly of Delfina in San Francisco, says he wants to explore the complexities of a cuisine that he feels is “waiting to be discovered”.
Shop Talk: The ins and outs of Berkeley businesses
VIVA MEXICO It’s countdown time to the opening of a “big” new restaurant in downtown Berkeley. Comal, a Oaxaca-inspired Mexican eatery which will seat around 160 customers both inside and at an outdoor patio area, is slated to open its doors on May 2 very soon. Last week, its new Cor-Ten steel façade, designed by Berkeley architect David Trachtenberg, was unveiled. Currently a shimmering silver, the steel will gradually turn a rusty burned orange color as it oxidizes. Former Delfina chef Matt Gandin will be running the kitchen, and its name, according to Eater SF, comes from the restaurant’s namesake comals, or Mexican griddles, which take pride of place in the restaurant’s exhibition kitchen. Berkeley firm Abueg Morris has gutted the 1927 building at 2020 Shattuck Avenue, and used reclaimed wood floors, wainscoting and poured concrete walls to give it a clean, contemporary feel.
DESIGN SHUTTER Scout, the home decor and staging company, has closed its retail store at 3088 Claremont Avenue less than 12 months after moving there from Temescal. The company will continue to operate its home staging and interior decorating service from the studio in the same spot. Scout will also offer furniture and lighting, as well as Farrow & Ball paints. … Continue reading »
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 »
