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Quakes pose severe threat to S.F. housing stock - SF Chronicle, February 6, 2012
The public-policy group SPUR has issued an eye-opening report (co-authored by Mary Comerio, Professor of Architecture, University of California, Berkeley) about the vulnerability of San Francisco's housing stock to a major earthquake. It projected that nearly a quarter of the city's population -85,000 households- would require interim housing "for several months" after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake on the San Andreas Fault along the Peninsula. The report is available online and is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Safe Enough to Stay (at the SPUR Urban Center Gallery until April 18, 2012).
Photo: Vince Maggiora / The Chronicle |
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Berkeley Architect Wraps Up William Wurster Book - SF Chronicle, February 5, 2012
When Lempres Brostrom, 49, finished graduate school at Wurster Hall, her faculty adviser, Richard Peters, directed her to a book project on which he'd been working for 20 years. Another 20 years and "The Houses of William Wurster: Frames for Living" finally has been released by the Princeton Architectural Press.
On the topic of Wurster's appeal, Brostom writes: "What made him unique and distinctive to me was that he came from California. Most architects of fame in the '30, '40s and '50s were not from California to begin with. They were from Philadelphia or New York or Europe and came west. Wurster didn't romanticize what it was to be in California."
Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle |
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1223 Upper Happy Valley Road boasts spectacular vistas - SF Chronicle, February 5, 2012
The property at 1223 Upper Happy Valley Road is on the market and, "I expect a big draw is going to be that it's a Swatt home," said listing agent Dana Green. She is referring to Robert Swatt (B.Arch., 1970), the Bay Area architect renowned as an innovator in the California Modern architectural movement. Swatt is known for his stunning new single- and multifamily projects, which continue to rise in popularity even in these lean times for
new construction. The architect also has a reputation for building on the past in ambitious redesigns, such as the extensive addition to the Bella Vista residence.
Photo: Thomas Grubba Photography |
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A New Lower Sproul is Taking Shape - NewsCenter, January 30th, 2012
Berkeley has 35,000 students, but you’d never know it from wandering through the stark, gray emptiness of Lower Sproul Plaza on a typical evening.
The planned overhaul of Lower Sproul — long desired and now moving forward — intends to change all that.
The redesigned complex is envisioned as the true and beating heart of student life on campus, a hub, a central meeting place where students can congregate, socialize, study, work, discuss, debate and cross-pollinate. Architects’ renderings for the $223 million renovation show a light-filled area that’s open, inviting and bustling with activity 24/7. Eshleman Hall, currently closed off with walls of concrete, will be replaced by a lower building veiled in glass to expose the busy hive inside — students meeting, studying, dancing, eating, meditating and just hanging out. The transparency and permeability will carry through to the design of an addition to the plaza side of the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, where walls of glass will put a new campus living room, café and multicultural center on full view. Spaces in Cesar Chavez that frame the north edge of the plaza would be enlivened by visible study centers available to students late into the night.
Photo: Renderings by Moore Ruble Yudell, UC Berkeley
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Emeritus Professor Lyndon to Participate in Mayor's Institute Conference
The Mayors’ Institute on City Design is a leadership initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the American Architectural Foundation and the United States Conference of Mayors. Since 1986, the Mayors’ Institute has helped transform communities through design by preparing mayors to be the chief urban designers of their cities.
Mayors from across the western United States converged on the city of Houston to learn how they can become active participants in the design of their respective cities. The University of Houston’s Community Design Resource Center hosted the Mayors’ Institute on City Design: West (MICD) Feb. 1 – 3. The event connects American mayors with noted design professionals to address the challenges faced by cities, as well as strategies for revitalization. “The fundamental goal of this three-day conference is to educate city leaders and get them to care about design,” said Susan Rogers, director of UH’s Community Design Resource Center and CED Alumni (1998). “It’s an opportunity for them to learn how design can play a role in transforming and reinvigorating their cities.” |
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UC
picks Richmond for Lawrence Berkeley lab campus, San Francisco
Chronicle, January 24, 2012
Lawrence
Berkeley Laboratory has chosen to build its new research facility on the
Richmond shoreline, a move that could rank the city with Livermore and Berkeley
as a new hub for scientific innovation.The lab's new campus will bring in more
than 800 jobs, attract spin-off enterprises and generate millions of dollars in
tax revenue that could transform the city of 100,000 residents.
Photo: Roy Kaltschmidt |
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new buildings at Cal show design challenge, San Francisco Chronicle,
January 23, 2012
Li Ka Shing
Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences is a 115-foot-tall cube near the northwest
corner of campus, skinned in masonry and glass beneath a stainless steel crown
that hides mechanical equipment. The addition to the School of Law on the
southeast edge of campus is tucked underground, out of sight except for a small
dining pavilion where the roof doubles as an artfully landscaped terrace.
Each project
is successful on its own terms: neither fits smoothly into the 180-acre central
campus. These buildings illustrate the fact that smooth fits may no longer be
possible - and that the smart approach from here on is to preserve the best of
what survives from early decades but otherwise set out to bring life and energy
to the confused terrain of the present.
Photo: Hargreaves Associates + Ratcliff Architecture
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San
Francisco Redevelopment Agency wins National Planning Achievement Award for a
Hard-Won Victory. San Francisco Chronicle, January 18,
2012
On the eve of its extinction, the San Francisco
Redevelopment Agency has received national recognition for a
"Herculean effort" where "everyone is a winner ...
especially the citizens." That quote is from board member Marie York
of the American Planning Association, which has selected the agency-led
planning efforts at Hunters Point Shipyard for the association's
"National Planning Achievement Award for a Hard-Won Victory."
The honor singled out the 10-volume environmental impact report approved in
2010 after decades of debate over the fate of a former Navy base that once
provided thousands of jobs to residents of the Bayview neighborhood. The jury
cited the range of topics addressed, everything from sea level rise to
strategies for strengthening the African American heritage of the area while
making room for 10,000 housing units. Other city agencies were involved in the
study, as well as developer Lennar Urban, and the environmental consulting firm
Atkins. The award will be presented at the association's convention in April.
Photo: Lennar Urban / Transparent House |
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