Why waste so much space on relatively unused asphalt?
This visionary project creates two new three-story housing / multiuse buildings, interleaved with three mini-parks in part of the wasted asphalt space on Durant Avenue, East of Telegraph, just south of UC Berkeley campus.
A work in progress…
Two three-story buildings between the mini-parks have housing on the quieter South side, away from Durant traffic, and the hallways on the North side overlook the noisy Durant traffic.
The mini-parks include 3-5 trees each, several moveable tables and benches, providing more outdoor space for dining and socializing. This would be a benefit to all the local restaurants, visitors and residents.
The glass on the South side of the buildings will reflect some sunlight into shadows of the South side of Durant.
Green, living wall plants on the exterior would provide aesthetic interest and cooling and air-cleansing functions.
Keep the old sidewalks on both sides of Durant and revise as well with outdoor seating, greenery.
The new buildings have appropriate automobile crash barriers built into the first floor wall facing Durant.
Rooftop garden beds, and patios with tables, chairs, wind break walls, and sun shades would increase outdoor space for building users or restaurant users.
The modular housing/park concept could be extended all the way East on Durant to the end of the block, and/or replicated on the block West of Telegraph.
The details of this project, such as building height, unit sizes and quantities, layout, and other logistical and ecological details are all to be determined by qualified designers with full community feedback.
The automobile age is ending. The new lifestyle and design paradigm is about bikes, e-bikes and scooter sharing systems, car-sharing, ride-hailing services, mass-transit and walkable, livable city designs made for people instead of automobiles. Electric bicycles require much less space for parking and are quiet, less distracting for people. Noise is a serious detriment to studying and mental health. The new paradigm releases a large amount of previously paved land for new uses.
Currently five lanes wide with two lanes of parking and three lanes for traffic, this project has part of Durant reduced to two lanes of traffic and no parking.
It is time to protect and increase precious green space in the city, improve quality of life, reorient space use priorities.
This project is designed to reduce loss of public green space parks in the city, such as the historic user-developed multi-use People’s Park in Berkeley. One of the mottos from the founding of People’s Park in 1969 is “Let a thousand parks bloom.” could be inscribed in furniture of the new mini-parks.
Together, creatively, we will make develop better cities and neighborhoods.
— Greg Jalbert
Concept and rendering – Greg Jalbert
Thanks to Alfred Twu for inspiring preliminary sketches!
February 2019