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New Landscape: Durant Avenue – Housing / multiuse buildings and mini-parks

Why waste so much space on relatively unused asphalt?

New Landscape: Durant Ave – Rendering of housing / multiuse buildings and mini-parks

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 current 2019 Durant Avenue, a wasteful asphalt expanse
New landscape: Durant Avenue, mini-parks, trees, tables and benches for visitors and outdoor dining

The glass on the South side of the buildings will reflect some sunlight into shadows of the South side of Durant.

New landscape: Durant Avenue, mini-parks, and placeholder floor-plans

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

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Glorious People’s Park forest rainbow

Friday Feb 15, 2019 — All People’s Park visitors got a special treat today with wonderful sunny February rains (a special atmospheric river, a Pineapple Express) and this double rainbow (ya gotta squint a bit) over the beautiful forest of the West side of the park. We really enjoyed it, all jumping out to see the glory, all while listening to a stunning show of Aretha Franklin tunes on KCSM radio and an assortment of reggae and world music items donated to the park. Music stories lead to cultural stories, and lead to wisdom. Sweet dreams. – Greg Jalbert

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Tree attack at East-side forest of People’s Park in early morning – January 15, 2019

People’s Park, January 15, 2019 – People’s Park was attacked by tree cutters and many police in the early morning, surrounding trees while chainsaws chopped more living trees from the East-side forest.

Updated with 30 photos.

Tree attack early morning in People’s Park, January 15, 2019

5:08 am
More than 15 cops are at the park in force.

5:12 am
They came about a hundred deep or so

6:04 am
Tree cutters are operating. Chainsaws are going.

6:40 am
It’s a mess out there. The camp is cleared and the trees are coming down. The police are surrounding each tree as they begin to cut. There is one news van. I called Channel 7 and Marie King called Channel 4. The police have strung caution tape around the entire east end of the Park, Bowditch is closed. They would not allow me to walk up Haste.

I saw and spoke briefly with Ruben Lizardo of UC Capital Projects. I said we had questions and would be in touch.

Ninja (David Joshua Teague) live-streamed on Facebook. (1 hour, 28 minutes)

Adam Ziegler, Michelle Lot, and James Cartmill have been arrested. The tree-sitter was removed, but not charged or arrested.

7:35 am
Two paddy wagons in the parking lot across from the People’s Park.

8:58 am
I was in a vehicle parked on Haste near Bowditch early this morn and witnessed the entire operation as it arrived and rolled out, from that vantage. Seems Command was right outside. We were surrounded by tactical personnel, a variety of vehicles, but couldn’t see all the way over to the protest camp very well.

I’d had strong intuition of this coming down since Sunday, although not at quite this scale. Just as I was wondering how wrong I was, only a few hours ago…

Sunday, after the meeting, I was concerned that there was NO signage identifying and positioning the action to the public, which I’ve regarded as of the utmost importance. I offered to produce some pieces, and to contribute ALL the necessary materials and supplies… if someone could provide transport to my storage and back.

As it is now, the media has plenty of shots and footage of shabby camp remains and wild-eyed, wet wingnuts ranting obscenities and incoherent accusations or threats – which I’m sure will become the promoted face and message of it all.

I hope folks have learned an important lesson from this progression, albeit an expensive one.

9:03 am
I saw several marching phalanx formations arrive. My initial impression was maybe 200 or so. The persons in yellow raincoats are not UCPD. Campus “escorts”? ROTC?

9:18 am
It’s the Highway Patrol.

9:26 am
BPD had some late night rendezvous with UCPD the past two nights, but no visible particiation this morn. Just State Cops, huh? A few nights ago, I’d spotted several “men in black” in the background taking pics/vids when UCPD confronted camp, then they faded back to surveillance positions on properties across streets.

9:33 am
Please guys keep safe,thank you for being there

10:09 am
So, this is interesting — UC posted this very informative press release about 17 hours ago to cover their asses.
https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/01/15/peoples-park/

This timeline of events was gather from the People’s Park Committee mailing list. Contributions by Lisa, Christopher, Andrea, David, Eleanor.

Photos after the second tree killing

These photos are from around 3:45 PM January 15, 2019 a few hours after the tree killing and arrests of protestors who were defending the remaining trees of the East-side forest of Peoples Park. At least seven trees in this community of conscious living tree beings were cut down including two beautiful young olive trees who were always visited by this writer, and others had massive limbs removed. All of these trees had many friends and visitors. This gut wrenching loss adds to the loss on December 28 of about 28 trees. The community of local individuals of various species are shocked and devastated by this terrible attack and destruction of habitat.

Photos with commentary by Greg.

Last updated 11:55 pm

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Innovative Student Housing Architecture Can Help Protect People’s Park

by Greg Jalbert

The People’s Park community has innovative solutions to UC Berkeley’s student housing needs, as illustrated here with architectural sketches from Alfred Twu, UC Berkeley alumni.

The Durant Avenue space may get this innovative remake into new wonderfully located student housing near campus and an excellent selection of restaurants and other businesses. Let’s make Berkeley a more inviting city, protect and expand inviting green public spaces, walkable city spaces.

The Durant Avenue project remake three lanes of underused asphalt space into student housing and outdoor green park space, including some isolation barriers from traffic visual and noise pollution, outdoor dining spaces for customers of the local restaurants, cultural events and recreation. The ubiquitous waste of space by automobiles in urban architecture must be dismantled and repurposed for people, the sooner the better. Society and public space would be much better without dreary, polluted, automobile-catering dystopia.

Alfred Twu is a Berkeley designer, UC Berkeley alum, environmental advocate, and serves on Berkeley’s Zero Waste Commission. Alfred Twu put together these sketches of the plan (click images to see high resolution version).

Durant Avenue housing architecture area overview, with proposed areas for new student housing — Alfred Twu

Proposed Durant Avenue housing and green space architecture closeups, converting three out of five traffic/parking lanes — Alfred Twu

Proposed Durant Avenue housing architecture side view cutaway — Alfred Twu

Student housing map UC Berkeley 2-16-2017 — AW

The People’s Park community opposes the UC Berkeley plan to build housing on People’s Park. Their plan removes vital, precious green space from the community. Their plan removes a community gathering place for park visitors of all kinds, neighbors, students, out of town visitors, local restaurant patrons looking for a picnic place, cultural events.

The UC Berkeley People’s Park Development Plan removes vital open public green space, removes vital living trees that do not deserve to have their lives terminated for this human need. There is plenty of other space that can be used for student and supportive housing.

We hope the community engages together to protect People’s Park. Please, get involved. Many resources and links are available on the PeoplesPark.org site.

— Greg Jalbert is a longtime People’s Park community member, having gardened there for several years, played countless hours of acoustic music jams with other community members, and had countless hours of engaging and profound life-enhancing conversations on cultural history, civil rights and social justice, science, gardening, and advocates for the protection of and engagement with this green space.