Berkeley's Ed Roberts Campus
William Leddy, FAIA, Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects, USA
The Ed Roberts Campus (ERC) will be the home of eight disability organizations that were trailblazers in the Independent Living Movement of people with disabilities that took shape in Berkeley, California in the 1970's. These organizations are widely credited with changing the paradigm for people with disabilities. Instead of a presumption of charity and dependence, the movement successfully empowered people to become productive members of society. This consumer-directed approach to services has since found receptive ground throughout the world. The Campus is named after Ed Roberts, a man whose life embodied the principles of independent living, and who died in 1995.
The founding board agreed on basic requirements for the campus--that it be universally designed to easily accommodate hundreds of people with all types of disabilities at any one time, that it be situated at a transit hub to make it easier for people to obtain services, and that it be located in Berkeley, the home of the Independent Living Movement.
Early Design Development
In 1999, Susan Goltsman and the staff of Moore Iacofano and Goltsman helped ERC find a location and plan the facility. Berkeley is a small, densely built city with little room for new large-scale developments. But with the city's help, an ideal site was found: a parking lot co-owned by the city and the Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART). The lot had been slated for development for some 25 years but the ERC was the only project that was economically feasible and satisfactory to the neighboring community, the city and BART.
MIG helped the partners develop a Design Program of the campus and to visualize how it might fit on the Berkeley site. It organized the first of several forums to discuss and develop the fundamental concepts and principles of the design.
The ERC chose Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects in San Francisco to create a design that integrates advanced elements of universal design, sustainable design and transit-oriented development. LMS has produced a design of an 80,000 SF complex that houses the partner organizations and other tenants, exhibition space, meeting rooms, a fitness center, and a café. Construction will begin in 2006. The $35 million facility will open in 2008.
Mission
The large disabled populations in the Bay Area, nationally and internationally have relied on the participating ERC organizations for as many as 35 years. Their services and programs offer assistance with all aspects of a person's life, from legal advocacy and computer training to parenting support and wheelchair basketball. Many of these programs and services cannot be found elsewhere.
Ed Roberts was an early leader in the independent living movement of persons with disabilities. Roberts was the first severely disabled student to be admitted to the University of California, Berkeley. He served as Director of the California Department of Rehabilitation, traveled throughout the world promoting the concept of independent living, and became a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow in 1984. Ed believed in the strength of collaborative efforts - he called it "working toward our preferred future."
The Campus will be collaboratively owned by the participating organizations: Bay Area Outreach & Recreation Program (BORP), Center for Accessible Technology (CforAT), Center for Independent Living (CIL), Computer Technologies Program (CTP), Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF), Through the Looking Glass (TLG), Whirlwind Wheelchairs International (WWI), and the World Institute on Disability (WID) and others.
The ERC takes the popular "one-stop shopping" concept a step further and applies it to services for people with disabilities. People will come to the campus for a wide range of health, education, recreation, and vocational services, and social, educational and professional programs. Many of the programs will be new collaborative efforts of the participating organizations and other government and nonprofit entities. One collaborator is the University of California, Berkeley, where, according to Chancellor Berdahl, "faculty members have begun to work closely with the ERC and its partner organizations on ways that we can collaborate so that our students will benefit from the vibrant atmosphere, extraordinary accessibility, and talents that will be located at the campus."
The ERC is recognized by transit agencies in California and the US Department of Transportation as a model of transit-friendly development that maximizes the value of accessible public transit. People with disabilities from a multi-county area, who have had little or no access to these services before, will be able to travel easily and inexpensively to the center. The transit location of the ERC is one of its most important innovations and is likely to be replicated in other urban areas.
Site Context
The ERC site is located on a former BART parking lot in a diverse neighborhood of single-family homes, apartment buildings and larger commercial structures. Half of the project site is located in a commercial zone facing Adeline Street, a busy commercial boulevard, and a large urban open space created by another BART parking lot to the west. The other half of the project is located in a residential zone facing the remaining portion of the existing BART parking lot and single-family homes beyond. As a result, the building presents two different, but related, faces to the surrounding community, respecting its diverse context while offering a vitalizing presence to the neighborhood.
Design
The design of the ERC integrates advanced elements of universal and sustainable design in a transit-oriented development that serves people of all abilities at many scales of engagement. At the scale of the city, the ERC is designed as a community building with a distinct civic presence that celebrates the collective values of its partner organizations. The building acts as both community center and urban threshold, simultaneously positioning the partner organizations on a prominent thoroughfare and at a major regional transit portal.
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Plaza: The building presents an embracing, semicircular plaza to the city on Adeline Street that serves as a drop-off and clearly identifiable entry for the ERC, a major transit plaza for bus, taxi, bicycle and BART riders, and a public gathering space. A variety of features including a café, a bus shelter with interactive transit kiosk, a fully accessible public elevator to the BART station below street level, and public art designed for the experience of all, will help to create a vibrant new urban space for the city of Berkeley. The transparent entry façade of the ERC borders the plaza, revealing a monumental helical ramp inside. The ramp, a major work of public art beneath a large skylight monitor, serves both functional and symbolic roles, providing inviting access to the upper floor of the ERC for all users while offering a dramatic symbol of universal design and independent living to the public.
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Lobby: Upon entering the Center through motion-activated automatic doors, the building offers a simple, easily understandable organization. To the left, two large-capacity elevators with sophisticated, accessible controls connect the two floors of the Center with a sub-grade garage and a separate BART Station Lobby. A large reception / information desk offers human, graphic, Braille, and accessible audio information resources about Center services. To the right, the skylit helical ramp winds upward to the second floor, encircling a public Exhibition Area devoted to issues of the Independent Living Movement. |
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Courtyard: Beyond the Lobby, the two 2-story wings of the building form a central, covered courtyard that will provide natural daylight, ventilation and community gathering spaces to the occupants. The courtyard also serves as a simple orienting device, providing clear access to the ERC's various services and organizations. The café, a fitness center and two levels of shared, flexible meeting rooms open onto the space, fostering a sense of community and ensuring easy way-finding.
BART Station Access: A separate Lobby serves the sub-grade BART Station level, opening directly onto the station concourse. ERC patrons will ascend from the train platform by way of escalators and accessible elevators to the concourse level and then proceed via a short ramp to the new Lobby. A curving, skylit gallery below the Plaza, displaying a striking "Disability Mural" created by local artists, connects BART patrons to an elevator and landscaped stair to the street. The stair design features an integral "wheel channel," allowing cyclists to negotiate the stairs without lifting their bikes. The adjacent ERC garage provides secured parking for staff and visitors who must arrive by car, including 18 wheelchair accessible spaces directly adjacent to the BART level Lobby.
Universal Design: In addition to the universal design elements mentioned above, the design of the ERC incorporates the following features to ensure equal access and service to all:
- Specially designed, high contrast / audio way-finding devices.
- Automatic, motion-activated doors at major exterior and interior entries.
- Abundant natural daylight incorporating glare reduction strategies at all spaces to enhance visibility.
- 7 ft. wide corridors throughout to allow easy circulation and adaptability of pace.
- Restrooms designed for a range of ability levels, including private rooms for assisted individuals.
- Localized temperature controls within each space for the thermally sensitive.
- All light fixtures controlled by hands-free occupancy sensors and timers.
- Secured garage access provided by hands-free electronic transponder technology.
- Building life safety systems incorporating visual / audio notification and accessible alarm stations.
- Acoustical control to foster maximum voice intelligibility.
- A fully accessible, south-facing children's playground.
Sustainable Design: Located at a major regional transportation hub above the Ashby BART Station, the ERC is conceived as a transit-oriented, environmentally responsible development. The project incorporates a range of sustainable design strategies to serve the diverse needs of the occupants as well as the larger environment. These include:
- Maximum use of natural daylight and sun control strategies to reduce energy consumption and enhance visibility.
- Natural ventilation and radiant, hydronic heating in all public spaces.
- Rooftop solar water heating system for common space heating and hot water pre-heat.
- Energy-efficient, specially filtered heating and cooling systems with localized temperature control at Office areas.
- Operable windows with easily operated hardware.
- Enhanced indoor air quality throughout construction, post-construction and occupancy phases.
- Use of non-toxic, recycled and sustainably harvested materials.
- On-site recycling center.
Finding the Funds
As a newly formed organization, the ERC does not have an endowment to tap, or a long-standing Board of Directors to support its desire to build a campus. It is a community-based, consumer-led organization very much like the non-profits that founded it. These organizations place the greatest value on having consumers on their boards and focus so strongly on using their resources to meet the need in the community that they rarely have the luxury of an endowment. And, of course, as non-profits operating continuously at full throttle, the organizations could not stop their own fundraising efforts while developing the ERC.
The ERC reached out to community leaders to form a campaign committee and decided to approach government sources that support health and economic development and foundations that had funded disability in the past. A major early supporter was the City of Berkeley. The City is proud of its history with the Independent Living Movement. City officials recognized that the ERC will not only benefit the people living in its boundaries but will also be of major national and international significance, both as a collaborative model for non-profits and a beacon for independent living for people with disabilities.
One of the other important early donors was NEC Foundation of America, which provided the funds for the design of a comprehensive technology system to make the campus fully accessible with state-of-the art equipment and facilities for people with disabilities. NEC made the award in commemoration of its 10th Anniversary. An NEC-funded report, "Technology and Universal Design Assessment of the Ed Roberts Campus," describes the ways technology is used now by the partner organizations and strategies for its use in the future, recommended technology setups and shared technology opportunities, action plan, and a newly created Universal Design Tool. The report is available from the ERC.
The ERC developed a long-range financial plan to support planning for the new organization, as well as designing, building and running the facility. The plan was laid out in phases so that the each phase of the work can proceed as the funds are raised for it. This approach is working well. The ERC raised more than $2 million in public and private funds for the planning. This money has been used to incorporate, secure the site and develop the design to the level needed for the city's use permit process. Now the ERC is on the verge of carrying out phase two--the schematic design, and is fundraising for phases 3 and 4, the construction drawings and construction, respectively.
Construction Costs: $35 M
Phase I-Planning and Design: $2 Million--raised
Phase II--Schematic Design: $550,000--raised
Phase III--Construction Drawings: $1.6 Million--partially raised ($400,000 needed)
Phase IV--Construction: $30.5 Million--partially raised ($17 Million needed)
Once built the ERC will be a self-sustaining entity with partners and tenants paying rents and fees that are adequate to pay off the debt and maintain the facility.
Postscript
The Ed Roberts Campus integrates design responses to the diverse needs of the community, the missions of its partner organizations and the varying abilities of the many individuals it will serve. Through the collaboration of many, it will create an environment that embodies the spirit of Ed Roberts and "our preferred future."
For additional information:
- Architecture: William Leddy and Marsha Maytum, 415-495-1700
- Program: Jan Garrett, President, ERC Board of Directors, Executive Director, Center for Independent Living, 510-841-4776
- Fundraising: Joan Leon, Fundraising Director, 510-652-6583