North Berkeley BART visualizations

Figure 1a. Visualizations of approach to the site: eastward along Delaware, and then entry into the site from the south via a northern extension of Short Street (model and video by Pietro).

Figure 1b. Visualizations of approach to the site: northward along Sacramento, then westward between 1730 and 1700 Sacramento on Bayard Rustin Way. I am just proposing the name; selection should be done by public process (model and video by Pietro).

Figure 1c. Visualizations of approach to the site: south along Sacramento, west on Virginia, south on Maya Angelou Way. I am just proposing the name; selection should be done by public process (model and video by Pietro).

Figure 1d. Visualizations of approach to the site: east along Virginia, then south along an extension of Short Street into the site. (model and video by Pietro).

Background to these Visualizations

In the fall of 2018 I responded to the invitation by BART and the City of Berkeley for ideas about redeveloping North Berkeley Station site. I proposed that the station should be renamed by the local Ohlone group who have lived in this area for millennia, and I believe they should have tenancy and management of a Community Center and the plaza between the station building and Sacramento Street. I used GIS to work out an initial schema, shown in figure 2:

Figure 2. Schematic site plan as of October 2018, using QGIS to lay out buildings comprised of standard units.

In the spring of 2019 I began to teach myself Blender 3D. Using this modeling software, I was able to create visualizations which could be superimposed on photographs. My smartphone has a (virtual) 28mm focal length, so I was able to set the rendering camera in Blender to the same focal length, and mosaic together a dimensionally-accurate model with images of the existing site (figures 3 & 4):

Figure 3. View east on Delaware at Acton. 2019 Schema collaged together with image of existing site (May 10, 2019).

Figure 4. View west on Delaware at Sacramento. 2019 Schema collaged together with image of existing site (May 10, 2019).

However, neither my initial proposal in 2018 nor the 2019 revision provided enough housing, nor did they meet the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) required by the state. Ironically, fifty years of resistance by neighbors against any housing development in the area has forced the hand of both the city and the state. All of west Berkeley should be upzoned to enable owners to develop up to 3 storeys of mixed uses, including multifamily housing, by right; and more where it is appropriate. All reasonably safe urban areas across the state need this zoning change. Not only do we need to correct for a half-century of extreme under-production of housing, but we also now will need to prepare for waves of refugees as hillside and wildland-interface developments across California face unmanageable fire risks. We also need to enable working-class people to have transit access to decent employment, which remains concentrated in the central Bay Area. Forcing poorer people to commute from eastern Contra Costa, Solano, and Stanislaus counties is unethical and unsustainable.

In the fall of 2022 I began to think again about housing. Not just at North Berkeley, but the idea of modular housing similar to what Factory OS is building in Mare Island. I laid out a feasible 2-BR apartment that could be assembled from three modules at 8′-0″ wide (figure 5). Normally modular homes are built in 12′-wide components, but those require special permits and are difficult to maneuver into existing urban areas.

Figure 5. A two-bedroom apartment with a 5′ x 16′ balcony. In the 3D model, I swapped the position of BDR2 and the bath so that BDR2 could get better light, and the unit could be juxtaposed with an adjacent unit with a mirrored floor plan.

Using this design, I built a 3D shell in Blender, and figured out how to configure materials better (figure 6).

Figure 6. 3D shell model of a typical 2-BR apartment.

Figure 7. Apartments aggregated into one of the site buildings (1451 Acton). I included stairwells at each end, and an elevator/lobby in the middle.

Figure 8. The site, with a revised set of buildings, as of February 2023. These are still *very* schematic, but feasible based on multifamily housing I have previously built in San Francisco.

Figure 9. A render as of February 24, 2023. Note the difference in the graphic style of the trees.