The nonprofit David Brower Center in Berke- ley, Calif., promotes itself as being “green from the ground up.” Although not a huge building, its impact has been major on the people who designed it, those who are occupying it, those
who are interested in learning more about sustainable building, and the neighborhood in general.
The Brower Center was founded and incorporated in 2002
for the sole purpose of creating this building as a tribute to
the late David R. Brower (1912–2000). Brower was the first
executive director of the Sierra Club and one of the fathers of
the modern environmental movement.
The four-story, 50,000-sq.-ft. mixed-use building features
office space for nonprofit environmental organizations, conference and meeting space, a theater, an art gallery and a
restaurant. It was built adjacent to another new building,
Oxford Plaza, which features affordable housing units with
retail space on the ground floor. Although the two buildings are independently owned, they were designed together
as a transient-oriented, urban development project. The
construction site used to be a parking lot. In exchange for
the land, the Brower Center agreed to the City of Berkeley’s
request that it include an underground parking garage with
97 parking spaces as part of the project.
The Brower Center seeks to inspire environmental and
social action by bringing together the numerous nonprofits
that have located their offices there. “This is a big change for
people who work for environmental causes … we are so used
to working in substandard conditions,” says Amy Tobin,
executive director, Brower Center. Because the new building
was designed to be both beautiful and comfortable – in addition to being energy-efficient and sustainable – the hope is
The Brower Center was built with a
narrow foot plate (65-foot width)
to allow natural ventilation and
daylighting to move easily
through the space.
