Taking advantage of the mild Bay Area climate and nearby wetland, Berkeley Commons’ two all-electric R&D buildings exceed local green building standards and provide employees with a healthy and flexible work environment and connection to the outdoors. Atelier Ten developed high-performance strategies to reduce the project’s environmental impact and improve human benefits for occupants and the surrounding community.
Berkely Commons took the historic Berkeley Electrification Ordinance and applied it to a large-scale commercial development with the intent to push forward the decarbonization narrative in Berkeley. An all-electric heat pump design eliminates natural gas emissions over the lifetime of the building. As California’s grid becomes cleaner, the all-electric building’s emissions will decrease. Once the grid consists of 100% renewable generation sources, the building will have Zero operational emissions associated with electricity usage from that point forward. The project incorporates enough onsite photovoltaic panels to offset 100% of the core and shell operational energy. This is equivalent to 11% of the project’s total energy cost.
The project connects to the adjacent Aquatic Park wetland and the San Francisco Bay, providing occupants with connection to place and community members with a recreational destination. The landscape, hardscape, and roofscape material palette will mitigate the urban heat island effect of development, while native, drought-tolerant plantings will provide restorative, ecologically sensitive landscape areas and onsite carbon sequestration. Bioretention zones provide stormwater management benefits for the site. The building massing, envelope, exterior shading system has been optimized not only to reduce building energy use but also improve access to daylight, views, and exterior terraces.
