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Ecocities
An ecocity is a human settlement that enables its residents to live a good quality of life while using minimal natural resources.

Buildings
Its buildings make best use of sun, wind and rainfall to help supply the energy and water needs of occupants. Generally multistory to maximize the land available for greenspace.

Biodiversity
It is threaded with natural habitat corridors, to foster biodiversity and to give residents access to nature for recreation.

Transport
Its food and other goods are sourced from within its borders or from nearby, in order to cut down on transport costs.

The majority of its residents live within walking or cycling distance of their workplace, to minimise the need for motorised transport.

Frequent public transport connects local centres for people who need to travel further.

Local car sharing allows people to use a car only when needed.

Industry
The goods it produces are designed for reuse, remanufacture, and recycling.

The industrial processes its uses involve reuse of by-products, and minimise the movement of goods.

Economy
It has a labour intensive rather than a material, energy, and water intensive economy, to maintain full employment and minimise material throughput.

—Ecocity definition written by our sister organization, Urban Ecology Australia
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The Heart of the City and Strawberry Creek at Center Street Project

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE PROPOSAL AND DESIGN POSSIBILITIES

Structurally, a Heart of the City Project in Berkeley's downtown embracing an ecologically oriented design concept will:

1. Create a one block pedestrian street on Center Street between Oxford Street and Shattuck Avenue linking the heart of downtown Berkeley with the University of California and the downtown’s emerging Arts and Cultural District

2. Create opportunities for people to gather and engage in civic life and activities

3. Incorporate a "daylighted" Strawberry Creek into the site design.

4. Encourage and support buildings that utilize sustainable design principles, including solar energy, rain and stormwater catchment and treatment, and other “green” design practices

5. Increase current City stormwater capacity through the employment of permeable paving, natural plantings, and an underground cistern that will also serve to reduce flashing and runoff impacts farther downstream

The project addresses:

·       Automobile dependence and transportation alternatives

·       Pedestrian streets, public space, and street design

·       The need to demonstrate effective ecological design, materials, and methods

·       Education and outreach to the community

·       Advanced and innovative watershed and stormwater management models

·       Sustainable public infrastructure improvements

·       Linkages between environmental restoration and sustainable development

·       Replicability: the design approach can be continued downstream, gradually allowing more of the watershed to emerge within the context of the built environment

The initial planning for the Berkeley Heart of the City Project, begun in 1997, was concerned with refining the concept, introducing it to the community and building basic interest and support. We have statements of interest, letters of support and/or financial contributions from over 100 citizen groups addressing a broad spectrum of health, social, economic, and environmental issues. (Click here to read the list of supporters of the Ecocity Amendment, which lists the Heart of the City Project as one of its policies.)

If the Heart of the City Project takes on a broader scope and aspires to connect to larger urban ecological reshaping, it could demonstrate how sustainable development can help pay for environmental restoration through Transfers of Development Rights (TDRs) and other land-conservation incentives. For example, development removed along the course of Strawberry Creek between downtown and the San Francisco Bay can, in essence, be added to the more efficient urban center, hence the linkage between downtown development and the creek’s restoration over time.

For more information, please contact Kirstin Miller.

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Buy the book on the public process!

Shattuck Avenue to ...
By Hood Design & Eco...

Order "Strawberry Creek at Center Street" by Hood Design and Ecocity Builders

Walter Hood, Principal of Hood Design and Professor and former Chair of theLandscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Department at the University of California,Berkeley, has been commissioned by Ecocity Builders as designer for the proposed Strawberry Creek Plaza in central downtown Berkeley.

Ecocity Builders received donations to commission the design in the amount of $150,000. The donation was made by the New Jersey based Helen and William Mazer Foundation, and from private donations.

Steven Bercu, a Director of the Foundation, stated: "We believe that, with Strawberry Creek Plaza, the city, community, and university in Berkeley can provide true leadership. It's anopportunity to showcase urban redesign that not only is earth-friendly, but also enhances the localeconomy and quality of life."

Mr. Hood's design for a new urban plaza on Center Street will feature Strawberry Creek inaccordance with the guidelines of the current Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee's CenterStreet recommendations and the 2004 Berkeley Planning Commission's UC Hotel Conference Center Task Force recommendations.

Mr. Hood has worked in a variety of settings, including community design, urban landscape design, art, and research. Recent commissions by Hood Design include the landscape design forthe deYoung Museum in San Francisco, the garden of the new Jackson Hole Center for the Artsin Jackson Hole, Wyoming; the Poplar Street improvement project in Macon, Georgia; Splash Pad Park and Lafayette Square Park in Oakland; and a number of new park and trail designs forthe Oakland Waterfront. In 1997, he was a fellow at the American Academy in Rome inLandscape Architecture. In 2003 he was awarded the American Society of Landscape Architecture National Award of Honor.

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