The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) gave WRT's David Brower Center and Oxford Plaza a 2009 "Building a Better Bay Area - Urban Design" award. The award is a new category in ABAG's Growing Smarter Together awards program, which is in its third year. The award was one of five given out this year by ABAG, which is a regional planning agency incorporating various local governments in California's San Francisco Bay Area.
The David Brower Center and Oxford Plaza, a competition-winning design for downtown Berkeley, builds upon the inherent richness of the city with a combination of affordable housing, environmental education, and a venue for art and the arts community. This mixed-use project houses 90 apartments, space for the arts, a restaurant, underground parking, and 50,000 square feet of office and educational space for environmental non-profits named after the founder of the Sierra Club, David Brower. A proposed LEED Platinum rating for the project is based on environmental technologies and architectural elements related to daylighting, natural ventilation, photovoltaic power generation, and solar hot water, among other criteria.
