BBH Wins 2022 Preservation Design Award for Rehabilitation

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Learn more about the award on the California Preservation Foundation website.

Photo of the Bakar Labs lobby, skylight, and part of the main office floor — Isn’t it amazing that our tenants (and we) get to work in this beautiful space? Photo by Bruce Damonte.

The Bakar BioEnginuity Hub of Berkeley is a winner for the 2022 Preservation Design Award for Rehabilitation. Award recipients are selected by a jury of top professionals in the fields of architecture, engineering, planning, and history, as well as renowned architecture critics and journalists. Tickets and sponsorship options are available at californiapreservation.org/awards.

About the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub Project

Bakar BioEnginuity Hub transforms the former Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive on the University of California, Berkeley campus from a structurally-deficient inoperable space into a coworking life science lab facility designed to LEED Gold standards. The design, which includes a contrasting glass-fronted addition and two new public plazas, modernizes the historically-significant building designed by Mario Ciampi to today’s standards while honoring the building’s original brutalist design. Issues such as seismic and acoustic performance and water intrusion were addressed while bringing the building up to code and overhauling mechanical systems.

Working within the confines of highly unusual geometry, MBH Architects converted the former museum’s upper-level galleries into glass-fronted labs that overlook dramatic cantilevered ramps hanging within a sky-lit double height space. Now a lively hub for scientific innovation, this board-formed concrete icon is reborn with new purpose.

‘Innovation Zone’ Is Coming to Downtown Berkeley

“You can see the ecosystem here is just flourishing and becoming … even bigger and bigger, [or] as I say, a flywheel for innovation and startups,” Gino Segre, managing director of Bakar Labs, told the Business Times. “The campus itself is dedicating more real estate and more of its attention to creating these kinds of programs over time – and it’s going to be more interdisciplinary too.” Segre said Bakar Labs could have a partnership with the new addition to campus, though specifics are not yet known.

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Retrofitting a Classic – Bakar BioEnginuity Hub

Every aspect of our building is innovative! “What we ended up with was this really cool system of ‘stealth’ looking concrete walls,” Price explains. “They had extreme angles – from 45 degrees to 60 degrees, that were top-cast finished with an EcoSand final finish.” Being large stretches of concrete, there was also concern about skateboarders, so a custom stainless-steel system of skateboard deterrence was designed to replicate the human genome and installed on the face of the battered walls.

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Brutalist Former Berkeley Art Museum Transformed Into Modern Life Science Lab

Seismic performance, water intrusion, and acoustic performance, were addressed while bringing the building up to code. Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing infrastructure was overhauled, including the replacement of existing gas service with all-electric systems. This allowed the project to achieve low EUI, operational carbon neutrality, and Net-Zero HVAC water-use, as well as to meet LEED Gold requirements.

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BBH Wins 2022 Preservation Design Award for Rehabilitation

News Updates

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Retrofitting a Classic – Bakar BioEnginuity Hub

Brutalist Former Berkeley Art Museum Transformed Into Modern Life Science Lab