UC Berkeley Creekside Center
The Creekside Center renovation for the Disabled Students’ Program transforms a beloved, modest building located in the University of California Berkeley campus’s classical core. The revitalized building upgrades seismic and life safety performance, and is a welcoming, inclusive, and accessible new Center for the University’s Disabled Students’ Program (DSP).
The DSP had outgrown its current space, with staff dispersed to work spaces in several locations. The renovation of the Creekside Center provides a new, more welcoming home for disabled student services on campus and consolidates DSP staff, allowing for improved and expanded services for more than 4,000 students.
The academic side, facing north and east, displays the DSP’s identity and mission. A revitalized entry plaza welcomes students in and is an outdoor extension of the reception lobby. A new passageway connecting the east and west wings on the second floor provides an opportunity to make the building façade more transparent and reveal activity within the building. The creek side courtyard, facing south and west, is where connections to the outdoors and nature can be strengthened. The vision and goals for the Creekside Center renovation were generated through an inclusive and iterative process that included DSP leadership, staff, and the students the program serves as well as Capital Projects and other campus stakeholders. Work sessions with multiple stakeholders, listening sessions, and surveys ensured a robust process that engaged both the individual needs of staff and students and the broader goals of the DSP and the University.
