Country Girl in the City

I have a daughter, Lili, who likes being out-of-doors.  She

likes to climb rocks, camp out, go hiking, build campfires and hang out with people who drive trucks and wear boots.  Not
so unusual and pretty common if you live in the country.  You would probably expect that.  But, my daughter doesn't live in the country.  Actually, she lives in the East Bay area of the San Francisco metropolitan area.  She works in Berkley in a brand new office building.  Here is Lili in her office at work.  She has great artwork on her wall by Sarah, who is one of Lili's small friends.  Sarah knows how dedicated Lili is to her job, so she captured that in this drawing.  Clap, Clap for Sarah!


Lili looks pretty busy here, but not busy enough to not take the time to show you around where she works, because it is pretty cool.  Okay, take it away....








 Here is the street view of the David Brower Building in downtown Berkley.  This building was planned to reuse materials in its construction without sacrificing aesthetics.  The concrete of the building is composed of a high degree of slag.  It has received an award for this process.

The doors are steps up from the street and ae set off by the natural wood used and beautiful metal crafted handles.











Before you go in, if you have a bicycle that you have ridden to work you can lock it up here on the porch of the building.  The bicycle storage is available for all the people of the building.  The metal work of the slats is a design element that is seen throughout the building outdoor areas.





The patio areas in the back of the building have planters made of stone that were brought in and put together to appear as natural as possible maintaining the shape of the stones.  The outdoor areas are protected from the wind with the barriers that are made from the same design of metal slats.  There are two patios on the upper and lower floors.  There is a great view of the hills of the university from the upper patio.

The lower patio space is utilized by the Gather restaurant.  Gather is an organic and green restaurant in style and specializes in local food.

The other natural resource that is being saved to use at the building is the rain water which is filtered for use in the restrooms on the first floor.  This is the retrieval system on the upper patio.  This patio shares the space with a public housing building behind it.  The planning of the space allows for a large open area for the two buildings to share as a viewshed.  The spaces are partitioned by another use of the metal slat work in a privacy fence.

Lili shows the areas that were important in David Brower's work.

Location of world projects that are under the David Brower umbrella are shown on the map.  Here is the main lobby of Lili's work at the  Earth Island Institute.  So the country girl has made it her work to be a part of the efforts to keep the beautiful places of the world.

Earth Island Institute

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