300 Lakeside
Kaiser Center

• Oakland, CA
• 2016-2019
• CLIENT: The Swig Company

The roof garden at Oakland’s Kaiser Center is an iconic, postwar urban landscape, inspiring a generation of designers. Despite this acclaim, the building’s entry was fraught from day one. Adopting a suburban model that prioritized vehicles, the pedestrian experience was utilitarian, confusing, and detached from the public streetscape.

The opportunity to redefine the entry plaza and landscape was a compelling design problem: how to create a contemporary urban space, while remaining referential to the historic roof garden and mid-century architecture. The successful redesign not only improved circulation, it created people-focused spaces and strengthened the physical and visual connection to Lake Merritt and newly renovated Snow Park.

Components of the historic roof garden details and materials were studied and translated, and forms carefully composed with the arced footprint of the tower. The results are an entry plaza design that, while entirely new, feels more fitting than the original design, serving as a thoughtful example of how to sensitively employ interpretation principles for renovations to historic mid-century sites.

This project commenced at Meyer + Silberberg Land Architects with Ramsey Silberberg as Principal. The project was awarded to Mantle which serves as the Landscape Architect of Record.