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Berkeley Way Apartments & HOPE Center

A six-story mixed-use project combines traditional affordable housing with transitional housing, permanent apartments, and support spaces for formerly unhoused people.

  • Integrated Value

    The structural design leveraged the post-tensioned slabs to allow for an irregular column grid, helping the project provide as many units as possible.

  • Sustainable Integration

    Tipping worked with the design team, Central Concrete, and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to specify concrete mixes containing 55% less cement than the national average, for the same strength.

We harness our advanced analytics’ capabilities to predict structural behavior and gain key insights to develop optimized, data-driven design solutions—creating real value for clients and building owners.

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We’re hyper-focused on providing useful insights early in the design process to better inform key decisions, control cost, and minimize disruptive surprises. By internalizing project-level goals, we’re better able to help achieve them.

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As industry leaders, we collaborate and innovate to create low-embodied energy, sustainable design solutions that are efficient, cost-effective, and seek to reduce carbon output to minimize construction’s environmental impact.

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We combine innovative design and a collaborative and responsive workflow to deliver tailored, effective, and unexpected seismic design solutions that help protect our clients’ high value investments and facilitate post-earthquake operations.

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Instead of textbook solutions and conventional approaches, we ask deeper questions to unlock possibilities. Through ingenuity and a thoughtful application of engineering first-principles, we develop more responsive and efficient structural designs.

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The building took a unique approach to serving several constituent groups at once, with BRIDGE occupying the eastern portion of the building, while the Berkeley Food and Housing Project (BFHP) occupies the western part. Each side has independent exit stairs and elevators.

The BRIDGE half accommodates 94 affordable-housing units on 6 levels. On the ground floor, the program also includes spaces for community functions, support services, offices, and bicycle parking.

The BFHP half, also 6 levels, provides supportive services, 60 temporary housing beds, 30 permanent supportive units, multipurpose spaces, a commercial kitchen with free meal services, and office spaces. A portion of the ground floor along the south side of the parcel is dedicated to outdoor open space.

  • Location

    Berkeley, CA

  • Square Footage

    141,000 sf

  • Cost

    $60 million

  • Completion Date

    2022

    • AWARDS

    Multifamily GreenPoint rated Platinum

    2024 National Ready Mixed Concrete Association Concrete Innovations Award

    2024 AIA Housing Award

  • Owner

    Berkeley Food & Housing Project and BRIDGE Housing

  • Architect

    LMSA

  • Contractor

    Nibbi Brothers

  • Photography

    Bruce Damonte, Nibbi Brothers

By carefully designing healthy, light-filled, welcoming spaces for a broad spectrum of people in need, this project proves that good design is truly for everyone.

- AIA East Bay Design Awards Committee

Post-tensioning cables laid out on the second floor

Low-Carbon Concrete Pilot Project

This project is one of four pilot projects in the Bay Area Low-Carbon Concrete Codes Project by Bay Area Air Quality Municipal District. The project served as a case study and proof-of-concept, demonstrating that low-cement concrete can provide the same strength as standard concrete, without increasing time or cost. During construction, the project team worked quickly to respond to modify mixes in accordance with supply-chain issues that arose, adjusting substitute cementitious materials while meeting the project’s safety, sustainability, and scheduling targets.

Timber framing of the sixth floor

Tipping Project Team

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