Triple Emphasis
Project type: Municipal service and public gallery
Date: Spring 2026
Area: 43,400 sq ft / Location: 2801 Adeline St, Berkeley, CA 94703
Course: ARCH 100B / Studio: Kei Takanami
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Triple Emphasis is an 43,400 square foot two-story municipal service and gallery center located across from a bustling super market and surrounding residences. The program includes public galleries, a cafe, lobby, three services, offices, and classrooms. Using a hierarchical interpretation of the program, the project aims to emphasize the most vital spaces through two distinct volumetric massing.
Triple Emphasis' volumetric massing take the form of three interconnected sloped forms. These allow for a clear spatial distinction compared to the surrounding boxed rooms, thus, highlighting the area's programmatic importance.
Triple Emphasis divides its municipal and gallery programs between the two floors. On the first floor, the large gallery and cafe make up the main attractive spaces for pedestrians, thus they are situated into the sloped massing. On the second floor, the three municipal service programs are given priority into the sloped massing. As a result, all other secondary programs such as storage, offices, and classrooms are tucked into surrounding enfilades.
Section comparison between the sloped massing and the boxed secondary spaces.
To represent the two sloped massing from an bird's eye view, Triple Emphasis carries a volumetric extrusion of the first floor's massing, while the second floor's massing is represented by skylights.
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View through the volumetric massings.
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The glazing strategy follows the same programmatic emphasis where the volumetric massing are given large slanted windows to demonstrate the sloped ceiling. In contrast, the secondary programs are given smaller, square windows.
Early ideation process.
