Studio Bergtraun Architects

09/28/2022

06/08/2021

We’re proud to announce that the Urban Adamah EcoRetreat Lodge project designed by Studio Bergtraun Architects has been awarded the 2021 juried biennial Berkeley Design Advocates (B.D.A.) award:
The project includes sleeping and program rooms shaped in a semi-octagonal building form around an outdoor amphitheater as a hub for this Urban Farm’s community programs.
The amphitheater seating was built in collaboration with Berkeley Scout Troop 6 as an Eagle project, making it an even more full-immersion community building/builder!

B.D.A. is dedicated to improving the built environment and has worked for good planning and design in Berkeley since 1973. The biennial design awards are an opportunity for the Berkeley community to celebrate great design in our City.

05/18/2021

We are very proud to share the news that the internationally known design website Dezeen has included Studio Bergtraun Architect’s Alpine Meadows project in their just released feature article
“Five of the Best Houses near Lake Tahoe” !

Here are five houses in California and Nevada that make the most of Lake Tahoe's scenery and year-round outdoor sports opportunities.

05/10/2021

After a very fun outing to Heath Tiles in Sausalito to buy an assortment of their seconds, we have assembled a nice palette of colors for a client and her children to create a mural for their house.
They will be coming to the Studio in the coming weeks to create it together, we’ll post updates as the mural takes shape. We’re all very excited and looking forward to it!

04/23/2021

For Studio Bergtraun, Art is a fundamental part of ARchiTecture and we try to live that in our personal life.
We made the best of the many home-bound weekends last summer by creating a couple of murals on our own home and they were both selected for the Walt Disney Museum juried exhibition "Conserving the Magic of our Planet” that just opened yesterday on Earth Day! You can see it at : https://www.waltdisney.org/earth-day
Artworks were submitted from all over the world on the theme of Conservation/Re-Use/Recycle,
and our two murals are now virtually shown on the ground floor at the end of the side gallery.
It was great to work on the ‘fish mural’ together with our son, Ruben !
And to further tell the story of our studio’s creative journey, you can also see below the mural created by our studio associate, Jessica Wilson, on her own home!

04/07/2021

April 8, 2021 at noon : As part of the EBAIA monthly Small Firm Forum, Alex Bergtraun will present a lecture on ‘Integrating Art and Architecture’ exploring the ways that architects can inject the more poetic and creative aspects of their craft into their daily architectural practice.

Alex will discuss how the inclusion of Art in the every day lived experience of architectural projects increases the well-being of those who interact with the spaces , addressing methods for collaboration between architects & artists as well as creative ways of repurposing materials in new contexts.

03/08/2021

We’re very honored to have been chosen by the City of Piedmont for their Design Award!
In this historical house remodel among other improvements we opened up a dark, cramped kitchen onto the adjacent dining-room and added a full set of multi-fold glass-doors to the dining area to enhance the indoor-outdoor flow and bring in natural light.

The Award ceremony will be tonight via zoom.

02/04/2021

This 2-story, 46 bed Retreat Lodge for the Urban Adamah Campus, designed maximizing its sustainable green features, will host overnight retreats and special events within this unique 2-acre community farm and education center surrounded by vegetable beds, greenhouses, teaching kitchen and Fellows House.
This building’s presence with the amphitheater organically nestled within it will be a programmatic/visual anchor for this important community organization’s mission.

11/25/2020

Sharing an update on the Urban Adamah Farm new Retreat Lodge:
It’s almost finished and a troop of local Boy Scouts is building the seats for the amphitheater nestled in the center courtyard created by the half octagon-shaped building.

Here are a few photos of the project in progress
together with our best wishes for a cozy and safe Thanksgiving!

09/25/2020

Double good news this week! EmeryArts annual juried exhibition has chosen two of Alex’s watercolors for inclusion in this year’s show. You can see the virtual exhibit online from Oct 2 to Nov. 1

09/25/2020

One of Alex’s ceramic sculptures has been accepted for the upcoming Walt Disney Museum, San Francisco show “It’s a Small World”. He’s very stoked to be featured in yet one more of their exhibitions! His sculpture represents the dance of three generations - grandparent/parent/child - connected and nurturing within the flame of life and community.

08/28/2020

We just received the photos of of our latest completed new house in Gualala, on the California coast: A short write up about the project and a sampling of the photos below, enjoy! Gualala, just north of Sea Ranch, is a seaside town that holds many beautiful wooded areas. The site of this home was an interesting challenge in that it falls within both the Coastal and the Mountain zone. Working closely with Mendocino County we were able to carve out a buildable lot tightly designing the home’s footprint to fit within these narrow parameters, including an entire septic system, fire suppression water tanks and all utilities to and from the home.
Built on sloping hillside the one-story structure was created for full indoor-outdoor flow from every room in the home allowing the homeowners to enjoy this new home a for a long time as the home is designed to allow graceful aging for years to come within it.
Designed as a singular sloping roof form across the entire expanse, natural daylight enters from many directions creating ample daylighting throughout and allowing for cross-ventilation for all the public spaces. LED dimmable up lighting has been integrated in every space using the sloping roof form to bounce light off in every room balancing the natural light.
Radiant heat in the natural-finished concrete slabs give consistent, gentle warmth everywhere in the home.
The owner is an avid gardener and the integral sunken front courtyard offers cascading planting beds while opening up the rear of the home onto the forest with outdoor dining and BBQ area. When both sets of multifold doors are open the entire living space flows from the front courtyard to the back meadow and forest unhindered.
The exterior is clad in all-natural cedar and Corten steel to give the home a natural patina with a rustic yet elegant feel. Trellises and select exterior walls are clad in lattice to hold future vines buffering from the sun’s heat while anchoring the home into its natural surrounds.
The plan has been laid out to give corner windows to every bedroom and bathroom maximizing both the indoor-outdoor feeling and privacy for each space.