User Support Building Initial Study

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)

In November 2006, DC&E completed an Initial Study for the proposed development of a three-story, 30,000 square-foot User Support Building at LBNL on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. This new facility will provide additional office, laboratory and research space for the existing Advanced Light Source (ALS) building, which attracts scientists from around the world. The ALS is housed under the same dome that covered the historic 184-inch cyclotron, constructed under the direction of renowned physicist Ernest O. Lawrence in 1946. The User Support Building was carefully designed to avoid visually competing with the landmark ALS dome, and DC&E carefully evaluated its potential aesthetic impacts as part of the Initial Study and Mitigated Negative Declaration (IS/MND). DC&E’s work also included close coordination with an architectural historian subconsultant who completed a Historical Resource Evaluation of Building 10, which will be demolished as a result of the proposed project. DC&E’s IS/MND tiered off of LBNL’s 1987 Long Range Development Plan EIR.