UC Berkeley has expanded into the town with several new buildings. The coherent campus style of grey granite punctured walls and red tile roofs, characteristic of earlier central campus buildings, has now given way to diverse architectures, and especially in the more recent buildings, an absence of any coherence.
The Berkeley Hotel is immediately beyond the sweeping curved campus entry at the end of University Avenue. This arc is expanded to carve a porte cochere and connect back to the campus. The first three levels are the public spaces: lobby, bar, restaurant, ballroom, meeting and amenity areas. Above are floors of rooms.
The building is a perforated grey clad mass. Each window is angled with a terracotta lined sill, echoing the campus palette and expanding gown to town. The repetitive window grid is explicit of the typology of urban hotels found across America, now in a contemporary abstract form.