Center Street in downtown Berkeley looks at the dynamic between the Berkeley city grid and Strawberry Creek, a stream that flows out of the once riparian Berkeley hills and through the University of California campus before disappearing underground at the edge of downtown. In many ways Center Street is like an ordinary, busy American thoroughfare, at one end is Berkeley’s Civic Center and Park; at the other, the university. But it is within the context of Strawberry Creek that the city and university are connected—and disconnected. “Sampling” Strawberry Creek and the Berkeley city grid created a context for understanding the dynamic between landscape figure and figuration. Following feasibility studies of access, public safety, hydrology and new development, a final design emerged in which a semi-urban community is set within a verdant, wooded landscape. Woodlands, ravines and riparian areas comingle with parks, streets and housing, enmeshed within the larger landscape.