Ed Roberts campus opens in Berkeley

East Bay folks, take note - the new Ed Roberts campus, a community service center located at the Ashby Ave BART station in south Berkeley, is opening April 9. I am a bit fuzzy on the details, but I believe this gorgeous, universally-designed building with a large central spiraling ramp (reminiscent of the Guggenheim) will house several of the major disability organizations in Berkeley (but correct me if that is wrong). This image of the center (which I believe is a computer projection) is from worldarchitecturenews.com.

The campus is named for Ed Roberts, dubbed by some "the father of the disability rights movement," a MacArthur genius award-winning activist who lived in Berkeley for most of his adult life, starting in 1962 when he became the first student with physical disabilities to live on campus at UC Berkeley. Roberts was also a founder of the Center for Independent Living and the World Institute on Disability. Here's a picture of him and Herb Willsmore, a fellow student at Berkeley, at the University's stadium, from the Disabled Students Program Photograph Collection at UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library.