The American Institute of Architects' annual Design Awards Gala has come and gone, and in years past that has meant the end of Architecture Week festivities. But this year, its successor, the Portland Architecture & Design Festival, continues through the rest of October with more events.
On Thursday, October 29, AIA is joining forces with the popular Street of Eames home tour to present "Street of Eames Goes to Work", a tour of the city's most innovative new offices spaces.
Featured offices in this self-guided tour (said to include beer and wine at many stops) include:
- The design company Ziba's stunning new headquarters in the Pearl District (pictured at top), designed by Holst Architecture. After more than a decade of condo building, this office may be the most exceptional work of architecture in the entire Pearl. It's already been covered extensively in The Oregonian and Fast Company magazine, and I've got a short feature about the project in next month's Metropolis magazine.
- Offices for the branding/advertising agency North;
- The offices of architecture firm Vallaster Corl, which has designed some very nice mixed-use residential buildings over the last several years, such as The Jefferson in Goose Hollow and another on Hawthorne Boulevard,
- BOORA Architects' offices (pictured above) in the historic A.E. Doyle-designed Morgan Building downtown, which were renovated last year into a LEED Platinum rated space;
- bSIDE6, the building - also on lower East Burnside - that just won the top Honor Award at last Saturday's Design Awards Gala. On view will be the new offices of Works Partnership, the firm behind the building's design;
- Holst Architecture's own offices just off East Burnside. When Holst moved into this nondescript single-story building several years ago, the area was a quiet, mostly industrial zone. But in the ensuing years, Lower Burnside has exploded with energy, restaurants and shops. Meanwhile, Holst's office is a nice little oasis made nicer by a series of crisscrossing wood panels;
- ZGF Architects, which just moved into a stunning multifloor space in 12W, the new mixed-use tower beside Jake's Crawfish. Have you seen the wind turbines atop this space? Wait until you see the two-story entry (pictured above), where the stairways seem to almost float in air;
- Mercy Corps, the landmark new headquarters for the agency that assists in disaster areas and emergency zones all over the world. The headquarters was designed by THA Architecture, headed by the venerable Thomas Hacker - Portland's connecting thread to the legendary Louis Kahn and a local legend for the array of libraries, campus buildings and now condo/apartment towers blanketing the city;
- and the AIA's own Center for Architecture (pictured above) in the Pearl District, another LEED Platinum rated work overseen by Holst Architecture and a team of volunteers.
Tickets to Street of Eames Goes to Work are $30, with proceeds split among after-school homeless youth programs at Chapman Elementary (the annual Eames cause) and the Center for Architecture. You can order tickets online here or visit the Street of Eames website for more information.
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