Portland Architecture

"To invite a narrative": Brad Carlile discusses photographing hotel rooms around the world

Photo by Brad Carlile from "Tempus Incognitus" at The Independent

BY BRIAN LIBBY

With summertime travel season in full-bloom, a lot of us are hitting the roads, airways and railways and spending nights in hotels. 

Though my inclination during hot weather is to hide in the basement or by the air conditioner, I for example, have stayed about 10 nights in four different hotels since late May. Each time the basics are the same—bed, TV, little bars of soap, buckets of ice—but the little variations can loom large. The quiet river view I’d imagined at Salish Lodge in Snoqualmie, Washington was spoiled by jackhammer-filled dam deconstruction outside, but the bathroom did have a Jacuzzi and the whole place sat atop the waterfall from "Twin Peaks". Hotel Palomar in Arlington, Virginia had the best smelling lavender shampoo, even if sausage and eggs in the restaurant downstairs were $21. Most importantly with temperatures rivaling the surface of the sun, the thermostat went down to 65 degrees and the TV had Food Network.

No matter where or what the hotel may be, staying in one puts one in a different kind of temporary, transitory society. A hotel room is an oasis from the otherwise motion-filled act of travel. Yet they are also, in most all cases, anonymous spaces that, however stylish or well-appointed, act as a common denominator in terms of style and amenities.

Hotels and the settings they provide are the theme of photographer Brad Carlile’s exhibit “Tempus Incognitus”, at The Independent gallery through August 14. Carlile was one of the winners of the 2009 Hearst 8x10 Photography Biennial, an international competition for emerging photographers, among eight photographers singled out from over 1,000 entries. The Independent is located at 530 NW 12th Avenue (at Hoyt) in Portland.

Empty hotel rooms from all over the world form the basis of Carlile’s show. Each of the 12 works was shot in multiple exposures over time in slide film, with no post-exposure or digital manipulation. The rooms are full of vivid, almost psychedelic color, yet their emptiness makes the spaces a kind of blank canvas for one’s imagined narratives.

Recently I interviewed Carlile over email, exploring the photographer’s ideas about travel, interiors and alternative theories about the passage of time.

How did you become interested in hotel rooms? Is traveling in hotels a palpable memory for you?

For this series, I'm exploring a variety of topics including time, space, and change.  To me, hotel rooms epitomize the transitory nature of modern life. Hotel rooms also put people in close physical proximity.  I'm sure the diminished stage of these rooms often heightens the wide variety of human dramas they sometimes contain.  The heightened colors of my process reflect this.

I'm fascinated at how architecture often defines our environment and feelings.  I'm a huge fan of Edward Hopper's interiors and how he uses the different perspectives and compositions to create powerful paintings.  In my series, I like working with trapezoidal compositions for tension and the sparseness of the rooms to invite a narrative.

Photo by Brad Carlile from "Tempus Incognitus" at The Independent

I describe these photographs as Edward Hopper interiors awash in James Turrell colors with David Lynch directing to make you a bit uneasy.  I feel there's a little bit of detachment from our normal lives when we're in hotel rooms.  I think the mix of colors in my images are beautiful but also convey an certain uneasiness that comes from detachment.

My love of travel certainly also plays into this series.  I took my first big trip at 6 years old when our family traveled around Europe on a shoestring.  I blame my parents for my wanderlust – one of the many reasons I'm grateful to them.  

What are some of your favorite and least favorite hotels that you've stayed in?

One of my favorite hotel rooms was also probably the cheapest.  I think it cost about $1.50 in the back streets of a small town in Indonesia.  The hotel was targeted at non-western travelers. As you can image the room was sparse and very basic.  What made it a spectacular was fantastic interactions with this incredible cast of characters that wandered up to the door to talk.

Another favorite is at the Parador in Arcos de la Frontera, Spain where my wife and I stayed.  Our friends had this amazing story there decades before.  I'm sure we stayed in the exact same room, but that is a much longer story.

My least favorite hotels and probably similar to many other people.  The soul-less and dirty ones that just suck the life out of anyone. 

Could you talk about some of the hotel rooms you chose to photograph and why you chose them?

These are rooms where Andrea, my wife, and I stay during our travels. I like to combine the element off chance with certain predetermined rules. I shoot most rooms we stay in without scouting them. I believe each room can tell certain stories. I get a feeling for the room and then set the camera on a tripod where it will remain for two days. I then set a schedule for the 3 to 9 exposures.

As I mentioned earlier, the view in the camera shows a depersonalized room.  This is to invite a narrative and not bring our particular story into it.  This of course leads to a very crowded behind-the-camera scene. Another rule I have is we must live in the room as normally as we can so our changes to the rooms – curtains changing, TV on or off, beds changing – are captured as they happen.

Photo by Brad Carlile from "Tempus Incognitus" at The Independent

I know this invitation to narrative works.  For example, one woman who visited my Houston show swore that she stayed in the exact room.  She went on to tell me the story of her stay in that room and the weekend of events in that town.  "New Orleans,” she told me. Am I right?" I nodded vaguely and smiled.  I didn't tell her that the light socket meant that it must be in Spain (Madrid). But it could be anywhere, and I want to invite those kind of connections.

The press release describes a setting in the photos in which "the perimeters of shifted space and time are blurred." I'm curious about this notion of transience on one hand (all these people passing through the rooms over time), but also its opposite on the other hand (the rooms staying more or less the same even as the people pass through interchangably).

I've always been fascinated by what changes and what doesn't.  And it seem we need something that doesn't change to show what changes.  I'll admit at first glance hotel rooms are easy to overlook, but they provide a wonderful backdrop to think about the people and their dramas passing thought.  In some sense even the dramas don't really change as the "characters" change.

In physical worked, space and time are theorized by modern physicists to be mutually inseparable.  In the mind, however, they are asymmetrically separable.

Children can think about space independent of time, but cannot conceptualize time independent of space.  It even effects our language, examples include long day, short meeting.  As the physicist Brian Greene said, "I believe in time, I think our intuition about it is wrong."  I'm trying play with some of these ideas by making time material/literal by showing time in color and not showing change as an ethereal blurring that it used in most still photography.  I think the color in these works really connects with people and inspires these and other thoughts.

Photo by Brad Carlile from "Tempus Incognitus" at The Independent

The press release also notes there was no digital manipulation of the photographs. Why was it important to convey the rooms in that kind of documentary-like, reality-orient fashion versus using digital tools to enhance a particular mood? Is it the reality of these spaces that interests you more than what we imagine there?

I like the fact that each of these images simultaneously contains moments from many different times, just as these rooms simultaneously contain stories from countless visitors. I don't think you can create these connections with colors tweaked in a digital way to create a false mood.  Yes, these are real rooms with real stories that I hope will inspire people to stop and think and feel.  

I'll end with one of my favorite quotes, which is from HH the Dalai Lama: "As your insight into the ultimate nature of reality is deepened, you will perceive phenomena as illusion-like."

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Oh what a feeling? Design Commission considers Tonkin's illuminated sign

(image courtesy Toyota)

BY FRED LEESON

Sometime in the next few months, Portland will see a new architectural element that conceivably could become the next big rage in big box retail.

Ron Tonkin Toyota, at 755 S.E. 122nd Ave., will erect a large, back-lit “entry portal” that will serve as  background for the bright red Toyota logo and provide a pedestrian entrance into the Toyota side of the large auto dealership.

The design is dictated by Toyota, and franchisees have little leeway to change it.  But that didn’t keep the city Bureau of Development Services from wondering if there wasn’t a better way.  The planning staff rejected the illuminated portal, prompting an appeal by Tonkin to the Portland Design Commission.

“The signage itself is not the issue,” said Chris Caruso, a city planner.  “It’s the illuminated wall.”   She added, “When illuminated, it will be a visually dominant feature of the neighborhood…We’re not sure how far this wall can be seen.”  She estimated it might be as far as a mile.  Caruso suggested that a better result might be white metal panels illuminated by lights in front.

The wall is composed of white, diffused glass panels measuring four feet square.  The entire wall, which will be attached to the building, will be approximately 48 feet wide and 28 feet tall.   Before the appeal hearing, the city attorney’s office had ruled that the wall itself is not a sign, so its total square footage would not be regulated by city sign regulations.

Ed Tonkin, a senior executive in the family-owned automotive sales empire, opened the appeal on the company behalf.  Unlike some entrepreneurs who take a “why is this dumb little commission interfering with my rights as a property owner” approach,  Tonkin opened with a tactful statement thanking the commission for taking its time to consider the matter.  He compared the glow from the illuminated wall to the glow of the moon, soft and without glare.    “This doesn’t shine in your face,” he said.

A Toyota representative said the bulbs are positioned behind a metal diffuser, and that only 26 percent of the bulb’s light makes it through the glass.  At 30 feet away, the wall generates 2.4 foot candles of light, less than a tenth of the amount required for normal reading.  At 50 feet, the measurement is 1 foot candle, and at 100 feet it is zero, according to Toyota’s calculations.

“It’s a matter of glow, not glare,” Tonkin said.  He said glare would be greater off a metal panel system.  “We cannot and will not make it metal,” he said.  “They (Toyota) won’t accept it, and we won’t do it.”

Tim Heron, senior  BDS planning manager,  asked the commission to consider the significance of the illuminated wall as an architectural element.  “It’s an important case,” he said.  “We don’t deny things lightly.  It’s an important precedent.”  For example, he said approval could open the door for a retailer such as Home Depot to put large, illuminated (orange) walls on its buildings.

A mitigating factor in the Tonkin case, however, proved to be a setback from S.E. 122nd Ave. of some 420 feet – two equivalent of two downtown blocks – from the street to the dealership façade.  In the commission’s view, the large setback was an element that few other big box outlets would be likely to meet.

“I’ve seen these in real life and I am not offended by them,” said Jane Hansen, a design commission member.  “I don’t see a negative side of this.”

Although there was no neighborhood opposition to the Tonkin plan, commission members felt that the illuminated wall should be turned off at some reasonable evening hour.  The dealership is often open until 9 p.m., and customers engaged in car deals sometimes remain on the site beyond  closing.  The commission decided that the wall should be switched off at 10 p.m.

Fred Leeson is a Portland journalist and president of the Bosco-Milligan Foundation/Architectural Heritage Center.

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1857 to 2011: Russell's thirty-year effort to restore Portland's oldest building

Front and Oak, 1939, in a photo by Minor White (courtesy Cafe Unknown)

BY FRED LEESON

“It costs a lot of money to make a building look like this.” Developer John Russell drew hearty laughs with that line at a reception this month in downtown Portland’s oldest surviving commercial building, the two-story Hallock-McMillan building at SW Naito Parkway and Oak Street.

Russell stood on battered wooden flooring that dates to 1857. Overhead were bare rafters. The stripped brick walls showed places where windows overlooking Oak Street had been filled in over the years, plus a few remaining layers of plaster here and there. Gone were the suspended ceiling, sheetrock and any remains of asbestos.

The exterior of the small brick building shows few historical details. Its cast iron columns and arches were stripped out in a 1940s makeover that gave its prime façade facing the river a surprisingly modern appearance. Russell said he didn’t realize the historic significance of the building until he read about it in William J. Hawkins III’s book, The Grand Era of Cast Iron Architecture in Portland, published in the mid 1970s (now sadly out of print).

A recent reception at the Hallock-McMillan building (photo by Fred Leeson)

Russell learned that the Hallock-McMillan building was among Portland’s earliest ventures into cast iron architecture, and that Absalom B. Hallock, who built it in 1857, was Portland’s first architect. William McMillan was the contractor, apparently making them the city’s first design-build team. According to Hawkins, Hallock designed approximately 18 buildings in Portland, about half of them using cast iron. Only this one remains.

Russell said he spent 30 years trying to buy the building, which he finally acquired last October. Working with architect Brian Emerick, he plans to restore the exterior to its original appearance. Hawkins has done research to confirm the rather simple details of the cast iron pieces. David Talbot, of Architectural Reproductions in Portland, will make the molds. The iron pieces will be fabricated at a foundry in Silverton.

“There were five or six materials that could have been used to make the reproductions,” Russell said. “We decided that the best would be the real thing.”

Hallock, the early architect, represented a San Francisco foundry that sold iron façade elements. But within just a few years, Portland had its own iron-making foundries. Hawkins said cast iron was the fastest, easiest way to build a stylish façade in the late 1800s; the pieces bolted together in Erector-set fashion.

Hallock-McMillan building restoration model (photo by Dan Hanekow)

Hallock-McMillan today (photo by Fred Leeson)

Cast iron was all the rage in commercial building until the late 1880s, when cast iron had proved vulnerable to fire and a popular new architectural style, Richardson Romanesque, started sweeping the country with its heavy facades of stone and brick. San Francisco had the West Coast’s largest collection of cast iron buildings, but it was substantially wiped out by the 1906 earthquake and fire.

Portland had the second largest collection of cast iron buildings on the West Coast, mostly Italianate in design, that lined Front, First and Second Avenues. Many remained intact until after World War II, when many were torn down to make way for surface parking. If Portland had exercised better sense at the time, those cast-iron streets today likely would be a prime tourist magnet of the West Coast.

“Victorians loved detail,” Russell said. The Hallock building was erected early in the Victorian era. Cast iron parts quickly became more detailed and ornamental. (See the Corinthian columns on the New Market Theater of 1873, and detailing on the Fechhmeier & White building of 1883, which stands adjacent to Hallock-McMillan – also owned and restored by Russell.)

Emerick, whose firm concentrates on restoration and period designs, said the goal is to restore the Hallock-McMillan to its original appearance on the outside, while adding all-new mechanical systems and seismic bracing that will make it highly efficient and safe. Bremik Construction, which also is well-regarded for its historic renovations, will be the contractor.

The work itself will only take a few months. But a start date is not yet determined. “We have to find a tenant first,” Russell said.

Fred Leeson is a Portland journalist and president of the Bosco-Milligan Foundation/Architectural Heritage Center.

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This is what's up, Doc: touring heritage homes, Mel Blanc sites

Mel Blanc (image courtesy Oregon Cartoon Institute)

This Saturday and next bring opportunities to see not only some of Portland's most attractive historic homes, but also to trace the steps of a favorite son who gave voice to Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and a litany of Looney Tunes characters.

First, tomorrow (July 23) brings the Mel Blanc walking tour, beginning at the Hollywood Theatre. Led by film historians Dennis Nyback and Bill Crawford, the tour will match key life events described in Mel Blanc’s autobiography (That's Not All Folks) with the Rose City locations where they occurred. Some of the buildings important in the life of Mel Blanc still stand. Where the building no longer stands, Dennis and Bill will describe what is gone, as with the Portland Hotel, Oregonian Tower, Orpheum Theater*) and explain what that location meant to the young artist. Nyback will start the tour with a short program of rare films at the Hollywood Theatre.

This tour is a great way for all Mel Blanc scholars and enthusiasts to integrate appreciation of his genius with everyday knowledge of the city. How much has changed? What has stayed the same? How did animation lightning strike twice at Lincoln High School, producing both Mel Blanc and Matt Groening?

Highlights will include Neighborhood House, where he learned to play the violin; Lincoln Hall, where he invented the Woody Woodpecker laugh; the Multnomah Hotel, where he was discovered; *Oregonian Tower*, where he first performed as a voice artist; and the *Steel Bridge*, where a tragic childhood accident took place which would inadvertently lead to his discovery of radio, whichhe loved for his entire life.

The tour is part of the broader Mel Blanc Project, a series of public history/art education events. For more information about Mel Blanc, visit melblancproject.wordpress.com.

 

Mills House (image courtesy Architectural Heritage Center)

The second annual Heritage Homes Tour, set for July 30, showcases a fascinating potpourri of architectural styles and distinguished architects. Proceeds benefit the Architectural Heritage Center’s education programs, advocacy efforts, and collections stewardship.

The five homes offered on this tour span five decades of residential construction in Portland and represent a variety of styles and notable architects.

The Lewis H. and Elinor Mills House, built in 1916 in Portland’s Nob Hill neighborhood, was designed by Boston architect Charles Coolidge. Lumberman Mills was the son of banker Abbott L. Mills and Evelyn Scott Lewis, descendants of Captain John Couch. A wedding gift to Mills and his wife Elinor, the home displays all of the hallmarks of the Colonial Revival style.

The Samuel W. King House, built around 1900 in the King’s Hill neighborhood, was home to Portland’s first Superintendent of Public Schools and later co-founder of the successful Olds and King dry goods firm. The home is one of the earliest in the district in the Colonial Revival style.

The Heritage Homes Tour is presented by the Architectural Heritage Center.

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Considering graffiti's rise in Portland and the nation

Graffiti in Southeast Portland (photo by Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

In Tuesday's New York Times, Adam Nagourney reports that graffiti is on the rise in host of American cities, including Los Angeles, Nashville and Portland. At the same time, however, other major cities like New York and Seattle report that their vigilant anti-graffiti campaigns have so far held the spread of tagging at bay. All this comes as the economy continues to struggle (one stastical cause of graffiti) yet crime rates (a perceived result) remain historically low.

"In Portland, officials said taggers from other communities were defacing their property," Nagourney reports. “We’re arresting more people from out of town,” Marcia Dennis, Portland's graffiti abatement coordinator, told him. “For every one we get cleaned up, something else takes its place.”

Although to most people and in most situations graffiti is of course a crime and an eyesore, it also can be an intruiging phenomenon to deconstruct.

There is its connection between lawlessness and art, for example. In Los Angeles, an exhibit on graffiti at the Museum of Contemporary Art earlier this year is being blamed for glorifying and encouraging taggers as the city's buildings and infrastructure have increasingly become festooned with spraypaint. There are also graffiti artists who have become acclaimed gallery artists, from Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat in the 1980s to Banksy and Sheperd Fairey in more recent years. What's more, graffiti isn't a new urban phenomenon. It dates to ancient Greece and Rome. The preserved ruins of Pompeii revealed graffiti in the form of poems and bawdy phrases, not unlike today's public bathrooms. The Vikings and Mayans also wrote graffiti.

Graffiti in Southeast Portland (photo by Brian Libby)

In the Times story, Dennis acknowledges the influence: “The rush is addictive, and these guys don’t quit. They all think they’re going to end up being fabulously wealthy graffiti artists."

Graffiti also symbolizes the darkest days of the American city, from the 1960s-80s, when middle class investment left for the suburbs and central cities were overwhelmed by crime, a lack of investment captital and an eroding of infrastructure. When I arrived for college in New York City in 1990, for instance, most subway cars were still covered in spray paint. Along with the uncollected tumbleweed-like garbage strewning the streets and the all too common smell of human fluids, it contributed to a sense that my eastern pilgrimage was a big mistake.

Relatedly, though, during the 1990s New York and other cities began to revolutionalize crime fighting by applying the "broken windows theory," introduced in a 1982 Atlantic Monthly article by social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling and furthered in Kelling's 1996 book Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities. It argues that maintaining ordered and well-conditioned aesthetics in a given neighborhood -- repairing broken windows, painting over graffiti -- actually helps decrease crime, or at least helps prevent an escalation in crime. The thinking goes that criminals are looking for destitute areas in which they can commit crimes with less fear of reprisal. This, in turn, explains why for some graffiti is far more than an eyesore or vandalism, but a potential tipping point for an otherwise healthy neighborhood or district becoming riddled with crimes greater than those committed with spraypaint.

Although efforts began back in the late 1980s, after taking office in 1994 New York mayor Rudy Giuliani (in tandem with police commissioner William Bratton) had the police more strictly enforce the law against subway fare evasion, public drinking, urination, and squeegee men wiping windshields of stopped cars and demanding payment. According to a 2001 study of crime trends in New York rates of both petty and serious crime fell suddenly and significantly, and continued to drop for the following ten years.

Graffiti in Southeast Porltand (photo by Brian Libby)

A 2005 Harvard University study in Lowell, Massachusetts also found a 20 percent drop in police calls in a neighborhood where authorities placed added attention on picking up trash, fixing streetlights, discouraging loiterers, making more misdemeanor arrests, and expanding mental health services and aid for the homeless.

Some of the explanation for the national graffiti upswing is that cities have curbed graffiti-fighting programs. Los Angeles's $7.1 million graffiti eradication budget was cut 6.5 percent as of July 1. Yet cities that have not cut back are also experiencing increases. Part of that can be blamed on the economy, of course. Teens, among the largest demographic contributors to graffiti, are out of school. And lots of adults are out of work with little to do and seeing that police forces, themselves sometimes experiencing layoffs and budget cuts, may be on sprees amidst unemployment and sunny weather.

Although vandalism is vandalism, I believe there is a distinction to be made between the somewhat artful, stencil-based graffiti common today and tagging that denotes gang territory. We may not like the idea of skateboard-riding kids spraypainting pictures onto walls, but that is decidedly less dangerous than organized groups of drug-dealing gangs violently fighting for control of streetcorner sales.

Even so, the broken-window theory is a necessary but delicately balanced endeavor.

The Times reports that Portland neighborhoods like Brooklyn will be stepping up foot patrols. “We will have four or five people starting out once a week around dusk walking the neighborhood with a graffiti cleanup kit,” Michael O’Connor, the head of the Brooklyn Action Corps, told Nagourney.

Yet it may be wrong to be too vigilant. Portland, after all, is celebrated for being a tolerant city where heavy-handed police action isn't tolerated. If we have the police aggressively hunting down petty criminals, it could also result in the kind of over-zealous harrassment that has led to wrongful deaths like those of James Chasse and Aaron Campbell, or reduce the influx of creative professionals moving to the city for its laid-back attitude and progressive socio-political environment.

I don't think there can ever be a definitive yes-or-no answer abut graffiti. If you're a property owner and somebody spraypaints on your property, there's little plausible response but to be upset about it, and to paint over the tag as soon as possible. Yet I also cringe at those such as Los Angeles police detective Ramona Findley, who head's the department's graffiti task force and in Nagourney's Times story blames graffiti on pop culture.

"The art world has accepted it," she tells Nagourney. "People make money from graffiti T-shirts. I was in Wal-Mart on Easter, and I saw graffiti Easter eggs.”

Graffiti in downtown Portland (photo by Brian Libby)

It's not that simple - artists are not the entirety of graffiti vandals, nor are famous artists who started with graffiti without value. We have to accept the fact that from Basquiat to Banksy, Haring to Fairey, graffiti is an expression of self. Just becuase it's done lawlessly doesn't mean that something of value doesn't ultimately come out of graffiti sometimes.

So what would I do if there were graffiti on my building? As it happens, there was some very recently. I live in a mixed-use building with an apartment, a restaurant and a dance studio. Two weeks ago there appeared on the sole windowless portion of the facade a stenciled graffiti image of a woman holding an umbrella. Immediately I felt uncomfortable thinking of someone vandalizing my building just a few feet from my bedroom window. But I also took a moment to admit to myself that the vandalism was not without attractiveness. I wondered what the tagger hoped for in the future: an art career or a pipe hit, a job or a clean rap sheet, a raise on his allowance or good  grades in the upcoming semester. Before I could make a decision about the graffiti, our landlord had it covered.

The only answer I could resolve was that the graffiti, and its author, would remain a mystery. And therein may lie the reason for society's wide spectrum of feelings about graffiti: with its perpetrators anonymous, the tagging acts as a blank canvas onto which we project our feelings about entertwined issues of crime and safety, art and expression. Graffiti is a kind of Rorschach-like code language forced upon us, in which our explanatory narrative is never as complete as we want it to be.

When I wrote two years ago about a photography exhibit of graffiti art, the comments were mixed but generally respectful of property rights. "People that find something appealing in this destructive use of spray paint could do society and taxpayers a big favor by condemning unauthorized painting and inviting the 'pirates' they seem to admire, over to their own property to paint with permission from the owner," wrote one commenter, WS. "Completely condemning a entire form of art based on one wing of that art's practice (idiot tags by idiots on inappropriate places) seems reactive and does not really help anything," wrote another commenter, Josiah. But one commenter also referenced Portland's famed Lovejoy Columns, which started out as illegal vandalism (painting columns of the Lovejoy bridge ramp) but now is displayed proudly outside a Pearl District condo as outsider art.

Meanwhile, what do you think? Does graffiti warrant zero tolerance, romantic enabling, or something in between?

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Neighborhood, block and building: elevating new urbanism

Downtown Portland (photo by Brian Libby)

BY COLIN CORTES AND JOSEPH READDY

In the last decade, US Green Building Council has seen a groundswell of support develop for its initiatives, not only through the USGBC’s LEED rating system for green buildings but through its chapters across the nation and the world. What if we could collectively bring the same level of attention to a wider array of city building? That’s the goal of the Congress for the New Urbanism. New Urbanism is lighter on the pocketbook, more efficient with tax dollars, safer for pedestrians, bikers and drivers, easier on the environment and is a healthier way to live. It just performs better.

The Charter of the New Urbanism seeks to understand and improve the places in which we live at three scales:  the region; the neighborhood; and block, the street, and the building. The dynamism of CNU results from spirited debates about how to best respect new urbanist principles. For nearly twenty years, CNU members have promoted the hallmarks of new urbanism, including:

• Livable streets arranged in compact, walkable blocks.

• A range of housing choices to serve people of diverse ages and income levels.

• Schools, stores and other nearby destinations reachable by walking, bicycling or transit service.

• An affirming, human-scaled public realm where appropriately designed buildings define and enliven streets and other public spaces.

Earlier this month, Portland-area members of the CNU met for the first time since CNU 19, the nineteenth annual meeting in Madison, Wisconsin June 1-4. CNU 19 in Madison had included discussion threads organized around the topics of food policy, access, and quality; bicycle mobility and transportation; social equity; and environmental justice.

Since 2005, the CNU has also fostered what is called an “open-source congress,” where members, following their own interests, propose new work initiatives. Like open source software, the metaphorically termed open space technology is a way to convene persons interested in a discussion topic, provide structure to the discussion, and allow the discussion to propagate across time and space, increasing the relevance and effect of the discussion. Three CNU Cascadia members from Portland – Bill Lennertz, Colin Cortes, and Marcy McInelly – initiated individual open-source sessions in Madison. Bill, Colin, and Marcy shared their reasons for promoting their sessions, a summary of their work completed during the congress, and efforts resulting from their initiatives.

CNU members were joined by more than twenty faculty and students from the masters in architecture and new urbanism programs at Querétaro campus of the Tecnológico de Monterrey for a lively discussion on architecture and urban design in Mexico and the United States. The students are traveling up the west coast touring the cities of San Francisco, Portland, and Vancouver British Columbia.

Encouraged and inspired by the success of USGBC and its nationwide network of chapters, CNU implemented chapters in 2004. The Cascadia Chapter was first organized in 2005, incorporated in 2008, and is the bi-national and regional in scale, covering British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. CNU Cascadia is looking for new members who want to improve the built environment. While a few colorful personalities founded CNU in 1993, today almost 3,000 members confirm the timeliness of the CNU mission by adding to its momentum.

For example, member Marianne Cusato designed the famed “Katrina Cottage” for victims of Hurricane Katrina to provide a dignified and durable alternative to standard FEMA trailers. Eliot Allen, principal with Criterion Planners in Portland, has done much to help infuse the LEED-ND rating system with new-urbanist principles. For his help in advancing the SmartCode, the most well known model form-based code, Allen was co-recipient of a 2009 CNU Charter Award.

Beyond a spectrum of scales, CNU benefits from a spectrum of members and partner organizations with a variety of experience and perspectives about how to improve our built environment.  CNU partnered with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to create the LEED-ND rating system, as well as “Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares: A Context Sensitive Approach”, a joint Institute for Transportation Engineers and CNU initiative that will improve mobility and community by promoting walkable communities.

Besides joining CNU and gaining the benefits, you can stay abreast of new urbanism and learn how to contribute by visiting the CNU Cascadia website and participating in the Google group, LinkedIn group, or Facebook group.  Of course, for in-person connections there’s an annual CNU Cascadia Summit, the next in March 2012, and the next Congress, CNU 20 May 9-12, 2012 in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Colin Cortes is an assistant planner with the City of Tualatin. Joseph Readdy is a Portland architect and an adjunct professor of architecture and urban design at Portland State University.

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Matthew Ginn's metro city halls photo project: Gresham

Gresham City Hall (photos by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

BY MATTHEW GINN AND BRIAN LIBBY

Continuing Portland Architecture's photographic tour of metro area city halls large and small, granite edifices and mobile homes, our shutterbug correspondent Matthew Ginn ventured to the end of the MAX light rail line.

This eastern suburb had a somewhat lengthy journey to becoming a city in its own right. For several decades before it was incorporated as a city in 1905, it was known as Campground, because it was a routine stop for pioneers during the Great Migration, who stopped to spend the night before moving on to intended settlements in Portland and the Willamette Valley.

Perhaps similarly, Gresham - named for the US Postmaster General at the time of its incorporation - has had a bit of a scattershot history when it comes to its city hall. Or rather, city halls.

First a city hall was erected in 1912 on one site. But by 1951, according to a Gresham Outlook article, the building was "in ruins". Voters were asked to approve a levy of $50,000 to build a new City Hall, which was combined with funds provided by veterans groups to give Gresham would have the money for a new $120,000 facility.

Gresham City Hall (photos by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

In 1979, City Hall moved to a circa-1961 building across the street from the current location According to the signage, at least, it still hosts the council chambers (as well as Police, Fire, and Gresham-Barlow School District offices.

The current city hall, three stories and totaling just over 85,000 square feet, was built in 1996 from a design by Portland's Yost Grube Hall, a venerable firm with an impressive portfolio that includes work across the world as well as Oregon projects like the award-winning, LEED Gold-rated Kelly Engineering Center at Oregon State University and Portland State University's Academic and Student Recreation Center.

PSU Recreation Center, Kelly Engineering Center (image courtesy Yost Grube Hall)

Gresham City Hall was a cornerstone in the Civic Neighborhood Plan, a transit-oriented development plan adopted by Gresham in 1995 which called for 885 residential units, 390,000 square feet of office space and 332,000 square feet of retail centered around the City Hall MAX station. However, it appears to have been partially executed. Gresham Station was opened in 2003 and some residential units have been built, but large tracts in the center of the district are undeveloped, and the northeast corner is occupied by a large department store.

In fact, this area remains dotted large surface parking areas and buildings set back on huge lots between Eastman Parkway, Division and Burnside streets. It makes the area feel anything but the dense, pedestrian friendly quarter envisioned in the Civic Neighborhood Plan.

Gresham City Hall (photos by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

The current city hall was used as a study point for University of Oregon architecture students in 2009, who noted a series of challenges to the architecture: 

• Dreary and unwelcoming exterior, does not present the image of a city hall

• Poor use of space (Daylight access in storage room but not mail/process work room)

• Long corridors in upper levels

• Inefficient building layout. Plan need to be reversed to function and serve the public more efficiently

• Lack of open, central, gathering space

• Lack of visual access to the outside that would help employees mark the time of day

• Empty, unused concrete plaza

• Long winding, confusing access to large conference center

• An 8am-5pm building on weekdays and deserted on weeknights and weekends 

UO students also working on solutions to another problem: Gresham City Hall's substantial summer overheating problem on its west-facing offices. Among their solutions were a living wall similar to what SERA Architects designed for Portland's Edith Green Wendell Wyatt Federal Building downtown.

UO student Bill Kirkwood's proposal for Gresham City Hall

Another unfortunate fact about Gresham City Hall is that the south entrance to the building—the one facing the MAX station—is closed to the public. City Hall visitors arriving by rail have to walk the entire length of the building to get to the front entrance.

In terms of the structure, perhaps the buiding reflects Gresham in the mid-1990s. Then, as now, Gresham sought to assert itself as an independent, modern, important city in its own right, and shake off the image of being a bedroom community to Portland: the modern day "Campground" mentality of pass-through space.

To some, the building may come across as something a suburban office building, albeit an impressive one: perhaps something a mid-size dot-com company might have built. In fact, with its off-white and blue color palette the building is vaguely reminiscent of the desktop computers of the era. It has a sleek, clean, corporate look, particularly on the north, east, and south faces where the long banks of blue glass give it just enough distinction to be, well, distinct. In contrast, the uniform rows of windows on the west elevation seem less corporate and more institutional. Combined with a main entryway that is small relative to the rest of the building, the structure is a bit more fortress-like than the designers probably intended.

Gresham City Hall (photos by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

Even so, from certain vantage points there is a subtle poetry at work here too. The building rests on a series of columns, so it appears to hover over its foundation - not unlike the work of legendary Swiss architect Le Corbusier. Its billowing facade can give the impression of ripples on the Columbia River nearby. Yet, at 15 years old, Gresham City Hall is nevertheless somewhat clearly a product of the 1990s. Some may feel that makes it dated, but at least it takes a specific statement of style. Fifty years from now, those qualities might make the difference between a distinctive historic structure and just another old building.

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From 1972 to 2035: comparing downtown plans

Downtown Portland from Hawthorne Bridge (photo by Brian Libby)

BY FRED LEESON 

Nostalgia can hit in unexpected ways.  As the City of Portland goes about trying to draft a Central City 2035 plan to guide downtown and inner-East Side development in the next quarter century, I found myself looking up the famed Downtown Plan of 1972.

In the summer of 1971, I was a summer intern at the now-departed Oregon Journal newspaper, where I was assigned to be the newspaper’s only night general assignment reporter on weekday evenings.  Thus I found myself attending and often writing about  meetings of the Downtown Plan’s Citizen Advisory Committee, chaired by Dean Gisvold, a young Portland attorney.

It’s amazing to look at that plan today, which is available on the city’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability web site.  Superficially, it was still the era of the typewriter; the maps and graphics are surprisingly elementary viewed against today’s professional standards.

Yet the content of the plan is incredibly striking and clear.  It’s impact is obvious today:  North-south transit spines of Fifth and Sixth Avenues; east-west spines on Morrison and Alder Streets; a central downtown public square; a pedestrian-oriented Waterfront Park available for big and small events; increased downtown housing; a high density building spine along the north-south transit spine, stepping down towards the river; transit; commercial and pedestrian-friendly uses on ground floors; increased  transit, pedestrian and bicycle use at the expense of automobiles. 

The plan even makes a passing nod to housing and commercial opportunities on 26 acres of mostly vacant railroad yards in Northwest Portland.  Today we call it the Pearl.

The motivations for planning in the early 1970s were different than in 2011.  Today the process is mandated, bureaucratized and institutionalized under statewide rules and regulations.  When the Downtown Plan was initiated in the final years of Mayor Terry Schrunk’s administration there were no state rules.  The motive was desperation:  Downtown Portland as it had been known for decades was dying; this was an attempt to make it vital once again.

The 1972 Downtown Plan is hallowed --  and rightly so --  in planning history.  It was intelligent and prescient.  It was an outstanding roadmap for its day.  

One recommendation of the 1972  plan was  not been honored, however, and it has ramifications in the 2035 plan.  Although there were no designated historic districts in the early 1970s, the 1972 plan recognized the importance of Portland’s historic fabric.  “Density and design standards for new buildings need to respect the setting and character of historic and architecturally significant buildings,” the old plan said.  At another point, it advises to “protect historic areas from incompatible development.”

Alas, the city government went on to do exactly the opposite.  In the 1980s, the City council  zoned the heart of downtown, including the national historic districts, as CXd, the densest of the city’s many commercial zones.  As the city explains   CXd, “Development is intended to be very intense with high building coverage, large buildings, and buildings placed close together.”  

The impact of the high-rise zoning on historic districts such as Skidmore/Old Town and Japan/Chinatown has been painful.  Owners of vacant lots and low-rise old buildings hold out thinking their land will pay off later as sites for high-rise towers.  Cathy Galbraith, director of the Bosco-Milligan Foundation, a historic preservation advocacy group, says the high-rise zoning leads to benign neglect.  She also says it makes one wonder whether the city would rather see the historic districts simply disappear over time, in favor of high new high-rise projects.

Fittingly, historic preservation is one of several elements being discussed as part of the Central City 2035 plan.  City planners hosted two symnposia in May and June, where several of the brightest minds in development and preservation discussed the challenges, opportunities, successes and failures of preservation in Portland.  

As a result of those meetings, an ad-hoc committee of the Bosco-Milligan Foundation is drafting a Platform for Preservation that outlines preservation goals and priorities for the Central City plan.  A final version is expected soon. Key members of this informal brain trust included Cathy Galbraith, architects Paul Falsetto and Christine Yun, and Portland architectural and neighborhood historian, James Heuer, also a Bosco-Milligan board member.  

Not surprisingly, changes in zoning that would reflect the context and density of the Central City’s numerous historic districts is one key priority.  Another issue, not visited in earlier plans, calls for the city to study ways it can encourage seismic bracing of the Central City’s many unreinforced masonry buildings, given new geological evidence about the Cascadia subduction zone and the high probability of a major earthquake in the foreseeable future.  

Buildings such as the historic Union Station railroad depot pose a real danger in a major earthquake.  Experts predict that the unreinforced campanile would collapse into the main lobby under it, posing a serious threat to the lives of anyone in the building.  The Platform for Preservation urges the city to study how other jurisdictions are encouraging earthquake bracing upgrades, with tools such as low-interest loans and property tax incentives.  The issue is as much about human safety as it is about retention of historic building fabric.

Other elements of the platform include:

 

• Undertaking a new historic resources inventory that considers not only the architectural merit of vintage buildings but also sites of social, cultural and ethnic significance.  Many buildings that may have played important roles in Portland history may not be significant architectural landmarks, but worthy of preservation for other reasons.

• Establishing affordable, centralized design review with appropriate design guidelines for historic districts.  The Platform for Preservation envisions a central Historic Preservation Officer and a staff that can give building owners timely, constructive advice on renovation projects.  

• Recognizing positive energy conservation and sustainability aspects of preservation.  Cutting-edge research shows that even the “greenest” new buildings take 40 to 60 years before they hold an advantage over an older building that is reasonably upgraded with insulation and other energy-saving devices.  This research contradicts conventional thinking that often favors demolition of old buildings to create a carbon-reduction benefit.

• Encouraging the city to be a better steward of its own historic resources, including Union Station, the North and South Park Blocks, and publicly-owned items both large and small of historic and public importance.

Professional planners and a citizens’ committee headed by historian Chet Orloff are expected to prepare a final proposed Central City plan late this year.  City Council action is expected sometime in 2012.

One hopes that the final product will be as intelligent, useful and outstanding as the 1972 original.

Fred Leeson is a Portland journalist and president of the Bosco-Milligan Foundation and its Architectural Heritage Center.

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Evaluating the mayor's revised Burnside proposals

Burnside Bridge (photo by Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

On June 22, Mayor Adams announced a change in his administration’s plan to turn West Burnside and Northwest Couch Street into a couplet of one-way streets with a new streetcar line. Instead of $80 million worth of changes to Burnside and Couch with a streetcar, Adams is suggesting a handful of paired down options, both without a streetcar. The primary reason is budget. Yet the paired down vision for Burnside is, particularly if we put the couplet proposal to rest once and for all, arguably a better design anyway.

It was easy to see the inspiration for change. High traffic speeds make Burnside difficult for pedestrians to cross, evidenced by Portland’s highest concentration of accidents there. Left turns are also prohibited, requiring drivers to instead circle the block in a series of right turns to reach their destination, adding to gridlock. Burnside also lacks bike lanes.

One concept proposed by the mayor, called the “Hybrid”, reduces West Burnside to three traffic lanes between Fourth and 19th Avenues. Left turns would be allowed From Third through Fifth, and on Broadway, Ninth, 10th, 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th. The space is taken up with a combination of wider sidewalks, bike lanes, and curbside parking.

In the “Skinny Couch” concept,  Burnside would carry eastbound traffic and Couch would carry westbound traffic. Couch would be reduced to one lane between Broadway and 14th, a nod to the pedestrian-friendly atmosphere that has been successfully cultivated around the Brewery Blocks and the North Park Blocks.

Adams is also offering a “stripped-down” version of the couplet. It would cost $18 million and the mayor says he has support from over 50 percent of Burnside business owners to make it happen (and funding in place through a Local Improvement District assessment tax.) This is essentially the same as the Skinny Couch concept without the single lane on Couch.

Detail of Broadway/Burnside intersection (courtesy City of Portland)

The mayor announced on his website that these concepts are “very preliminary and incomplete.” But because The Oregonian requested copies of this preliminary work through a public records request, the mayor added, he felt compelled to release it to the public himself. Yet this also seems in keeping with a general pattern in Adams’ tenure as mayor: not so much always coming forward with one idea for change, but two, three or more. It's not so much particular policies that matter, the thinking seems to be, but pushing ahead until an agreeable solution is found, almost like a seminar leader taking a group in a conference room through an exercise. Given how Portland's participatory environment and weak-mayoral system, there's certainly a method to the ambition, even if feathers inevitably get ruffled along the way.

Of course on the east side, Burnside has already been paired with Couch as two one-way streets. The change separated Sandy Boulevard (which runs diagonally, southwest to northeast) from where it intersected with the east-west running Burnside and 12th Avenue. This has in some ways improved the flow of automobile traffic.

Living near there for the past 13 years, I used to fume at this intersection as red lights would span for as much as two minutes (particularly on 12th). Now, the longest red light is 45 seconds. Yet the experience driving west down Couch and then back south a block onto the Burnside Bridge is an odd one, particularly in how the road jogs at a sharp twisting angle.

In all these conversations, there are competing interests vying against each other: the interests of automobile traffic in moving swiftly through and in creating the kind of pedestrian and bike-friendly spaces that encourage retail development and weave together a much more humane and human-scaled physical environment. It’s not that you can’t have it both ways, but the street is only so wide.

If I had to choose amongst the mayor’s two proposals, it would be the Hybrid concept because it does not include a couplet of one-way streets for Burnside and Couch. While this may be the most efficient way to move cars, the couplet plan was ultimately just that—too automobile focused.

“Somewhere early in the process, people got the impression that the couplet was the only way to fix traffic problems. Nothing could be further from the truth,” says Portland architect William Tripp, part of a quartet who produced the “PDXplore” urban-design exhibit last year; Tripp also lobbied city council to scrap the previously couplet plan. “Moving cars is only one of the things that a street needs to do. There’s an imbalance when we think about cars only.”

The Hybrid concept gives drivers something substantial: the opportunity to turn from Burnside into downtown or the Pearl District and Old Town. It frees Burnside from its isolation. Before interstates and other highways, this used to be the road one took from the coast all the way to Mt. Hood. Yet by eliminating a lane in certain portions of Burnside, the Hybrid concept lets certain downtown city blocks act more appropriately as pedestrian-first zones.

Of course, some reasonable people see it differently. Beth Slovic’s recent Oregonian story, for example, emphasized a draft traffic analysis by David Evans and Associates, one of the city's contractors on the project, that found there would be "noticeably increase" delay for drivers in Old Town during peak morning hours. Yet representatives from PBOT and the mayor’s office argue there is no definitive evidence yet. It begs the question: who does Burnside really belong to: those who live and work along the street in the urban core, where the changes may be made, or those who use the street as pass-through arterial?

Part of the problem here may be that we’re trying to make Burnside all things to all people. Tripp speaks of a hierarchy of streets in which Burnside plays a prominent role, but also a special one that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right place for parking or bike lanes. “Most cities we love have major streets that are vibrant, whether it’s the Champs Elysee in Paris or Market Street in San Francisco," he says. "They’re not always places you’re going to sit on the sidewalk and have a cup of coffee, or even ride a bike down."

Cities are big organisms," he adds. "You’re not going to put a small-scale intimate coffee shop on just any street, or a big department store. That’s what’s great about cities, how the intensity varies from one block to another. Why are we putting bicycles on Burnside for example? If you acknowledge that it’s a vibrant two-way busy automobile street, why would a cyclist want to use it? Go one street over to Couch. Everybody would be happier.”

A modified version of the Hybrid option could place a turn lane on Burnside, alleviating drivers’ inability to cross it, and also add additional crosswalks and wider sidewalks. If we make Couch a more designated bike boulevard with one lane, and keep street parking on Couch but not on Burnside, there may still be room for multiple lanes for cars in each direction down Burnside, or at least portions of it. Burnside has a role as a unifying east-west Portland street that need not be radically altered with a couplet in order to achieve a more humane intersection with pedestrians and better navigability for drivers. We just shouldn’t try to make it all things for all people. Small changes can sometimes have a large impact.

 

Drawings of potential Burnside improvements (courtesy Dennis Harper)

"I do think that there could be improvements made to Burnside," says Dennis Harper, an architect with ZGF. "Let’s focus on the narrow part from the Park Blocks up to NW 23rd or so. In the downtown section of Burnside, it is surprising how much pedestrian activity there is now from the Crystal Ballroom to blocks east of Powell’s. Slightly wider sidewalks (like upper Burnside) and skinny trees would enhance the pedestrian environment. East of the Park Blocks, the greater Burnside width would offer much to an urban designer/planner to improve the street." Like Tripp, he believes NW Couch should remain a two-way shopping street with slow traffic, citing the hub of retail activity around the Brewery Blocks, the Crystal Ballroom and a host of small shops in between.

Yet there is another difficulty to the two plans for Burnside as presented. In eliminating the streetcar from the Burnside-Couch plan for budgetary reasons, the mayor cited the fact that the 25-year Citywide Streetcar Strategy was completed. “It showed me the need to prioritize streetcar extensions on the east side of the Willamette River.”

Yet I’m not sure the same logic has been applied to the Burnside proposals overall. This process has been driven by planners at the Portland Bureau of Transportation. Traditionally, transportation bureaus exist for the purpose of moving people. As a result, the type of urban setting we’re ultimately getting as a result of these traffic changes takes a back door. If the question of bringing the streetcar to Burnside has been affected by a citywide plan, then it would seem to follow that the Burnside-Couch proposals themselves should be made by the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, or at least in tandem. That bureau has been busy creating a new Central City 2035 plan as well as a broader Portland Plan. Surely we’re not going to radically alter the character of one of the city’s most important streets without tying it to the bigger city or central city plan, right?

Still, the new plans announced by the mayor do offer, particularly given his willingness to absorb feedback and alter or fine tune his plans, the opportunity exists here to make small changes to Burnside that could have a substantial positive impact.

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UO solar awning project reaches semifinals in national competition, seeks to bridge business-academic gap

Ihab Elzeyadi examines his solar awning (image courtesy University of Oregon)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

A University of Oregon architecture program team has advanced to the semifinals of the Clean Tech 2011 Open Business Competition, keeping them in the running for the $250,000 national grand prize and an opportunity to present before 2,000 attendees at The Cleantech Open’s Global Forum in November.

The mission of the Cleantech Open is to find, fund and foster “the big ideas” that address today’s most urgent energy, environmental and economic challenges. And Innovative Invironments, a Eugene start-up company with collaborations from University of Oregon architecture and business school graduates, advanced to the semifinals with its solar awning , which was developed at the UO High Performance Environments Lab (HiPE) by professor Ihab Elzeyadi.

Known as SolarStream, the awning is described as a three-in-one green building product, with its indoor LED luminaire, daylighting reflector, and PV shade. Its modular system is comprised of conventional photovoltaic cells and shading that attach to a building's exterior, providing shade to windows while reflecting light back inside. Elzeyadi and team tested the awning’s performance on the side of a university building and found that it generates approximately six to eight times the energy necessary to light the building. The awning also lowers temperatures inside, reducing stress on cooling facilities.

Solar awning on Onyx Bridge at UO (image courtesy University of Oregon)

“Our state and the entire region need new, innovative and high-growth companies now more than ever,” said Byron McCann, co-chair of the Pacific Northwest Cleantech Open. “It’s hard enough to start any kind of business, much less one in industries as complex and capital intensive as energy and sustainability. All of us involved are ready to roll up our sleeves and help these entrepreneurs and their innovations succeed.”

Semifinalists will present their final business plan and investor pitch to a judging committee of investors and experts, which will select the three finalists at the regional event in October in Seattle. Those finalists will compete with others from four regions around the U.S. for the national grand prize.

Besides the technical capabilities of the solar awning project, it also represents a potential new avenue of partnership between the University of Oregon and entrepreneurial efforts made by its professors and students.

“There is much uncharted territory between the scientific research that provides innovative new materials and the commercialization of those ideas into products,” writes Lee van der Voo of Sustainable Business Oregon, “But Elzeyadi and the university of Oregon envision another possibility for the eSolar Awning, a corporation representing UO and the laboratory, along with a commercial partner to manufacture products could lie ahead.”

"There's a potential to have a company that would really specialize in these exterior treatments for the building and the building facades," Elzeyadi told van der Voo. "It will take a little bit of two sides coming up with enough people who are interested to draft and design what that company would look like as an R&D company that would be tied to full scale production, and the university becomes part of that."

Elzeyadi's lab is in the process of converting into the Façade Innovation Technology Testing Facility, made possible with funding from Oregon BEST, the university, grants and donations. The facility will be actively testing a variety of sunscreens, windows, solar equipment and other building materials for commercial viability. “Essentially, it will provide a facility to practice on,” van der Voo adds, “one outside of an arena of live construction, where the price for failing can be high.”

Elzeyadi believes sustainable architecture remains rooted too much in best practices, without innovative thinking based in hard science. Many times people have done that to save them money" or simply because it's been successfully done before. The Façade Innovation Technoloty Testing Facility will help engender the necessary market transformation to elevate not just solar technology but a range of products, materials and methods.

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Miller Hull Partnership's new Vancouver Community Library enhances the city's revitalization

Vancouver Library (photo courtesy Miller Hull Partnership)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Over the past decade, Portland’s suburb across the Columbia River, Vancouver, has made impressive strides to establish a vibrant, pedestrian friendly downtown. Public and private projects alike, such as Esther Short Park and a Hilton hotel that was the nation’s first LEED-rated lodging, have helped create a sense of place. So will a capping of Interstate 5 in the downtown area for which the city held a design competition last year. The next piece of the puzzle is the grand opening of the new Vancouver Community Library, set for July 17.

Located on the southeast corner of Evergreen Boulevard and C Street in downtown Vancouver, at the site of the future, privately funded Library Square development, the building is expected to attract a million visitors per year.

Vancouver Library atrium, exterior (photos courtesy Miller Hull)

Vancouver Community Library was designed by The Miller Hull Partnership of Seattle, for which this kind of public project (especially one designed sustainably) seems an ideal commission. The firm’s project manager, Adin Dunning, is a Vancouver native, and the Miller Hull Partnership is the recipient of the National Firm Award from the American Institute of Architects. The firm has received over 200 design awards and was listed by Architect magazine earlier this year as the #22 architecture firm in America.

Miller Hull’s portfolio includes a slough of award-winning public projects, including sustainable architecture dating back to the early 1980s. More recently, there are projects like the LOTT Clean Water Alliance Regional Services Center, which was included in this year’s AIA Committee on the Environment Top 10 Green Projects list, the striking 1310 Union condominiums the Seattle Center Fisher Pavilion (also a COTE Top 10 honoree in 2003), the Willamette River Water Treatment Plant in Portland, and the Tillamook Forest Center west of the city. Their upcoming design for the Columbia Springs Environmental Education Center, also in Vancouver, is on target for net-zero energy usage, producing more energy than it consumes.

“The essence of their practice and the genius of their work is collaboration,” writes former AIA president Thomas Penney, “which blossoms in a straightforward, elegant architecture that delights the eye and elevates the soul. Enlightened stewards, equally faithful to their profession and the public realm, theirs is a model of best practice where nature is a co-equal giver of form, guiding the art and science of craft in the service of the architect’s ultimate client, the planet earth.”

The Vancouver Library, comprising approximately 83,000 square feet on five levels, will have more than twice the 11,000 square feet of space for books at the current library. The new facility includes numerous children’s spaces, including a 4,000 square-foot early learning center, one of the largest in the country. There are also numerous computer terminals (about 100), three community meeting rooms available for outside group use, classroom and study areas, and an automated book-sorting system and capacity for 385,000 volumes. The new library also will include a used bookstore operated by the Friends of the Library, and small café.

Library exterior, roof deck, child learning area (photos courtesy Miller Hull)

Project cost for the library is approximately $38 million, which includes a $5 million private anonymous donation. Primary funding is from a 2006 library facilities bond measure. “Library Square” developer Killian Pacific donated Land for the library.

The building boasts numerous sustainable methods and materials, culminating in a projected 33 reduction in energy use compared to a building designed to code. A green roof reduces the heat-island effect, while exterior shading on south-facing side reduces heat gain.  Interior finishes are low-VOC for better indoor air quality, while recycled materials such as eco-resin panels are used in interior spaces and on casework as well as a concrete structure incorporating recycled content.

Vancouver library atrium (photo by Brian Libby)

Vancouver Library exterior (photo courtesy Miller Hull Partnership)

The building is teeming with natural light. Each floor is open to the atrium in order to take advantage of natural daylight and views. This also capitalizes on natural daylight with north-facing windows and a south facing atrium that provides passive cooling in summer by allowing heat inside the building to rise and be exhausted at the top via the stack effect. The fifth floor features a 4,086 square-foot terrace with views of Vancouver, the river, and Mt. Hood

From the exterior, the building is very handsome, if a little corporate-boxy and monolithic. It also seems to lact a truly intuitive main entrance. Yet the clarity and beauty of its materials and a sense of airy openness help elevate the overall experience. In addition to its palette of glass and concrete, the exterior uses a terra cotta paneling system that echoes the brick of the historic Academy building across Evergreen Boulevard. It’s a much richer, more dignified brown tone of terra-cotta panel than the orange panels used by other recent building projects like the Casey Condominiums in Portland’s Pearl District.

Standing inside the library's massive atrium, one gets not only of a massive, glassy volume of space, but a wonderful cross-sectional sense of the library’s stacks of books, people and activity. This is a compelling gathering place for a burgeoning city with a renewed urban core, one where community is embodied by openness and connection to the outside.

The Portland area has an impressive collection of regional and neibhborhood libraries. The city's Central Library, a stately Georgian landmark from 1913 designed by A.E. Doyle, is perhaps the most well loved and most widely used public facilities in the nation - particularly after a 1997 renovation overseen by Fletcher Farr Ayotte. Central Library and the Woodstock Branch Library, the latter designed by Thomas Hacker's firm, THA Architecture, were both included in a list by the American Library Assocation and the American Institute of Architects of the top 10 libraries in the nation. THA also has designed several other quietly wonderful libraries in the area, such as the Hillsdale Branch Library and the Beaverton City Library.

Vancouver Community Library fits nicely into this tradition. Like THA's work, it has moments of grandness, particularly the view out over the multistory atrium. If it ranks a close second to THA's library in overall poetry of form, Vancouver is those buildings' equal in its sustainability and its open, naturally lit environments. And as with Miller Hull's past portfolio, this feels like a simple, clean-lined work of architecture that was squarely and generously designed with its occupants in mind. And though the coating on the windows can, depending on the time of day, sometimes diminish this effect, the Vancouver Library uses transparency to communicate and reveal a kind of simple social machine, with levels of activity available to see for anyone passing by.

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