Portland Architecture

Architecture + Design Festival returns with tours, lectures, awards, screenings, exhibits

UO's Jaqua Center in Eugene, 2010 AIA Honor Award winner (photo by Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

This Thursday, September 29 brings the return of the Architecture + Design Fest, presented by the Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the AIA in Portland, the A+D Fest brings a variety of events and happenings.

As I write this, the festivities are set to begin in just a few hours with the Opening Night Party (6:30PM, AIA Center For Architecture, NW 11th & Flanders), with a a glimpse of the month’s myriad events and activities. The Center for Architecture will be converted to a lounge complete with music, specialty cocktails, and local organic hors d’ouevres.

The party is also a kickoff for this month's AIA Oregon 100th anniversary exhibit. The exhibition explores the impact architects and architecture have had on the State of Oregon, its regions, and cities through the century. Some of the most beloved buildings in the state will be featured as well as issues facing our community, such as sustainability and land-use which architects have made a significant contribution.

Tours

Leedy House (image courtesy AIA/Portland)

The first big event after tonight's party and exhibit opening is "Design Matters: A Tour of Exceptional Portland Homes". A rare opportunity for guests to glimpse inside six sensational Portland residences, the tour includes the Leedy House by architect Paul McKean, who won top honors at the 2009 AIA/Portland Design Awards; the NW Raleigh House by Giulietti/Schouten, which thoughtfully re-imagines a 1970s ranch house; the Belluschi House (formerly known as the Burkes House) by legendary architect Pietro Belluschi and renovated by his son, Anthony Belluschi; the Cape Cod House (previously featured in Portland Architecture) by Ben Wechter; the Ankeny Lofts by COLAB; and the Tingley-Fortin House, designed by owners Ellen Fortin and BOORA's Michael Tingley.

I've visited the Belluschi House, the Tingley-Fortin House, and the Cape Cod House, and I've followed the work of the other three architects for years. And all are superb designs with superior craftsmanship. This isn't just a homes tour: it really is an example of the best residential design in Portland.

Are you a lover of midcentury and ranch houses? Next Saturday (October 8) brings the Reedwood Neighborhood Walking Tour, in southeast Portland just north of the Reed College campus. Dating to 1955, Reedwood is an eclectic mix of well-designed and built mid-century homes, providing a suburban feel to a neighborhood that is within 10 minutes of downtown Portland. The neighborhood also faces an uncertain future as local zoning regulations have created the potential to dramatically change the landscape of Reedwood predominately through infill. The Reedwood Neighborhood Walking Tour is presented by DOCOMOMO, a national nonprofit dedicated to documenting and conserving buildings and neighborhoods of the modern movement (from which its acronym is derived), and Portland's Architectural Heritage Center. ($15 general, $10 for AHC members). 

Award Programs

Interested in landscape architecture? As if the homes tour and the art exhibit on Saturday weren't enough, there is also the ASLA Design Soiree (6PM, Tiffany Center, 1410 SW Morrison Street, $65), in which the local American Institute of Landscape Architects celebrates professional and student excellence by recognizing the firms, individuals, and agencies responsible for outstanding works of landscape architecture and environmental planning that promote an enhanced quality of life in Oregon and beyond.

The centerpiece of the Architecture + Design Festival, now in its third year (though its predecessor, Architecture Week, ran for many years prior), is the annual AIA/Portland Design Awards program. This year's awards have been combined with a 100th anniversary party for AIA Oregon; the event, called The Party of the Century Gala, is scheduled for the Portland Art Museum (1219 SW Park Avenue, $35). Last year the sole winner of the top prize, the Honor Award, was ZGF Architects' design of the Jaqua Center at the University of Oregon. Who will claim it this year?

Snøhetta's hotel & confrence center in Ras Al-Khaimah, UAE (image via tuvie.com)

As per tradition, the night before the awards brings An Evening With The Jury (5:30PM, Center For Architecture, $5), a discussion by the trio of out-of-town jurors about their own work as well as their overall impressions with the city. This year's jury includes Merrill Elam of Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects in Atlanta, Hilary Sample of MOS Architects in New York, and Vanessa Kassabian of Norwegian firm Snøhetta’s New York office.

On October 21 is the Young Designers Award program (7PM, Center For Architecure, NW 11th & Flanders). "As chair of the A+D festival, one of my major hopes was to try and engage a broader base of designers – multi-discipline - in Portland and to also reach out to the younger architectural generation," Carrie Strickland of Works Partnership said by email. "I think that the AIA does a fantastic job of supporting and promoting established architecture firm and individuals with its collection of services and with the annual design awards program, but it is also imperative to acknowledge the young designers that find their place in the profession – those dedicated to finding outlets for their ideas in their formative years. Young designers come out of school and, if they’re lucky, find employment at firms working within teams. Much of the focus shifts from creative and analytical processes to building technical competency. This award is hoping to encourage emerging designers to continue to explore their own ideas."

"Young architects and designers have it tough right now," Strickland adds. "We all do. Emerging professionals in a tight job market need to compete on a different level and find ways to set themselves apart from their peers.  I know that when we look at applicant for interns we are careful to look at how well they can express their ideas. The trend now is to rely on digital technology to tell your story – but young people need to make sure they are developing skills to express concepts and ideas that can carry water and not just seduce with imagery. Being able to sketch an idea on a napkin as a means of communicating your concept versus rendering something for 2 days in whatever 3D modeling program is the current rage and be a game changer for someone hoping to establish themselves."

Film Screenings & Art Exhibits

Beginning this Saturday (October 1) at 6PM at the Bside6 Gallery (524 East Burnside) is an exhibit called "Body Building," curated by Christine Taylor and Jeff Jahn. A look at how architecture houses the body, the exhibition is based on the concept of housing the body using form, structure, fashion and video. The exhibit portrays how fashion and architecture intertwine as a complex organism, shaping how we visualize our world and the spaces we inhabit.

The Architecture + Design Fest also includes several curated film screenings, the first coming next Tuesday (October 4) with a selection of short films by...me! It seems strange to describe my own work, but the films in "Film Shorts by Brian Libby" (6PM, Center For Architecture, NW 11th & Flanders) are about three to seven minutes each and are basically a succession of experimental travelogues. Marc Mohan of The Oregonian writes, "Brian Libby's films manage to meld the quotidian and the sublime, or rather perhaps expose the one within the other.” Whether it’s pigeons flocking around a local Portland dairy, a double-decker bus ride in London, the canals of Amsterdam and Copenhagen or the freeways of Los Angeles, the intent is to view urban and natural settings with a quiet sense of wonder. The show was curated by Thomas Philippson of the Northwest Film Center.

Another film screening comes the following Tuesday, October 11, curated by local nonprofit The Cinema Project. "Building A Home in the 1970s" (6PM, Center For Architecture, free) features films by Videofreex, Richard Brick and Rudolph Burkhardt documenting some of the counter-cultural movements that challenged notions of community and home and promoted alternatives to the very physical structures in which communal activity could take place. The black-and-white videos serve both as do-it-yourself guides to alternative structures (like geodesic domes and “inflatables”) and documents of the artists, their friends, and families who participate both as builders and inhabitants.

A third screening night, "Deep Urban Space", comes Tuesday, October 18 (also 6PM at the Center For Architecture, with free admission) curated by Michael Neault, a writer, researcher, and media arts programmer with Second Story Interactive Studios. One film, called "Lost Buildings" by Chris Ware and "This American Life" host Ira Glass, is about the evolution of one boy’s obsession with Chicago’s disappearing architectural heritage and the friends he makes along the way. With inventive animations by Chris Ware, it offers a more intimate perspective on Chicago’s buildings. Also showing is "My Playground," a documentary pursuing roving teams of parkour athletes as they infiltrate the urban arena.

Lectures

Next Wednesday, in a talk called "Modular Making in the Age of Digital Craft" (7PM, Oregon College of Art and Craft, 8245 Southwest Barnes Road, free admission), Mark and Peter Anderson of Anderson Architecture, a design and contraction firm integrating the fields of art, architecture, and construction will present their ideas and approach to design/build. The event also includes tours of the new Vollum Drawing, Painting and Photography Building and the Bonnie-Laing Malcolmson Thesis Studios designed by Charles Rose Architects of Boston in collaboration with COLAB Architecture + Urban Design of Portland from 7-7:30. The presentation will occur from 7:30-8:30 in the Vollum Building Painting and Drawing Studios.

In conjunction with the Architecture + Design Fest, Portland State University's architecture department is inaugurating a new lecture series called "Firsts". On October 7 comes Petra Kempf, a New York architect and urban designer who founded URBANTRANSITS, an interdisciplinary research initiative focusing on the transient nature of cities. She has worked with the Department of City Planning in New York City, the Project for Public Spaces and Richard Meier and Partners. Later in the month, on October 27 comes John Ochsendorf, an engineer and educator specializing in the history and technology of historic structures. Ochsendorf  is the first engineer to be awarded a Rome Prize (2007) and the first structural engineer to be awards a MacArthur Fellowship (2008). He currently teaches architecture and civil and environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Building science and the home energy performance revolution

 

Passive House diagram (courtesy 100khouse.com)

BY ZACK SEMKE

Editor's note: In full disclosure, this post was written by an employee of Hammer & Hand, a Portland Architecture sponsor. But is not intended as an advertorial. Rather, it was decided that the company's pursuit and promotion of Passive House technology would be relevant to readers and, because one of Hammer & Hand's leaders also leads the nonprofit Passive House Alliance, part of a broader exploration.

As I've watched our home performance team conduct dozens of home energy performance audits and home energy retrofit services in recent weeks, I've been reflecting on how different the green building landscape is now versus just 15 years ago.   What's changed?  Our understanding of building science: how a building's various components interact with one another in a holistic system.

Today, building science experts are transforming the field of home performance energy audits and retrofits.  Backed by a rigorous understanding of building physics and dynamics, advanced building scientists can model, design and implement home energy retrofits that eclipse yesterday’s home energy efficiency improvements.

“The field of building science has grown up and is now driving reductions in home energy consumption that would have seemed impossible ten or twenty years ago”, explains Sam Hagerman, co-owner of Hammer & Hand, and President of the national nonprofit, the Passive House Alliance.  “The best building science technicians know how to harness this new power to the benefit of clients and the planet.”

The typical home performance technician not trained in advanced building science is forced to rely on a boilerplate approach in the field, applying prescriptive retrofit solutions aimed at satisfying the requirements of the latest governmental weatherization program.  While this approach does achieve some reduction in home energy consumption, it falls short on two counts: it squanders money on prescriptive home energy solutions that may not address the unique problems of a given home; and it results in energy retrofits that will likely become obsolete in 10 or 15 years, or whenever the next weatherization program comes along.

Advanced building science, on the other hand, revolutionizes home performance audits and home energy retrofits because it empowers the building scientist to optimize homes through a performance approach, using sophisticated modeling to tweak air tightness, insulation, ventilation and other building component variables to design the most cost-effective home energy retrofit possible for each unique home.  This leads to better solutions with bigger return on investment, and energy efficiency gains that are well ahead of the curve – retrofits that will stand the test of time.

“Everything is about optimizing”, says Skylar Swinford, Certified Passive House Consultant and building science team leader at Hammer & Hand.  “Take heat recovering ventilation systems, for instance.  I love HRVs because they conserve energy that would otherwise be lost in a home’s exhaust air.  But when we do the math, if the building science tells us that super-insulation is a more impactful investment for a given home, then we prescribe that ahead of an HRV, and switch to a more basic continuous mechanical ventilation system.  Each variable is scrutinized and fine-tuned for optimal performance.”

The Passive House movement, widely recognized as representing the cutting edge of building science and home energy performance, is a potent source of building science expertise for our leading building analysts and technicians.  So it’s no surprise that today’s most successful energy retrofit measures come straight from the Passive House high performance playbook, like:

• Aggressive air sealing to create a nearly airtight building shell.

• Continuous mechanical ventilation to provide constant flow of fresh air – often a heat recovering system for better energy performance.

• Intensive, high quality insulation, with low global warming potential – usually cellulose or water-blown spray foam.

• Computer modeling to optimize the performance and value of the home energy retrofit package.

“When we are smart about home energy performance audits and retrofits, and bring advanced building science to bear,” says Hagerman, “it’s a win for each individual client who receives better home performance for the money – greater comfort, safety, and energy savings.  But it’s also a win for society at large, because we’re taking full advantage of every retrofit to significantly reduce the energy consumption of our built environment.”

And that’s important if we hope to make a dent in global climate change or achieve energy independence and security.  Roughly half of US energy demand comes from buildings and the building sector.  And each time we don’t maximize the potential of an energy retrofit, we’re missing a critical opportunity that might not come along again for a long time.  After all, if we deliver an inadequate energy retrofit to a homeowner once, do we really expect that person to have the appetite for another retrofit any time soon?

We need to do it right the first time.  Fortunately, the building science is now there to make that happen.

Zack Semke is Director of Business Development and Chief Evangelist for Hammer & Hand

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The case for a West End historic district

South Park Blocks from Portland Art Museum (photo by Brian Libby)

BY FRED LEESON

Sometimes it takes the eyes of a stranger to see things that local eyes don’t appreciate.

Wendy Rahm isn’t exactly a stranger.  She has lived in the elegant Eliot tower in Portland since 2007, and her knowledge of architecture is largely self-taught.  But in the unlikely event that a West End Historic District shows up some day on the National Register of Historic Places, Rahm may be the one to whom Portland says, “Thank you.”

Rahm is a retired U.S. State Department employee who lived in places such as Paris, London, Berne, Madrid and Algeria during her career.  After she landed at the Eliot, her eyes became attracted to a variety of early-to-mid 20th Century buildings in a parcel that extends roughly from S.W. Park Avenue to the Interstate-405 freeway between Market Street and Burnside.  She started cataloging the buildings and researching to find their architects.

“I just love to look around the area I live in,” she says.  “I love architecture.  The sense of place matters to me.”

Rahm met recently with the AIA’s Historic Resources Committee to probe its members’ knowledge of her list of buildings and to see if she could pin down a unifying theme that might establish a persuasive case for proposing a historic district.  Though peppered with numerous surface parking lots, Rahm’s general boundaries contain numerous significant buildings, mostly brick, ranging from two to eight stories.

Central Library (photo by Brian Libby)

A couple years ago, Portland planners had included much of the West End within a proposed new downtown urban renewal area.  But faced with concerns about urban renewal’s drain on future general fund tax revenue, the city eliminated the West End and aimed its focus instead on the Portland State University vicinity.

“The city has kind of forgotten the district,” said Paul Falsetto, an architect with Carleton Hart Architecture who is chairman of the informal historic resources committee.  “But they won’t for long when development pressure arises again.”

The “district” Rahm conceives has a fascinating range of building ages and designs.  The oldest date to the neighborhood’s 19th Century roots of wooden Italianate and Carpenter Gothic buildings represented by Warren Williams’ endangered – but still standing – first Morris Marks House and the thankfully-preserved Old Church.  The “bookend” to the era time-wise likely would be Glen Stanton’s sleek and cubist YWCA building  (now up for sale) of 1957.

The district also contains works by some of the city’s best architects of their eras.  A.E. Doyle’s office conceived the Multnomah County Library and the Pittock Block;  Joseph Jacobberger is represented by the Mark Spencer (originally the Nortonia Hotel) and what may be one of Portland’s earliest auto-related buildings at SW 10th Avenue and Salmon Street; Pietro Belluschi is well-represented with his Portland Art Museum. 

Several apartment buildings erected in the 1910s, 20s and 30s sit in the district along with numerous churches and fraternal buildings.  Fraternal organizations such as the Elks, International Order of Odd Fellows, Masons and Knights of Pythias have moved on, but their lodges and temples have been adapted to other uses.  Notable churches in the district include First Presbyterian with its remarkable timber-frame interior, the picture-book First Unitarian in Georgian Revival style, and the heavy, intricately-bricked mass of the Sixth Church of Christ Science, among others.

Telegram Building (photo by Brian Libby)

Another significant building with religious roots is the former Beth Israel School, which also served as the Portland home of Albany College before it moved to Palatine Hill and became Lewis & Clark College.

Henry Kunowski, an architectural historian who also teaches at the University of Oregon School of Architecture, described the district as a street-car, mixed-use neighborhood, and the last intact downtown residential neighborhood.

“Does this start to feel like a district?” Falsetto asked rhetorically.   “You might be surprised by the quality of it.”

The city’s high-rise zoning and vacant lots in the area could prove to be major threats.  Falsetto said he is less concerned about high-rise new buildings than he is about preventing demolition of the remaining historic fabric.

Rahm, for her part, dreads the prospect of new high-rises.  “I don’t want more glass towers,” she said.  “They all look the same.  Glass towers are the homogenization of architecture.” 

Given those views, why does Rahm live in the Eliot tower?  “There is a serious disconnect,” she admits. But she likes the layout of her condo.  She likes the public spaces in the building.  She likes the neighborhood.  In short, “It’s fabulous.”

"Build It Green!" tour this Saturday

Hawthorne Park Studio Addition (image courtesy City of Portland)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

This Satuday, September 24, brings the the 10th annual "Build It Green!" homes tour (the exclamation point is theirs), a self-guided tour of 22  remodels and new homes around the Portland metropolitan area that have been designed and constructed with sustainable principles in mind.

The tour, scheduled for 11AM to 5PM, also includes a New Info Fair at Ecohaus (819 SE Taylor, Portland) from 10AM to 2PM with green vendors, demonstrations, food, drink and music. Admission to the tour is $15, or $10 for seniors, students and those taking alternative transportation. Children 13 years and older will be admitted free to the tour, and the Info Fair is free to everyone. You can purchase tickets online here.

Booth Remodel (images courtesy Hammer & Hand)

Among those homes included in the tour are the Booth Remodel, which transformed a 120-year-old Victorian cottage to include on rainwater harvesting, renewable solar energy (PV and domestic water heating) and energy efficiency upgrades.  Upgrades include an air-to-air heat pump, rainwater cisterns for garden irrigation, and high-efficiency windows. Committed to environmental education, Ms. Booth drives a zebra-striped electric car and has a kiosk outside her home describing the structure’s green retrofit story.

Woodhole Duplex (image courtesy City of Portland)

Another project on the tour is the Woodhole Duplex, a formerly dilapidated 1905 rental duplex  rehabilitated and upgraded with an eye towards design simplicity, affordability, accessibility and ease of maintenance.  A tankless water heater supplies both units, as well as separate utility metering, solar tubes, and a wheelchair ramp, roll-under sink, wide doors (aging-in-place amenities) into the lower unit.

Gray-Okulitch ADU (images courtesy Hammer & Hand)

The Gray-Okulitch residence, an accessory dwelling unit designed by Departure Design and built by Hammer & Hand (which, in full disclosure, is a Portland Architecture sponsor), applies Passive House principles with small-living design for a prototype that can be adapted for infill lots. Some of the energy features include energy modeling, airtight construction, insulated foam foundation slab and monolithic insulation (ICFs). This equals simplicity, environmental responsibility and affordability for tenants.

Hawthorne Park Studio Addition (image courtesy Constructive Form Architecture)

There is also the Hawthorne Park Studio Addition, designed by Constructive Form Architecture and built by Citilities Builders. This compact addition is on the site of the former garage for a 1913 home on a 50-by-50-foot corner lot. It is designed as a studio for the homeowners and can be converted into an attached accessory dwelling unit (ADU) at a later date. The rooftop can be accessed from a pair of skylights. Rainwater is retained on-site for irrigation of planned native gardens providing an urban wildlife habitat. The concrete foundation slab is the exposed interior finish surface, and includes hydronic floor heating. Douglas fir tongue-and-groove decking is used for the structural floor of the upper level. Triple-glazed windows are used with walls and roof insulated above code standards. This project is all electric, with no fossil fuels used on-site within the addition.

June Key Delta House (image courtesy City of Portland)

One of the most impressive buildings on this homes tour isn't a home. The June Key Delta House, designed by Nye Architecture, houses the June Key Delta sorority, founded by African American women in 1945. The project renovated a 1967 brownfield building as an opportunity to grow and share sustainable design from grassroots efforts. The first Portland Building to meet Living Building Challenge strictures, the center has office space for non-profits, event space and an exhibit gallery. A community garden is on the adjoining lot.

Columbia Crossing: the freeway Frankenstein lurches closer to life

CRC deck-truss design

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Imagine if Portland's only bridge over the Willamette River was the Marquam, which carries traffic from Interstate 5. If we were going to address the congestion there, would we tear down the Marquam and build a new I-5 bridge, or would it make more sense to build a local bridge such as the Hawthorne or the Morrison?

It's a rhetorical question: of course we'd build a local bridge to complement the I-5 bridge, not simply waste all those billions of dollars to get us only slightly ahead of the traffic for a few years.

Yet this same logic has been completely missing from the Columbia River Crossing debate. A local bridge to Vancouver? Poppycock. Only the CRC can qualify for federal funding, and thus, the insane choice to replace instead of expand bridge options over the Columbia, and doing so at twice the cost, is the only option state leaders are taking seriously.

And now, this Mt. Everest of political and transportational folly is about to coagulate into an unfortunate future. Dr. Frankenstein's monster (actually, Dr. Gregoire-Kitzhaber's) is being lifted out of the castle and up to the roof, preparing for the lightning shock that will lurch it into a living breathing terror of concrete and wasted greenbacks.

Last Wednesday, the Columbia River Crossing reached a milestone in its quest to become the new concrete behemoth overtaking Portland, Vancouver, and the majestic waterway in between. A required environmental impact statement was delivered to the federal government for approval, a final step before it organizers can acquire property, and formally request federal funding.

Approval from the federal highway and transit administrations could come by December, reports Andrea Damewood of the Vancouver Columbian. If so, the project would be on track to break ground in late 2013. Federal  approval of the environmental impact statement also would lock into place the deck-truss-style bridge, the extension of light rail from Portland and seven interchange additions over five miles.

First, though, comes a comical move: CRC project leaders are forming a citizen advisory committee. "The group would provide input on road building issues as well as neighborhood concerns in areas near the new bridge," reports Andy Geigerich of The Business Journal. "The 30-member committee would take shape as the federal government mulls final approval of the project’s environmental impact statement."

Two words: rubber stamp.

The CRC has long sought imput from both citizens and local design experts, only to do the opposite of what is recommended. Its own Urban Design Advisory Group, for example, recommended a cable-stay bridge design and produced evidence of why it would be more popular with the public and better for the environment. Yet Oregon and Washington leaders moved forward with a flat deck-trust-style span instead.

More importantly, one of Portland's most esteemed planners, George Crandall, also offered a common sense option that would cost half the money, makes abundant sense, and has been completely ignored by state leaders pushing the CRC.

A Common Sense Alternative to the CRC from Spencer Boomhower on Vimeo.

The Pacific Northwest has long possessed an identity, a brand, of enlightened dreaming. Oregon is bringing back its "Pacific Wonderland" license plates from two gerations ago. It sponsors marketing slogans like "We Love Dreamers". Yet at the expense of common sense, we are simply chasing federal funding like some stereotype of a welfare mother choosing the easy cash over any sensible long-term solution. In the name of federal funding, our leaders, Democrat and Republican alike, continue to force the idea that anything other than laying down flat concrete with 30 lanes and 50 exits is naive, and that a good idea that doesn't seek a cut from the federal pie is unattainable. No wonder the country is choking on its own debt.

And yet, despite all the evidence that the CRC makes bad financial sense, who are some of its biggest proponents? The business community. "This is an important sign of progress,” Sandra McDonough, president and CEO of the Portland Business Alliance, told The Business Journal. “This project is the right balance of offering alternative ways for people to get to work, improving our economic lifeline to freight movement and making this troublesome part of I-5 safer to travel.”

Of course we need to do all the things that McDonough is talking about. Yet the primary local business group is, in effect saying that spending $3.6 billion on one bridge is better than spending $1.8 billion to have two bridges.

What if we applied this logic elsewhere? Say your spouse just got a new job and needs a way to get to work. Would you trade the family sedan for an $30,000 SUV, or buy a second $15,000 sedan? Imagine the restaurant you own is overflowing with customers on a regular basis. Would you spend $20,000 to expand your existing space, or invest $10,000 in a lease on a second restaurant?

Luckily, there still may be ways to stop this highway-industrial-complex boondoggle. A report released by the Oregon State Treasurer last month stated that overinflated traffic projections have caused the project planners to overestimate its toll revenue by up to $600 million. Several federal representatives and state legislators have expressed reservations about being able to find federal money in the current economic climate of trillion-dollar deficits incurred by war and tax cuts during the 2000s.

It's too bad the Columbia Crossing plan wasn't put together more smartly and sensitively. With the right approach, even though a local bridge to Vancouver would still be a vastly more prudent option, a more compelling, economic design produced by actual designers (not off-the-shelf options from state traffic engineers) could have rallied the community behind the CRC. Instead, in a time of recession in which sensible public works projects could provide jobs and economic boost, we can only look to this bridge project as a post child for bloated, defiant mishandling.

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An authentic restoration of 1891's historic Mock House

The Mock House from 1891 (image courtesy Architetural Heritage Center)

BY FRED LEESON

Given tall trees surrounding it, a motorist driving past can easily miss seeing the three-story Queen Anne-style mansion on North Willamette Boulevard near the University of Portland. 

The former home of Portland pioneer John Mock, however, is worth more than a passing glance –  not only for its quaint Victorian exuberance but also for a hidden role it may have played in creation of the modernistic Northwest Regional style that drew national attention to Portland a couple generations later.

But let’s not get ahead of the story. John Mock walked the Oregon Trail in 1852 at age 13 with his parents, who took out a donation land claim of 317 acres that comprise much of what is known today as the University Park neighborhood, the University of Portland, Mock’s Crest and Mock’s Bottom. The younger Mock went on to earn his fortune in mining, transportation, farming and real estate.

Mock House, present day (image courtesy Architectural Heritage Center)

Despite his economic success, Mock must not have been a presumptuous sort. Until 1889 when fire destroyed it, he had spent 15 years living in the second of two hand-hewn log cabins on his North Portland property. He decided to move upscale – but not outrageously so – in 1891, with his three-story, six-bedroom, 3,900-square foot home.

It is not known who designed the house. It is believed to have been constructed by Julius Koschnitzky, a carpenter and contractor who lived nearby. The cost was reported at the time to be $8,000 to $10,000, no doubt spendy at the time but still far less than mansions being erected on the West Side by wealthy businessmen. A notable element of the original design was a conical-roofed turret projecting from the southeast corner.  For reasons not known  – perhaps rain damage –  the turret was removed not many years after Mock’s death in 1916, old photographs suggest.

The house remained in Mock family ownership into the 1960s. Today the current owner, who seeks no public attention, is working with Bo Sullivan, principal of Arcalus Period Design, on plans for a detailed restoration that is expected to take several years to complete.

The good news is that the historic fabric of the house has not been atrociously damaged during its 120-year life. The kitchen and plumbing were modernized at some point, and a drawing room on the main floor was not-so-artfully carved into a bathroom and an office. The layout of the second floor is substantially unchanged and the third-floor attic was never finished.  Many of the window and door casings, two elaborate fireplaces and elegant woodwork in the main entry remain unchanged.

Mock House's Povey stained glass (photo by Fred Leeson)

Sullivan said the house originally had 18 art-glass windows produced by the notable Povey Brothers firm of Portland. Six remain. Sullivan said the others will be reproduced as the restoration unfolds if photographs or other documents can be found that offer hints as to the original designs. Whether the turret will return has yet to be decided, Sullivan said. Cost and earthquake bracing will be key factors in that decision.

One of Mock’s three daughters, Mary Elizabeth, married a prominent lumberman named John Baptiste Yeon, who built the Yeon Building in downtown Portland and was a key supervisor in construction of the dramatic Columbia River Highway project nearly a century ago. And their son was the late John Benjamin Yeon, an architectural designer who was among the leading proponents of the Northwest Regional Modernism movement.  With its rather cubist geometries, absence of architectural ornament and purity of design, the Northwest style was about as far from the Victorian aesthetic as one could get.

It is said that John Yeon, who spent a lot of time at his grandparents’ Victorian mansion, learned his love of the Oregon landscape from the extensive grounds of the Mock estate in North Portland. Modernists such as Yeon and Pietro Belluschi took advantage of improvements in glass technology to combine indoor and outdoor spaces, and they wanted their woodsy modern creations to ride gently on the terrain rather than stand monumentally atop and apart from the earth like the Victorians. It is said by some that Yeon’s role in the Northwest Modernism movement was motivated by his disdain for the aesthetic of his grandparents’ house where he had spent so much time as a child.

We can leave that issue for Yeon historians to decide. It is enough now to congratulate and encourage the owner of the Mock house in the proposed restoration efforts, and to appreciate the interesting family connection in the history of American architecture.

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

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The Thirties and the Fifties: evaluating design eras after "Allure of the Automobile"

1961 Aston Martin (image courtesy Portland Art Museum)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Yesterday after visiting the "Allure of the Automobile" exhibit at the Portland Art Museum, my first reaction - other than drooling all over the exquisitely gorgeous 1961 Aston Martin - was that most all of the cars in the exhibit seemed to come from two decades: the 1930s and the 1950s. In turn, it got me wondering if these were particularly strong eras for design beyond just automobiles. And if so, what evidence for or against could we find in Portland?

"Allure of the Automobile" is organized into four main categories, European and American cars before World War II, and those afterward. Yet there is only one car from the 1940s in the exhibit, a 1948 Tucker. And there are only two cars from the 1960s, and both are from 1961, making them (like the Tucker) all but part of the '50s: the aforementioned Aston, which the James Bond movie Goldfinger made especially popular, and a 1961 Ferrari 250 (seen in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off). To an extent, these are just curatorial choices. Maybe the person choosing simply liked cars from the '30s and '50s. Yet I think there's something more at work.

Top: 1937 Hispano-Suiza "Xenia", Bottom: 1937 Talbot-Lago (images courtesy PAM)

The 1930s may be remembered most for The Great Depression, but this was also a time of Art Deco, with its stylish blending of modern, neo-classical, cubism and other influences. This period gave birth to architectural icons like the Chrysler Building in New York, and it can be seen in some of the great cars in "Allure of the Automobile", like the 1937 Hispano-Suiza H-6C “Xenia” Coupe, the 1933 Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow, and the 1937 Talbot-Lago coupe.

Portland doesn't have a whole lot of Art Deco architecture. But it can be seen here and there in buildings like the Coca Cola Syrup Factory near Southeast 28th & Couch. Or the Williams & Company building from 1936, along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Williams & Company building, Portland (image courtesy Wikipedia Commons)

If one were to chart which decades birthed the most architecture in Portland, it would be not the 1930s or the 1950s. Perusing Bart King's Architectural Guidebook to Portland, for example, or Wiliam Hawkins' Classic Houses of Portland: 1850-1950, it's decades like the 1890s, 1910s and surrounding decades in which so many buildings still standing in the central city today were created: the Hotel Vintage Plaza (Frederick Manson White) in 1894, the Meier & Frank building (AE Doyle) in 1909, Central Library (Doyle) in 1913, the Galleria (Doyle) in 1910, the Benson Hotel (Doyle) in 1912,  the Morgan Building (Doyle) and University Club (Whitehouse & Fouilhoux) in 1913

Yet Portland certainly isn't without important buidings from the 1930s. Interestingly, the year that has more automobiles than any other in the Portland Art Museum Exhibit, 1937, was also the year Portland's most acclaimed work of residential architecture was completed, the Watzek House by John Yeon, which was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and only the second building after Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places before meeting the traditional 50-year threshold.

Watzek House (photos by Brian Libby)

In addition to 1937's Watzek, two landmark designs by Portland's most aclaimed architect, Pietro Belluschi, also came within a year: the Sutor House (which, like the Watzek, was recently included in Portland Monthly's list of the 10 greatest Portland houses) and the Portland Art Museum, both from 1938.

The 1930s also brought one of Portland's most handsome public buildings, one that has unfortunately been under-utilized over the past 13 years: the Gus Solomon US Courthouse (designed by Whitehouse & Associates). Ever since the Hatfield US Courthouse was built in 1997, the Solomon has seen only a trickle of workers move in and out of its doors. We need to do a better job of finding new life for this gorgeous old landmark.

Solomon US Courthouse (photos by Brian Libby)

Beyond architecture, Portland's greatest bridge also came from the early 1930s: The St. Johns Bridge from 1931, with its gorgeous gothic cathedral-like towers and elegant cable-suspension span, once the largest bridge of its type in the world. Somehow for me, the St. Johns Bridge, like the Watzek House, represents the essence of 1930s design, be it Art Deco or otherwise: a meeting point between some of the classic architectural styles of the past and the modernism that was to come.

St. Johns Bridge (photo by Brian Libby)

Then there is the 1950s, which is the automobile era I gravitated to most in the exhibit; these cars may not have been as boldly sculptural as the cars from the 1930s, but having grown up in the 1970s (not to mention being the child of Baby Boomers), I have such vivid memories of these cars being some of the first designs to capture my imagination. It's worth noting as well that, although here in Portland we tend to withhold romantic love for automobiles because the focus is on the pedestrian and on mass transit, those like myself who grew up in small towns (McMinnville for me) cars were often the first designed objects we were introduced to other than buildings.

In "Allure of the Automobile", the 1950s and early '60s are well represented with not only the aforementioned Aston Martin and Ferrari, but a 1957 Jaguar XK-SS Roadster, formerly owned by Steve McQueen; a 1955 Mercedes-Benz roadster; a 1953 Porsche 550, and a 1959 Corvette Stingray.

Jaguar, Corvette and Porsche models from "Allure" (images courtesy PAM)

So what did this great time of automobiles, the 1950s and early '60s, produce for architecture in Portland? It really comes down to two firms, one of which gave way to the other: Pietro Belluschi and Skidmore, Owings, Merrill. Belluschi's most significant project from a more than 50-year career came in 1947, but I still equate it with this 1950s period because it was the first office building in the world with a glass-and-aluminum curtain wall. It is a forerunner of all the hundreds if not thousands of glass office towers that came afterward.

Equitable (now Commonwealth) Buiding (photo by Brian Libby)

But in 1951, Belluschi became dean of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's architecture school, and sold his Portland firm to the Chicago/New York-based mega firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which more than any firm in the United States led the way in glass-box style skyscrapers of the mid-20th century, from Lever House in New York to the John Hancock and Sears Towers in Chicago.

SOM's best office building in Portland came at the end of this '50s to early '60s period covered in "Allure of the Automobile": the Standard Insurance Building from 1963. It's glassy and angular lik the Equitable, but distinguishes itself with a faint curve to its horizontal window bands, and a faintly golden tint to its windows.

Standard Insurance Building, Portland (photo by Brian Libby)

But of course the firm's other major building from this period is not an office building but an arena: Memorial Coliseum.

While I was involved with the Friends of Memorial Coliseum over the past two years advocating for the arena to be saved from demolition and restored, we would often talk of the special era of design from which it came. In fact, some presentations, such as one architect Stuart Emmons and I made to Mayor Adams' Rose Quarter Stakeholder Advisory Committe, included a photo of a 1960 Corvette, just one year different from the '59 model included in "Allure of the Automobile".

Memorial Coliseum (photo by Brian Libby)

The connecting thread, at least for me, is an optimistic embrace of the future in these designs. The Corvette in the Portland Art Museum show looks a lot like the flying saucers populating science fition movies and comics of the time, not as kitsch but as part of a sense that the world, after seven years of war, could and should reinvent itself. The post World-War II era, particularly the 1950s, also saw the introduction of new materials and technologies, from lightweight metals to jet engines, that influenced other design disciplines. In its symmetrical composition of glass and steel, Memorial Coliseum has the DNA of an era that created not only the Corvette but the NASA rocket.

It's not to say that the 1930s or 1950s represent the best of Portland buildings, or the most prolific. But whether it's how the '30s act as a bridge between old and modern design languages, or how the '50s and early '60s look to the future, "The Allure of The Automobile" does precisely what such broadly-appealing traveling museum exhibits should do: awaken one not only to the times and places from whence that on view came, but also to how these currents touch pieces of our everyday environments.

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Knowing your skyline: 1907's Wells Fargo Building

Wells Fargo buiding (photos by Bradley Maule)

BY BRADLEY MAULE

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first in a series by Bradley Maule on buildings that have held the distinction of being the tallest in Portland. Maule is starting in 1907 with the 12-story Wells Fargo Building which, as the first tall building with a steel frame, is considered Portland's first skyscraper. It is, of course, not to be confused with Wells Fargo Center, the 41-story tower that will bookend the other side of this series.

At the turn of the 20th century, Wells Fargo & Company was well on its way to being the global mega-bank it is today. They had bank branches in Asia, Europe and South America, and their business operations and board members had overlap with American Express, Southern Pacific Railroad, Levi Strauss and other household corporations. By 1907, when the building opened, the company had over 100 branches in Oregon, and the Lewis & Clark Exposition put Portland on the national stage.

The Sunday Oregonian described it thusly on June 3, 1906: “The Wells-Fargo building, for which a permit was taken out this week, is a type of the office structures which are to grace Portland streets hereafter. This structure is specified in the permit as costing $320,000. The expenditure of the large amount represented in the cost of this structure by Wells Fargo & Co. shows the faith which outside business men have in the future of Portland."

Wells Fargo building (photos by Bradley Maule)

Benjamin Wistar Morris Harris, a native Portlander who studied architecture at Columbia University in New York and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, was tapped for the design. Morris went on to establish himself in New York with conceptual plans for Rockefeller Center, interior designs for the Queen Mary, and the Standard & Poor Building, whose arcade entrance faces the famous bull sculpture on the Bowling Green in lower Manhattan.

Morris' concept for the Wells Fargo Building is a colorful breed of circa-1906 vogue. The two-story base of the building features a granite plinth with limestone trim and Tuscan columns at the entrance, and the middle section's brickwork has a vertical pattern of diamonds with crosses inside, but its most notable attribute is its terra cotta. The building's crown, upper pilasters, keystones and various motif details (such as green Xs and blue- white waves just above the street level) accent the tan structure with vibrant color, especially at the top, where "WELLS" and "FARGO" are spelled out across the entablature on the Sixth Street and Oak Street sides, respectively.

Wells Fargo building (photos by Bradley Maule)

US National Bank bought the building in 1922, a complement to A.E. Doyle's US National Bank building next door, which opened six years earlier. You can still read "US NATIONAL BANK BLDG" above the "WELLS FARGO BUILDING" arched entrance. These are each, naturally, just above the signs for IronStone Bank, the institution currently occupying the ground floor. US National Bank sold the building in 1986, by which time the company was known as US Bancorp, and they instead preferred their new, 43-story, big pink tower kitty-corner across the street.

Both Morris' Wells Fargo Building and Doyle's US National Bank Building entered the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. And while Doyle's bank might be considered more grand, with its opulent lobby inside and soaring Corinthian columns and Fairbanks sculptures outside, its neighbor will always be the one carrying the superlative distinction: Portland's first skyscraper, the Wells Fargo Building.

Wells Fargo building (photos by Bradley Maule)

Bradley Maule is a photographer whose work has been published by SkyscraperPage.com and published his own PhillySkyline.com before moving to Portland in 2009. His new web site is at PortlandUrbanResource.com.

Hawthorne and Morrison, ready for their close-up: Tim DuRoche on "The Hidden Life of Bridges" at TBA Fest

From "The Hidden Life of Bridges" (courtesy PICA)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

From 9:00 pm to 11:00 pm on September 8-10 as part of the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art's annual Time-Based Art Festival (a.k.a. "TBA"), the Hawthorne and Morrison Bridges are serving a visual and auditory inspiration for an art project by Tim DuRoche and Ed Purver. “The Hidden Life of Bridges” will feature video projections (including profiles of some of the workers involved) onto the Morrison and audio recordings of sounds generated by people moving over the bridges. Audio composition can be heard from the sidewalk of the Hawthorne Bridge from 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM every day from September 10th through October 9th. The audio can also be heard on the phone by dialing 503.713.5852, and the projections can also be viewed from Tom McCall Waterfront Park and the Eastbank Esplanade. Here's a video preview:

 

Recently Tim DuRoche answered questions via email about the exhibit:

I read that part of your inspiration came from routinely came from walking over the Hawthorne Bridge to work. Can you talk a little about your collective impression as you take that walk and what you see? Obviously you've got the river, the skyline (such as it is), the bridge itself, but I'd love to hear your take on that as a kind of everyday theatrical experience.

For a number of years, walking has been my major form of transport (that and Trimet), it’s one of Portland’s premiums—that ability to get from one side of the river to NE or SE easily. If you walk enough across the Hawthorne you can’t help but notice the hum of the bridge and experience the city in an intimately nested sort of way—part of that has to do with the fact the bridge is closer to the water than any of the other bridges and you really see the bowl of the hills, downtown and the river banks hugging the bridge.

From "The Hidden Life of Bridges" (courtesy PICA)

This is my fourth project sited along the river (the first was another RACC-sponsored project, a site-specific dance with Cydney Wilkes in 2004 located just under the Marquam Bridge; the next was a performance work with spoken word artist Lisa Radon along two sides of the river, inspired by Morse code and semaphore, as part of Gallery Homeland’s Scratching the Surface show in 2006; in 2007 I was one of the artists involved in month-long art/place-making projects as part of Linda K. Johnson’s South Waterfront Artist in Residence program; and for the  2008 edition of Gallery Homeland’s Scratching the Surface exhibition,  I made a sound installation on the East Bank Esplanade that dealt with the question that Urban Greenspaces’ Mike Houck says is his most frequently fielded question: “When will we be able to swim in the Willamette again.”

With all of my public work I’m really interested in the notion of the city as a large-scale structured improvisation—all around us are minimal structures that allow for maximal flexibility and varying degrees of discovery, joy and wonder…if we leave ourselves open to them.  For me, walking is a form of meditation –you’re simply taking in and allowing sensation, sight, sound to pass through you.  With both the SoWa project and this project I was very inspired by a piece of Whitman’s Song of Myself. In many ways it’s a great mantra for anyone interested in found sound or appreciating the ebb and flow of daily flow in an urban environment:

“Now I will do nothing but listen,

To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it.

… I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following,

Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the day and night

…I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera,

Ah this indeed is music--this suits me.”

Being a musician and DJ, can you describe the kind of rhythmic musicality of the sounds one hears from these bridges? Whom might some of your musical or sound-artist inspirations been and what was it about Ed Purver that you thought would be right for this? Or vice versa?

Hidden Life of Bridges isn’t about rhythm per se– which I think you’re asking about because I’m a drummer. More and more I’m interested (in both my sound work and as a drummer) in suspension, sustain, and the notion of slowing time. Drumming and rhythm are very concerned with attack and decay, but if we begin to listen to the sounds around us, the way we encounter sounds like passing traffic, thrum of heavy machinery, birds flying past, is more nuanced than that.

The Hawthorne has incredible resonance and I wanted others to be able to (instead of just going from point A to point B) to perhaps consider stopping or slowing time to discover and appreciate the everyday music that the bridge manifests. The real impetus was to take the “choral” quality of the Hawthorne’s metal road-deck and “reharmonize” both figuratively and literally the bridge –so passersby might experience in a new way the bridge.  Running the contact microphones that are under the road through audio effects processing (developed with the deft contributions of electronics programming/music-whiz Doug Theriault ) allowed me to build specific “chords,” create pockets of sustain and harmony, humanize and heighten the musicality of the existing structure. So it’s in effect less about rhythm than it is about trying to “give voice” to the bridge and hear its song.

From "The Hidden Life of Bridges" (courtesy PICA)

The “hidden” lives of the bridges is about that, but it’s also about the miraculous old-school technology of bridge-building- the fact that a 101-year old vertical lift-span bridge is still doing its daily dance; and by incorporating the stories and voices of the engineers, operators, mechanics, maintenance workers, and inspectors who work these bridges into the “composition” it’s really about revealing the important arterial function and deeper meaning these structures have in our lives.

I’m not the first one to stick a mic on a bridge –there have been many, many projects in this vein. Bill Fontana’s project with the Tate Modern is one that springs to mind; the late sound artist Max Neuhaus’ work is another. I’ve also really enjoyed the “deep listening” approach to site and sound that artists like Alvin Curran and Pauline Oliveros deploy. Janet Cardiff’s audio tours are another- a great form of urban “juxtaportation.” I think however that what makes this project different from similar hey-let’s-put-a-contact-mic-on-a-bridge projects is it’s less about pure phonography or soundscape and is interested in the bridges as narrative, as a vehicle for “creative nonfiction”: one part audio-visual installation,  one part interpretive public education.

From "The Hidden Life of Bridges" (courtesy PICA)

I came into this project not in the way you’d think—considering that it’s in my own backyard. Ed Purver approached me about doing it through one of those small-world exchanges that seem to happen more and more. I’d certainly seen the RFP for projects with the bridges through RACC and Multnomah County’s Intersections program (a unique artist-in-residence/public art series that animates the fulcrum of “the art of work/the work of art”), but at the time didn’t think I had the wherewithal to put anything together. Ed, who’s based in Brooklyn, had sent an email to some friends/colleagues asking if anyone knew a sound artist in Portland and my friend Aaron Landsman (who’s a member of Elevator Repair Service, who performed their “Gatz” at TBA some years back) said, “I don’t, but my friend Tim seems to know everyone in Portland and probably does.” I proceeded to give Ed names of every sound artist in town (Ethan Rose, Heather Perkins, Seth Nehil, etc.) except myself, and as an afterthought sent him links to some of my projects.  As it turned out both Ed and I share a deep interest in the public realm and how (through media or sound) one might awaken in people a new found sense of wonder in structures and spaces they generally encounter inattentively.

What are some of your favorite bridges in Portland, in Oregon, or around the world? Have they always been an area of interest to you?

I love the Hawthorne Bridge—having now spent hours and hours up on the catwalk, underneath it, in the middle of it as it ascends the skyline—I don’t think I’ll ever tire of looking at it and experiencing it.  I’ve always loved the St. Johns Bridge—it would be another wonderful bridge for a project—for a couple of reasons. One is that, as Miguel Rosales pointed out when he was trying to design a beautiful bridge for the new Milwaukie Light Rail line (before it was oatmealed by “value engineering”), the life under the St. Johns is as important as the activity and energy of life that occurs up above. Also with its cabling, one could engage accelerometers (as Fontana did at the Tate Modern) and really investigate the aeolian harp-like sonority of the bridge in a cool way. My other favorite bridge is easily the Brooklyn Bridge—you can’t argue with the lore, the vista or Hart Crane. It’s pure poetry.

 

Opsis Architecture & Ellerbe Becket awarded commision to renovate Memorial Coliseum

Memorial Coliseum (photo by Matthew Ginn)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Today the Portland Development Commission announced the city's selection of architects for the renovation of Memorial Coliseum. A team led by Portland firm Opsis Architecture and Mineappolis-based Ellerbe Becket won the job over the sole other team, Portland's BOORA and Kansas City's Populous (formerly known as HOK).

Many believed that BOORA and Populous had the inside track because BOORA performed feasibility-study work for PDC on the Coliseum in the past, assessing what work needed to be done, which in turn fed the Request For Proposals the agency issued for the job. Populous has also designed or co-designed an incredible array of stadiums and arenas around the world, such as the new Yankee Stadium, the new Wembley Stadium in London (with Norman Foster), Stadium Australia in Sydney (home of the 2000 Olympics), Wimbledon Centre Court, Minneapolis's Target Field, San Francisco's AT&T Park, Chicago's United Center arena, Cleveland Browns Stadium, Pittsburgh's Heinz Field, Houston's Reliant Stadium, and Arsenal's Emirates Stadium in London.

However, the one firm in America with arguably as much experience as Populous with stadiums and arenas is Ellerbe Becket. And unlike Populous, Ellerbe has numerous previous projects in Oregon. They were the architect of PGE Park's transformation into Jeld-Wen Field, the co-designer of Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene, which opened earlier this year, as well as the architect for Autzen Stadium's expansion in 2002. And while Opsis didn't have BOORA's incumbency as the competing local firm, or even BOORA's experience with large-scale public buildings, the Opsis-Ellerbe team also included Portland architect Peter Meijer, who wrote the National Register listing for the Coliseum, bringing matchless historical knowledge. Another factor may have been passion of co-founding principal James Meyer.

"I have a John Storrs house on the coast, in Neakhanie, built in 1960, The kind of character and quality, what these guys were doing in 1960 with the Colisem is pretty breathtaking," Meyer said in a phone interview this morning. "I’ll always take incumbency. It’s a bit of a gift. But it’s kind of what you do with it. As I said in the RFP interview, I’m naïve. I’m not going to believe they won’t choose what’s right for the city and the community. With that in mind, I set the bar really high. Ellerbe, holey moley. That was the first phone call I made. It’s the Coliseum, for criminy sake. I think we were able to think fast. You want to come at this thing with a really clean but yet compelling plan."

Fast is an operative word. The deadline for firms to respond to PDC's proposal came only about two weeks after it was issued. For many PDC projects, this time frame is actually the norm. But for a project with the scale, budget and legacy of Memorial Coliseum, the fact that only two teams submitted proposals may be an indication that the window of opportunity was too small. One local architect, for example, sought to form a team with legendary London architect Norman Foster, but Foster's office declined because they didn't feel there was enough time to prepare a design proposal.

Why the short time frame? "The project is very well scoped already and moving directly into schematic design," explained  Kevin Brake of the Development Commission. Even more importantly, he added, the start of the Portland Winter Hawks' season in October of next year "is driving a very tight timeline, and if we miss the full closure construction window (June-October), we lose a year and the cost will go up." Construction is expected to begin in Spring of 2012 and complete in late summer.

The Opsis-Ellerbe-Meijer design started with the bowl. "We had three big opportunities. There’s little stuff all over the place. The quick hits we had were really the conceptualization of this bowl being porous. The top of the seating area is open, but we also wanted more concourse interface. That’s part of the magic of it: where you’re porous and how you enter. As you enter the bowl, it’s your visibility connection." Look for entries to the seating bowl, Meyer explained, to possibly be wider. The design also proposes eliminating the second glass wall as one enters the buiding.

The city-issued RFP treated the Coliseum project within its four walls to comprise the job, with the renovation of the outdoor sunken memorials area treated as a separate project. But the winning design proposal also addressed this area. "The scope of work doesn’t get you past the window wall, but we want to have a long-term plan," Meyer adds. His team proposes removing the barrier between the two sides of the memorial plaza. Meyer also hopes the Opsis-Ellerbe team will be ultimatley able to address the broader ground-level plaza between the Coliseum and the Rose Garden. "You think about the history of Portland and open space: there’s recent stuff like Jamison square, there's also Pioneer Courthouse Square and the Halprin Fountains. The Coliseum plaza is small but it’s right sized to do something special like that."

"It was super comfortable and super complimentary," Meyer says of the fastracked design process. "We felt there we had the expertise but also the culture: the listening ability. And when you look at the Coliseum, it's an opportunity-rich environment in terms of the physical space. This place is gorgeous.  There’s a ton of nuance in there. But you also have to understand that with a legacy building like this, a lot of those emotive aspecs are as important as anything."

Apps and evolution: assessing how the city works

Screen shot of Portland Smarter Cities app (courtesy IBM)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

In Wednesday's New York Times, Mark Oppenheimer reviews a new book about applying evolutionary biology thinking and techniques to a small city: Binghamton, New York.

In "The Neighborhood Project," author and evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson describes his efforts and those of colleagues at Binghamton University to use evolutionary theory, along with data collection, to improve the quality of life in this economically challenged area. "The Project’s activities included surveys of students, old people and members of religious groups; attempts to empower neighborhood activists; and competitions to design new parks for vacant lots," Oppenheimer reports.

For example, schoolchildren were given a Development Assessment Profile, which measures sociability, citizenship skills and the conditions that promote them. The project then connected the most trusting, socially-inclined students with a map of the city to see which neighborhoods, as Oppenheimer adds, "seemed to be breeding the most social capital."

“If every neighborhood had exactly the same mix” of “knaves and solid citizens,” Mr. Wilson writes, “then the..map of the city would look like a flat plain. Instead, it looked like the Himalayas.”

Most of the tools we use to measure societal behavior are relatively crude and are oriented towards crime or income levels. In addition, many of the conclusions we draw about which neighborhoods are safe, are entertaining or possess other qualities are based on stereotypes. Yet some obvious indicators were surprisingly accurate.

For example, Wilson and his team canvassed Binghamton neighborhoods on Halloween and Christmas to see which ones had the most most decorative lights. “On a clear night,” Wilson writes, “I could probably measure it from an aerial photograph: the more nurturing neighborhoods actually glowed more brightly during the holiday season.”

The central idea here, the one that makes this relevant for Portland as much as Binghamton, is that any habitat, be it of animals or humans, can survive and flourish when one sees its framework and interrelationships. Wilson, Oppenheimer writes, intends for his data to help the city address issues from prenatal and early-childhood care to high school graduation rates to stress-related diseases and more.

Reading the article, it reminded me of a similar, if more technical than social, framework study currently underway in a partnership between the City of Portland and IBM. The tech company often known as "Big Blue" is fashioning what it calls an "app" but is actually a complex interactive model and simulation containing 3,000 equations to measure and identify relationships among the city's economy, housing, education, public safety, transportation, healthcare, utilities and government services. "The resulting computer simulation," IBM explains on its website, "allowed Portland's leaders to see how city systems work together, and in turn identify opportunities to become a smarter city." The model was built to support the development of metrics for the Portland Plan, the City's roadmap for the next 25 years.

Today our society has become more sophisticated than ever at turning what seem to be elusive, ephemeral bits of social data and arranging them into equations that determine what advertisements to place on our Facebook pages and Google searches. Just a tree's leaf reveals a pattern of veins identical to the pattern of branches emanating from the tree itself (otherwise known as fractal geometry), contemporary technology is awakening us to some of the interconnections amongst different segments of communites, professions, governments and cultures that we always intuitively knew existed but never could completely quantify. That a progressive city like Portland would be the first to sign up for IBM's Smarter Cities initiative is no surprise.

Even so, we must be minfdful not to place to much importance on the results. As any pollster knows, answers often vary according to questions and assumptions. As Greg Lindsay writes in a recent Fast Company article about the IBM-Portland collaboration, not every problem or issue can be measured. For example, the program finds Corvallis to be one of the most innovative cities in America. But that's probably because Hewlett Packard’s Advanced Products Division is based there, and produces many patents. In the IBM algorhythm, patents equal innovation. But is this city of 55,000 people and almost as many fast-food franchises, one centered around a university that US News & World Report has routinely ranked in the lower tiers of America's higher education system, really innovative in the broader sense?

"West’s conclusions are only as good as the data and the models (patents equal innovation) he has to work with," Lindsay writes. Even so, he adds, "This problem--if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it--combined with the impulse to improve cities by models, is driving both IBM’s 'smarter city' strategy and the nascent 'urban systems' movement, which seek to apply complexity science to cities."

Luckily the city is modest in its goals, seeking not so much one chart highlighting every connection perfectly, but to “shine a light on the biggest drivers of change,” said Joe Zehnder, the city’s chief planner, in Lindsay's article. The biggest area of application is sustainability, because of the city’s commitment to a 40 percent decrease in carbon emissions by 2030. This necessitates fewer people in cars, and more walking and biking. This, however - as common sense tells us and the IBM program makes more definitive - can lead to faling obesity rates and, in turn, better overall health.  Even so, Zehnder cautions, “the whole act of choosing variables is a political one, a value-laden one.”

What we're ultimately talking about, be it in IBM's data or amongst the populace, is a kind of awareness. And to assist that effort, the nonprofit Dill Pickle Club may be as useful as Big Blue. Starting this Saturday and continuing through November are six ours examining public
policy in the City of Portland, in order to foster civic engagement in a fun, interactive learning environment while providing a behind-the-scenes exploration of the vital functions that enable our city to operate.

The first such tour, slated for tomorrow (September 3) is called "Where Does Water Come From?" and is a daylong tour of the city's water supply including everything from the Bull Run watershed to the Bull Run vodka distillery. Upcoming tours include "How Is Justice Served?" on October 7, "How Is The City Planned?" on September 18, "How Is News Made" on October 28, "Where Does The Garbage Go?" on November 4, and "How Does The River Work?" on November 19. In each cse, a variety of experts will be along for the ride to answer questions and explain what they do. It's not going to give any one visitor a comprehensive sense of the overall urban system and ecology in Portland, yet each person will have an arguably more nuanced, human sense then Big Blue, for all the impressiveness of its algorhythms, can still provide. After all, that's how we've evolved.