Portland Architecture

HPLO seeks seismic safeguards for thousands of historic brick buildings

Gilbert Building, downtown Portland (photo by Brian Libby)

BY FRED LEESON

Architects and builders gave no thought to earthquakes in the nineteenth and much of the 20^th centuries when they built literally thousands of brick buildings across Oregon. 

Now that scientists have learned about tectonic plates under the Pacific Ocean and the likelihood of major earthquakes affecting heavily populated areas of Oregon, those unreinforced masonry structures pose a serious risk to students, residents, office workers and shoppers who use them. 

Besides harm to human life, destruction of those buildings would wipe out numerous historic landmarks, the hearts of historic business districts, thousands of low-rent housing units, dozens of schools and the vintage architectural fabric that gives us  a sense of place and human continuity.

Can these buildings be “saved” in advance?  How to do it?  What tools and incentives are needed to upgrade more than 4,800 unreinforced masonry buildings (likely a low estimate) in Oregon?

The Historic Preservation League of Oregon, a statewide preservation advocacy organization, has spent the last year probing those questions and looking for potential answers.  “Resilient Masonry Buildings,” the HPLO’s special report (available at historicpreservationleague.org)  suggests eight potential steps, ranging from more complete inventories to revised building codes and financial incentives.

“We didn’t solve all the problems,” says Brandon Spencer-Hartle, the HPLO’s field representative who wrote the report after meeting with some 250 interested parties in four locations around the state.  “This is just a starting point.  We heard a lot of ideas out there.”

Spencer-Hartle said the study looked at more than just seismic issues.  He said difficulties with Americans with Disability Act access and internal elevators make many older brick buildings dysfunctional on their upper floors.

The study attempted to get a grasp on the number of Oregon buildings erected with unreinforced masonry.  Only Portland and Medford have done inventories, and even those numbers may be suspect.  “Without an engineer, it’s hard to determine what is unreinforced masonry and what isn’t,” said Natalie Perrin, a preservationist who worked on the report.  Regardless of the number, “It’s a massive amount of square feet,” she said.

An intriguing suggestion raised in the report is creation of a voluntary, standardized ranking system for seismic bracing that would let tenants and prospective building users know how resilient an improved  building is.  It would be akin to the LEED ranking system for energy and environmental design.  “Recognizable plaques placed on the exterior of qualifying buildings would boost public awareness, activate market demand and generate better pay-back for investments in retrofitting,” the report states. Spencer-Hartle said such a rating system is being studied in Northern California, another high-risk earthquake region.

Earthquake bracing is expensive work, especially for being an “invisible” improvement.  The HPLO report suggests that new financial incentives are needed to assist building owners, including state, local and federal possibilities.  “If it is a public good,” Spencer-Hartle says, “how should public money be directed to preservation?”

One idea is trying to leverage federal FEMA funding – the idea being that repairs now will reduce damage in a future emergency.  Spencer-Hartle said Oregon needs to revisit state incentives.   At present, owners of designated landmarks qualify for  10-year property tax abatements, with the idea being  that money saved on taxes is directed to preservation needs.  Spencer-Hartle said the 10-year tax break is inadequate for financing large-scale preservation projects.

Spencer-Hartle said the HPLO will convene meetings in 2013 aimed at exploring rehabilitation incentives in greater detail.  In the meantime, the clock is ticking for Oregon’s unreinforced masonry buildings.

 

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City Council to vote on Memorial Coliseum restoration Thursday

Memorial Coliseum (photo by Julius Schulman, from Modernism Rediscovered)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

It's a vote that has been more than three years in the making, but will demonstrate our city's values for generations to come. This Thursday, City Council will vote on the proposed $31 million deal to restore Memorial Coliseum, the one-of-a-kind arena at the heart of a transforming Rose Quarter district.

The vote had been expected more than a year ago, with City Council already ruling on numerous occasions to go forward with negotiations and designs. But because of the extremely intricate and sensitive deal structure, which involves the Trail Blazers' Portland Arena Management and an extension of that agency's running of both arenas (even though one is privately owned and one public), and which involves urban renewal dollars from numerous sources, the decision by Council is only coming now.

Under the proposed deal, the Portland Development Commission would be responsible for $17.1 million the Coliseum and the Winterhawks hockey team would contribute $10 million. PDC would also loan the city $4.4 million, to be repaid over 20 years from ticket-tax and parking revenues.

In other words, the city is receiving $10 million in free renovations, and all we have to do is spend $17 million. It's not to say $17 million isn't a lot of money, but given that the Coliseum is a profitable arena - even hosting more events some years than the Rose Garden next door - that is an investment in making more money. The two-arena configuration also helps the Rose Quarter generate more revenue than it would with one arena.

What's more, there is a huge amount of untapped revenue sitting in the Rose Quarter that can help further renovate the district and the arena. The Coliseum in particular is surrounded by asphalt and concrete, land the city can sell the development rights to without compromising the parking revenue of the two buildings' shared parking garages. Simply build over the parking with high-density, mixed-use buildings and there are millions to be made. That can act as leverage for restoring and maintaining the Coliseum. The Coliseum also is the only arena or auditorium in Portland of that size, about 6,000-8,000 (after the restoration). If we don't restore the Coliseum, we'll eventually need to build a new facility to match that audience size. And it would cost much more than $17.1 million.

And with a new streetcar line along the Rose Quarter's northern edge, the value of this land is starting to rise exponentially. We've already seen this happen in the Pearl District. The city needs to stop worrying about the $17.1 million contribution to the Coliseum and think about the money to be made in enabling development along Broadway.

Bottom line: the Coliseum is a net money maker in the long run, even though its deferred maintenance is a short-term drain.

And when you add the developable riverfront property along the Rose Quarter's western edge, the value of this broader parcel becomes even greater. After all, how can we debate whether to keep a world-renowned, money-making arena when we're using exceptionally valuable riverfront central-city land as a surface parking lot? What are we, Phoenix? Las Vegas?

The Rose Quarter should be Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square moment: a chance to reshape the center of the city with high-density, pedestrian-friendly, sustainable development. We should be dreaming about how this primary east-side transit center can be filled with hotels, offices, retail and residences, a win-win for everyone. Instead, we're like a cat that turns from grooming its coat to eating its fur off. We worry about restoring a great arena with a busy, lucrative schedule at bargain basement prices instead of how that restoration can unleash millions in private development.

Brian Libby's "Why Memorial Coliseum Matters" City Club talk, 2011.

 

By now I've written countless times about Memorial Coliseum's special architecture. But in case you're reading about this for the first time, keep in mind: this is more or less the only major arena in the world with a 360-degree view to the outside. Stand in the Coliseum's seating bowl and you can see the entire downtown skyline and the Willamette River. But that view has been blocked away with a fabric black curtain for most of the building's history in order to make it like any other arena. As it happens, though, unique design has tremendous economic value. If we open the curtain for good, we can give Memorial Coliseum an all new identity based on the ability to have indoor events that feel like they're outside: something perfect for our rainy climate.

Memorial Coliseum is the equivalent of four city blocks in size, but it's standing on just four columns. It was completed in 1960, embodying the era of JFK, NASA and post-war optimism in America. It was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, one of the great American architecture firms of the 20th century, responsible for icons like the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Burj Kalifa tower in Dubai (currently the world's tallest building), and the new World Trade Center in New York. Throughout the United States and the world, this era of modern architecture has come to be celebrated for its simple fusion of glass, steel and concrete.

Memorial Coliseum gives Portland the kind of architectural history it otherwise largely lacks compared to older cities of the eastern United States and of Europe. Our city once destroyed much of its heritage by tearing down most of its waterfront cast-iron architecture of the early 20th century, something that has cost us economically as well as culturally, as such historic districts have shown their value to succeeding generations. With the City Council's approval of Memorial Coliseum's restoration on Thursday, we can demonstrate that Portland now appreciates and protects its most special places.

In recent decades, Portland has faced an ultimatum for some of its most cherished and architecturally significant buildings, such as City Hall and Central Library. In those cases, the city has restored rather than replaced, a decision no one argues today. Why would we do differently for a building with even more international historic architectural value in Memorial Coliseum? It doesn't have the detailed exterior facade of either of those old buildings because it's from the midcentury-modern era, defined by open space, light, volume and streamlined style. Yet Memorial Coliseum is the most architecturally significant building in Portland. You don't have to be a fan of modernism to recognize that it's now officially historic.

Rose Parade at Memorial Coliseum, 2010 (photo by Jeremy Bitterman)

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, the American Institute of Architects, and the US Green Building Council have all sent letters to Mayor Adams and Council expressing support for Memorial Coliseum's restoration.

Memorial Coliseum is also a veterans memorial that the war veterans of Oregon have rallied to protect. (It's now officially called Veterans Memorial Coliseum.) They recognize that it's not just the memorial plaques outside the building that honor veterans: it's the whole building that does so, with the arena's unmatched openness to the outside sunlight symbolizing an inoculation against the terrors of World War II. When I work to support Memorial Coliseum's survival, for example, it's with the support of my 91-year-old grandfather, a WWII vet who landed at Normandy as part of the D-Day invasion and fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

Of course there are, at first glance, reasons to be skeptical of the Coliseum plan. It's being voted on during a lame-duck City Council session. It devotes scarce city dollars to an arena when we already have a newer one next door. But the more one looks at the blend of economic, historical and cultural factors swirling around the Coliseum and Rose Quarter, the more this restoration seems to pay for itself, many times over.

The Coliseum can be called America's only transparent arena. And whether we keep or discard our historic architecture will make transparent Portland's values about design, the environment, history and the future of place-making in our city.

As a co-founder of the Friends of Memorial Coliseum, I can't pretend any impartiality or objectivity on this vote. Memorial Coliseum is the only issue for which I've ever deliberately abandoned my journalist's role and embraced full-fledged activism. But as someone born and raised in Oregon, who grew up watching concerts and basketball games at Memorial Coliseum, I can't walk away from our responsibility to history. As a journalist who has spent more than a decade writing about design in Portland and the broader world, I can't sit on the sidelines as the future of what I see as the city's greatest building hangs in the balance - or as the centerpiece of our next great central-city district takes shape.

 

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A transplanted designer's Rose City thank-you

Portland Outdoor Store sign (photo by Brian Libby)

BY LUKE AREHART

Before I found my opportunity and decided to move to Portland, all of my sunny Southern California pals warned about the soggy and dreary Northwest that grays out eight months of the year. I moved to Portland in the month October at the start of what was to be the gray-mageddon that I had heard about; as luck would have it on this particular year, an Indian summer took Portland well into November and I became suspicious. Had Portland launched a word-of-mouth campaign about imposing gray skies, hinting toward the idea that somehow rain and mist snuffs out the creative bunch of Portlanders underneath?

Upon graduating from architecture school, I had joined my soon-to-be wife in Los Angeles with high expectations and an eagerness to contribute, believing it was one of the most forward-thinking and collaborative international cities. That summer I ended up resorting to trying every trick imaginable in an attempt to join one of the many LA architecture firms that I had heard about. Not only could I not break through, but I could only find answering machines and a concrete desert full of locked doors. It culminated in a back alley full of dumpsters, sliding my portfolio through two metal security doors to an employee of a prominent LA firm.

Fast forward from this realization to an early morning on our first trip to Portland. It didn’t take long on the highway before we experienced our first “You go, no you go,” merging experience. Coming from the chaotic pace of Southern California traffic, where the average speed is closer to 85 and there is a high risk of being rear ended if you dare go the posted speed limit, we had already discovered Portland was different.

Every place we walked, everywhere we ate, Portlanders would more often than not offer a smile; it was when we noticed at one point that everybody around us was engaged in conversation with another person, that we joked that Portland seemed to be stuck in a prior era before cell phones. Doors were open, people welcomed you in, collaboration seemed to be on the tip of everybody’s mind; conversations started to happen, there were no metal security doors and no back alleys, it was a distinct feeling of embrace.

The exact turning point for me was walking into the Leftbank building on North Broadway and the DC202 collective, which was made up of the architecture and design firms of David Horning, Gary Hartill, Holly Freres, and at the time Bill Fritts. I had badgered all of these individuals for months and of the literally hundreds of inquires that I had sent out to cities across the country, the single reply I received was from Mr. Horning and this particular collective, it was more than worth the 16 hour drive.

In contrast to the Portland traffic that obeys the speed limit and is more than generous on the interpretation of merging procedure; the office life moved fast, everybody seemed to be moving toward one single decided upon, collective goal. It was this sense of collaboration, urgency and necessity of good design that was my quick introduction to Portland. It was also within my first week that Fred Armisen’s music video for Portlandia went viral; I was in Portland long enough to know that “The dream of the 90’s is alive in Portland” was a good thing.

I soon discovered that it’s not just architects that are making this city great, it’s all the craftspeople, designers and makers that make this place unlike any other place on earth. It’s the diverse cross section of artisans that set Portland apart, be it Bo Hagood, an expert wood worker at MADE studio, or Kevin Cox’s letterpress studio Jazyrain, or Christian Bannister’s incredible digital art at his firm arxi: all are ready to share and collaborate in a refreshingly different way than any other city I’ve been to.

It feels like people are working on a common goal in Portland, eager to help each other and share information for the benefit of the group; everybody seems to be moving toward the greater solution contrary to what I found happening in LA with firms sequestered away and attempting to find the solution on their own, behind of course, locked doors. Portland is accepting and open to good ideas and hard work in a city wide effort without necessarily pledging any kind of universal allegiance.

Portland Building (photo by Brian Libby)

The power of the city of Portland transcended time when I was granted an interview with world renowned architect Michael Graves, in regard to the 30th anniversary of The Portland Building. When I asked Graves, “If you were able to go through the process again, would you still come to Portland to design?” Mr. Graves responded simply, “Many times over, sure. I love Portland and have very, very good memories of Portland.” After all the criticism Graves has received about the Portland Building over the past 25-plus years, that says something about the city’s charms.

As we approach the holidays and the end of the year, as the rain and dampness take hold of the Pacific Northwest I’d like to offer my sincerest thanks to the Rose City, and all of the great people in it.

 

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The shame of Portland's West Hayden Island land grab

Map of West Hayden Island (courtesy Port of Portland)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

It's a plan the mayor's own handpicked experts have expressed reservations about. It's on an accelerated pace that even its tentative supporters question. And it may be a case of the haves taking from the have-nots that demonstrates Portland isn't as different and progressive as one might hope.

Last night, watching a hearing of the Portland Planning & Sustainability Commission about annexing West Hayden Island's wildlife sanctuary for an expanded deep-water industrial port, I thought of a moment from The Simpsons.

In an episode called "Mr. Lisa Goes To Washington," the family travels to Washington, DC for Lisa to compete in an essay contest. Tasked to write about America's greatness, Lisa begins enthusiastically but, after witnessing a senator accepting a bribe in order for a forest to be clear-cut, instead unleashes a diatribe of bitter commentary. The episode has a happy ending: because of Lisa's essay, the senator is arrested for bribery. I'm not sure the same fate awaits those pressing forward with annexation of West Hayden Island, nor should it. I don't think these are outright villains, but instead people who believe job and industry growth is priority number one. Given the recession of recent years, one can't blame that kind of thinking. Yet we shouldn't sacrifice values to choose a few potential jobs twenty years down the road.

The Portland metro area is said to have a shortage of deep-water ports, the kind that can service today's super-sized ships and barges. (Never mind that Vancouver can help solve that shortage - we're not allowed to think of the two cities on either side of the river as the same, or even having shared interests.) West Hayden Island has admittedly been eyed for decades as a place of industrial expansion. It was first brought into the Urban Growth Boundary in 1983, when the Port of Portland bought the land from PGE. In 1994 it was designated a Regionally Significant Industrial Area.

But West Hayden has also long since been identified as a critical natural area, both as it relates to wildlife and as a crucially important flood plain protecting the city from increasingly likely floods in the new era of climate change. Its more than 800 acres of forest, wetlands, meadows, and shallow water habitat near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers provide irreplaceable habitat for federally listed salmon and imperiled bird, bat and amphibian species. Bald eagles' nests are a common site there. Quite simply, West Hayden is the largest wildlife sanctuary in our Portland metro region.

Couple that with the fact that West Hayden is home to Oregon's largest manufactured home community, and you have a case of the Powers That Be making an appalling dual-front attack on both the environment and on a poor community.

And here I thought Republicans were in the minority of our city's political leadership.

Scenes from "Mr. Lisa Goes To Washington"

Last night's hearing before the Planning and Sustainability Commission, the only opportunity for public comment, was practically a caricature of self-serving moneyed interests pitted against community members fighting only for values and their homes.

Whenever someone testified in favor of industrial annexation, he or she came from an organization that would directly benefit from the environmental usurpation. A union representative whose colleagues would be hired for the construction on West Hayden spoke of "family-wage jobs," implying that trying to save endangered species directly resulted in his babies going unfed. A series of business and port alliance representatives, neckties removed from their black suits, sung the praises of industrial development and finished their remarks to the sound of silence from the packed audience or some poor unironic single clap. Whenever a homeowner about to be displaced or choked by diesel fumes pleaded with the council for mercy, or an environmental group leader pleaded for the accelerated timetable to be slowed down, a chorus of applause rang out from the commission chamber and its filled overflow-room.

The annexation of West Hayden Island would be troubling enough in its own right, but now Mayor Sam Adams is attempting to skip the unfolding process and bring about a City Council vote by the end of the year. Even those at last night's hearing tentatively willing to support the annexation admitted they felt blindsided and disappointed by the mayor's effort to seal the deal before he leaves office at year's end. Most of the community groups at the hearing, such as a group of Native American tribes with ancestral connections to the Columbia and to West Hayden, told the Planning and Sustainability Commission they had never been brought to the negotiating table until the deal was already done.

Adams argues that the process of annexing West Hayden has taken some thirty years, and that he's merely taking the needle off a skipping record. But the thirty years of gridlock on this issue ought to tell us something.

Consider the fact that in 2009, after the City of Portland initiated planning for annexation of West Hayden Island, the mayor's handpicked Community Working Group, charged with poring through studies and data to deliver a recommendation on Hayden, could not come up with one. The Community Working Group reported to Adams that it could not resolve the inherent conflict between industry and the environment.

The reason this has taken 30 years is that the city can't seem to accept the inherently incestuous, greedy nature of its actions. We keep revisiting the issue in hopes that the bald eagles won't be in the way, or that the flood plain isn't an ideal way to protect us from floods, and then blame the process itself for stifling the industrial invasion.

The West Hayden Island annexation plan is to take 300 of the remaining 800 acres for Port of Portland expansion. That may sound like a fair trade-off at first: wildlife still gets more than half. But think of those 800 total acres as the last toothpaste in a tube already squeezed to the limit. Aside from a few tiny parcels here and there, the city has already taken virtually all of the wildlife area that ever existed in the Portland area. If we take 300 of 800 acres remaining on West Hayden Island, we're not leaving more than half to wildlife and the floodplain. We're going from 98 percent of local wild areas claimed for development to 99 percent. We're squeezing the very last remnants out of the toothpaste tube and expecting no future cavities to form.

Today people from all over America are turning their attention to Portland as an example of the future of cities: a place where, unlike in Phoenix or Houston or Atlanta, we really do consider what ecologists call the "triple bottom line" of people, planet and profit. But here is a case where people and profit are ganging up on planet, and the charge is being led by leaders of our city. I pity the good people in the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, or the Planning and Sustainability  Commission, whose jobs depend on carrying out the mayor's plan even though the very names of their institutions call this into question.

It's not to say that Portland shouldn't be concerned about competing in a global economy. Today's world is far too interconnected economically for us not to make international trade, and the shipping that enables it, a high priority. But Portland may not even be able to attract the new generation of giant vessels to a deep-water West Hayden Island facility; its construction is being hyped as a risk-free endeavor enabling business that is guaranteed to come. But it's really a case of economic speculating. We can look to the real estate market of the past four years to see how speculation can be catastrophic. We can also look across the Columbia river for a solution here: Vancouver has additional space for deep-water ports, yet the city is seen as a competitor rather than a collaborator. Here millions of dollars and countless peoples' homes and livelihoods are at stake, and we're legally obligating ourselves to act deaf to the solutions around us.

The city talks of mitigation for West Hayden Island: the idea that the acreage and wildlife sanctuary lost here can simply be given back somewhere else. But as Audubon Society conservation director Bob Sallinger told the commission at last night's hearing, "Little pieces do not make a whole." We can't set aside thin strips of riverbank, or stitch together patches of trees here and there, and call it proper wildlife protection.

Then there's the mitigation offered to low-income homeowners. Asked by a commission member what could be done to compensate her and her disabled-veteran husband, a resident told last night's audience tearfully that mitigation was never truly possible, only partial compensation for condemning their home against their will. The resident explained how one of her ancestors was executed in Salem, Massachusetts in 1610 for suspicion of witchcraft - and how now, with West Hayden probably doomed, she could understand the feeling of being persecuted.

 

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The Ocean: five tiny restaurants and an epiphany

The Ocean on NE Glisan (photo by Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Kevin Cavenaugh, the architect-trained developer who has spent much of the last decade embodying smart do-it-yourself place making in Portland, said something to me yesterday I've scarcely heard from any architect.

"I know as an architect I'm good but not great," he confessed as we stood outside The Ocean, a long-empty former tire center on NE Glisan he transformed into a quintet of tiny restaurant spaces. (Cavenaugh is not registered as an architect but has an architecture degree.) But by acting as a sort of enabler, renovating existing buildings on the cheap but in a way that attracts creative, passionate small businesses with a desire to experiment, he can create the kind of architecture that is noteworthy not for its elaborate forms or materials but instead for its ability to come a hot spot with high foot traffic, as he's done with past projects like the Box + One Lofts and The Rocket building.

The Ocean, which is having its grand opening this Saturday, is also very Portland, both in its aesthetic and in how it embraces the city's small-scale, shopkeeper economy. Its renovation includes some attractive wood trim and lots of glass, but the design essentially just retained the automobile bays and garage doors of the former tire-center building from which it was built . As a developer, Cavenaugh was smart and sustainably minded enough to re-use what was there in a way that directly helped attract and enable the kinds of businesses that located there.

The Ocean's mini outlets have indoor seating for 10-15 customers, smaller than most all brick-and-mortar restaurants but palatial compared to food carts, the biggest food phenomenon in Portland. The size is a kind of sweet spot in that can attract cart owners, many of whom find running carts a difficult business: overheated in summer, freezing and wet through the winter, with very small profit margins even when you're busy. Yet because the overhead is low, it's not as big of a leap to come to a built space of just 600 square feet per restaurant.

Cavenaugh told me there is a great enough demand for this size of micro-retail space that filling The Ocean was relatively easy. Yet it was also important in his mind to choose the right tenants. Slowburger, for example, stems from the popular burger served at Slow Bar, but it's also something more uncommon than the (admittedly very delicious) local Little Big Burger chain already branching out in multiple locations. Besides Slowburger, there is also Basa Basa, a Korean chicken wings restaurant from TV chef Caprial Pence, who previously headed the higher-end restaurant Caprial's Bistro before it closed during the recession. Pence's involvement is another example, besides Slowburger, of how Cavenaugh created a kind of theme within the restaurant theme: the chance for established chefs and food-drink proprietors to experiment with new concepts. There is also Uno Mas, a tacqueria, 24th & Meatballs for unctuous orbs of pork and beef (operated by Tabla Mediterranean restaurant owner Adam Berger), and cart-turned-restaurant The Pie Spot for both savory and sweet pies.

The building itself is also as colorful as the cuisine offerings. "As you approach Glisan Street, boisterous colors and sounds from a handful of tiny restaurants spill out of a building once owned by a Dodge dealership," wrote food critic Michael Russell in The Oregonian. "Rolling wooden garage doors, glossy picnic benches and bright marquees mark The Ocean mini-restaurant hub."

The Ocean (photos by Brian Libby)

Cavenaugh certainly hasn't re-invented the wheel here. The Ocean doesn't look radically different from a strip mall or. But instead of a small parking lot in front, there are tables. Instead of cars moving out, it's people congregating. It's instant place making rooted in existing buildings, something realistic to replicate on a wide scale. It's also not too different from strings of new retail establishments in other parts of town, such as bike-friendly Williams Avenue on the border between North and Northeast Portland. In both cases, the heavy street traffic going by helps. The Ocean, at NE 24th and Glisan Street, isn't at as busy as Williams, but given its centralized location, it could soon be - both with The Ocean's direct help and as a result of increasing density amidst a returning real estate market.

"We want to change intersections," Cavenaugh says. "We know it’s a profitable financial model." It just is profitable, like the restaurants, on a small scale - so much so that banks and investors are hard to find. Cavenaugh and others have been exploring the creation of a private-equity fund for such businesses in the future. "There’s an innate inefficiency," to funding clusters of tiny businesses and developments, he says, "but over a 10 to 20 year period there’s a higher rate of return."

And while the economy certainly seems to have rebounded in the last four years, this kind of small-scale development seems a more realistic response than larger-scale buildings such as the half-block whoppers regularly built in South Waterfront and the Pearl District during the 2000s. Both in terms of scale and aesthetics, smaller and older may be better in multiple ways. That may not sound as exciting to architects, but it can still mean business and the opportunity to be creative as well as to create popular, high-traffic spaces.  

"There is a breed of businesses and residents that prefer to be in old buildings, and in some cases will actually pay higher rent," says Liz Dunn of Dunn & Hobbes, the Seattle developer behind Melrose Market, a similar project to The Ocean. "The spaces are affordable because they’re small. The per square foot cost is healthy by any perspective. But the spaces are small. We couldn’t have done that in a new building. The character isn’t the same."

Dunn and Cavenaugh both believe there is an untapped demand for small retail spaces, something most new buildings ignore even they often are mixed-use with ground-floor retail that goes unleased. "I think there’s more understanding of this in Portland, but in Seattle you get more outside money wanting to develop at the half block or full block scale," Dunn says. "We attract more equity than Portland but they want to deploy money at scale, and they don’t care if it’s in a neighborhood where they have to tear down four buildings to do that."

Depending on how you measure it, sometimes a renovated one-story building can achieve greater density than a new multi-story one. Not only is it inherently more sustainable in terms of physical resources, but if done well it can attract more people than it ever houses.

"I’m not anti density at all," Dunn says. "It’s just a question of how you insert it into the city, in terms of outcomes. Density is a means to an end. It’s not an end of itself. You want to know the buildings are well used, which means that stuff like curating the right mix is more important than the total amount of space if your goal is many people using the building throughout the day, and leading connected lives without driving unless they want to. It’s about intensity of use versus density. We focus way too much on raw square footage and not on bodies per square foot per hour."

A key in both Dunn's and Cavenaugh's projects was the personal involvement. Larger development companies may have the greater pockets, but they have small touches that can help these small businesses succeed. "It’s not just giving them the keys and saying, 'I hope you’re successful,'" Cavenaugh explains. "It’s saying, 'The first 24 months are scary. I’m going to help you keep open.'"

 

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Compatible but not caricature: Landmarks Commission approves Goose Hollow row houses infil

Rendering courtesy Argo Architect

BY FRED LEESON

The design solution would not be easy. For starters, the site at 2004-2010 SW Madison Street slopes downhill in two directions. It also sits in a corner of Portland’s Kings Hill Historic District, meaning that the design would have to be compatible with, but not a replica of, older buildings in the district, mostly erected between 1882 and 1942.

And because the new plan would have to be approved by the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission, two or more public hearings likely would be needed to reach a design satisfactory to the city’s historic design review body. Add to the stew: another developer, back in 1997, once proposed a seven story building that was fought by the Goose Hollow Foothills League (without success) at both the Landmarks Commission and the state Land Use Board of Appeals. For whatever reason, it was never built.

Well, new problem solved – with surprising speed.

Beaverton architect Ted Argo presented plans for two row houses, covered by a single hipped roof form with dormers and pediments over the front doors. The bottom floor is encased with cedar lap siding and the upper floor and dormers with cedar shingles.  Brick veneer wraps the concrete foundation. Unlike plans for most new buildings in historic districts, Argo’s plan for Encore Homes won approval in a single brief public hearing.

Based on a recommendation from David Skilton, Argo didn’t bother with an advisory session before submitting plans for approval. “I felt pretty good about where we got,” Skilton told the commission at the meeting’s start.

Rear of proposed project (rendering courtesy Argo Architect)

“We knew we did not want copies of existing buildings, but there are compatible precedents,” Argo said. He took advantage of the slope to tuck off-street parking under the building.

Jerry Powell, a veteran planning committee member of the Goose Hollow Foothills League, criticized the plan, albeit with some reluctance. “It’s difficult to sit here and say I like it but I don’t like it,” he said.  Powell said he felt it lacked “a certain amount of grace,” and said he thought the small front porches looked “kind of tacked on.”

But Argo’s plan drew little criticism from the landmarks commission. Brian Emerick, an architect-member of the review body, called it “a good infill design in keeping with the district without being a replica.” He added that he wasn’t “wild” about the exterior color scheme, but noted that the commission does not review color choices. “On balance, I think it will be a strong contribution to the neighborhood and a strong development,”  Emerick said. The plan was approved by a 4-0 vote.

The vacant site was once home to an Arts and Crafts era apartment building that burned many years ago.  Powell, the Goose Hollow representative, said, “The whole neighborhood is sighing with relief that finally there will be a building on that corner instead of a tent camp.”

 

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Allied Works and Skylab Architecture lead AIA Design Awards winners

Clyfford Still Museum (photo by Jeremy Bitterman)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Two local firms already quite familiar with winning AIA Design Awards from the Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architects, Allied Works and Skylab Architecture, walked away with the top prize at a ceremony held October 26. Allied's Clyfford Still Museum in Denver and Skylab's Nike Camp Victory in Eugene each received the Honor Award from this year's jury: Trey Trahan of Trahan Architects in Baton Rouge, Stella Betts of LevenBetts in New York City, and Joe Day of Deegan Day Design in Los Angeles.

The Clyfford Still Museum continues an impressive streak of high-profile art museums Allied Works and founder Brad Cloepfil have designed in cities around the country: the St. Louis Contemporary, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Museum of Art & Design in New York, among others. And this new Denver project may be the most acclaimed of them all.

Clyfford Still Museum (photo by Jeremy Bitterman)

"The building is just a box, albeit one the architect has shaped so that its proportions are perfect, its textures alive with light, and its interiors an oasis of clear frames for Still’s gestures and forms," wrote Aaron Betsky of Cloepfil and Allied's design in Architect magazine. "It is a box that does not pander to its site, nor tries to disappear. It answers it with architecture, which is to say with an articulation of a wholly human response to that place. 'The figure stands behind all of my work,' Still said of his art, and now architecture of the highest quality frames that figure."

Along with the Honor Award, the Clyfford Still Museum also won the AIA's annual Craftsmanship Award the same night.

Nike's Camp Victory,  constructed outside the University of Oregon's Hayward Field for the Olympic Trials, continues a tradition of compelling temporary architecture by Portland architects, recalling Boora Architects' creations of years past for PICA's Time-Based Art festival. Skylab has also received numerous honors in the past, including an Honor Award in 2008 for a mixed-use building on SW 12th Avenue, an Unbuilt Merit Award from the AIA last year for the Bureau of Environmental Services' Columbia Boulevard Support Facility, an Unbuilt Citation Award in 2010 for the Weave Building.

Nike Camp Victory (image courtesy Skylab & Hush Studio)

The next tier of AIA distinction, the Merit Award, went to two projects: the Mountbatten Nantechnology Electronics Research Complex at the University of Southampton by IDC Architects, and the Panther Lake Elementary School in Seattle by DLR Group. That means the top six awards of the night all went to projects outside Portland.

What's more, although IDC and DLR both have offices in Portland (they each are headquartered elsewhere with numerous offices in other cities), making them eligible for the awards (either the location of the project itself or the competing firm has to come from here), of the firm team members listed by the AIA for each winning project, few to none of the names I searched on seemed to be based here. Locations like Pittsburgh, Glassgow, Toronto and Seattle came up as home bases instead.

Top: Univ. of Southampton (courtesy IDC), bottom: Panther Elementary (courtesy DLR)

That's not to say there weren't people from IDC's and DLR's Portland offices working on these projects; I'm sure there were, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to enter. What's more, we should judge these projects on the merits of the designs, as the jury did. Both projects seem impressive, too. It would be provincial and silly to be nitpicky about what constitutes an eligible project for these awards, for we need all the talent we can get that wants to associate itself with the city. But perhaps this just highlights the fact that this year's awards had a decidedly less local bent.

The next round, a kind of bronze medal called the Citation Award, went to another out-of-town project but this one by a firm headquartered here: the Wagner Noel Performing Art Center at University of Texas-Permian Basin in Odessa, Texas by Boora Architects (with an assist from Rhoteenberry Wellen Architects of Midland, Texas). Boora has found a niche designing performing arts venues for smaller cities and larger suburbs, such as the Mesa Art Center in Arizona.

Top/middle: Wagner Noel Center (courtesy Boora), bottom: Stubbs Residence (via ABC)

A Citation Award also went to the Portland firm Architecture Building Culture for the Stubbs Residence in Seattle, which imaginatively and fearlessly combines a historic home with a new addition equal in size and contrastingly modern in style. I've always been a lover of hybrid architecture such as this, where a new addition doesn't ape the original structure but makes itself a new chapter in the story of the building.

And while other winners like Boora, Skylab, IDC and DLR are all established firms with enough employees to compete for major institutional projects, ABC and founder Brian Cavenaugh are an up and comer. Cavenaugh already won a national Young Architects Award earlier this year from the AIA. Although nothing's guaranteed, perhaps ABC could become the Allied or Skylab of Portland's future.

One unbuilt project, THA Architecture's design of a new headquarters for Portland advertising and graphic design firm Downstream, won the evening's Unbuilt Merit Award. Due to difficulties with developing the site, Downsteam has reportedly since decided to renovate an existing building rather than build this headquarters, but that's all the more reason to give this design its moment in the sun. Someday someone should curate an exhibit of the best Portland Architeture that was never built, from the Delta Dome to the Weave Building. Might this project make that cut?

Downstream headquarters (rendering courtesy THA Architecture)

Another film familiar to the AIA Portland Design Awards, Works Partnership, took this year's Sustainability Award, for a storefront commercial building called the Washougal Incubator that seeks to invigorate that small Washington town's historic downtown core. Works won an Honor Award last year for the Tandem residential project in Portland, and the firm's heretofore signature project, the bSide6 building, received an Honor Award in 2009. The firm has also received numerous AIA awards for unbuilt work.

For the past decade or so, our city's leader has chosen the annual Mayor's Award for Design Excellence. This year Sam Adams chose the Randall Children's Hospital at Legacy Emanuel, designed by ZGF. In each of his prior three years, Adams had chosen housing: Works Partnership's Tandem Duo in 2011, SERA Architects' Patton Park Apartments and PATH Architecture's Williams Five Condominiums in 2009.

And finally, the People's Choice Award went to two projects. First place among these was Boora's Vernonia Schools (a single K-12 project despite the pluralized name), which replaced a high school, middle school and grade school that were decimated when the small Coast Range town experienced major flooding in 2007. The second-place People's Choice Award went to DLR Group's design of another small-town educational facility: the Scappoose High School Auditorium, headed by a Portland-based team of Scott Rose, Levi Patterson and Kent Larson.

Congratulations to all the winners.

 

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The Architect's Questionnaire: Suzanne Blair

Suzanne Blair (image courtesy of the architect)

BY LUKE AREHART

For this installment of our continuing series, we sat down with Oregon native and Portland architect Suzanne Blair. Since 2004, Suzanne has been a part of the employee owned firm SERA Architects and has worked on local, landmark buildings including the renovation and modernization of the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building and the Portland Community College renovation of the historic Willamette Building, among others. In 2008 Suzanne was part of the team that provided pro-bono design work though the 1% program from Public Architecture for Portland nonprofit organization p:ear, which provides mentorship to homeless youth.

Portland Architecture: When did you first become interested in architecture as a possible career?

Suzanne Blair: In elementary school, maybe 6th grade, we did a three week study of Portland architecture where we went on field trips to look at houses; I think that’s what kids relate to at that point. We looked at Victorian houses and craftsman houses and four squares and learned the differences between all of them. At the end of that class, we had to build a model of our dream house out of index cards, so it was a really just a plan diagram without a roof, an arrangement of how the rooms went together. It’s the first time I remember understanding something in plan. Then, in high school, we had a family friend who was an architect and took me under his wing, explaining what architecture really was and letting me help him with some of his projects.  By the time I was looking at colleges, architecture was the only career that seemed remotely interesting to me. I couldn’t imagine another option.

Where did you study architecture and how would you rate the experience?

I earned my bachelor of arts in architecture from Washington University in St. Louis and went straight through to graduate school at the University of Washington in Seattle. I loved architecture school; the two programs that I went to were different but complementary. Washington University is focused on theory and conceptual design and we experienced an old-school architecture education that emphasized beautiful models, beautiful drawings and difficult critiques. The University of Washington architecture program valued conceptual ideas behind projects, but was also interested in the craft of how it would be built, how it would be detailed, and how it would fit in the environment sustainably. I’m sure most architects would agree that architecture school is nothing like the profession, but it taught me the core skills of what I do today: how to analyze complex issues and find a solution that pulls them together. I would go back!

Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building (photo by Brian Libby)

What is your favorite building project that you’ve worked on?

I have two favorites that are at complete opposite ends of the scale spectrum, but I like them for similar reasons. I was involved from early concept design through construction for both projects.  Both projects have strong client groups, and a there was a sense of shared goals and commitment to those goals throughout the project team.

The first project is the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building, which is the project that I have worked on for the last two and a half years. I started on this project by designing and coordinating the ceiling and mechanical system – a radiant panel heating and cooling system - for the office tower. My role over the course of the project evolved to leading the tenant improvement design effort for the building, working with each of the tenant agencies to design, document and build their spaces. It was such a unique experience to get to work so closely with so many talented people. For eight months, the project team co-located in the existing building so all of the engineers, contractors and client group sat together to generate the design and the drawings; we were going back and forth from our room to places in the building look at the specific issues as they came up.  The process contributed to an incredibly strong team dynamic.  As part of the Tenant Improvement design effort, I was lucky to work with a great team of interior designers and the design excellence architect, Jim Cutler, to help create what is turning out to be a simple, dramatic, and beautiful space.   It was really rewarding to look at things at a small scale compared to the big, giant project level. Throughout, our client, GSA, has been such a strong advocate for the project.

p:ear project (photo by Jamie Forsythe)

The other project that has been a favorite since I started working on it is p:ear, a pro-bono project I designed with two of my former colleagues, Christina Tello and Jessamyn Griffin. We did that project as part of the one percent solution, which is an initiative started by Public Architecture in San Francisco that encourages design professionals to donate their time to those who couldn’t otherwise afford it. SERA supported our efforts by donating architectural services, and the three of us worked with p:ear, an amazing non-profit who serves  800-1,000 youth every year by providing space and programs for education, art and recreation. We designed their new space on Sixth and Flanders, just a block away from SERA’s office. The three of us led the project, taking on the design, management, and documentation roles. I think it was early enough in my career that I was getting to do things that I would have never been able to do on the project while I was working at my “day job.” With a lot of help from local partners, we were able to help p:ear create a permanent home that they have grown into over the last several years. It was incredibly fulfilling to work with p:ear leaders and to support their mission. 

Who has been an important mentor among your colleagues?

I’ve worked at SERA Architects since graduate school, eight years now. A lot of people have helped me and given me opportunities in that time. One of the most important is a good friend of mine who works here, Eric Philps. He’s a project architect and designer, and I have worked with him on several projects since the start of my time at SERA. He’s the best kind of architect: he appreciates the science of architecture just as much as the art, and is involved in his community and trying to make an impact with what he is doing. Working with him on our first project together, he took me under his wing, answered my questions, pushed me to take on more responsibility, and advocated for me to management while making suggestions for what I should be trying to learn, and what I should be looking for on the next project. He definitely taught me how to be a better architect, and has helped me become a better mentor to the colleagues I work with now.

What part of the job do you like best, and as an architect what do you think you most excel at?

What I like best is one of the reasons I picked architecture: it changes every day, every building is a new design problem and there are hundreds of design problems within each of those buildings. Working on a project from start to finish is such a huge undertaking. Breaking that challenge  into pieces and figuring things out by gathering information and  distilling it  into a cohesive solution is definitely what I like to do. It’s one of my strengths.

What are some Portland buildings (either new or historic) that you most admire?

I love Holst’s Ziba Building, and the Olympic Mills Commer Center [by Works Partnership] of course. I was in architecture school when the Wieden & Kennedy building [by Allied Works] was being built, so that was the introduction to my love of adaptive reuse projects. That project will always be at the top of my list. I love those giant doors at the entry and the atrium. What a great way to give new life to a building.

The Pantheon in Rome (photo by Suzanne Blair) 

What is your favorite building outside of Portland and besides any you’ve worked on?

If I had to pick one, it would be The Pantheon; I studied in Rome when I was in graduate school and I would get lost in the city all of the time.  I’d come around the corner and discover a new backside view of The Pantheon. It was a place that I tried to visit every day that I was there. 

A more recent favorite building is the American Folk Art Museum in New York. 

It’s not a building, but the High Line in New York is so incredibly detailed, the design team did such a good job making the furniture and the plantings a part of the overall vision; all of the boardwalk edge conditions are so well coordinated, it’s beautiful.

Is there a local architect or firm you think is unheralded or deserves more credit?

Holst and Works Partnership get a lot of credit and they deserve all of it. There are so many sole practitioners and small design/build buildings popping up everywhere, and so many of those projects are great. They are dealing with a different set of requirements and issues, so they are able to take more aesthetic risks that are really good for Portland’s architecture. 

What would you like to see change about Portland’s built environment in the long term?

Portland’s blocks are tiny, which is great for our urban planning, but we end up with many new projects that are full block buildings, or quarter block tall buildings. I’m sure it’s an economic limitation. I’d love to see smaller portions of blocks start getting developed so we get smaller scale buildings and more of them on our blocks, changing that texture as you walk along a block. You can take more risks when you are building smaller too, it could be really good for Portland, but may be economically difficult.  

How would you rate the performance of local government like the Portland Development Commission, or the development and planning bureaus?

It’s been at least three years since I have dealt with the BDS, because we have been working with federal requirements on the federal building. Prior to that, I worked on PCC’s Downtown Center renovation, and we worked with the facilities permit program at BDS. Basically, after you register the project, you are assigned an inspector/plans examiner, who is the same person throughout the whole design and construction process, which makes it very efficient. Our inspector/plans examiner met with me at SERA and met with me on-site with the contractor, we worked through issues, and she suggested potential solutions-to-code issues and worked through the details before we ever submitted for permit. This process was very effective for the client, and the contractor had the relationship with the inspector before he even started working. It was fantastic; I hope that I get to do that again.

PDD Downtown Center (photo by Michael Mathers)

Would you rather live in a South Waterfront condo, a craftsman bungalow in Laurelhurst, a warehouse loft in the North Mississippi district or a mid-century ranch in the West Hills?

I currently live in a 500-square-foot historic condo, and I have for the last five years, so I am torn. Architecturally I’d like to live in a warehouse loft in Mississippi, but I have a dog, so I have to say the craftsman in Laurelhurst. I’m ready for the garden and the dog play area.

Who is a famous architect you’d like to see design a building in Portland?

One of my favorites is Herzog & de Meuron; I think they are enough flash and challenge for the city of Portland, but they’re still contextual.

Which would you rather be responsible for: an ugly LEED platinum building or a beautiful modernist energy hog?

Of course I am going to say neither. I think the great thing about architecture is that it has to respond to all issues, and sustainability and aesthetic design go hand in hand. You can’t have a beautiful building that doesn’t respond to its environment and you shouldn’t be building something that is not beautiful.

Name something besides architecture (sneakers, furniture, umbrellas) you love the design of.

I like little household things, especially kitchen things. This summer I bought a salt and pepper shaker that’s for backpacking.  It’s sealed perfectly, there is a separate container for each, and it’s light and transparent.  It’s just perfect, it fits into my cook set for our backpacking trips, and our dinners are much tastier now.

What are three of your all-time favorite movies?

"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", "Best in Show", "Say Anything".

 

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"What's the right thing to do?" Remembering developer, historic preservationist Art DeMuro

Art DeMuro (image courtesy Venerable Properties)

BY FRED LEESON

Portland has been blessed with several architectural preservationists over the years.

Eric Ladd, who died in 2000, is often recognized as the first, with his efforts to help move the Kamm house and plans for his never-completed Ladd Colony in the 1960s. Then one can turn to architects George McMath, father of the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission and municipal landmark designations, and William J. Hawkins III, whose grasp of history and detail is well preserved in his architectural history books and restoration projects. Certainly one must include the late Bill Naito, who showed that old buildings could have creative new lives in Old Town and elsewhere, and the McMenamin brothers, who built a thriving, whimsical empire on beer, old buildings and history. 

But none may have more lasting significance than Art DeMuro. In hardly more than 20 years in Portland, the Chicago-born preservationist/developer restored many significant landmarks for decades of continued productive use. And in the months and days before his untimely death at age 57 in September, DeMuro made financial commitments intended to bolster Oregon’s preservation community and to train generations of additional preservation experts.

His largest gift, $2.8 million, went to the University of Oregon Historic Preservation Program. It likely will go to an endowed chair in preservation. This past January, in announcing the gift, DeMuro said, “My hope is that the passion of us who engaged intimately in the field spreads to become a more common social ethic throughout our culture….Once a historic building is lost, all of that history is gone. If I can train and inspire other people to do the same thing when I am gone, there are 10 people in my place to carry on. I need to know that I did all I possibly could to support what I care about; my hope is that others will want to join in and make it a bigger effort.”

Art DeMuro (image courtesy Venerable Properties)

In the days before his death, DeMuro also committed to donating $750,000 to the Bosco-Milligan Foundation, to pay off outstanding debts on the foundation’s Architectural Heritage Center and to start a permanent endowment. He also committed to giving “a very sizable amount” to the Historic Preservation League of Oregon, according to its executive director, Peggy Moretti. The HPLO is a state-wide preservation advocacy organization that works in association with local preservation groups such as Portland’s Bosco-Milligan.

Cathy Galbraith, Bosco-Milligan’s executive director, said she hopes to build an endowment totaling $1 million during the next year. At a 5 percent return, that would generate $50,000 per year in operating revenue without shrinking the long-term next egg. Galbraith said the endowment would be a major step in achieving “financial sustainability” for the 25-year old Portland-based preservation foundation.

Craig Kelly, DeMuro’s long-time partner in the Venerable Group, announced the commitment to Bosco-Milligan at the organization’s annual fund-raising auction on Oct. 20. Kelly choked with emotion when he read DeMuro’s comments about expanding support for preservation. “It is still hard for me to say Art’s words,” he said later. 

In some ways, DeMuro was an unlikely success in Portland. In a city often noted for its insular business networks, he was an “outsider” who arrived in 1991 after working in the family real estate business in Phoenix, Arizona. And in a city often noted for its casual behavior, DeMuro seldom appeared in public without a dark suit and tie, shined shoes and his jet-black hair, neatly styled.

After hardly more than 10 years in Portland, he was appointed to the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission in a seat designated for a “developer.” But as Galbraith noted, he was no pushover for developers. He proved to be a stickler for architectural details and preservation of as much historic fabric as possible when renovation plans came before the commission. In his final three years, serving as landmarks chair, he used gentle humor whenever possible to ease tension and make the review process more comprehensible to applicants.

Ladd Carriage House (image courtesy Wikipedia Commons)

DeMuro’s firm accomplished more than a dozen restoration/renovation projects in Portland and Astoria. The best known are the Ladd Carriage House, which had to be moved several blocks and then returned to its original location atop new underground parking, and four buildings linked together in Old Town’s White Stag block to become the Portland branch of the University of Oregon’s architecture school. At his death, the Venerable firm was working on plans to renovate the old Washington High School into housing and other uses – a project that DeMuro had called his most complicated ever. His business associates plan to carry on with it.

Historic preservationist Paul Falsetto, who worked on the Ladd restoration, recalls an episode in which a major structural flaw was uncovered. Work had to be stopped while engineering options were studied and costs evaluated. When the options were presented to DeMuro, Falsetto said DeMuro asked only one question: “What’s the right thing to do?”

If DeMuro’s legacy does motivate a new generation of preservationists, perhaps that’s the best question for them and all preservation activists to remember.

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

 

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