Portland Architecture

Latest Designs on Portland discussion: Memorial Coliseum - past, present and future

Have you followed the controversy over Memorial Coliseum in the last few weeks and wondered, "What's the hubbub?"

Memorial Coliseum is unique to Portland architecture in more ways than one. It's one of the most prestigious and acclaimed designs ever created here, yet most people - even those who have visited the arena numerous times - haven't been able to see the building's best features. It's the older, smaller, less-well-kept stepsister of the bigger, newer Rose Garden next door. And why would we need two arenas? But here's the thing: the Coliseum is your grandma's diamond necklace and the Rose Garden is the big hunk of cubic zirconium. If you uncover this arena from the curtain almost permanently shrouding it, Memorial Coliseum becomes an interior space that can feel like the outdoors.

To share and celebrate the Coliseum and its greatness (however covered in dust), we've made it the topic of this week's Designs on Portland talk.

Every two months Designs on Portland, which I host at Design Within Reach in the Pearl District's landmark Wieden + Kennedy headquarters (1200 NW Everett), brings a new guest to discuss the city we share and how the best designs bring it alive. In the past we've talked with architects like Thomas Hacker, Jeff Kovel, Carrie Schilling and Bill Neburka. We've talked with urban designers like Arun Jain, magazine editors like Randy Gragg, even the occasional roboticist like Daniel Wilson.

The latest talk, scheduled for this Thursday (May 21) at 6:15PM, will look at Memorial Coliseum, the aging arena that quickly went from neglected to hotly debated this year when the city announced a plan to demolish the building in favor of a minor-league baseball stadium.

Memorial Coliseum's future has been looked at in political, financial and programmatic contexts since its future was put in doubt by the baseball proposal. A mayor under heavy scandal-induced fire saw the Rose Quarter plan as a way to jump-start an under-performing area of town. The building has been compared and contrasted with its newer, larger neighbor next door, the Rose Garden arena, and subjected to discussions about how having two arenas could be economically viable. Will an entertainment district be the solution, or something else?

But this discussion will seek to look at the design itself: what makes Memorial Coliseum unique among the world's arenas and concert halls, why its design represents the very best of Portland and post-World War II modern architecture, how it and other modernism represents the unofficial birth of sustainability, and what the building needs to be restored to its former glory.

Skeptics have said things like, "Memorial Coliseum isn't the Taj Mahal." It's not designed by Mies Van Der Rohe, Le Corbusier, or other of 20th century modernism's superstars, they say. But Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is as prestigious and historic a 20th Century American Architecture firm as they come. And regardless of the name attached to the design, Memorial Coliseum's formal purity -- the teacup inside the glass box -- gives it enduring value: the kind of architecture that transcends function with poetic form, even as it functions beautifully. After all, the building's transparency also makes it easy to navigate.

As always, I will be moderating the discussion, and joining me will be some of the designers and preservationists who have worked to save the Coliseum, such as Stuart Emmons of Emmons Architects, Rick Potestio, and Randy Higgins of Vizwerks. We also hope to have a special guest or two from the original Memorial Coliseum design team drop by.

We also would love to hear at the talk from those of you with Coliseum memories of your own. My mom saw The Beatles in the arena in 1965. My beloved Trail Blazers became world champions there in 1977. I saw Clyde Drexler dunk on most of the NBA's best players numerous times there throughout the 1980s. I also saw several cheesy concerts there like Rush, Van Halen, (gulp) Bryan Adams, Billy Joel, and Sting. (Hey, I grew up in a small town. I have better taste now!) But more importantly, what are your Coliseum memories? Were you there for the Dalai Lama or Barack Obama? (Hey, that rhymes!) Led Zeppelin or Luciano Pavarotti? Come be part of remembering the past, living for the present, and securing the future of this Rose City and modernist landmark.

Thanks also to Design Within Reach (a Portland Architecture sponsor) and studio proprietor Kathleen Nash, as well as the DWR staff, for their help making this talk and the broader Designs on Portland series a reality.

The event is free and refreshments will be served. Design Within Reach is located at 1200 NW Everett. Doors open at 6PM and the talk will begin shortly after 6:15PM.

Cascadia Green Building Council's Jason McLennan talks about this week's Living Future "unconference"

Starting Wednesday, the Living Future conference will be taking place for three days at the Nines Hotel downtown this week.

Presented by the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, Living Future is labeled as "the unconference for deep green professionals" on its website. An accompanying video says, "Together imagining a world of living buildings, living sites and living communities....Learn what it takes to go deeper, to a world of true sustainability."

Leading-edge thinkers of the sustainability movement like Paul Hawken have spoken at Living Future in the past, as well as Sim Ven Der Ryn, the latter of whom has a prescription for the green movement that I love the sound of, even if I'm not completely sure what it means: going from "rigid instability to flowing resiliency".

Recently over email I interviewed Jason McLennan, CEO of the Cascadia Region GBC, about Living Future and it what it means for the chapter.

Q: How do you see Living Future fitting in to the spectrum of different design and sustainability conferences out there for architects and others in the industry to attend like Greenbuild?

A: A lot of other conferences are geared to appeal to all knowledge and experience levels; or they are more introductory.  With Living Future, we are trying to reach the deepest green leaders of the movement, targeting those who want to make huge leaps forward.  Those who attend Living Future are at the forefront of the green building movement and are looking for the next level – and we cater to that need with cutting-edge topics, revolutionary ideas and presentations from thought leaders.

Unlike other events that can top 1000+ people – where you might run into everyone you want to speak with – we keep Living Future purposefully intimate to allow multiple opportunities for participants to engage and network with each other.  Living Future is a think-tank of sorts – bringing leaders together and giving them the chance to share ideas.  Living Future draws passionate people, and we are trying to cultivate that energy to drive great change.

What are some of the different messages that the keynote speakers will be bringing, or are there any of them in particular you think people will be excited to hear?

All of the keynote speakers will be exciting.  I mean, they are keynotes for a reason –

Janine Benyus is going to talk about biomimicry and what lessons we can draw from nature in the designs of our buildings and cities, as well as cutting-edge research being done around the world.  I think people will come away from her presentation completely awed and inspired.

 Thomas Crum will have an impact on a more personal level.  His message is more tied in with the theme of the conference (Cultivating leadership. Begin with One).  He helps people reach their full potential through embracing conflict and challenging situations in order to create more positive outcomes.  These two are great bookends: One is about the influence of the outside, natural world and the other is focused inward on the potential we have within ourselves.

Denis Hayes is one of the most insightful people on a national level.  As a pioneer in the green movement, he will bring wisdom, as well as new perspectives.  Plus, I think he is very entertaining.  As for my talk, I will share with people some really interesting findings we are learning from the LivingBuilding projects out there, as well as challenge people to think differently about the scale of change we need to make in the world.  I plan to get everyone worked up!

There's a political party in power now that's more favorable to sustainable policies, but the economy has been in dire straits. How would you characterize the set of political and economic conditions in which green building exists right now?

Everyone is hopeful that the policies of the Obama administration will lead us further and quicker down the path of change.  Environmental issues were part of his platform, and there is stimulus money coming down the pipeline to those in our industry, which bodes well for growth of the green building movement.

At the same time, I think we have all been distracted – some for good reason, with jobs being lost and companies failing.  But we can’t put a hold on environmental issues!  These are issues that are bigger than the current economic crisis.  The current state of the economy is just a symptom of the larger issues we will have to deal with somewhere down the line.  I am concerned that we are allowing our days to drift from the larger threats and becoming complacent with the small victories.

What are some of the lessons you and the organizers of Living Future can take away from running past events like this?

Living Future is still a relatively new event for us, but I think we are getting quite good at it! People seem to love the conference and our feedback has always been stellar.  Evidence of this is in the sell-out crowd this year – we are going to be packed to the gills!  This is a good sign that we are in fact delivering something truly special.

How does putting on Living Future fit within the context of other Cascadia GBC endeavors throughout the year?

Living Future is the glue that holds it all together for us; it is our big annual summit.  Living Future is the focal point of the work we do, and the event we tie our board and branch meetings to.  It is the single most important event for us in bringing a large percentage of our members and sponsors together.  Cascadia is made up of a vast geographic area; we have members in Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon.  Living Future provides a great opportunity for everyone to check in, re-energize and connect face-to-face.  And it is these connections that really drive us forward.

An Architects Without Borders talk about social responsibility for designers

Portland State University and the Oregon chapter of Architects Without Borders are sponsoring a forum on social responsibility and engagement in the design professions featuring Bryan Bell, founder of the nonprofit organization Design Corps and editor of the recent book “Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism”. Bell will joined in discussion by  

Janet  Hammer, Director of PSU’s Social Equity and Opportunity Forum, PSU architecture professor Sergio Palleroni, Outside In clinic director John Duke, and Abby Dacey of Architects Without Borders and Boora Architects. The public is invited to join this group in a discussion of the potentials and challenges in efforts to create greater accountability and responsible engagement in the profession.

“Designers have the potential to benefit many more people than they currently reach,” the press release says. “No, this is not a call for pro bono work. Instead we are being challenged to play a more direct role in solving the critical social and environmental problems  facing the nation and our communities--and to incorporate outreach into our own  practice to serve what is an ever-growing client base with real needs.”

The forum, free and open to the public, is this Friday, March 27 from 12-1:30PM in PSU’s Shattuck Annex at 1914 SW Park.

If you're interested in joining the Architects Without Borders-Oregon chapter, their next meeting is April 22 at AIA/Portland's Center For Architecture at 403 NW 11th Avenue at 5:30PM. Meetings are held the fourth Wednesday of every month.

Latest Designs On Portland discussion features PNCA president Tom Manley

For this Thursday's new installment of the Designs on Portland series at Design Within Reach, I will be interviewing Pacific Northwest College of Art president Tom Manley - or, to be more official about it, Dr. Thomas Manley. Either way, as leader of PNCA since 2003, he has helped make the school Portland's intellectual nerve center. PNCA is today a place not just where students learn about painting, drawing, sculpture or other traditional artistic media, but also a place for countless exchanges, discussions and events surrounding a wide cross section of art, culture and design. PNCA has also done a great job of connecting its educational offerings to opportunities in other cities around the world.

I first met Manley four years ago while working on a story about a new exterior paint job for the school, fashioned by designer Randy Higgins, that is a mathematical, geometrical language that expresses the text of a Rimbaud poem. It was an excellent example of how the school would in the ensuing years continually exhibit dynamic thining as it applies to education, culture and even city building.

In the ensuing years, I've covered serveral different events and undertakings at PNCA, from the Tokyo Flow conference that brought creative minds from Tokyo and Portland together to a host of visual art exhibits to an ambitious campaign to expand the school's physical presence with the historic 511 Broadway building and, more recently, acquisition of the Museum of Contemporary Craft. PNCA began about a century ago as part of the Portland Art Museum. Much of that history was respectable but somewhat quiet. Since the turn of the 21st century, and Manley's arrival, PNCA has begun to roar with life and have a hugely significant impact on Portland's burgeoning culture of creativity and design.

PNCA is also a great center of activity for the Pearl District. This neighborhood can no longer be called a place of merely condos, trendy restaurants or even galleries and furniture stores. As its campus branches out, not only with 511 and the MCC but also the inclusion of student housing and integrated graduate study programs involving other schools like the Oregon College of Art & Craft (through a joint degree program), PNCA's influence and importance, both to the Pearl and Portland proper, will only incease. And while that has been a collaborative effort at PNCA inolving a lot of faculty and board members and students as well as collaborators like architect Brad Cloepfil and Wieden + Kennedy executive creative director John Jay, Manley unquestionably deserves ample credit for taking PNCA to a new sphere of influence and interest.

Design Within Reach, host for our discussion, is located at 1200 NW Everett Street, on the ground floor of the Wieden + Kennedy building. Doors open at 6PM with the discussion beginning officially at 6:30 but actually a few minutes afterward.

11xDesign tour this Saturday

In numerology, the number 11 has huge significance. It is a "master number" that can signify change, revelation, and inspiration. Maybe it's just a coincidence that the group of designer-developers putting on the 11xDesign homes tour this weekend ended up with that number of homes on the tour. But I feel more tempted than usual to see symbolic value in 11xDesign because it represents for me a wave of emerging talent in the city.

I wrote an article about the 11xDesign tour for Dwell magazine's blog that was published today, and you can read a more extensive account of the homes and designers there. But for those interested in the practical details, here they are:

11xDesign is a free self-guided homes tour from 10AM to 5PM Saturday (no tickets necessary) put on by the people who designed and have built them. The firms involved, such as Path Architecture, Atelier Waechter, SUM Design Studio, Seed Architecture, Reworks/Penkin Development, Building Arts Workshop, Brett Crawford Architecture & Planning, William Kaven Architecture, Webster Wilson Design, are diverse. Yet a connecting thread is their desire to create contemporary architecture in Portland's historic neighborhoods. It's often a trickier proposition to fit in with historic bungalows, Victorians, and Queen Anne homes than it is to build in former industrial areas like the Pearl District and South Waterfront. Granted, these are vastly smaller projects that don't require the capital of a major condo or office tower. But I've been very impressed by the design acumen shown by the 11xDesign homes, most of which I've previously visited, and the designers behind them.

Besides the projects themselves, which include Ben Waechter's exceptional Z-Haus (pictured at right), Path's Williams Five condos and Park Box house, Crawford's 1310 condominiums, Seed Architecture's SIPs Residence, William Kaven's North House, Sum Design's SUM-thing New Condos (pictured at top), BAW's Orchid Street Cityhomes, Design Department's Tanzamook, the 11xDesign group is also forging a kind of hybrid relationship in which they remain as independent firms, but also help each other by sharing ideas, research, marketing and other resources.

“People are more willing to do that here,” Waechter says in the Dwell article. “First to strike out on their own at all as architects, but then to develop their own projects and then to collaborate with their competitors. Our architect friends in other cities don’t have that as much.”

It's very Portland, somehow. And yet that spirit didn't begin with the 11xDesign group, either. Recently I wrote a long profile of 82-year-old architect Saul Zaik, a legend of Northwest midcentury modern architecture and a contemporary of local architects like Pietro Belluschi, Van Evra Bailey and John Yeon. Zaik and many of his colleagues got their start in the 1950s as the '14th Street Gang', which similarly collaborated and cooperated with their small firms.

If there are readers out there who feel I've focused too much on some of these small studio firms doing this tour and/or developing their own projects, please know that I'm equally willing and wanting to cover whatever it is you think I've neglected in terms of architects and projects. I've mentioned some of the 11xDesign people numerous times, while still not covering the work of other architects in town a single time. One commenter in a previous post of mine accused me of cronyism by mentioning a select group of firms often and, assumedly, playing favorites. I thought the cronyism accusation was unfair (to say the least, bucko), but I also want to be open and desirous of as wide a variety of quality designers and projects as possible.

Meanwhile, please consider visiting one, 11, or any number of these projects. It's a tough economy for every sized architecture firm, but these small firms that have stuck their necks out to build something, even as the housing boom came crashing down, deserve our attention and praise.

Street of Eames tickets go on sale Monday

The annual Street of Eames modern home tour is returning this April 18 with a slate of both new architecture and classic midcentury houses, all benefitting after school enrichment programs for homeless elementary school kids in Portland.

The tour has always had a limited number of tickets, and fewer than meets the demand. But it takes a lot to convince some of these homeowners to let all these people come traipsing through. There are again 1,000 tickets available this year. But considering it's a substantially pricey ticket, at $50 apiece ($40 for students), that may bring demand more in line with supply. (But whoa, baby! What is this, a Springsteen concert?)

There are seven homes included in this year's tour. Pictured above is one, a 1979 house designed by architect William Church, a veteran local designer who was named an AIA Fellow several years ago for his contributions to local architecture. As you can see in the photo of the public sun room that's part of this multi-house development, there is a different in look and feel from either the earlier 20th century homes designed by the likes of John Yeon, Saul Zaik, or Pietro Belluschi; it slightly resembles a barn in form, but has a natural wood exterior and enough glass to take up almost an entire facade. 

Path Architecture has the Butler house in Southeast Portland (pictured at right), which I visited last week with designer Corey Martin as the final pre-move-in touches and finishes were being applied.

The house is three stories and draped in an elegant combination of glass and wood. The back of the house has a two-story high dining room space that opens up onto a patio, garden and sauna. Designed for a professional mountain biker and her husband, the house has incredible views of Southeast Portland, downtown, and even a couple Cascade peaks on a good day.

The house has a boxy form and is cantilevered slightly over a glassy first floor. Inside, Path makes the spaces sight lines a playful experience. No matter where you are, there is a panorama of windows, but not always in the symmetrical places one might expect.

The Eames tour also includes a unit in the 1310 Condominiums, which won for its architects, Brett Crawford and his wife Dana Diana, the top Honor Award at this year's AIA/Portland design awards (along with Allied Works Booker T. Washington High School in Dallas). I've already posted about the 1310 Condos recently, so I won't say as much here, but the project is certainly worth a look. It's a rare example of practically hand-made architecture, in which the Crawfords found the property, completed the deal, designed the renovation, oversaw and even performed much of the construction.

There is also a new home completed last year and designed by Matthew McCarthy; I believe this home was also on the Build It Green home tour in 2007. This spec home, as McCarthy told the Daily Journal of Commerce at the time, was envisioned not to be an ultra-green-everything house with an out-of-reach price, nor to be a regular house masquerading as green with a few add-ons.

Giulietti/Schouten Architects of Portland has quietly been designing house after house here for well over a decade, earning a reputation for design quality in a segment of the building industry where real registered architects aren't always doing the work. This house, originally built in 1959, was expanded renovated by the firm in 2007, which is actually the second time the place was added on to. Brett Schulz was the architect for a 2002 remodel, which included the addition of a 700 square foot master bedroom as well as the house's new entry. As Tim Schouten said, each expansion left the original portions of the house more or less intact. Here's what it says about the design on Giulietti/Schouten's website:

"We expanded the existing living room by removing the deck and building out 300 square feet. The integrity of the existing house was maintained by carrying over the existing roofline to the addition. New clerestory windows enhance daylight access to the space. A small, but elegant steel balcony located at the far end of the living room creates a physical connection to the outdoors while maintaining views from the inside with an unobtrusive steel guardrail. A stylish steel staircase with floating mahogany treads connects the upstairs to the Asian influenced 400 square feet downstairs. Tatami mats recessed into the stained concrete floor and sliding shoji screens enclosing the toy storage area are central to the room’s Asian influence. Sliding doors open onto a 200 square foot concrete terrace where family and friends can enjoy a warm summer’s West Hills evening."

The head principal at Colab Architecture, Mark Engberg, has his own recently completed house on the tour as well, a renovation of a 1969 home. Colab has always had a diverse and interesting portfolio. On the residential front, their Brandon House just west of Mississippi Avenue is among Portland's most striking houses, and was featured on HGTV as a "Dream House". Colab has also designed at least two large towers in Dubai, although they're as yet unbuilt, and they also crafted ABC's Times Square studios in New York.

Finally, there is the classic Swann House designed by the great John Yeon in 1949. If you're new to this blog or to architecture in Portland, know that Yeon is easily among the three or four greatest architectural designers Portland has ever produced. Also deeply committed to ecology and conservation before they were fashionable, his designs come in gentle integration with the landscape.

I visited and blogged about Yeon's Swan house about a year ago with realtor Bob Zaikoski and was profoundly moved by its simple elegance. If you go there, notice not just the quintessentially Oregon look to the house, but its small details, like the air vents that open out of the wall.

If you can't make the Street of Eames tour, in this economy I'll bet several of these architects (except Yeon, of course) would be happy to take a potential client to see any of these properties. And there is also another homes tour coming up later this month (and which I'll be blogging about shortly) called the 11xDesign tour for which admission is free. Meanwhile, though, consider taking the Eames tour and supporting homeless kids.

Note: My mention of Brett Schulz as an architect involved with a previous expansion to what's now a Giulietti/Schouten project on the Eames tour is a later addition to the post. Schulz has an intriguing portfolio of his own, which I recommend checking out. A note to readers on this point as well: if there's ever information you feel I've left out of a post that ought to be included, please feel free and encouraged to email me.

Note: On Wednesday, March 4, the Architecture Foundation of Oregon announced at $2,000 grant for Street of Eames' efforts to increase the visibility of good design while raising money for at-risk youth.

New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger at UO tonight (updated)

Along with Ada Louise Huxtable, Blair Kamin, Robert Campbell and a few others, Paul Goldberger is among the nation's foremost architecture critics. He has written the 'Sky Line' column for The New Yorker since 1997, and before that was a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The New York Times.

Goldberger is a New York-centric guy. Besides writing for the city's two seminal publications, his books include Up From Zero about rebuilding the WTC site, The City Observed: New York, Above New York, and The World Trade Center Remembered. Noticing a theme here?

His focus while here in Portland, though, will be at least in part on Portland. Goldberger's lecture tonight at the University of Oregon is called "Portland and the Challenge of Making a City in the 21st Century". I wonder if he believes what many of us locals do, and others in the media as well: that Portland may be experiencing a kind of moment, in which the city rises in prominence and attention around the world. Or are we just doing too much navel gazing and thinking we're special?

The lecture starts at 6PM at the UO's White Stag building, 70 NW Couch Street. Tickets are $25. Wait, $25? When pretty much every other architecture lecture in town is free? What is this guy, some kind of Pulitzer-winning New Yorker critic?

As a primer for tonight's event, here is some text from a previous Goldberger speech that asked, "Does Architecture Matter?"

"We are now at a moment when a dream that has existed since the early part of the 20th-century is actually being fulfilled. This is the dream of seeing modern design become accessible to the masses, and even sought by them - the dream that energized the Bauhaus, that drove the creators of that great German institution whose name is synonymous with modern design to create what they did, even though their own work was largely labor-intensive, much more craft-dependent than truly industrial, and rarely available to or even sought by the great masses of people.

But they believed that there was a good to be served by the presence of quality modern design in the household environment, not to mention of course in the design of the house itself, and they dreamed of the moment when good modern design would be available to everyone at a decent price. 

Well, that moment has now come. It's here. It's in the stores that I mentioned, and plenty of others. And we have seen a remarkable shift in the level of taste in general in this period, too - think, for a moment, about the last time you saw a television for sale that had a fake-wood formica cabinet. Think about the last "Mediterranean" console "entertainment center" you saw in the same store. Think about how long it's been since you saw dark wood "Mediterranean" kitchen cabinets, or avocado kitchen appliances. Look at the design of stoves, microwaves, stereo systems, computers. They vary in quality, but there is a floor, a level below which none of them sink, and it is higher than the average for design of consumer objects was just a generation ago. 

We don't tolerate schlock in quite the level we once did. I think there are several reasons for this, all of which probably had to occur together. One is the rise in visual literacy I have mentioned, a generation that is better-educated and more inclined to look than its parents were, even though this is also a generation more inclined toward symbols of status than its parents were, too. If I am going to be completely honest I have to admit that the guy who drives a BMW or an Audi whose parents drove an Oldsmobile is not doing that only because he knows the Audi looks better - he is also doing it because of the status that ascribes to that name, and now that status is available to, and sought by, a far broader segment of the population than it once was.

Update 11/24/08: Here is some of what the Daily Journal of Commerce's Sam Bennett wrote about Goldberg's appearance:

“Portland has a long tradition of believing that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, which is great,” said Goldberger.

He said Portland’s strength is more its “good urban fabric” than the confluence of iconic architecture. (However, he said the Portland Building designed by Michael Graves in 1982, is an example of when “Portland tried and it didn’t work out as everyone hoped.”)

“Many cities have a wonderful iconic building, but don’t have Portland’s urban fabric,” he said. “That’s a harder thing to have than an iconic building. It’s harder to make, and Portland is lucky to have it.” Though Portland hasn’t made an international splash for its architectural achievements, Goldberger said it’s known for sustainable designs and quality urban planning.

“People in the east know enough not to be arrogant about Portland,” he said. “They are generally less inclined to dismiss Portland, as they might dismiss other cities of this size. You ask anyone in New York or Boston which city represents the best model for urban design – Portland or Phoenix – and they won’t hesitate to say Portland.”

Well, thanks New York! You're really on top of it! You know Portland is better designed than Phoenix. It's kind of like how we in Portland are aware that the New York Yankees are a historically more successful baseball team than the Chicago Cubs. But it is certainly an improvement over the sense of Portland I gathered in the early 1990s in New York while attending college there. I once argued with a soon to be summa cum laude graduate headed for law school that Oregon was indeed on the Pacific coast, and not "somewhere over by Wyoming."

Latest Designs on Portland discussion: "Designing Dreams, Engineering Desire" with Ziba, jetpacks

The 'Designs on Portland' discussion series continues tonight at Design Within Reach. This time the stage will be a little more crowded, but worth the crunch.

The program was suggested by my colleague Tim DuRoche, who wears many hats as a community outreach coordinator for Portland Center Stage, a jazz drummer, and a blogger for Portland Spaces. Tim will be joining me onstage to interview Sohrab Vossoughi, founder and president of Ziba Design and Daniel H. Wilson, Ph.D., author of Where's My Jetpack: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future That Never Arrived.

Called "Designing Dreams, Engineering Desire", the talk will delve into the broad, intertwining relationship between form and function. Advertisers talk about selling not the steak but the sizzle. Yet ultimately a great product or design needs both: to work well but also to conjure an emotional response. That's true with the smallest child's toy or a massive work of architecture.

Wilson's involvement will allow us to look at how visions of the future not only don't always pan out, but sometimes retain a life of their own. Particularly, the future visions imagined in the mid-20th century, of jetpacks and hovercraft and Tomorrowland, seem to have a staying power in the imagination. We've invented the Internet, human cloning, even holograms. Yet sometimes the 1950s vision of our future still looks more exciting. Why is that?

Sohrab Vossoughi is already well known to many Portlanders in the design profession. Ziba was originally known as an award-winning industrial design firm behind products like Microsoft's ergonomic keyboard and squeegees for Rubbermaid. But Ziba has in the past few years branched out toward creating experiential design--a combination of marketing, architecture and more--for clients like Umpqua Bank and the South Waterfront Discovery Center. Sohrab was also included in an Oregonian story I wrote earlier this year on the top ten people in Portland architecture and design.

Wilson is the author not only of Where's My Jetpack?, but also the popular "How To Survive a Robot Uprising", voted book of the year in 2006 by Wired Magazine. He earned a doctorate in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and is also a technology columnist for Popular Mechanics magazine. He lives in Portland.

Funnily enough, there are actually two books about the disappearing dream of jetpacks, both by people with Portland connections. My good friend Mac Montandon, who used to write for Willamette Week and now is a Brooklyn-based editor/writer, just came out with the book Jetpack Dreams: One Man's Up and Down (But Mostly Down) Search for the Greatest Invention That Never Was.

Because this event will be more of a full-fledged conversation instead of a slideshow by the guest and then a few questions, Tim and I would like to encourage people to offer questions for the panelists, whether you'll be there in person or not. For those of you who are interested in coming, though, the event is tonight at 6:30pm at Design Within Reach, 1200 NW Everett on the ground floor northeast corner of the Wieden + Kennedy building. 

Cultural planning & late-night dumplings

Two events happening today amount to a case of shameless self-promotion on my part but just might be of interest to others as well.

The University of Oregon is hosting an all-day symposium today at its White Stag Block focused on Cascade region cultural planning and development. Mayor-elect Sam Adams, Regional Arts & Culture Council executive director Eloise Damrosch and Oregon Arts Commission executive director Chris D'arcy are among those discussing how the western Oregon and Washington region can come together with the right balance of private and public effort to manage and best take advantage of the blossoming cultural opportunities happening here.

As part of the symposium, I will be speaking in a panel at 2PM that asks, 'How can we develop a regional infrastructure for cultural planning and development?' If somebody knows the answer, please let me know soon so I can pass it on to the crowd.

Later tonight at 7PM brings the opening of the Portland Art Museum/Northwest Film Center's annual Northwest Film & Video Festival. As part of tonight's opening night Shorts I program, my four-minute film Kyoto Diner will be screening. The film center program describes it thusly: "An objective hidden camera captures the action at a late-night Kyoto restaurant." I was attending a design conference in Kyoto two years ago and happen to duck out one evening from my room at the Takagarake Prince Hotel for some excellent gyoza at a local eatery, which you can hear me calling for to the waitress in the video. Kyoto Diner is one in a long succession of simple travelogues I've made during trips to Asia and Europe as well as here in Portland. If you can't make it to tonight's Film Festival, Kyoto Diner is also available for viewing online, along with 17 other films:

Kyoto Diner from Brian Libby on Vimeo.

Buckminster Fuller: "fairy godfather" of Portland Design?

Now through December 7 at the Gerding Theater, Portland Center Stage is producing "R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe", written by D.W. Jacobs and starring Doug Tompos as Fuller.

In a press release sent out recently about the play, it's argued that Fuller is a special touchstone for this city despite not ever having a presence here: "Technology gurus (Linus Torvald), sustainability prophets (Mike Houck), public policy advocates (Sam Adams), Alberta Street hipsters and innovative design firms (Ziba) take heed: you are about to meet your spiritual fairy godfather."

Fuller was reportedly inspired in 1927 after his daughter's death, which he attributed to the drafty Chicago building the family lived in, to embark on what he called "an experiment, to find what a single individual [could] contribute to changing the world and benefitting all humanity." Fuller came up with the geodesic dome as a result, but also influenced the future of sustainable design and many other fields. He coined terms like "Spaceship Earth" (which Sun Ra and George Clinton are no doubt thankful for), "ephemeralization" (which artists talking about their work are surely glad to borrow).

Fuller's biggest architectural contribution was of course the geodesic dome, the influence of which has been seen in numerous domed sports stadiums, planetariums, and futuristic biospheres like the Eden project in England.

Are architects in Portland inspired by Bucky? Or is he really more of a cartoonish figure than a true day-in-day-out inspiration, or a fairy godfather?

Build It Green tour: one day, 20 homes

If you're planning to embark on the Build It Green homes tour on Saturday, hopefully your gas tank is full (or legs ready to pedal) and you're free of other commitments. Sponsored by the City of Portland's Office of Sustainable Development and several other eco organizations, the self-guided tour includes 20 different homes in the city (although one, go figure is way out in Estacada).

In Southeast Portland alone, there are five stops, including a remodeled 1961 ranch house owned by landscape architect Pat Lando, three new houses, and even an RV of all things that was outfitted with biodesel fuel, a composting toilet and solar-powered stove. In Northeast Portland there are six stops, including everything from shipping container architecture to multifamily low-income housing to a garden-ensconced accessory dwelling unit. The North Portland wing of the tour includes mixed-use retail space and the Peninsula Park co-housing development. The Southwest Portland side of the tour includes two properties I've blogged about previously, one designed by Jeff and Tracy Prose of Building Arts Workshop and the other spearheaded by Charlie Weiss.

Not that this is important, but the tour is technically called the "Build It Green! Tour of Homes", but I couldn't bring myself to put an exclamation point in the middle like that. And while this is a terrific event, I personally wish it didn't conflict with college football.

Grassroots property development at the Motive Space Symposium

This Saturday in the City Hall council chambers brings a two-day symposium devoted to exploring tactics for collaborative hosuing development in Portland.

Organized by Sara Garrett in collaboration with the Portland Planning Commission, the idea of the Motive Space Symposium is to better connect architects and citizens to form new kinds of partnerships that cut the speculative housing model that has teetered the economy and maximize the use of design as a tool for personal, civic, and social empowerment.

Panelists include Brad Malsin of Beam Development, Kevin Cavanaugh of Tenpod Development, Judith Mowry of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement, Bill Cunningham of the Portland Planning Bureau, Shane Endicott of The Rebuilding Center, Craig Ragland of the Cohousing Association US, Eli Spevak of Sabin Green Development, and many others.  

Cost for registration is just $1, although there is a $20 suggested donation. For more information, visit www.motivespace.org.

Latest Designs On Portland Discussion: "The Ever Growing City" With Urban Designer Arun Jain

What will Portland look like as it continues to grow in population? How do we maintain our reputation as a model for sustainable development, craft the right balance between a host of different competing interests and values, and add thousands of new residents without sacrificing what makes our city successful? How many questions will be in this paragraph?

For the third installment of the bi-monthly discussion series "Designs On Portland" at Design Within Reach in the Pearl, I will be discussing these ideas with Arun Jain, Chief Urban Designer for the City of Portland. Jain didn't lay out the street grid or make Portland a bike and green-friendly city, but with his help we can keep it that way. Maybe we can even improve a thing or two (he said half facetiously).

Jain joined the City of Portland Bureau of Planning as its first Chief Urban Designer in January 2003. In this role he oversees civic and design quality issues throughout the city. In this role he advises Portland's mayor and the city on issues surrounding the physical quality of the community. A frequent member of several mayoral task forces and advisory committees, Jain's team instigates, creates and directs visions, ideas and solutions to ensure good urban design and an appealing, sustainable public environment in Portland.

With over 25 years of experience as an urban designer in practice and academia, Jain holds two masters degrees from the University of Pennsylvania’s Urban Design Program. He taught for over 10 years at the University of California Berkeley and remains an invited critic by universities around the world. Jain is also an internationally invited speaker and mentor on urban design and development issues. Professionally and philosophically, he seeks better balances between environmental and economic sustainability.

"Designs on Portland: The Ever-Growing City" will be held this Wednesday, May 21, 6-8pm at DWR's Portland Studio, 1200 N.W. Everett. Admission is free and refreshments will be served. Also, we hope to have some minor audio and timing glitches taken care of, and I will set a goal of not interrupting quite as often. (Guess I've been watching too much Charlie Rose.)

Cloepfil Plays Jimmy Mak's

With a book on Allied Works being published next winter, Brad Cloepfil told Randy Gragg during their interview Monday evening at Jimmy Mak's jazz club that he’s been looking back on the firm’s early career. “The last thing we need is more buildings, but we certainly need more architecture,” he said. The essential question for Allied Works, he added, has been, “What can the work heighten or reveal…that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to see?”

Following are some notes I took over a Stella Artois.

Talking about Allied’s Museum of Art & Design at 2 Columbus Circle in New York, currently finishing up construction (and looking quite dazzling, I think), he said the design approach working with the decades-empty but architecturally significant Edward Durrell Stone original building was “removing structure as a way of creating experience.” Cloepfil described the original as “the inert box that was rendered transparent.” The façade now acts as a series of cantilevers, and the museum’s cladding “literally created a new glazing that brings color and iridescence in certain light.” In that way, 2 Columbus Circle resembles Cloepfil’s W+K building in that it is also “first an act of editing.”

For the Seattle Art Museum, he showed the pattern of a spider web and talked about being “given an existing envelope and prescribed boundaries.” It’s a stainless steel building that “gathers forces”. Not much time spent here, though.

Allied’s vacation house in Duchess County, New York is a “visceral glass house, intended not just to be clear, but a diaphanous part of the landscape.” Artist Doug Aiken filmed construction of the house during four different seasons and is projecting the footage onto the fours sides of the house. “You begin a conversation with the architecture that the art extend," he said. "Buildings are less important as objects. The real value of the building is how people can act upon it.”

On his time at the University of Oregon and in Thomas Hacker’s office, both of which brought Louis Kahn’s influence: “We were so lucky when Lou Kahn’s office closed in ‘74 or ‘75, there was a migration of five of six of them to U of O. I was just a suburban kid then. I assumed it was just the way you talked about architecture.”

“There was a morality to Tom’s work I resisted,” Cloepfil also said of Hacker, “but it has stayed with me in some ways. It’s the nature of a good teacher…that you don’t have to push against ideas because you can come to own them yourself. Our St. Louis building was about structure, for example, whereas Lou Kahn was more about plan.”

Cloepfil also talked about the influence sculptors had on him, particularly while he was in graduate school in New York at Columbia in the mid-1980s. “It was a dark time for architecture,” he remembers of the postmodern age. “Art filled a void in ‘70s and ‘80s architecture and extended it through 15 years of silence as far as ideas go.” Works by Richard Serra “blew my mind. It was the most powerful piece of architecture I’d been in. Everything I’d learned about architecture I saw in that work. Then you look at stuff like the Portland Building and you see people got lost.”

Talking later about Allied Works’ magnificent 2281 NW Glisan building, Gragg remarked at how the project managed to narrowly avoid a  implementation of a historic landmark district, who’s chair later said he’d had have allowed Cloepfil’s glass building over his dead body. The architect also remembers getting some eloquent hate mail about the building. But, he says, the Glisan project was a sensible approach to its historic context. “Given the closed buildings around it, wouldn’t it be great to open up?” he asked, by way of explanation. “We said, ‘Let’s do a 20th century building before they close the 20th century.”

Cloepfil had strong criticism for how neighborhoods subject to historic landmarks commission review overstep and misunderstand their role as stewards of architecture. “It’s demeaning to history to mock it,” he said. “Be respectful by how you juxtapose it to the new. But the United States is the worst about this.” In the 1970s, he said, with such destruction happening from urban renewal, and areas like the south auditorium district leveled as a result, it was understandable to try and freeze neighborhoods subject to unwanted change in order to protect them. But now, he added, “We need to have a new conversation about historic architecture.”

Asked to critique the overall architectural caliber of the wave of new condos in the Pearl District and South Waterfront, he said, “I wish there was more diversity of style and voice. But the Upper West Side of Manhattan is probably one of the most architecturally bland areas of New York. Both neighborhoods were built very fast, over about 20 years. Here in Portland, I think there’s not necessarily an iconic building [among the new condos], but there’s a scale and quality that’s a good fabric for the city. But can we do more than the nice, the status quo? Granted, other cities don’t do that, and hence the success of Portland. But it would be nice to take a stab at something bigger.”

Probed to comment on a series of projects, Cloepfil had a big thumbs-up for Memorial Coliseum. “It would be insane if it’s not saved,” he said. “It’s a beautiful glass pavilion.” He was not as complimentary, though, toward the popular Jamison Square Park in the Pearl. “It’s a theme park. It’s an urban artifice. You could have done something so much more elegant.” On South Waterfront the architect said, “It’s contained, it’s dense, but it’s so isolated as a pod. That frightens me.”

I believe the conversation continued onward from there, but I've got a 24,000 word writing assignment due Thursday, so I had to sneak out just a tad early.

Ideabox and the Case For Prefab

Even as an architecture and building industry writer, I don't usually make a beeline for the annual Portland Home & Garden Show, which started Wednesday and continues through Sunday. But a new prefab home on display there, designed and manufactured by an Oregon company, may be worth a close look.

After all, how often is it you see a nice, simple, modern single family house with two bedrooms for as little as $80,000? As a renter who has never felt even close to being able to buy without some crazy mortgage, or a location much further out on the outskirts of town than I'd be willing to accept, it's great to see.

The two year old company is called Ideabox and is based in Salem. They have two houses so far, a 400-square-foot one-bedroom space that retails for about $70,000, and the aforementioned larger unit for ten grand more. (Naturally this doesn't figure in land or other extra costs.) Also, they both are designed and built with sustainable techniques and materials.

They're open inside like a loft, feature lots of windows (including some upper clerestories that I love), and are clad in corrugated metal. These aren't Taj Mahals by any means, but I'd certainly take the architecture of these houses to the style of those built from the ground up in most outer subdivisions. That'd be true if the cost were equal, but actually the Ideabox houses would of course be much cheaper.

When I was growing up in McMinnville, adjacent to our neighborhood of cul de sacs and ranch houses was a development of about 50 to 100 manufactured homes. These were not pretty houses, most looking to be in various states of rusty disrepair and featuring that boxy, ugly mobile-home look that's given the form a bad reputation. Even so, manufacturing homes in a factory from prefab parts remains a very valid idea. We just need better design, which now exists.

There'll never be a vacant lot close enough to the central city for me to order up one of these Ideabox houses. But if the house next door suddenly burned down and the owners offered me the lot, I would be strongly inclined to give the Ideabox - or another prefab - a try.

Speaking of which, one of the country's biggest stars in prefab design and construction, Michelle Kaufmann (formerly of Frank Gehry's office) will be speaking at the Portland Home & Garden Show as well on both Saturday and Sunday. "I’ll be talking about how it’s no longer a question of 'if' people want sustainable, healthy living environments," Kaufmann says on her blog, " but rather, 'how' or 'what' are the best ways to create one.

Cloepfil Speaks

This Wednesday at noon, the University of Oregon's Portland architecture program continues its winter lecture series with a presentation by architect Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works.

As you probably already know, Allied has produced a host of big, acclaimed, signature architecture projects around the US: the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, the Museum of Art & Design on Columbus Circle in New York, the Seattle Art Museum expansion, and of course Portland's fabulous Wieden + Kennedy 2281 Glisan buildings.

On the flyer I received about the lecture, there was this quote from Aaron Betsky, who heads the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam and helped select Cloepfil for the Museum of Art & Design job:

“Cloepfil sees his work as continually pushing and pulling at the expectations we build based on our experiences. He hopes that his buildings do not so much ground us, as make us aware both of our own need for ground and the instability of such a notional center to our existence.”

The lecture will be at the UO Portland Center, SW Second and Yamhill, first floor.

It's been five years since I profiled Brad in the New York Times, so that also makes it feels like a moment of reflection. In that time, the firm has gained another big project, an art museum at the University of Michigan. It's a broken record to chime about how Allied hasn't received much recent work in Portland, save for two spec homes being done with builder extraordinaire Don Tankersley and W+K's John Jay, and some PNCA master planning. But whether it's in Portland or out, I'm excited to see what else the firm comes up with.

Yeon Exhibit In Final Days(His Influence, Ongoing)

Bob Hicks has a great piece in The Oregonian today about John Yeon that serves as a good reminder of the "In the Land of Influence" exhibit continuing through tomorrow evening at the new AIA/Portland Center for Architecture.

Hicks recently retired from full-time editorial duties at the paper after a decades-long tenure there, but as he proved countless times over the years, he can write insightfully about anything arts related. About a decade ago, at my first daytime critics screening to review a movie for Willamette Week, Bob was there reviewing it on pinch-hit duty for Shawn Levy's Oregonian review team. It's great to see him still contributing to the paper, writing about Yeon:

"Drive around particular parts of the Pacific Northwest — Ecola State Park on Oregon's north coast, say, or the Columbia River Gorge, or even the platoons of lockstep McMansions that march like conquering soldiers over the fallen body of the region's exurban land — and you can hear the whisper of John Yeon: a whisper of what is, what is not, what shouldn't be and what might have been in his corner of the Earth..."

"A modernist, he created structures that in certain ways were the antithesis of the International Style — buildings that took their very being from the landscape they sat upon, striving not to subdue it but to become part of it. The hallmark of a Yeon house was its beguiling combination of serene majesty and humility, an essence derived from simplicity of line and an unswerving sense of place."

In an unusual twist, tomorrow's First Thursday gallery walk will serve as the closing-night party for the Yeon exhibit at the CFA. (Incidentally, that's the Swann House pictured above.) The facility was a little late in finishing construction, which happens and is understandable. But unfortunately it has made this a shorter exhibit than it deserved. So if you're perusing the Pearl on Thursday night (I also recommend Hap Tivey's light sculptures at the nearby Elizabeth Leach Gallery), be sure and stop in.

Pecha Kucha and NWF&V (or, Bobby Brady No More)

Pecha whatcha? That's what I first said when approached by Bill at Works Partnership to join in a slide show that is sweeping the world. Pecha Kucha Night was first conceived as a place for young designers to meet and show their work. It's a cross between show-and-tell, peer review art critique, and a party. The idea is that people show 20 slides for 20 seconds each, making each presentation 6 minutes and 40 seconds. After starting in Tokyo, Pecha Kucha events have now been held in 70 different cities. Portland's version, at which I'll be showing photos from various trips to Asia and Europe, will be held Monday, a little after 8:00, at the Ace Hotel's event space at 430 SW 10th Avenue.

Also, continuing the shameless self promotion, tonight opens the Northwest Film & Video Festival at the Portland Art Museum/Northwest Film Center with a lineup of short films, including my own piece, Creamery Birds. It's just a modest three-minute short observing pigeons flying about the Darigold creamery just of Southeast Powell, but I was shocked to see that the film has won a special judge's award. I am blessedly no longer an award-less Bobby Brady figure. If you can't make tonight's screening, which also includes stellar shorts by the likes of Gus Van Sant and Vanessa Renwick, I can at least offer an online version of Creamery Birds and several other films in the sidebar at right.

Meanwhile, I'm off to a last-minute architectural tour of Chicago by boat, eager to get closeup glances at the 'corncob' towers, Mies Van der Rohe's IBM headquarters, and the landmark Wrigley building.

The Green Skyline

On Wednesday the Cascadia region chapter of the US Green Building Council will be hosting a tour of five buildings in Portland with exemplary sustainable credentials. Three are new projects and two are green re-habs.

The first rehab project, the 200 Market Street building (near Keller Auditorium), was the first multi-tenant building in the United States to earn LEED-EB ("Existing Buildings) certification. I've never written about this building before, but it's in its way a distinctive downtown piece of architecture. According to the Green Skyline tour's website, it's been dubbed "black beauty", for its dark skin of exterior metal and shaded glass. Like it or not, the GBD Architects designed building is a real monolith. I'm not so crazy about it just because of the proportions - it's a Portland stump. But the utter blackness of the building does indeed have a certain appeal.

The other re-hab project on the tour, the Lovejoy-Opsis building at NW 17th and Lovejoy, is a more than 80-year-old structure. I visited Opsis Architecture's offices there a couple years ago and they looked fabulous: lots of wood everywhere, but natural light everywhere. This project received a 'Gold' LEED rating, and I like the fact that they have that kind of sustainability factor but also can create very handsome modern buildings (the early 20th Century place they occupy not withstanding).

In addition to the Glumac offices by Emmons Architects, mentioned in a recent post, there is the LEED 'Platinum' rated OHSU Center for Health And Healing (designed by GBD Architects) and Stephen Epler Hall at Portland State University, designed by Mithun of Seattle, which received a 'Silver' rating. As I've said many times, when it was on the drawing board, I was less excited about the OHSU building than the nearby South Waterfront towers by Peter Busby going in about the same time. Now that they're built I definitely prefer the OHSU building. It's also arguably the greenest piece of architecture, at least on this scale, ever built in Oregon.

'Green Skyline' is a nice, catchy name for this tour, but ironically, this one of the only movements in the history of architecture that isn't rooted in primarily in aesthetics. What does it mean to have a green skyline? When I think of the word skyline, I think of the view we have of a city's major downtown tall buildings from a distance. That's an act of aesthetic observation. Unfortunately, the building on the tour I would actually consider part of a green skyline is the OHSU Center.

But really the purpose of this tour is to go check out projects and meet the people who made them happen, in large part from a practical perspective. That's just as important as the look of the skyline - even more so, arguably. But I'd still like to know what a green skyline in Portland, or elsewhere, might look like.

Have a Green Weekend

Just in case the TBA Festival, the Affair @ the Jupiter Hotel, various concerts and football games aren't your thing, this Saturday brings the sixth annual "Build It Green!" homes tour and information fair.

The tour, featuring 18 remodels and new homes, two high-rise condominiums and one co-housing development, will be held from 11AM to 5PM. The idea, according to my handy press release is to showcase "a variety of ways homeowners are conserving energy and other natural resources while creating beautiful, unique and healthy homes." Tickets are $15 or $10 for one on a bike or bus, or if you're a student or senior.

Some of the homes on the tour are carbon-neutral and/or very low energy users. There are also examples on passive solar and hydronic heating, salvaged materials, cob building, rainwater catching and more. There is also an 1899 Victorian home that was severely damaged by fire that was remodeled green. Another house was purchased for $1, moved to a new site, and fully renovated.

After the tour there is also an "information fair" at Environmental Building Supplies at 819 SE Taylor Street from 4:30 to 7PM.

The "Build It Green!" tour is part of the 2007 Oregon Green and Solar Tours program, coordinated by Solar Oregon and the National Solar Tour, sponsored by the American Solar Energy Society. It's presented locally by the Portland Office of Sustainable Development.

Potter's Beard, and Parks In Parking Spots

On the front page of today's Oregonian came this hard-hitting news story: Mayor Tom Potter has grown a beard. And, as Andy Dworkin dutifully reported, "Asked whether he plans to keep the beard, Potter suggested a public referendum." (Somebody call the Pulitzer committee.)

One hopes this is a joke, a joke in which Potter pokes fun at himself. Can't the guy make a decision about anything without a public 'visioning' process? But even as a gag, it's telling. At certain times, Potter has shown strong leadership, such as when he ceased Portland's cooperation with the Joint Terrorism Task Force or, in a lesser but more absurd example, started enforcing anti-jaywalking laws. Tom Potter is a good man. But am I the only one who should be laughing at the beard-referendum suggestion but isn't? It's only funny when it isn't so true. Come on, Mr. Mayor, lead!

Another story from today's paper, by newly-minted city hall reporter James Mayer (as compared to their newly minted business, science, news, living, metro, drivetime, A&E, home & garden, and sports writers and editors - maybe newly shuffled janitors and receptionists too), reports on a nationwide effort to turn parking spots into greenspace - at least temporarily. Organized by the Trust for Public Land, Portland will be one of several cities participating in National Park(ing) Day on Friday, September 21.

The idea is to plug a downtown meter with a few hours' worth of quarters (assuming, like me, you can't ever make a credit card work), lay down some sod and maybe a bench, and presto! A few square feet of asphalt are transformed into park space the size of a car.

Portland's temporary park(ing) will be created by William Wilson Architects, MCM Architects and MacDonald Environmental Planning. Acccording to Mayer's report, the idea is to create an "outdoor break room". I absolutely love the spirit of this - a kind of political act based on the right to leisure and beauty. But does a park just a few feet wide and up for only a few hours really require two architecture firms and an environmental planner? I'm going to assume it's the enthusiasm of the effort that led to this trio, not the need for many cooks working on a simple broth.

Also, the park(ing) demonstration got me thinking: Instead of doing this with a couple parking spots, how about a bunch of us show up at one of the Goodman family's surface parking lots downtown and buy up all the spots in the lot for a day? We could put up some BOORA/TBA-style temporary architecture to demonstrate the absurdity of surface parking lots in such a high-density area. Actually, though, that's what many of Portland's cart-bound food purveyors have already done, not as a joke but as simple businesses making a living. In a way, the huge number of food carts parked in lots downtown are the same statement as that organized by the Trust For Public Land. And you'll get a great burrito (or curry, or sausage, or spring rolls) out of it too!

A Different Breed of Street Musicians

This Thursday evening from 5-10PM, the Bus Mall on NW Fifth between Burnside and Glisan will turn into a free concert space. Exploring the relationship between architecture and music, the Music Population Project (MPP) orchestra is presenting an ongoing international concert series called “Can You Hear It?”

The orchestra seeks to, in the words of the press release, challenge “the passive relationship many have with architecture and music,” by playing in prominent ‘city rooms’ throughout Portland. On July 21, the MPP played in South Waterfront. Yesterday they played outside Bridgeport Village (apparently their definition of ‘city’ is a loose one). Their final show will be this one on the Bus Mall.

The intent of the “Can You Hear It?” concert series, which includes performances in Oslo, Norway in addition to Portland is encourage dialogs not just about music, but also the role that architecture plays in our society. "I think we use and surround ourselves with architecture without really considering or thinking about the structures that become the canvas for our society," explains MPP founder Brede Rørstad.

Unfortunately I’m posting this too late for the Bridgeport Village concert, but it might be great fun seeing a chamber music concert on the under-construction MAX tracks. Or at least it might be a step up artistically from the usual amateur musicians playing for a handout.

Come to think of it, I just had an idea – or remembered one somebody else had. What if some cultural organization such as RACC or the Oregon Cultural Trust started handing out grants to applying musicians to serenade the city? It’d be a great way to encourage and support artists, and might help create a nicer environment in the urban core.

Miller Time

One of Seattle's top architects will be in Oregon this week, courtesy of the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts.

David Miller, founding partner of The Miller | Hull Partnership (they use a straight line instead of a diagonal slash to separate the names - I had to hunt for it on my keyboard), will speak in Eugene tonight (Monday) and in Portland on Tuesday night (at the Portland Art Museum's Mark Building) as the University of Oregon's 2007 Pietro Belluschi Distinguished Visiting Professor in Architectural Design.

Miller | Hull was named the AIA's national Firm of the Year in 2003, and the 60-person firm is one of Seattle's best, responsible for a host of eye-catching projects that embody sustainable principles. I'm particularly fond of the 1310 East Union live/work lofts they completed in 2001 (pictured above), as well as their building for Olympic College in Poulsbo, Washington (pictured at left). Locally, they also did a water treatment facility in Wilsonville and the Tillamook Forestry Center out on Highway 26 6 (sorry - I originally wrote the wrong highway - hence the comment below) heading toward Tillamook and the coast. I think they'd be an ideal choice in Portland for anything from highrise condos to public buildings.

I originally included in this post some information about a lecture by the great Moshe Safdie in Eugene at UO, but his May 9 lecture, "Cities in War, Struggle and Peace: The Arhcitecture of Memory and Life", was cancelled after originally being scheduled for February and rescheduled for tomorrow night. (That's what one of the commenters refers to below.) Hope nobody is making the 220-mile round trip necessarily.

Street of Eames Recap

On Saturday I was one of the lucky 700 attending the Street of Eames tour of modern homes. (Many weren’t able to get tickets after they sold out in 48 hours a few weeks ago.)

After a ticket snafu caused a brief delay, we began at the Boles house, a lovely West Hills enclave with a great view. I liked this house a lot, and my three traveling companions also listed it very high among the six. The strongest aspect of the house was the wood-festooned interior walls and floors. It felt like a modernist ski lodge or beach house. Come to think of it, the wood interior was very similar to a beach house at Neskowin designed by BOORA Architects, to which Boles house owner Stan Boles belongs. (I believe he’s the ‘B’.) (Note: it turns out this is actually not the case; my mistake.)

One of my other favorite parts of the house was outside, where the owners have constructed a small array of metal arms to help hold up a beautiful old tree.

Incidentally, I seem to recall when the tour was first announced, this place was called the ‘Ritz House’ in honor of its original owner and architect, Richard Ritz, who passed away last year. The BOORA/Boles imprint is clear here, and an impressive one, but I’d have favored calling it something like the Ritz-Boles house.

Next we visited a house owned by architect Brian White of Architecture W (and his wife). This was a small, unextraordinary old ranch house that was imaginatively transformed into a two-story home with a nice combination of simplicity and eye-catching good looks. I wrote about this home a couple years ago in Western Interiors before Dwell later picked up the scent as well.

Perhaps my favorite house on the tour was owned by architect Joachim Grube of Yost Grube Hall. (The two dominant themes in this years Street of Eames were architect-owned homes and the West Hills.) This house, designed and built in 1965, was the epitome of Northwest Modernism that took root in the mid-20th Century. Nestled into a hillside, the house rests on a series of six concrete piers, with wood beams stretching the space into a seamless combination of indoor and outdoor space. The house felt very cozy but with plenty of room for lots of built-in shelves, holding the German-born Grube’s series of history books on Hitler and novels by Günter Grass.

The home on NW Raleigh Street owned by Ben Watson (a brand-strategy expert and design consultant who heads Watson + Partners) and painter Claudio Tschopp I wrote about for Dwell a couple years ago. It was originally designed by Portland architect Edgar Waehrer. For the renovation, Watson had the wood floors and wall paneling bleached white, for a pristine look that celebrates the color of light penetrating through from the forest outside. Great furniture here, too (Watson used to work for Swiss furniture manufacturer Vitra.)

Just off NW 23rd Avenue was the Vaivoda house, designed by architect Ned Vaivoda, a co-founding principal of TVA Architects (he’s the ‘V’) now at Yost Grube Hall. With an angular glass and metal façade, this house stands strikingly on its gentle hillside sight, providing a nice contrast to the surrounding homes. It’s a bit 1980s to me, faintly recalling the Miami Vice TV show, but impressive. The house was also sleek on the inside, with white marble floors and a collection of vases in a display case.

The last house on the tour was also a particular favorite, and the only one in a mixed-use location, downtown at SW 12th and Alder. Designed by Skylab Design head principal Jeff Kovel, the residence is on the upper floor of a 100-year-old quarter-block building that Skylab remodeled and completely re-imagined, to the tune of a top AIA design award last year. The residence was eye-popping cool inside, with sloping bamboo countertops and a glass-enclosed outdoor stairway in the middle of the space that formed a small atrium leading up to the roof. Skylab also designed (and originated) the Doug Fir restaurant, and there was similar blend of natural materials and bubbly imagination here.

By tour’s end it was nice to be able to keep my shoes on (or not put on shoe-cover booties), and it was helpful to be able to relieve a full bladder (bathroom use in tour houses verboten). But it was an excellent event for a good cause, homeless students in Portland schools. Congratulations and thanks co-organizers Sherri Nee, Caroline Fenn, and all the Street of Eames volunteers for a great tour. (By the way, I've always wondered: exactly what is a docent?)