Portland Architecture

The end of Sienna Architecture

In today's Oregonian it was my sad duty to report on the closing of Sienna Architecture Company.

Originally known as JKS Architecture before a 1990s name change that accompanied a new focus on urban infill, Sienna has operated in Portland for almost 58 years. As recently as last summer, the firm employed 45 people in its local office and 9 more in Seattle. But unfortunately, an October cut in staff couldn't stem the tide.

Sienna could be a controversial firm. Reddick, who took over ownership in the mid-90s and then brought on architect Lee Wynn as a partner in 1999, was a savvy marketer. If that means he was more marketer than designer himself, I'm sure Reddick would be fine with that. However, he always has demonstrated a tremendous passion for design and for city building. Profiles of Reddick in Architecture Magazine and the Harvard Design Review spoke glowingly of him as a kind of urban pied piper, seeking out surface parking lots to transform into high density mixed use buildings. Which more or less happened with Sienna projects like the Northrup Commons and Cascadian Court.

Even more controversial than Reddick is Jeff Lamb, a key designer at Sienna who came to the firm several years ago, left to go out on his own for much of the last decade, and then returned the firm's prominent offices on the ground floor of Pietro Belluschi's landmark Commonwealth Building. Lamb has provided design work for recent Sienna projects like Allegro, the 21-story mixed-use condo intended for Goose Hollow along the MAX line, as well as condos in Southeast like H44 and D48 (pictured at left). During his time away from Sienna, Lamb collaborated with BOORA Architects on what I think is one of the best Portland condo buildings: The Metropolitan. I also wrote about Lamb's interior design work on two incredible projects for art collector and tech-industry veteran Michael Del Castello, a Pearl District loft and a Vancouver penthouse.

Frequently when I've written on this blog about Reddick and Lamb, there have been some very spiteful comments from a minority of voices  in the comments section. Sienna had some legal trouble over some of the firm's 1990s work: mixed use spaces built on very small budgets, where risks were probably taken to stretch the design. However one might fault a developer or contractor just is much in those cases. "I wouldn’t say we’ve picked a lot of fights, but we’ve tried to do the right thing in places where zoning didn’t allow the right thing to be built," Reddick told me. "Jeff and I have gone through our share of asbestos suits." Reporting on Sienna's closing, I found good will. Maybe Reddick and Lee Wynn Winn were designers first and business people second, people told me, but they are good people.

Is Sienna's closing a bellwether bell weather moment for Portland architecture? Are other well known firms coming next? Many seem to have laid off employees, although few firms will go on record as saying so. The marketing director at one medium-sized firm I talked to said they had not laid anyone off but have had some projects canceled that were pretty far along towards breaking ground.

Reddick and Winn both told me that Sienna was talking about breaking up into two or more firms as long as a year ago. The studio Winn headed within the firm was focused on hospitality design, while Lamb and Reddick were more involved with ventures in Asia and elsewhere in the United States - they're currently meeting with clients in Tulsa, for example, still carrying out design work orders for a client in Beijing, and have a condo project in Salem called Rivers (pictured at right) that's more than halfway constructed. But the economy very much hastened that process.

If you're a building industry company that partnered with Sienna, or a former employee, and still looking for payment, Reddick told me, "We're owed more than we owe," and he intends for Sienna to honor all those obligations.

As I mentioned in the article, Reddick and Lamb's new company will be called V3 Design. It's Version 3 for Reddick after JKS and Sienna. The 'V' stands for a plethora of words the pair came up with over glasses of wine one night: vision, velocity, vitality. It's also a Roman numeral for 5, which represents the architecture, interiors, product design, development and planning they will offer.

I also would like to give a shout-out to Ridiculous Design, the new studio begun by two laid off Sienna employees, husband and wife designers Giorgio and Claudine Lostao. These are a couple of impressive talents whom I'm hoping will stay in Portland. The Lostaos came here a couple years ago from Miami, where they worked for one of the nation's most acclaimed architecture firms, Arquitectonica. I wrote about their own home (pictured at left), a West Hills renovation of a small cottage into a dazzling modern residence, for the December 2008 issue of Metropolitan Home magazine. The Lostaos and Ridiculous Design specialize in hospitality, and they are retaining McCormick & Schmick's restaurants, a former Sienna client, as their own. These are precisely the type of intelligent, talented creative minds that have come to Portland in recent years, and the very people the city risks losing if the economy slides too far.

Meanwhile, it's still a sad day to see one of the city's most venerable architecture firms close its doors. I've always loved walking past the Commonwealth Building and seeing Sienna's architecture models in the ground-floor window, an ideal occupant for Portland's most significant work of architecture. Whether it's Reddick and Lamb, the Lostaos, Lee Wynn or other talents disbursing from Sienna, though, hopefully we haven't seen the last of these designers.

Architect Layoffs

Whenever there's an economic downturn, the building industry seems to take a large hit. And in talking anecdotally with architects in town lately, I've heard several firms have been laying off in large numbers. I also have heard from some recently graduated architects that the job market is really tough right now. Even Frank Gehry's office reportedly laid off some employees this summer. What's a Portland firm doing lots of condos to do? Staff cuts seem inevitable, at least in the short term.

How bad is it really out there for architects and other designers in Portland right now? Obviously there are a lot of condos getting built a year or two that aren't getting greenlighted now. So are we at a point yet where a lot of architects in this city are collecting unemployment? If you're one of the affected, the worried, or someone with more an optimistic take, I'd like to hear the story.

According to one recent AIA 'On the Boards' survey, billings by architecture firms over the last half-year have been the lowest in the 13 years the organization has tracked these figures. West Coast firms are said to be doing particularly bad as well. The AIA survey did also note, however, that the billings drop has stabilized somewhat over the last two months. I'm betting it'll be down again the next time the survey comes out. But if the Dow ultimately is able to inch upward, perhaps that optimism can carry forward in the building industry. Or maybe in Portland we're a little more insulated from the highest fluctuations in the market because people keep moving here.

Sometimes when I talk to realtors things can sound really dour and then suddenly they'll say things will pick up in a few months. Is this one of those times, or are we going to see a years-long drop off in the forest of condos and offices that have sprouted for the last decade? 

Looking at certain condos currently under construction, I can't help but wonder if these represent the last of a group crossing the finish line, with another pack still pretty far in the distance. And if so, where does that leave places like South Waterfront that are only partially built out? I think even SoWa would ultimately survive. Even just filling out the buildings that are finished or under construction there ought to be enough for a neighborhood, and signs of such are already sprouting there. But it's so deflating to think of momentum being lost, or at least lost entirely.

Ultimately I don't want any architect to lose his or her job or be unable to find one, but I'm optimistic that the building pace will pick up again within a year or so, although not at the volume we've seen in the past. 

Tightened Energy Efficiency Standards at USGBC

The US Green Building Council announced today that all future LEED certified projects will be required to achieve at least two 'Optimize Energy Performance' points on the rating system's scorecard. This will improve average the energy performance of all LEED certified green buildings by 14% for new construction and 7% for existing buildings. “Improving energy performance will immediately increase the LEED Green Building Rating System's impact in reducing building energy related greenhouse gas emissions,” said Tom Hicks of the USGBC.

The move is part of an eight-point agenda passed last November by the USGBC’s Board of Directors to address climate change and buildings. It's really more like a 9-point agenda, because #8 is really two. (Not that I'm being nitpicky, of course.) Anyway, here's the list. Where's Kasey Casem when you need him?

(1) 50% CO2 reduction: all new commercial LEED projects are required to reduce CO2 emissions by 50% when compared to current emission levels.

(2) Increased energy reduction prerequisites: all LEED projects must achieve at least two energy and optimization credits (today's announcement).

(3) Implementation of a carbon dioxide offset program.

(4) Continuous process improvement incentives: all LEED for New construction and Core and Shell buildings that reach certification will automatically (at no cost) be registered for LEED for Existing Buildings.

(5) Pushing the envelop on performance - certification fees rebates for 'Platinum' rated buildings

(6) By the end of 2007, the USGBC as an organization will be 100% carbon neutral.

(7) Portfolio performance program: the long-term goal of this program is to recognize companies for high environmental performance across their portfolios.

(8) Carbon reduction education and industry challenge: the USGBC will launch a new educational program to help industry professionals gain the knowledge they need to apply design and construction practices that are energy efficient and have immediate and measurable impact on CO2 emissions. By 2010, there will be 100,000 LEED certified commercial buildings and one million certified homes. By 2020, there will be one million LEED certified commercial buildings and ten million certified homes.

Is Timber Industry Dragging Its Knuckles At Green Design?

It's not often that people take issue with green buildings, where occupants are healthier, less energy is used and the environment is less negatively impacted. But this week as the AIA has lobbied the state legislature to pass a bill requiring all state buildings to achieve a 'Gold' LEED rating from the US Green Building Council, the timber industry has taken issue because it could mean less wood used in Oregon buildings.

"It's like a slap in the face," Bill Kluting of the Carpenters Industrial Council told The Oregonian's Dylan Rivera in an article from this morning's Business section. I'd suggest that it's a self-slap.

LEED buildings get credit for using wood products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, the requirements of which are more stringent than mainstream timber industry practices. You know, less clear-cutting and more habitat/forest preservation.

Rather than looking in the mirror and seeing both the changing public values and financial opportunity from better protecting the forests it harvests, the timber industry instead favors the state scrap LEED requirements in favor of another green building rating system, Green Globes, which recognizes several forestry standards, including the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, which more or less simply defers to state laws.

It's easy for me to criticize the timber industry for not being progressive enough. I don't live in a small town with heavy dependence on logging to support my family. But ever since the spotted owl incident of the early 90s, when the timber industry fought to cut down old grown temperate rainforests (some of the world's last remaining), including the habitat of this endangered species, I've been skeptical of any timber company looking out for the environment or anything other than business and jobs. Their fight against LEED and Senate Bill 576 confirms that suspicion in my mind. Oh, and I also wretch at clear-cutting that scars the landscape, seen every time I drive to the coast.

Duffy and Hall Elected AIA Fellows

The American Institute of Architects has elected local architects Kent Duffy of SRG Partnership and Nels Hall of YGH Architecture (he's the 'H') to its College of Fellows, recognizing a career's worth of achievement.

Hall has been a YGH design principal since 1980. Prior to that, he worked as an architect in Boston and Zurich firms. Trained at MIT and Cal Berkeley, his experience includes new town planning, commercial, governmental, medical, educational and housing facilities in the U.S., Middle East, Africa and Europe. He also has quite a head of hair.

In addition to his work at SRG, Kent Duffy served as AIA/Portland chapter president when I worked there six or seven years ago. I remember working together on the chapter's annual design awards, and he was always exceptionally gracious. Soft spoken with an endearingly old-school architect's penchant for bow ties and tweed (I'm guessing elbow patches on a jacket or two as well), Kent grew up in The Dalles as a builder's son, studying architecture at the University of Oregon and (drumroll please) Harvard. His best known work at SRG is probably the Lillis Business Complex at UO, a pioneering sustainable building completed a few years back.

More recently, Kent and SRG have designed for Mt. Angel Abbey has a host of new classrooms and other spaces adjacent to the masterful library there by legendary Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. In particular at Mt.Angel, Kent has embraced forward-thinking daylighting design principles in collaboration with UO professor and sustainable design pioneer GZ "Charlie" Brown, including classrooms that can be lit year-round entirely with natural illumination. SRGD Partnership, anyone?

Metro Offers eBay-Style Online Construction Recycling Marketplace

Metro has a great idea going. In a first-of-its-kind effort in the nation, the Portland metro area’s regional government has created an online marketplace for usable commercial construction materials that have been taken out of a building during renovation or demolition. Need a door? A window? Well, it's only a click away now.

About 20% of the total landfill-bound waste created in our area comes from construction. Metro seeks a regional recycling rate of 64 percent by 2009. Currently it’s at 59 percent. This should help.

Called Boneyard NW, the website replicates the model of such online purveyors as eBay and Craig’s List.

A recent study by Metro of recycling among construction and demolition contractors showed that some of them were recycling materials such as wood, metal and cardboard, but that construction companies often lacked current information about the opportunities for reuse, recycling and the sale and purchase of salvaged materials.

Here are some other interesting facts about construction recycling I gleaned from the Boneyard press release:

Contractors have three types of choices when getting rid of materials:  disposal, which costs about $70 per ton; sorting and recycling, at about $30 per ton; and removing salvageable materials to sell them, making money while turning what would have been debris into a product.  On a typical 50,000-square foot commercial office renovation project, Metro says contractors could make $10,000-$20,000 off the resale of used building materials, avoiding another $5,000 in disposal costs. 

The top ten commercial materials that are easiest to reuse, according to a 2004 Metro survey of building professionals, are:

1. Finish wood (flooring, moldings, sidings and trim)
2. Doors, windows and storefronts
3. Structural wood
4. Masonry (brick, concrete, glass and stone)
5. Cabinets and casework
6. Lighting and electrical fixtures (lights, switches, wiring)
7. Door and window hardware
8. Plumbing fixtures (sinks, toilets and other fixtures)
9. Special interior items (cubicles, partitions, lockers)
10. Concrete form work

Every three tons of wood that is reused avoids the creation of 180 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions that would have been created to harvest and mill new lumber.  This savings is equivalent to more than 1,000 passenger cars off the road.   

While Metro region contractors are recycling more than they ever have before, of the 250,000 tons (65,000 full drop boxes) that contractors are still throwing away, Metro estimates that about 60 percent of that material could have been recycled or reused.

Congrats to Metro on a great program.