Portland Architecture

An Ethics Question

In today’s Oregonian Scott Learn reports that the David Douglas School District board selected the Rommel Architectural Partnership as its “district architect”. Terry Rommel, one of the firm’s two principals, is married to the school district’s superintendent.

Is this OK?

Rommel Architectural Partnership has already done lots of work for the district, so this isn’t necessarily a new question. The selection process happening recently is really just a renewal of a partnership between Rommel and the district that began in 2001 after a bond measure passed.

And Barbara Rommel, the superintendent, was not at all involved in the selection process. And when Rommell Architectual Partnership was selected in 2001, state ethics officials told The Oregonian that there was no conflict of interest as long as that separation remained.

But still.

I’m not asking if this constitutes an official breach of ethics. The firm and the district are not doing anything formally wrong at all. But I wonder if somehow there’s at least a threat to the integrity of both architect and client.

In my view, merely the fact that we’re having this conversation is an uncomfortable one.

In the article from today’s paper, one of the other finalists for the contract, Randy Saunders of RSS Architecture, said there were no hard feelings about the selection. Saunders focused on the fact that the David Douglas district was sticking with an architect it had already worked with – and that is very, very common.

But Saunders’s final quote in the article goes as follows:

“My only revelation was when I saw there were only three proposals submitted. I said, ‘Oops, everybody else knew the situation and said they didn’t want to bother.”

Does that sound to you like a selection process that is beyond reproach?

Duin, Katz and the Central Eastside

In this morning’s Oregonian columnist Steve Duin calls for greater vision and action in the Central Eastside:

“Somewhere in this ‘industrial’ wasteland, there must be a civic monument, some diamond in the rough, that keeps the Eastbank freeway on the river, block after block of prime real estate in disrepair, and any plan to energize the Central Eastside in a state of suspended animation.

A year after Vera Katz, in her last State of the City speech as mayor of Portland, tried to inspire her successor toward progressive thinking on the Central Eastside, her creative ideas have disappeared into the cavernous basement that is Tom Potter’s ‘visioning’ process.”

I agree with Duin’s general premise, that overall the Central Eastside is an under-utilized resource given its prime location directly across the Willamette from downtown, and that the Eastbank freeway is the greatest barrier to future riverfront development. But I don’t think he’s giving enough credit to what is happening in the Central Eastside and how it has transformed.

Walk through the area today and you’ll find a host of buildings that have been restored and serve not just industrial pursuits but architecture firms, graphic designers, realtors, even the city’s hottest restaurant. Buidings like the Eastbank Commerce Center and countless others have restored to newfound glory and activity. This is not the “wasteland” Duin paints it to be.

What’s more, even though I’d dearly love to see the Eastbank I-5 overpass between the Marquam Bridge and I-84 interchange buried underground, some would argue that there’s a bright side to its being there: Urban areas are meant to develop over decades, even centuries, not at the crazily frenetic pace we’ve become accustomed to in the Pearl District and South Waterfront. That the Central Eastside is changing but at a more incremental pace is not necessarily a bad thing.

Besides, as Duin himself notes in his column, it’s estimated that burying the freeway could cost $1 billion per mile. I personally think it’d be worth the investment to go forward with burying this small, half-mile stretch of the freeway and unleashing an Eastside renaissance. But it seems unlikely in this era of budget shortfalls and tax cuts that we can make such an ambitious plan happen.

Still, the overall point Duin makes is a good one. Ultimately the Central Eastside is destined to become a much more dense, vibrant neighborhood than it is today. The days of this being an “industrial” district are, much as some business owners may fight it, numbered—if not gone already.

And speaking of Vera Katz, as Duin does, what about the former mayor lending her name and (health permitting) efforts toward an effort like removing the Eastbank overpass? If we're going to take on such a mammoth, costly endeavor, we need her leadership. More than Tom Potter, Katz was really a friend to architects and urban planners. Just because she's not mayor doesn't mean Katz needn't help keep her (and our) big dreams alive.

Marrying Traditional and Modern on 23rd

Over the weekend I was among the throng of shoppers on 23rd Avenue. It had been a couple months since I was there, and for the first time I got a good look at the new building by Holst Architecture under construction near 23rd and Hoyt.

Maybe it’s my own bias, but usually I don’t care for new buildings that ape traditional architecture. But this building seems to be an exception. It’s truly a marriage of traditional and modern forms, and each style seems to reinforce the success of the other.

The building is clad mostly in white brick, an enduring material that ties nicely with the existing fabric of buildings while also recalling some of the downtown architecture by A.E. Doyle and others from the early 20th Century. At the same time, Holst’s building is strikingly simple and unadorned. The extra long vertical windows cast a strong presence, enhanced by the flat roof extending over the façade. Of course this remains a work in progress, but I really like what I see so far.

In back there is a parking garage that appears to be an entirely different structure, although the two are part of the same building. This portion is more distinctly contemporary, with a wood cladding that recalls Holst’s very successful Belmont Lofts project. I’m a sucker for compelling, warm modernism, so this is my favorite part.

Congrats to Holst on what is shaping up to be a very nice project.

The Vision Thing

From time to time the local planning firm Crandall Arambula publishes various reports on the values, efforts and resources necessary for revitalizing cities. The firm has been successful on such projects in numerous locales: Knoxville, TN; Racine, WI; Oak Park, IL; and closer to home with a very successful civic rebirth in Astoria, OR.

The following FAQ is Crandall Arambula’s look at creating a community vision, which seems very relevant in light of Mayor Potter’s plans.

How is a community vision used?

When a downtown revitalization strategy is developed, the vision becomes a measuring stick that can be used throughout the process to evaluate proposals developed in response to the community's stated objectives.

Do different communities have similar visions?

Yes. A review of seven recent Crandall Arambula downtown planning projects from diverse communities across the country revealed that most wanted:

• Retail/commercial revitalization
• Pedestrian-friendly streets
• Additional and enhanced green spaces
• Improved auto circulation
• Increased parking supply
• A range of housing opportunities
• Improved transit service
• Strengthened arts and cultural programs
• Preservation of historic character
• An emphasis on sustainability
• Healthy and safe neighborhoods
• Opportunities for family-wage jobs
• A place for all ages, ethnic and income groups

If the visions are similar, are the solutions the same?

Never. Solutions are always unique. They relate to the physical condition and layout of the community, the potential for site-specific improvements, the local economy, and the political and financial realities associated with an implementation strategy.

How much time and effort should be allocated to developing a community vision?

The tendency is to spend too much time and money developing a vision. Many communities have spent months and even years creating and refining a vision. The reality is that a community can identify, define and refine its common goals in a few short weeks by holding one or two large public meetings and a series of smaller meetings with policy makers, local leaders and special interest groups.

Teaching Recent Architectural History

Recently I and several others in the local architecture community received an email from Jane Jarrett, director of the Architecture Foundation of Oregon. Jane and her organization are seeking advice regarding curriculum for the Architects In Schools program, which helps teach local school children about architecture.

Currently the AIS curriculum is being updated. Content regarding sustainability has been added, which I think we can all agree is a good thing. But the more prickly issue, and the one the Foundation wants some help on, is regarding how to present and define architectural periods since 1950.

Currently the last chapter in the curriculum, "The Modern Period", goes from 1915-1950. The AFO has enlisted the help of two doctoral candidates from the University of Oregon school of architecture to define the latter half of the 20th Century, and they've come up with the following categories under the banner of "Responses to Modernism":

• Post-Modernism
• New Regionalism
• Deconstructivism
• High Tech (of which Sustainability is a sub-section)
• Minimalism
• New Forms
• Adaptive Re-use

Personally, I think the first three sound great, but I'm not so sure about making Sustainability a sub-section of High Tech. I think Sustainability is a huge movement, one deserving its own heading. I'm curious to learn more about what 'New Forms' exactly means. Does it refer to the wild shapes of an architect like Frank Gehry? If so, I wonder if that could be a part of Deconstructivism. And while adaptive re-use is indeed an important part of today's architecture, hasn't that always been so? I'm not sure it's a movement of its own that is unique to our time.

More broadly, I think it's a good exercise to look at the past 55 years and try to get a handle on things, even though ultimately not enough time has passed to create anything resembling a final draft of this period in architectural history. We know enough to argue that Post-Modernism was little more than a brief aberration in an overall period of classic Modernism. But do we know, for example, just where sustainability will take us?

Meanwhile, congratulations to the AFO and its Architects In Schools program for reaching out into the community to educate and interest young people in the wonder and possibility of good design.

The Superior Afterthought: Big Condos and Small Retail Buildings

As condo buildings here have for the most part become taller and skinnier thanks to zoning changes for the northern Pearl and South Waterfront, there has developed an interesting byproduct: the adjacent single-story retail/commercial building. And often times, at least to my eyes, the architecture here is more compelling than its larger neighbor.

Take The Pinnacle, the new luxury condominiums at NW 9th and Overton (near Naito Parkway) designed by Ankrom Moisan for Hoyt Street Properties. The building has some nice elements to it, particularly the glass elevator tower (it illuminates beautifully at night), but the rest of the building is a little heavy for my taste. I find myself wanting the whole building to look like the elevator portion. (This could be said about so many buildings, that some small element, usually at the corner, stands out above the rest.)

But the adjacent retail space at the Pinnacle block’s opposite corner, 10th and Northrop, has floor-to-ceiling glass and an overhanging roof that adds real presence. I like it a lot. It’s currently vacant, but I hear a tenant may be moving in soon.

There’s also the detached single-story space at the Elizabeth Condominiums, another Ankrom Moisan project for developer John Carroll. I gave the building a negative review in the Daily Journal of Commerce a few months ago. It’s just too fat and bulky for me, with another drab gray exterior brick palette. But I really like the adjacent little jewel, made of concrete and glass (maybe slightly too much concrete). To my knowledge this property is yet to be leased.

On NW Lovejoy between 10th and 11th, there is nice a retail unit that’s part of the Park Place Condominiums, designed by the San Diego firm Carrier Johnson. I find the larger condo portion interesting in how one structure seems to grow out of the other; it’s also interesting for its metal cladding, something heretofore relatively uncommon in the Pearl. But I still like the small retail portion best, which houses a small eatery called Nina’s.

When designing condos, the architect is under a lot of pressure to fit in as many units as possible and comply with FAR strictures. Admittedly it’s easy for me and the rest of the peanut gallery to swoop in after the fact and criticize things because sculpturally the exterior doesn’t get us jazzed. But with these small adjacent retail spaces, you can see the architects designing more freely, fluidly, and with a sense of drama and fun. It’s too bad that same spirit can’t be applied more to the condos themselves. That’s something you can blame the developer and the accountant for as much as the architect.

There are plenty more of these small retail structures that come with the bigger condos. I encourage anyone to email me with more examples or post them to the comments section.

"Oh" Yes

Recently I met with Deb France and Ken Mouchka, formerly principals with SRG Partnership and BML Architects and now heading their own firm: Oh Planning + Design.

Oh P+D has a handful of projects on the boards for clients like Oregon State University and Providence Hospital in Northeast Portland. But what I found most interesting was the firm’s involvement with live-work spaces. We're talking strictly unbuilt stuff, of course, but intriguing nonetheless.

There has been much discussion on this site and among other local media about the need for housing targeted at those working in the creative industries—sculptors, photographers, fashionistas, baristas, graphic designers, bakers, candlestick makers—that can be afforded for less than the hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of dollars residences in the Pearl and South Waterfront are going for.

And come to think of it, lots of others need this kind of sanely-priced housing too. Live-work is a good niche and one there's a demand for, I've heard. That's part of a more widespread demand for condominiums and other dwellings that can be had for, say, the $200,000 range or less.

The plan, according to OhP+D, is to build these units for under $100 per square foot and sell them in the $150,000 to $200,000 range.

Working with investor/developer Bridgespan Capital, Oh has designed three differently sized live-work spaces that—once the team's ducks are in a row with site selection, design, budget, et cetera—could soon be coming to Portland or other Northwest Cities like Bend, Vancouver and Medford. The spaces are very flexible in more than one sense. They can be built as individual units, or a series of them could even be stacked up to about six high. It almost sounds like Legos, and I mean that in a good way. Inside these live-work units, the architects seek to make spaces multi-functional. A kitchen counter in the evening could be a workspace during the day.

In some cities and towns there are difficulties with zoning, because a live-work spaces is by definition a place for two different kinds of occupancies that otherwise don't go together. But France and Moutchka agree that Portland is more amenable than many other cities (such as Seattle) to finding solutions in the code to make live-work a reality here.

And I'm sure that would be welcome news to the numerous artists I know who must endure a constant subterfuge when they dare to fall asleep in the same architectural space as where they did their work.

One other interesting side note about Oh Planning + Design: their offices occupy a downtown storefront on Southwest First Avenue near Taylor Street. As it happens, France and Mouchka looked at office space in the Central Eastside, but actually found a better deal renting downtown, in a space that had been vacant for two years. I’m all for the colonization of the Central Eastside, but have old warehouses across the river really become more expensive than downtown?

Meanwhile, keep an eye out for Oh P+D in the years ahead, be it live-work spaces, health care, or other program types. And once again, all you other talented small firms are encouraged to contact me anytime.

Field Report From Mississippi

In this morning's Oregonian I interviewed local architects Thia Bankey and John Perry about a recent trip they and four other architects from Portland made recently to the Mississippi Gulf as part of an Architects Without Borders outreach mission. The team provided free assessments to homeowners whose houses had been damaged.

Thia had many incredible photos she took on the trip that weren't published in the Oregonian article, so I wanted to post some of them here. In addition, I recommend her field report published on the AWB Oregon website. Here are a few anectdotes:

"Mr. + Mrs. Ball, a sweet elderly couple were alternately stoic and sad, firm in their belief in God. The family glass bowl that always held the traditional celebratory banana pudding was found intact in the front yard, so all was well with the world, even though they lost everything else."

"In another area, Jenny’s front porch and living room collapsed under a huge tree letting water pour in. Mold grew rapidly over the couch, the rugs and the walls. At 8 months pregnant, she was unable to cope with clean up, and now her home is unlivable for her now two-week old baby girl."

"One homeowner was angry at the world. He was a single parent with 4 kids, his wife was late with child support payments, the house was a wreck to begin with, then there was the hurricane. Besides being unemployed since his employer -a beachfront Casino-was gone, one daughter’s room was now unlivable from mold."

Congratulations to Thia, John, and all those involved in the Architects Without Borders. As John Perry told me in the Oregonian article, "Considering the immensity of the job, we barely put a dent in it. But I think we made a difference, and because of that, I got a lot out of it."

Atwater Place

Get ready for another crane in the South Waterfront. In addition to the Meriwether Condominiums, River Campus One and the John Ross, all of which are currently under construction, ground broke recently on Atwater Place, the latest condo tower in the rapidly-evolving district.

Atwater Place is the first condominium project by Thomas Hacker Architects, which has heretofore been known for its public buildings, including numerous libraries in Portland. Thomas Hacker is a superb architect with an impressive pedigree, having worked in the office of legendary architect Louis Kahn and taught at the University of Oregon school of architecture. I’ve always been exceptionally impressed with the craftsman-like detail of Hacker’s buildings and their poetic simplicity. This building makes a nice addition to the firm's portfolio, and it's exciting to think of one of Portland's most talented and esteemed architects becoming part of the condo boom.

What’s immediately noticeable about Atwater Place, particularly in comparison to the sleek John Ross condominiums by TVA Architects being built nearby, is the subtle geometry at work. A series of balconies are sculpted into the building’s façade in a staggered way that makes the overall structure feel much more three-dimensional. And yet there’s a very practical reason behind that move: bringing more balconies and river views to the residents.

The 22-story building is also fronted at street level by numerous townhouse-style units which should help create a more vibrant pedestrian experience and a more cozy neighborhood feel. I saw in some of the master plan renderings for South Waterfront by architect Stuart Emmons a couple years ago, and it’s nice to see that concept coming to fruition.

As with pretty much any project with Gerding/Edlen Development behind it, Atwater Place will also include numerous green design features: rainwater retention systems, high-performance glazing and insulation to reduce heating/cooling needs, low-flow shower heads and dual-flush toilets to reduce water use, and locally sourced materials with a high percentage of recycled content.

One side note: I’ve written a lot about condo projects in South Waterfront this year, because they represent a sizable portion of larger architectural projects happening in the city. But if anyone has information about significant smaller projects and/or work by small firms, I’d love to feature those more as well.

A Pre-Emptive Strike Against Corporate Re-Naming of the Rose Garden

Between college football, NBA basketball and English Premiereship soccer, I watch a lot of sports. And each year I see more arenas and stadiums (or is it stadia?) named and renamed for a succession of corporations that purchase the naming rights. I thank my lucky stars that Portland’s primary arena, the Rose Garden, is a bastion of sponsor-free integrity.

Admittedly I’m being somewhat earnest and Puritan about the matter. After all, venues like the Rose Garden are chiefly home to overpaid athletes and a host of lowest-common-denominator entertainment acts. Nevertheless, I think of a city’s large public gathering places—its concert halls and ballparks alike—as places where something quietly sacred happens. These are buildings where many thousands of people gather with one shared interest. Even if that interest is something frivolous like sports, music or, God help us, monster trucks, I hate to see these sites of secular congregation tainted by a name that, with no disrespect to the sponsoring companies involved, by definition doesn’t mean anything beyond advertising. We're making one of society's last destinations for communal passion into a billboard.

What’s more, when we devote all the resources necessary to build these massive arenas and stadiums, often in part with public funds (although not in the Rose Garden's case), we expect them to endure—maybe not for millennia like the great Coliseum in Rome, but at least for a generation. Besides the sellout inherent in a name such as (just to pick randomly from an exhaustive supply of examples) the Pepsi Center in Denver, Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, or the RCA Dome in Indianapolis, these corporate names of venues so often change. And it makes these huge pieces of architecture feel as disposable as a paper plate.

In Houston there is the embarrassment of Enron Field hastily being hastily renamed Minute Maid Park after the former company imploded in scandal. In San Francisco, there is a beautiful downtown baseball stadium that opened in 2000 as Pacific Bell Park, last year changed its name to SBC Park, and now that SBC has bought AT&T and usurped its name, the stadium will soon take on a third name in its short history. Then there are other stadiums whose original sponsor names represent companies that don’t even exist anymore. For some reason I always remember an interview with Baltimore Ravens star linebacker Ray Lewis in which he was excitedly proclaiming how well his team would perform, “When we get back to PsiNet,” their home stadium. Somehow it just doesn’t quite conjure the same notions of gridiron glory as, say, the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field.

With its parent Oregon Arena Corporation declaring bankruptcy last year, I’m sure selling the Rose Garden’s naming rights has at the very least been bandied about. For one reason or another, it hasn’t happened…yet. But I’d like to advocate that it stay that way.

Maybe you think it’s naïve or antiquated to think of a place like the Rose Garden as being above sponsorship. True enough, one musn’t ignore business realities; the naming rights would bring a lot of money to an arena that hasn’t filled to capacity as often as had been expected, either with the Blazers or with concerts (especially with the competition brought increasingly by the Clark County Ampitheater and Gorge Ampitheater). But even though it’s cookie-cutter stadium architecture, even though the big business of sport often makes me sick, even though the surrounding transit center is a colossal mess, I take a lot of pride in the Rose Garden having resisted selling its soul when so many other places have succumbed.

The Sitka Apartments: Welcome Workforce Housing in the Pearl

Earlier this week brought grand opening ceremonies for the Sitka Apartments, with numerous city leaders in attendance to celebrate the project. Designed by Ankrom Moisan and developed by Ed McNamara’s Turtle Island Development, the Sitka Apartments are a key workforce housing project in an otherwise expensive neighborhood, the Pearl District.

As Renee Mitchell wrote in her Oregonian column, “With housing prices out of reach of the average income and more rental apartments converting to condos, many different types of workers -- such as retail salespeople, police officers and registered nurses -- are being squeezed out of the city.” But buildings such as the Sikta, with most units reserved for people making less than the median income, will be able to live somewhere other than the outer suburbs. (In case you're wondering, workforce housing differs from the more commonly known affordable housing in that it's not for the very neediest, people with disabilities and/or without steady income, but rather for people who happen to be working at jobs that provide a living wage, but not a very sizable one.)

The design itself is oriented around two main features. On the corner is a striking glass portion, something that many Portland buildings feature. There is also a courtyard with some nice landscaping that will provide a nice place for the residents to gather.

The Sitka Apartments occupy an entire block at Northwest 12th Avenue and Northrop Street, overlooking the new Tanner Springs Park. It’s not a very tall building, and as a result Ankrom, with Isaac Johnson as lead architect, has set back the upper units so as to break up the mass. If you look closely, there are some small but handsome small details, such as how the brick façade undulates slightly, like crown moldings inside the home.

This project is also admirably sustainable. It has a strong building envelope and efficient water and lighting usage and healthier indoor air and very efficient heating and cooling systems.

If I were giving my opinion solely from an aesthetic point of view, I’d give it something like a C-plus or a B-minus. It’s a solid fabric building that seems to be well made, but it's not exceptionally compelling to me either. And I think that’s okay. This project didn't set out to be spectacular, but rather a simple, relatively humble, enduring place to live. To me the greater importance of the Sitka Apartments is the fact that McNamara and people at various agencies made it happen. And I give that a big thumbs-up.

As Mitchell indicated in her column, workforce housing is a hot topic right now, and justifiably so. We can’t let the central city become a kind of reverse-ghetto, where the affluent are the only ones to enjoy high-density urban living. I just hope there will be more to come. And whether it’s McNamara’s development company or others, now that the Sitka has proven a successful project, perhaps there will be more opportunity in the future to push the architectural envelope and give lower-income residents a chance not just to join the neighborhood, but to live in a truly beautiful building.