Portland Architecture

Did PSU Flub Rec Center Commission?

Last week I visited an open house at Portland State University to see the three finalists' proposals for a new rec center planned for a very prominent position: across from PSU's urban center on the downtown plaza bisected by the streetcar.

Although all three were good proposals by very capable firms, I came away with clear distinction in my favorites, which happen to be the exact opposite of how PSU came down in its decision:

Yost Grube Hall's proposal was #3 on my list (of 3). Very solid, simple and respectable, although not the kind of design that gets one excited, especially for such a prominent building for the campus and the city. Their night rendering that ran in the Oregonian and is posted here looks particularly good, but some of the other renderings I saw weren't in my opinion quite as striking. They promised a LEED Silver designation.

My #2 choice was Thomas Hacker's proposal. It mirrored the firm's excellent Urban Center design across the plaza, only with more metal. As always it had Hacker's elegant, craftsmanlike modernism, but having two buildings by the same firm sitting across from each other seemed to cry out for a little variation - the work of a different designer. I believe Hacker expected LEED Silver or possibly Gold.

The clear #1 choice in my book was the proposal by Opsis. Its curving ribbons of metal and rooftop recreation area were visually bold. Opsis also separated the recreational from academic programs and created two separate structures, thereby reducing the overall scale. And best of all, in between was a huge glass winter garden, the kind of bright space that would make a rainy winter day into a sublime experience. (To be fair, Hacker's had this too, but Opsis's was what really captured my imagination.) Opsis target a Platinum LEED designation.

But as Randy Gragg reports in today's Oregonian, PSU selected YGH's design. I wouldn't even have a problem with that if the reasoning made sense. But little of it seems to have had much to do with design itself. The jury was administrators, a Portland Development Commission staffer, and one student. No design experts! Worse yet, the 150-point scorecard was boken down as 90 points to experience, 50 for the lowest bid, five for sustainability, and five for design. Just like my top 3, they inverted what their priorities should have been.

Conservative corporations looking to build cheap office buildings place all their emphasis on experience and low bids. That's how we get mediocre or even outright bad architecture. A public university in the heart of downtown Portland should never, ever succumb to such botched priorities. Five points for f---ing design? Shameful.

This shouldn't be about dissing YGH's design. Had it appeared as the design from the get-go without Hacker or Opsis involved, I probably would have mostly decent or good things to say about it. But I spent about a half-hour looking at the proposals, and I knew I liked Opsis's best in two minutes. And Hackers' second. Granted, just as design shouldn't be minimized as a priority, it also can't be the only criterion. I realize budget and other practicalities have a major role to play. But come on, PSU, this is not the kind of major move that gives us confidence this second-rate university can become a great institutuion.

Rose Slams Cloepfil andPortland LEED Projects

Randy Gragg's Q&A with architect Charles Rose in Saturday's Oregonian was for the most part an interesting, measured, thoughtful conversation. But by the end I came away wincing at a couple of half-cocked displays of disrespect and bad form.

Rose, the Boston-area architect selected by the Oregon College of Art and Craft to design a new library and studio building, talked to Gragg of the "perfect fit" he felt with the project. "My work is all about the relationship between site and architecture. [And] these are great people who care deeply about craft and architecture."

And indeed, his firm's work is deservedly well regarded for, as Randy put it, "deep sensitivity to landscape and an ecological awareness honed well before green became a global cause celebre." I'm excited Charles Rose is coming to Portland to design buildings.

But on a couple of occasions, it was shocking just how blunt Rose was willing to be. First there was his response to a question about sustainable design:

"We always chuckle about Portland, Oregon. Everyone is so proud of all the LEED-certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) buildings they've created. But the fact is, because the temperature differential is so mild, it's really not that hard compared to, say, Vermont, New Hampshire or even down South, where people want air conditioning."

"Chuckle"? Maybe Rose has a valid technical point. But did he really intend to show such an arrogant, dismissive attitude?  It's one thing to say, "We have a more difficult challenge on the East Coast and in the South with energy efficiency because of greater temperature fluctuations." It's another thing to basically say, "Portland LEED projects? Give me a break."

But that LEED comment was nothing to what Rose had to say about celebrated Portland architect Brad Cloepfil:

"Brad's work is looking backward. I'm not interested in this high modernist approach. It's boxy and boring. It doesn't challenge me.

Kanye West hired us to do his house in New York. He basically wanted a Giorgio Armani showroom -- the type of architecture Brad does, very orthogonal, minimalist stuff. We decided to go find the guy who did all the Armani showrooms -- Claudio Silvestrin. It's beautiful minimalism. He's the designer; we're the architects. I thought it would be good for the firm.

But I can now tell you that having worked with the best minimalist architect today, it's so boring."

Usually I find such candor refreshing. But if I were Rose's marketing guru, I'd be lying on the floor in a fetal position right now. I mean, who's next for comeuppance: Pietro Belluschi? I'm not saying either Cloepfil or Belluschi or their modernist style can't be subject of criticism - far from it. But I think it should be prefaced with a certain expression of respect.

To rattle off Brad Cloepfil's accomplishments in defense against Rose's jibe would to give it more dignity than it deserves. I also still want to give Rose the benefit of the doubt, because he's an excellent architect and shouldn't be judged on two comments. But if Gragg's interview is an accurate indication, it's a good thing Rose went into architecture instead of engineering, because he certainly doesn't appear to be a bridge builder. Either that, or he's suffering right now from a case of athlete's tongue.

The Portland-Vancouver BC MindMeld: Is Price Right?

A few of years ago at an AIA conference I met Gordon Price, who was then a city council member in Vancouver, BC and is now the director of The City Program at Simon Fraser University (and whose disembodied head appears at left). He's also a frequent visitor to Portland.

Recently Gordon emailed me with news of a paper he'd written, the title of which seemed intriguing: "Mutual Appreciation: How Portland and Vancouver Exchanged Looks".

The just of his discussion outlines how, as we know, the increasingly tall and thin towers going up in the South Waterfront, northern Pearl and West End are greatly influenced by Vancouver's. What may be less well known to Portlanders, though, is how Vancouver has increasingly begun to embrace the kind of lower-rise buildings more common to the older portions of the revitalized Pearl. Price writes:

Just as Portland was being persuaded of the benefits of the Vancouver style, Vancouver was looking for alternatives to the green-glassed point-and-podium tower. With the redevelopment of the city-owned property in the southeast corner of False Creek as a sustainable neighborhood, a new vision was put forward. In a letter to Council in April, 2004, nine prominent members of the design community argued for a 'town' form of development, "with buildings that are principally low-to mid-rise in height, defining street frontages."

Something, in other words, rather like the Pearl District.

Ecotrust even proposed a re-use of the historic Salt Building as a Natural Capital Centre, specifically modeled after their operation in the Pearl.

In this race to build a new generation of condo towers, has Portland neglected the virtues of the low-rise areas between, say, the north Park Blocks, I-405, Couch and Lovejoy?

As I'm sure Gordon would probably agree, I think a city needs both. Ultimately we want more density here than a city of entirely low-rise buildings could support, and done well a point tower can be magnificent. But there is an intimacy that comes with a more village-like, low-rise setting of two to four-story mixed use buildings. That Vancouver and Portland to some extent have traded styles may be not evidence that one city abandoned the proper path while the other has switched over to finally get it right, but that both cities are completing themselves.

Here Lyons Roar (Actually He'll Just Talk Politely and Show Slides)

On Wednesday evening, Portland State University is hosting a lecture by Canadian architect Brian MacKay-Lyons. Over the last two decades, MacKay-Lyons has built a stellar reputation for creating architecture that utilizes local materials, particularly wood, to craft modern structures built into the landscape that interpret the traditional architecture of Nova Scotia.

According to PSU professor Clive Knights, MacKay-Lyons excels at “the attention given to place response… and the ability to elevate modest means into dramatic spatial experience.”

Knights also forwarded me some quotes by famous architects about MacKay-Lyons, including this one by Pritzker Prize winner Glenn Murcutt:

"The architecture of Brian MacKay-Lyons shows clarity in planning, resulting in forms that are direct, simple, and elegant. The buildings are beautifully sited and crafted. This is an honest, no-nonsense architecture that avoids the fashions of the day. It exhibits that rare quality - authenticity."

The lecture is at 7pm this Wednesday in Lincoln Hall, room 175, and free.

Oh, and don't forget there's also a lecture on Thursday, February 1 by Charles Rose, the Boston architect whose firm is designing an expansion for the Oregon College of Art & Craft. It's scheduled for 6:30pm at The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Avenue, with a $5 suggested donation.

Now Arriving at PDX

Over the holidays I spent about half an hour at Portland International Airport waiting for a pickup, and it got me thinking about likes and dislikes when it comes to design there.

I think many of us would agree that overall, PDX is one of the nicer airports in the world. It's clean, simple, features many local businesses, is accessible by MAX light rail, and is teeming with natural light in the gate concourses. Most other airports I visit make me appreciate ours. But naturally with a place that big, there's always room for improvement, too.

I'd like to make this a participatory conversation in the spirit of my recent POVIC post and the comments that came afterward. What would you like to see changed or otherwise addressed when it comes to design and the user experience?

Starting from the entry into PDX, I always marvel at the glass canopy stretching from the terminal to the parking garage. It's an impressive work of engineering and/or architecture, and it's also highly functional. After getting out of your car, it feels like you're in a dome stadium instead of an outdoor one. And in winter during the airport's busy holiday time, that's a nice luxury.

Inside, I'll be very glad when they find a way to streamline the process of checking in baggage. It's a pain to have to take the bag one's self from the ticket counter to a separate security screening area. I'm all for as much security as possible, but why can't they connect the checkpoint with those conveyor belts behind the ticket counter? Is our schlepping these bags an essential part of the process?

Next, I'd like to see a makeover of the areas between the shops and the security checkpoints. When you're waiting to pick someone up, as I was recently, you're constantly going back and forth between the televisions to see if the flight has landed and the arrivals corridor where people are coming out. Also, there ought to be some kind of indication to people waiting which passengers are walking past us. Why not have some kind of big board like at Penn Station in New York that hangs above the security area? That way you could watch for the person you're meeting and keep an eye on the arrivals information without going back and forth.

It's also unfortunate that this waiting area is one of the darker, more artificially lit portions of the public space. Beyond security on either side, there are large volumes of naturally lit, glass ensconced spaces, yet no one lingers much there - except TSA screeners. Every time I pick someone up at PDX, I get stuck in one of the darkest, low-ceiling places in the whole building. Even more crucially, though, there's not enough places to sit down while you're waiting for a pickup. What seats there are seem too close to the chaos of a children's play area on one side and are (if I remember correctly) separated from the arrivals corridor on the other side.

I also wish there was more available from a retail standpoint on a 24-hour basis. Half the time I'm flying it seems to be at the very beginning of the day or end of the evening, and the only thing open is a newsstand or a coffee place with a few pastries. I think the Port of Portland should subsidize one good deli with high quality groceries and made-to-order sandwiches.

But as I said, I'd like to encourage the rest of you to let PDX know what you like, what you don't and, most especially, what you'd like to see there in the future.

Moyer Plans 35-Story Tower

As reported in Thursday's Business Journal by Wendy Culverwell, developer Tom Moyer has announced plans for a 35-story building downtown at Park Avenue and Yamhill Street, one block west of Nordstrom on land currently occupied by Zell Brothers store, which will be razed. It's to be called Park Avenue West with a budget of $150 million and groundbreaking set for this fall, with a combination of Class A office space (438,000 square feet), underground parking (350 spaces), retail (3 floors) and condominiums (85 unit).

Park Avenue West will be designed by Bob Thompson, founding principal of TVA Architects, who also designed the nearby Fox Tower for Moyer as well as the Nike World Campus and the John Ross condo tower currently under construction in the South Waterfront.

There were signs in the last few months that the office market was finally heating up again, but I'm still a little surprised to hear about such a big project being commissioned. I think the burgeoning trend of multi-program buildings like this, with residential-office hybrids, is a big contributing factor in creating a tipping point for the office market to take off again. The condos will sell, and the parking will be coveted, especially if it's priced reasonably. Retail seems to get stretched beyond the current market's capacity in Portland sometimes, with mixed-use going up everywhere, but that kind of real estate ought to be a relatively easy sell, at least in the long run.

It will be interesting to see what kind of form and materials this building takes stylistically. Thompson and his firm have a fairly identifiable aesthetic, a kind of slick modernism. In the Nike campus, it takes on a kind of Utopian, almost alien feel, but that's probably because it's a campus of building clustered together. And it doesn't stop the buildings there from having a beautiful presence - a kind of business Brasilia. For the most part I like the Fox Tower, but the front view from Pioneer Courthouse Square is a lot better than the back view from Park. (The building did rate high with Portland Tribune readers in a recent survey of favorite local buildings.) In an odd way, though, my favorite TVA building is the Nike factory store on Martin Luther King boulevard. It's just a glass and brick box for hawking second-time-around Swoosh merchandise, but has in impressive grandness that has endured on my countless trips driving by. The firm also did a lovely beach house a year or two for cancer patients and their families called Caring Cabin.

Meanwhile, how do others react to the news of a Thompson-Moyer collaboration downtown, and a 35-story one at that? It will, incidentally, be one of the tallest buildings in Portland.

Imagining Katrina's Waterlines In Portland

I wanted to mention a thought-provoking exhibit on view for another couple weeks at the AIA about imagining the Portland area as a Hurricane Katrina victim. “Waterlines” was created and developed by PSU architecture department head Rudy Barton, a New Orleans native, and his son Greg, an architecture student at Tulane University in New Orleans. It helps us imagine a flood in the Portland-Metro region stretching from Sherwood to Camas, or every house in Beaverton replaced with a 28-foot FEMA trailer. Or imagine this: if 1 out of 2 Portlanders were now living elsewhere.

Barton and Barton have included numerous photos in the exhibit, and of course some of them are incredibly sobering. But somehow I feel most affected by simple map showing the flooding in New Orleans spread across our area. I think it's because it's a trigger for contemplating what it might be like if disaster on the level of what New Orleans and the Gulf region happened here. Not only would countless people be killed, hurt or their home and livelihoods taken away, but the physical fabric of the city would be damaged beyond repair. So many of our old trees would be gone, so many buildings.

This may sound unrelated, but as this spirit of contemplating what we have comes up, I'm reminded of my feelings yesterday walking by the Rosefriend Apartments, the beautiful historic building being destroyed by the First Christian Church to make way for the Ladd Tower project - and all in the name of parking. I respect the fact that we've gone through the process, and the owners/developers have every legal right to do what they're doing - namely obliterating terrific Portland architecture. And I respect the efforts of preservationists and co-developer John Carroll to preserve the adjacent Ladd Carriage House, the nice little anachronism sitting next to the very practical and viable Rosefriend. But standing across the street from this ill-fated beauty, I felt like I was going to wretch yesterday. There's even a little used surface parking lot across the street owned by the University Club that's begging for the underground parking the church needs. And still we bring in the *&%^$ wrecking ball? If there are any elected officials reading this (commissioner Leonard?), I implore you to consider some of the behind-the-scenes strong-arming Mayor Katz employed to help make the case for the Ladd Carriage house's rescue. For the rest of you, consider emailing the church here to make your thoughts known.

I bet a lot of architecture lovers in New Orleans wish they had just such a chance to prevent the loss of their historic architecture.

Mississippi Avenue Lofts Set To Break Ground

I have meant to write about the Mississippi Avenue Lofts for awhile, both because it's a significant mixed-use project in a burgeoning close-in Portland neighborhood and because the project has seen a fair amount of controversy.

The project, designed by the Portland office of San Francisco firm Michael WIllis Architects (which also partnered with Thomas Hacker Architects on the ill-fated Fire Station 1), is poised to earn a prestigous 'Gold' LEED rating from the US Green Building Council. The first LEED-rated residential project on the east side, It consists of 32 residential units and will occupy a site just north of the commercial district along Mississippi Avenue that includes The Rebuilding Center, Gravy restaurant, Video Verite, Fresh Pot coffee and other establishments. There will reportedly be a Pastaworks store on the ground floor. The MAL project replaces an old cinder-block warehouse.

The controversy, as many know, came in December of 2005 when the Boise Neighborhood Association voted to deny support for the project. Some believe the association was hijacked by a few neighbors objecting to the height and gentrification, but that's an argument we've already had here about the neighborhood's objection to another project, the Kurisu family's residential building designed by Holst. Besides, the Historic Mississippi Business Association gave the MAL project a strong endorsement.

In the case of the Mississippi Avenue Lofts project, the original design was more of a continuous horizontal form, the idea being that it would de-emphasize the four-story height. But a revised plan for the building, breaks up its mass by emphasizing a series of smaller individual box-like forms emanating out of the larger whole.

I like how the building has turned out. One of its real strengths is the use of wood, which will help integrate the MAL project with the existing fabric of single-family homes off Mississippi Avenue while also celebrating Oregon's native materials and adding warmth to the overall sense of the building. It also features a tilt-up concrete construction method by general contractor Gray Purcell common in commercial projects but rare in residential that will help reduce construction time by 2-3 months. Additionally, the design features a coutyard plan that will provide ample natural light. And that 4th floor that seems to always freak out neighbors with these projects is set back significantly, not only giving the building a more modest presence on the street but creating a terrific rooftop deck for some lucky penthouse owners.

Developed by the trio of Bill Jackson, Peter Wilcox and David Yoho, this is a project that has had more than its fair share of hurdles to clear, but I'm told groundbreaking could come as soon as February. More and more, the land in North Portland between Interstate Avenue and Williams Street seems poised to explode with lots of new mixed-use housing projects, and many of them are turning out very handsome, such as the aforementioned Kurisu project, the and two projects developed by the Kaiser Group: Backbridge Station and the Backbridge Lofts.

What To Do With POVIC (That Old Blue Building at Waterfront Park)

In last Friday’s Oregonian, critic Randy Gragg looked at the former Portland Oregon Visitors Information Center at Waterfront Park, which has in recent years been a restaurant space.

The building sits beside the Hawthorne Bridge, and I’ve often wondered about it while passing the structure. It has a very prominent position as essentially the only building that’s smack-dab in the middle of Waterfront Park. That’s because it was constructed before the park itself, and was originally situated between Harbor Drive and Southwest Front Street.

The building (pictured here in a 1949 shot by Richard Brown I scanned from the paper after finding nothing online) might have been torn down before now if not for the fact that it’s a unique public building of historic midcentury-modern vintage that was designed by one of the city’s top architects of that period: John Yeon.

As recently as the Parks Bureau’s master planning for Waterfront Park in 2002, the agency (which owns the building) reaffirmed that the space should continue to be a restaurant. But now that Multnomah County is planning a courthouse next door, cutting off the building’s most direct connection across Naito Parkway from the rest of down.

One other possibility floated in Randy’s piece is for some kind of bicycle repair facility with storage and showers for cyclists to use.

Personally, I’m not crazy about either a restaurant or a bicycle facility. The Visitors Information Center building was essentially built to be a kind of museum, a gathering place to learn about the city. Why not make it that again? But instead of handing out brochures like a traditional tourist information center, you could instead make it some kind of real showcase of Portland: anything from Nike shoes to old-growth forests to rock bands. And along the way, you could restore the building to something much closer resembling Yeon’s original design.

Before his death, Yeon actually said he thought the POVIC should be torn down, but a lot of others disagree, and so do I. However, this building has a been a gem in the rough way too long.

How about some kind of public-private partnership to restore this once very good, currently very dreary and potentially great future building? Maybe Parks retains ownership but a private-sector community fundraising effort from a combination of businesses, nonprofit philanthropic organizations and individuals makes it happen? Instead of buying a brick like people did at Pioneer Courthouse Square, you could buy a glass panel.

Meanwhile, what are some other uses the rest of you reading this could imagine for this building? What can realistically be done to transform Yeon’s original into not just reborn architecture but also reborn purpose?

You Can't Go Rome Again

In the Opinion section of today’s Oregonian, local freelance writer and former Conservative Digest editor Richard F. LaMountain writes about the proposed Oak Tower project, but not about the handling of its land parcel by the Portland Development Commission, as has been a frequent and controversial topic as of late.

Instead, LaMountain indicts the Oak Tower’s design as a symbol of today’s cold modern architecture proliferating rapidly throughout the city amidst a condo-building boom. “How do the Oak Street tower and the ever-growing number of these look-alike glass highrises," he asks, "affect downtown’s character and livability?”

LaMountain then describes with suspicion how today’s modern buildings are born from the Bauhaus tradition:

"Influenced by Marxist theory, they designed buildings that were rigorously utilitarian…In the decades that followed, in Portland and elsewhere, the Bauhaus ethic cospawned countless of these sheerly functional buildings…But is functional all a building should be? Look at these structures. They’re sterile, bland, impersonal and – in their geometric cookie-cutter uniformity—utterly forgettable."

I appreciate how passionate LaMountain seems to be. He rightfully believes that, as his essay concludes, “…buildings must seek to impart the nobility, the complexity and the beauty of mankind.”

Yet I couldn’t help but notice that LaMountain’s background at Conservative Digest seems in tune with a conservative attitude about building design and style that’s conducive to creating architectural Disneylands. I also think that linking modern architecture to Marxism is a laughable cheap shot. To my ears LaMountain's implication seems to be that the Commies are ruining America with their newfangled glass boxes. Didn't he get the memo that we bait the yokels with terrorism now?

LaMountain’s premise is rooted in the assumption that all modern buildings are inherently lifeless and lacking in beauty. But of course that’s a highly subjective opinion. I and a lot of other architectural enthusiasts see tremendous beauty in modern architecture. Ever heard of Mies van der Rohe, buddy?

I do acknowledge there’s a kernel of truth to what LaMountain is saying, in that an ordinary, run-of-the-mill building of yesteryear very well may be more attractive than a run-of-the-mill work of modern architecture. Embellishment can act as camouflage, and bad modernism has nowhere to hide, except perhaps in its materials.

Nevertheless, LaMountain in this op-ed reminds me of an art fan who thinks painting went downhill for good after the Impressionists. To some extent, it merely is a difference of personal preference. I happen to love Mondrian, and I’d guess he prefers Thomas Kinkaide.

What we ought to have, and always will have, is a variety of styles to our architecture. But at the same time, the current generation of working architects share access to the same technologies and materials that give shape to today's buildings, and all we can ask them to do is to make architecture that is of its time.

I also think there is a variety to today’s contemporary architecture that LaMountain apparently isn’t able to see. Buildings allude to and incorporate historic styles all the time, but they do so within an appropriately modern context. Otherwise, that’s when you get the Disneyland, Colonial Williamsburg or Las Vegas affect. Should Portland’s modern buildings be better? Absolutely. But they should get better by favoring the creative talents of the city’s best architects and creating a system better equipped to sponsor architectural excellence of any appropriate and relevant style.

New Year's Blogging Resolutions

I forgot to mention it in my previous post, but happy new year to everyone and thanks for reading this Portland Architecture blog during 2006 in ever-increasing numbers.

Looking ahead to 2007, one of my ambitions is to make this blog more inclusive of other voices. As such, I'd like to put out a call for submissions, be they text or image based. In the past I've been the sole person posting to the site, but I'm more than willing to publish guest posts. They could be about a particular issue, a project, or a designer. I'd also like to devote more posts to individual buildings, particularly smaller and/or older ones that may have previously flown under the radar. If someone sees a work of architecture they like, no matter how humble, take a photo and email it to me.

As a freelance journalist, I don't always have as much time as I'd prefer to blog about local architecture. But I really believe in the idea of a website covering architecture and design in Portland on as close to a daily basis as possible. In the year ahead, I'd like to brainstorm new ways to act as a vessel for conversation as much as a generator of it. Let's make this blog better by making it open to everyone.

And without holding hat in hand, let me also take a brief moment to invite sponsors of the site. Either through the outsourced ad service Blogads published on this site, or through an individually crafted custom ad, Portland Architecture is an excellent way to reach members of the design profession and beyond.

Meanwhile, thanks again for reading and y'all come back now, ya hear?

Boston's Charles Rose Selected ForOCAC Expansion

The Oregon College of Art and Craft has selected Charles Rose Architects of Cambridge, Massachusetts for a major expansion to its southwest Portland campus just off Barnes Road. Rose will design two buildings for the first phase of the expansion, a new library and drawing/painging/photography building. The original campus was designed by legendary Oregon architect John Storrs, who also designed Salishan Resort

Rose's buildings embrace the northwest aesthetic perfectly," says OCAC president Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson. "They fit into the landscape, take advantage of views, use natural materials and have a wonderfully human scale while exemplifying the best in contemporary architecture."

A new master plan for OCAC was drawn up by BOORA a couple of years ago that more than doubles the square footage of the campus buildings with additions to existing structures and the addition of a  library, public center, and drawing/painting/photography studio. They missed out on the building commission that went to Rose, but another local firm, Colab, will be working with Rose as the local architect.

Other projects by Charles Rose Architects include numerous public buildings and single-family houses. Public projects include the Currier Center for the Performing Arts in Putney, Vermont, which won a regional AIA design award, and the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Campus Center at Brandeis University in Massachusetts (a local design award winner). The firm is currently at work on two buildings at the University of South Dakota and a youth center in Brooklyn.

Construction for the new OCAC work, part of a $14.5 million capital campaign (which is about half-raised), is expected to begin this summer.

Why Charles Rose for this project?  According to the press release, "The College made the final selection based on their innovative design of architecture in relation to landscape and their national reputation with academic, visual and performing arts projects. The firm also holds a strong commitment to a process and design that reflects OCAC's institutional culture of supporting contemporary art and craft." You could say the same about a lot of other firms, many closer to home, but certainly Rose is no slouch either.

No renderings have been released yet, but I'll plan to post them when they are.