Laika Campus: “Terrible Placemaking” For The Very Second Time?

In Friday’s Oregonian Randy Gragg reports on the unveiling of much-anticipated designs for Laika Entertainment’s new campus. Unsurprisingly given that Nike co-founder Phil Knight owns Laika, the new project’s designer is TVA Architects.

No quarrel about that: TVA and head principal Robert Thompson exhibit, as Randy put it, a “brand of classical, highly modernism, a la Mies van der Rohe by way of Richard Meier.” And the Nike campus architecture is first-rate. I also like what I see from the initial renderings (to be posted soon).

But what about putting the headquarters in suburban Tualatin?

The announcement of Laika going to 'burbs reminded me of something said in a Metropolis magazine article I wrote in 2001 comparing the new Adidas headquarters in North Portland (revamped from the former Bess Kaiser hospital) to Nike’s headquarters in Beaverton. Charlie Hales, a City Council member at the time, said this:

Both companies have shown a lot of community spirit and willingness to be good corporate citizens. But I think the real distinction is where these corporations choose to live. That's about as sharp a contrast as you can see.

Nike's corporate campus is the ultimate well-designed, well-executed, attractive suburban pod. It's offices surrounded by parking lots inside a berm across the street from a trailer park and down the street from strip malls. It's great architecture, but it's terrible place making.

Laika’s campus won’t have a berm, and it might be better integrated into the surrounding fabric. I also think the renderings so far look very nice: not as grand as Nike, but perhaps better for it. Laika will also have lots of very nice landscaped open space on its site, something that probably wouldn’t have been possible in a Portland location.

But think of the massive influx Portland is experiencing right now with young creatives, precisely the talent pool from which Laika will hope to draw. I’d wager they’re overwhelmingly choosing to live in Portland proper and not Tualatin or any other suburb.

Laika certainly will have more space and cheaper land way out in Tualatin, as well as ideally close proximity to both I-5 and I-205. But the company has also chosen to sequester itself far from the energy and life in which even most of its employees will live. That means hundreds more people will be driving down the highway each day to get to their job. In that same Nike-Adidas article, I remember Owen Clemens of Adidas (where, in full disclosure, my girlfriend works) saying of the company’s relocation from their own suburban offices to North Portland, “Our lifestyles revolve around downtown more than the suburbs, and being in Beaverton made for some nasty commutes.”

There's one hope for Laika's hapless Portland-habitating employees: a MAX line that takes them there. If that were to happen in time, and Laika were part of a community of businesses advocating for such transit investments, then their going to Tualatin could ultimately be a good thing. But that's a far cry from reality.

It's also not my intention to villify Laika, Nike or Phil Knight. As a longtime film writer, I'm excited about the transformation of the former Vinton Studios into Laika, a studio that could one day compete directly with Pixar and other Hollywood animation studios. Laika has some tremendously talented people on board like director Henry Sellick of Nightmare Before Christmas fame. And I'm also proud to have Nike here, particularly as a Ducks fan, since Nike was born from the Oregon track program. But I wish the locating of these companies' offices was as progressive in its thinking as what they produce.

This shouldn’t be about bashing TVA or even Tualatin. TVA does excellent work, and there are plenty of companies located in the suburbs for whom that was probably the right decision, because their employees and customer base are congruent with that location. But Laika shouldn’t belong in the suburbs. And it’s a shame that Oregon’s most prominent corporate citizen and leader didn’t come to that realization.

Comments

[Dan]

"Laika certainly will have more space and cheaper land out in Tualatin"

I think one interesting thing to note, is that while it may be cheaper for Laika the company to locate in Tualatin, they will essentially just be transferring the costs associated with their savings to the employees and to a lesser extent the Portland metro area instead. As you note, most will probably not live in Tualatin, so there will be an additional economic cost (cost of driving & congestion), a social cost (lost time from commute), and an environmental cost (additional pollution) that employees and the Portland metro area will have to absorb so Laika can have their cheap land and space.

[Bill]

Maybe they'll be smart and have shuttle service like Google does in the Bay Area?

[chris]

I agree with Dans comments. It's unfortunate Laika didn't try to use the copious amounts of real estate in the NW Portland area. The I-5 Tualatin exit is a nightmare during business hours.

Historical note, I notice that 50% (or more) of total Nike campus parking now happens outside the berm of the campus pod.

[Rob]

I have noted elsewhere the "NW industrial sanctuary", specifically the foundry property extending North from Vaughn would have been perfect for Laika. The streetcar, 10 blocks. Even an architectural challenge to reuse some of the industrial buildings while building new modern.

[dave]

The Nike Campus is third rate. TVA should be chastised for such a poor design.

Buildings are impossible to navigate, there is horrible pedestrian access from one side of campus to the other, and no consideration for the climate.

Perhaps Laika will be more fortunate and TVA will have learned from the mistakes made on the Nike Campus.

[Brandon Van Buskirk]

A Commuter rail that is accesible from downtown Portland via light rail is now open & will serve Laika well.

[Pat]

The Nike campus was built in a suburb, but its barely suburban anymore. Beaverton is denser than much of Portland and in some ways is more of a transit hub - it has the WES and the MAX doesn't crawl through it at walking pace like it does through downtown Portland. Additionally, the Nike campus itself is surrounded by transport (3 bus lines surround it and the MAX is very nearby). Phil Knight got lucky, he built Nike at a time of cheap gas and since then a city (it may not look like one, but has the resources) has grown around it. Its very easy to choose to live in Washington county or Portland and work at Nike (for instance you could live in Cedar Mill or Raleigh Hills and have short trips by transit or car to Nike and PDX - or live in Goose Hollow and be at Nike in under 20 min). This is not the case in Tualatin - Highway 5 and 99 are a complete mess and the way real estate is headed it's unlikely that a city with adequate rail and bus will grow at that location anytime soon - if ever. Phil will not be so lucky as he was with Nike to acquire a suburban/rural campus at a time when city ammenities were not needed only to have them move in around him in time for a new era when they are required. He will pay through his pocketbook for choosing this location because he will lose access to talent and his future employees will be stuck in traffic when gas costs 6$ and have no alternative. Meanwhile, over the next decade, his Nike employees will be able to live in the city or suburbs and will be able to take the MAX in from Portland or Hillsboro or take the 62 north/south bus which will likely be frequent service by then. If he wishes to avoid business unfriendly Portland, he should build Lieka along the WestSide MAX - there are plenty of multi-acre car dealerships in downtown Beaverton that won't be required anymore.