Portland Architecture

Coming Around to Bend

Yesterday afternoon I drove to Bend for an evening book signing. It was the first time I've been to Bend in a few years, and if you don't keep up with this town's astonishing growth, it'll probably feel substantially different every time.

When I was a kid we used to visit here annually, and I remember the population then being about the same as my hometown of McMinnville: around 15,000. Today, about twenty-five years later, Bend's population is over 75,000.

As I was driving into town, I saw two signs. One said, 'Entering Bend.' But the next one, about a mile down the road, said 'Bend: 3 miles.' That's how quickly this town has sprawled outward. On that front, the way in which the town has grown is unfortunate and similar to most American cities. But there is also substantial development downtown. This morning, walking around downtown in search of an espresso, I passed a circa-1920 fire hall that had been converted into shops. Next door was a super-cool coffee place serving espresso. I figured I'd have to settle for Starbucks out here, but this was a superb shot.

I also saw a brick three to four-story mixed use condo going up. It was kind of a funny feeling, because the architecture was very traditional and tame, like something I might give a luke-warm review to at best in terms of its design. But here, where the alternative feels more directly to be a cookie-cutter house on the outskirts of town, it seemed like a masterwork. Everything's relative, ya know?

Yesterday my book signing was in the Old Mill district, where some sort of former industrial place has been converted to a kind of outdoor mall. The place was again in the tradition of something I hate: the so-called 'lifestyle center' malls that create a kind of fake urban environment for their chain stores. At the same time, this Old Mill shopping was right along the Deschutes River, with a delightful little walking path across from the Bend Amphitheater, where superlative Portland band The Shins were winding down a concert amidst the thunder and lightning of a summer storm. My problem with lifestyle centers is that they take a step towards urbanity, but don't really integrate with the existing city's fabric. When it's more part of the environment and blends in like this, though, the verdict is a little different. Oh, and I love that smell of pine and sagebrush in the air - it's like mother nature's potpourri.

I certainly don't want to whitewash some of the less attractive things about Bend. It's growing so fast the city could probably do a lot more to be progressive about planning and architecture. Yet there's also a lot to like about this town. It seems clear that Bend could someday equal or even surpass Eugene and Salem as the second biggest (and most relevant) Oregon city.

Let There Be (Less) Light?

In the August 20 edition of The New Yorker, David Owen has a fascinating article about outdoor lighting and light pollution. Because it relates to several environmental and health issues from wildlife habitat to human cancer rates, I thought it would be worthwhile mentioning here.

Since beginning to write about green building and sustainable design several years ago, I've also long been interested in the properties of natural light, especially daylighting - how natural light is introduced into architectural spaces. I work from home in front of a window and keep all the lights in the house off until dark. I couldn't ever go back to working under fluorescent lights.

But this article is about something related yet different: how important the absence of light can be, or at least a more judicious application of it. And not just for the sake of astronomers, who can see less with their high-powered telescopes than Galileo could see in the 1600s with the equivalent of a coke bottle - all because of light pollution.

The desire for security has prompted throughout public spaces the increased use of exterior lighting. But many of these fixtures actually inhibit the ability to see or prevent crime. Bright unshielded floodlights are one of the most common types of outdoor security lighting. Yet these "glare bombs", as one lighting expert in the story calls them, "cast much of their light sideways, into the eyes of passersby, or upward, into the sky," Owen explains. "Diminishing the level of nighttime lighting can actually increase visibility."

It reminds me of how home kitchen lighting has changed. It used to be the whole room was flooded with light from overhead. But in a modern kitchen, there's more likely to be task lighting that shines onto countertop workspaces.

Besides visibility issues, outdoor lighting has been found to have a huge effect on both humans and animals. Our 24-hour body clock, or circadian rhythm, is such that we've evolved to experience darkness at night. If we experience too much light at nighttime, it can lead to a reduction in natural melatonin production, which Owen explains is "a cancer-protective agent whose production is severely diminished in people exposed to light at night". One study, for example, showed a strong correlation between breast cancer sufferers and working the night shift. My girlfriend's aunt passed away from breast cancer many years ago, and she routinely worked late hours at a grocery store.

Large levels of artificial outdoor light have also shown to harm a variety of wildlife, particularly in bird and insect populations. In Florida, sea-turtle populations have been devastated by artificial lighting--they come out from the ocean to hatch their eggs and get drawn into town, where they're often run over by cars or attacked by other predators.

Here in Portland, my residence is right outside a big streetlight, and after reading this article (if not before), I'd like to inquire with the city about turning it off, or failing that, replacing it with a less pervasive lamp that focuses more squarely on the street and sidewalk. I'm already pulling enough late nights writing as it is; I don't need my street lamp giving me or the girlfriend cancer.

And as it happens, a review of Portland's outdoor lighting might be able to prompt some large savings through greater energy efficiency. In Owen's article, Calgary is reported to have saved about two million dollars annually by switching to full-cutoff (shielded) and reduced-wattage streetlights. That's a nice potential chunk of change for our city's budget. And maybe I wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night with a blanket wrapped around my head in a subconscious search for darkness.

Powells Reading Tonight

Pardon this shameless self-promotion having nothing to do with architecture, but I know a lot of architects in this city attended the University of Oregon, so wanted to extend an invitation to everyone - or at least those who are Ducks football fans - to my reading and signing at Powells Books tonight (1005 West Burnside) at 7:30pm.

The book is called Tales From the Oregon Ducks Sideline, a short history of the team from its beginnings in 1894 to present. There are new interviews with legendary Ducks gridiron greats such as Dan Fouts, Ahmad Rashad, Mel Renfro, Rich Brooks, Kellen Clemens, Akili Smith, Kenny Wheaton and many more.

You may be wondering: Why is a guy who writes about architecture, art and movies doing a book about college football? Because I've been a rabid Oregon Ducks fan since attending my first game with my dad in the fall of 1980. I've lost my voice screaming for the Ducks on numerous occasions, and even got misty eyed after a few key victories. If you've seen the movie Citizen Kane (and I really pity you if you haven't), think of the Ducks as my "Rosebud".

Incidentally, has anyone ever noticed the natural divide in Portland between Duck fan/alums among architects and Beaver fan/dropouts among the contractors? The culture of building today, particularly with sustainability, is such that designers and builders are more regularly collaborating early and often. Hopefully the contractors will still have a good attitude come December 1 when Oregon clobbers Oregon State. (Nevermind that the Beavers won last time, of course, with some major luck.)

Meanwhile, back to architecture-oriented posts next time around.

Courtyard Design By SERA, RosefriendApartments Homage By Opus?

Recently, by way of Design Advice Review with the city, SERA Architects unveiled preliminary designs for a new six-story apartment project in Northwest Portland just off Couch Park.

Park Apartments, as it's to be called, is a half block site on 19th between Glisan and Hoyt with six stories including retail on the ground floor and underground parking, and roughly 95 market-rate apartments. Because this site requires Type 3 design review before the Historic Landmarks Commission, SERA's Kurt Schultz says they have been meeting with neighborhood leaders "...for several months to figure out a concept for the site that takes advantage of its unique location fronting the park and meets all the historic criteria of the Alphabet Historic District."

The resulting idea was to bring back the courtyard apartment typology, best characterized by the now-demolished Rosefriend Apartments as well as the similar Ambassador Apartments downtown near the Broadway Metroplex and Gus Solomon courthouse. Schultz also cites numerous other buildings from the first three decades of the 20th Century, such as the Biltmore or Campbell Court. 

"We think it’s a great prototype for this location to allow the park to cross 19th avenue into our project, and provide an amenity that is gracious for the residents as well as for the urban/pedestrian passerby," he says. "We have been also looking at proportions of the early 20th century apartment blocks to get clues on scale and massing.  Our intention is to build a modern interpretation of the courtyard apartment using proportions found in the alphabet district but not attempting a faux historic structure in its details."

The attached images were presented to the Landmarks Commission at an early design advice request last week and, Schultz says, were well received. He also cautions that these are early designs that SERA expects to develop based on further input, going back for a second DAR in December or January.

I love the idea of bringing back the courtyard, which was one of the best things about the Rosefriend Apartments. And it's of course ironic that the developer here is none other than Opus Northwest, developer of the Ladd Tower that hastened the Rosefriend's demolition. Would it be going too far to call doing a similarly-shaped and proportioned building a kind of architectural penance?

Regardless, I think the rightness of the courtyard form wins out. I'd rather have windows from two or more sides than marble countertops in long, thin unit with one wall of glass any time. In terms of the look, the forging of modern lines with a neighborhood-friendly feel and form, it seems too early to tell based on a couple sketches. That said, I like the fact that Schultz and SERA seek a modern building and to avoid historicism. What might that mean in terms of materials? Maybe some of you architects would like to make a few suggestions.

UPDATE 8-28-07: I was just looking at the rendering again today of the apartments, and the form reminded me a little bit of a totally different building type in a far-away city that I visited earlier this year: the Copenhagen Opera House, designed by Henning Larsen and engineer Bruno Happold. It doesn't have a courtyard and it's not apartments, but the building is not dissimilarly sized (short and wide) and has a big wide roof to allow for lots of glass on the facade. What about SERA extending the flat roof we see in the rendering and using the extra shading to provide more glass - would code allow for such a thing?

Oregon's Empty Green Rep and Greedy Timber Company Sprawlers

Steve Duin makes a great point in his Oregonian column today, one that's surely occurred to many of us at various moments, throwing out recyclable water bottles every day, the open sewer that is the Willamette River, or especially the dark specter of timber companies seeking to destroy both our irreplaceable old growth forests and, via Measure 37 subdivisions, even what little additional non-sprawled open space is left.

"Green? Us? Please," Duin writes. "Smug? Definitely. But as Oregon's reputation as an environmental pacesetter? Way overrated." (I'd link to Duin's column but can't find it on the Oregonian's terrible website. Maybe one of you readers could forage for it on my behalf.)

Duin talks about how student volunteers from the Northwest Environmental Defense Center actually collect more fines from polluters than Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality. How air quality is all but not enforced. Senate candidate Steve Novick (who I personally plan to vote for in the primary -- not to tell the rest of you how to vote), discusses how DEQ enforcement is taken "much less seriously" than at the Washington Department of Ecology.

But nothing, I mean nothing, compares with the continuing potential land-use holocaust that is Measure 37. Take a look at this report from 1,000 Friends of Oregon:

Look at this map of Washington county, where Stimson Lumber has filed $269 million worth of Measure 37 claims and is chomping at the bit to subdivide massive tracts in the foothills of the Coast Range, in the western reaches of Washington County, which you can see on this map.  Their claims even extend over the range, into Tillamook County.

But the Washington County numbers are truly staggering.  Stimson seeks to develop 36,086 acres (7.6% of Washington County) of pristine forest, and would see a spectacular payday if Measure 37 stays on the books, many times their $30,000 contribution to the Measure 37 campaign in 2004. 

Measure 49, the proposed fix to Measure 37 going on the November ballot, would appropriately limit this proposed development, and will ensure that the little guy gets priority over greedy deep-pocketed timber companies like Stimson.

And by the way, I'd like to ask the leadership of Stimson: Just how do you sleep at night? Is it Tylenol PM, Xanax, alcohol, Valium, Ambien? Because there's no way you could lie down at night and not be kept awake by the thought of the way you're raping the landscape.

On a more positive note, though, on September 8 from 10AM to 4PM at the Oregon Convention Center, there will be a town hall meeting hosted by Congressman Earl Blumenauer and others designed to discuss options and trump up support for Measure 49. Hey, I'd wear one of Blumenauer's ridiculous bow ties for a year straight if I thought it'd help pass this measure.

Dissecting Portland-Eugene Transit

Yesterday afternoon I drove down to Eugene for a book reading. The drive down was miserable, with the rain bringing accidents that made a normally twenty-five-minute drive from Portland to the suburbs' outer edge at Wilsonville took an hour. Traffic on I-5 South was so backed up that I exited at Tigard and spent the next half-hour (along with hundreds of other cars) driving two stops down to Tualatin in suburban-auto hell.

The question I ask myself a day later is this: What could we realistically hope for in our system to make that outcome, experience and set of options better in the future?

  Of course not everyday brings the dangerously slick conditions of a first rain and its ensuing bottleneck-creating car accidents. (It should go without saying, of course, that the welfare of those injured takes precedence over the traffic backup.) However, even without the 8½-esque traffic jam stresser (I too wanted to just float away, like Marcello Mastroianni), we're talking about a single-occupant car putting 250 round trip miles, with all the attendant pollution, the contribution to overtaxed highways, and probably $50 in gasoline cost going to some big oil company in Texas whose political contributions and lobbying would undoubtedly make me wince.

Obviously I could have taken Amtrak or the bus. But call me greedy: I want transit options that feel realistic, that won't cost much more than a car trip and won't take much longer. That has to include either rail or bus options not only between Eugene and Portland -- the state's two largest cities, which need a solid transit pipeline economic pipeline -- but also within the cities on either end.

We've talked about high speed rail on this blog numerous times, but I'm not sure any of my posts or the ensuing comments have really ever identified what we truly need to make this happen. Is anyone reading this qualified to walk myself and other readers through what series of successful steps would have to be taken to secure funding for such a line?

Seems to me like high speed rail would realistically run from Eugene north through Salem, Portland and either terminate in Seattle or continue on to Vancouver, BC. Is Amtrak the only option, or would/could we be better off trying to get rail lines such as these privatized? If it does come to Amtrak, is there anything that can realistically be done beyond simply lobbying for such things?

In more realistic, short-run terms, even though auto traffic shouldn't be the only alternative, I think Interstate 5 needs to be widened from two lanes in each direction to three on the stretch between Salem and Eugene. It's consistently three lanes or more between Portland and Salem, and that makes a big difference. When it's only two lanes in each direction, you're stuck driving either slower than you probably want in the right lane or potentially faster than you want in the left lane (somebody always wants to go faster). It also makes the bottleneck opening twice as small if an accident or construction takes out a lane.

Beyond the question of transit between Portland and Eugene, it's no coincidence that I'm writing about state transportation issues frequently lately. Obviously summer is a time for travel, some of which I've done, but also everyday business, like I was doing last night. I feel like we're reaching a critical mass, or should be, when it comes to making a coordinated big-picture effort when it comes to transportation. I just don't think the state of Oregon has been able to get real when it comes to the continuing population influx here. We can't just rely on the same roads and bridges. We're not investing in transportation nearly enough. As I've said before, transportation funding ought to be something conservatives and liberals (and the majority in between) ought to agree on. It's the circulatory system of a healthy economy, helping the smallest of business and biggest of corporations alike. It's also an investment in place, and a precaution against wasting our lives away sitting in traffic.

Oh, and those gas companies taking my cash during that drive? They fight things like gas taxes to pay for roads, and they'll really fight rail. Are we up to the challenge?

Postal Blitzkrieg: TownhomesWith A View

It feels like I've been receiving these brochures most of my life, but really it's only been a few months. Townhomes With A View, a condo development in Clackamas developed by World Class Homes of West Linn, has sent out thousands of direct-mail brochures about its properties, complete with lots of exclamation points:

"A Place of Your Own!"

"Come for the views...Stay for the lifestyle!"

"Exceeding Your Expectations!"

At first, like most junk mail, I barely looked at it while taking the brochure to the recycling bin. Later, as the brochures kept coming, I got openly hostile. After all, these condos to me look like apartments built in the 1980s, or perhaps some kind of resort with a golf course nearby. And the insides look like the 'before' shots in a makeover show on TV: very beige on beige, with rounded and over-stuffed couches. Blech. (By the way, I had to laugh when I realized they're sending out all these brochures and don't even have a website for the development.)

But there's one thing you can't not notice about these Townhomes With A View. They're very inexpensive. A 580-square-foot, one-bedroom unit can be had for $106,000.

I'm not saying we should build such developments in Portland - far from it. But can't there be a happy medium between these Townhomes in Clackamas and million-dollar ones here? I'll bet there are lots of Portlanders who wouldn't ever consider the Townhomes but would love to see that same basic construction budget applied with cooler design to a project with a better location here in civilization (obviously land would be more money). Is it that impossible to build a place where a one or two-bedroom condo sells for what people making under $50,000 can afford but isn't exiled in the 'burbs?

A year or two ago, I spoke with an architect about a multi-unit residential project that would feature very small units and bare bones (but not chintzy) finishes. But they were having problems making it work, problems with the codes of some sort. I can't remember what they were, but let me ask:

What are the barriers to building, say, a building with 20 or 30 units, somewhere between the Willamette River and 82nd Avenue, Powell and Killingsworth, with one-bedroom units starting at, say, $150,000? If there are already projects like this, where are they and why do we all talk as if they don't exist?

In other words, there's no chance I'll ever move to a banal condo in Clackamas, but it's a shame that a project like this really does have something we yearn for in Portland.

SoWa, You Ask? Visiting TheJohn Ross Condos

When you're a Portland Architecture blogger, life is good. People invite you to look out at the city from atop the 31st floor penthouse of their new condo buildings. Such was the case yesterday when I kicked the proverbial tires of the John Ross Condominiums with architect Robert Thompson, honcho of TVA Architects.

As my car sped around the various detours in the perennially under-construction South Waterfront, late for my appointment as usual, it hit me that I'd never really explored this new neighborhood on foot. I'd been to the OHSU building nearby, but always wound up in the underground parking garage and then in the building. Luckily Bob was waiting outside, and before stepping in to this 325-foot lipstick-shaped building, we took a brief stroll in this new neighborhood.

The John Ross (which I like to think of as being named after TV's John Ross Ewing) has about an 8% smaller floor plate than a rectangular building on this site would, and some of the leftover territory has been landscaped by Murase Associates - Bob believes it may have been the one of the last projects the late great Bob Murase worked on before his untimely passing. (Like all landscaping, it's also gonna take awhile to grow in before looking its best.)

Inside, the double-height lobby is wrapped in tall glass. It feels like a dramatic space, even though many of the units in this building are smaller and (in relative terms) more affordable than the Atwater and Meriwether condos next door. The curtains, in case you're wondering, operate by remote control, although I'm sad to report I didn't get to give it a try - I had in mind some kind of choreographed thing with the two stories of curtains moving back and forth to 'The Blue Danube' - but maybe I've still got 2001 stuck in my head from a couple weeks ago.

  From a distance, both the John Ross and the adjacent Atwater Condominiums (pictured at left), the latter designed by Thomas Hacker Architects and nearing the end of construction, seem like dark buildings with dark glass. Up close, though, it becomes more apparent that the glass is clear and untinted, but merely looks dark in daytime because interior spaces are naturally darker than outdoor light. Up close, the Atwater and John Ross seem more like transparent buildings than the adjacent Peter Busby-designed Meriwether (pictured at right), which seems to have much more reflective glass. (GBD Architects was a partner in all three projects, by the way.) That said, the golden colored non-glass portions of the Meriwether brighten that building up. And the metal that clads the John Ross with the glass feels handsome in person. There isn't any questionable-looking concrete yucking things up. The Atwater's form looks pretty bulky, at least from this back end (I think it looks a lot more slender from the river) but the detailing is exceptionally nice, not unlike The Eliot downtown and perhaps the best in the neighborhood so far.

With both the John Ross and the Atwater next door or any project of this type, the tower is what grabs the attention, but the adjacent smaller, wider buildings are worth a look on their own. The Atwater does a nice job of breaking its portion into a contemporary version of row or townhouses, although I'm not completely sure about some of the concrete surrounding the glass. On top of the John Ross low-rise space, like on a lot of these buildings, there's a nice rooftop deck (pictured at left).

Although the John Ross is, as I said, kind of circularly shaped like lipstick, portions of the facade extend out of each other from the pattern of balconies. You get more of a sense of that in person than driving by from a distance on I-5 or the Ross Island Bridge.

Whomever the Mr. or Ms. Moneybags who will be calling that 31st floor penthouse home (perhaps Mr. Ewing, as a refuge from the pressure cooker of South Fork Ranch), they'll have the entire floor, providing a 360-degree view from inside or out with the help of a perimeter balcony. This is not for people afraid of heights. As I told Bob, I could do without a television if I lived here, because the view and the weather outside would be plenty of theater on their own. That said, I'd also keep a parachute in the closet.

A few years ago when South Waterfront was still just in the idea stage, I remember Brad Cloepfil talking excitedly about this neighborhood could be "a laboratory for modern architecture". It hasn't necessarily turned out that way in terms of pushing the envelope of design - at least not in a strictly sculptural sense.

However, when you stand down there between the towers and beside the riverbanks, even as the streets are still mostly empty and there are vacant lots nearby on every side, one can tell that this is going to be a unique, vibrant part of Portland in which the architectural vocabulary is nothing but modern and people are enjoying themselves. There'll be the streetcar going by, the tram, boats on the river, cars on the bridges, and all visible at once. Throw in a few places to eat and shop, and South Waterfront is quickly going to morph from the building industry media to another swatch in Portland's urban fabric. We're not gonna make jaws drop with these condos, but to me this seems like it's really going to be a successful urban space.

Of course I, like most people, could never afford to live here, but it will be fun to visit.

Page C3: Transportation Everywhere

While glancing through the Metro section of this morning's Oregonian, I happened to notice one page in particular, page C3, and how out of eight combined features and shorter blurbs, seven related to transit.

The biggest feature, by David Anderson and Marjon Rostami, reported that Washington County is pondering "an urban renewal district to pay for infrastructure." What's next, a bake sale? It's just plain sad how unwilling and/or unable Oregon is when it comes to investing in its infrastructure. This should be a no-brainer to me. If you're on the left, focus on the mass transit and high-density, green developments tied to it. If you're on the right, think of how highways, rail and the rest of the total picture comprise the bloodlines of a thriving economy.

This was especially on my mind after a short trip last weekend to Newport on our usual route by way of Highway 99 to McMinnville (aka McHometown), Highway 18 to Lincoln City and then Highway 101 south to Newport. I have always loved the coast, and we've always gone out of our way to visit the Nye Beach area of Newport, at least until the demise and perhaps ill-fated renovation of our beloved Nye Beach Hotel. But driving to and from Newport this time, I really asked myself if it was worth it after the headaches of ceaselessly heavy traffic. Oh what I'd give to get on a train from Portland to Newport by way of  McMinnville, Grande Ronde, and Lincoln City, to get my car off the road and de-stress. Plenty of others would gladly do the same. Why is this so impossible. Even a bypass of the traffic-freezing eyesores Newberg and Dundee seems impossible without some ridiculous toll. Are we the cheapest society on the planet or what?

Below the Washington County transit story is Dennis McCarthy's piece on how Milwaukie's future light rail stop is now assured of not running downtown, after a committee studying options nixed that one with help from an interested DarkHorse figure (indeed). A light rail stop going down main street sounds pretty cool to me, but the only really important thing is that it stops near downtown and serves what is hopefully an increasingly high density cluster.

Next up is Dana Tims' piece on how Tigard businesses "fear rail project poses obstacle", as the conjunction-free headline goes. "Owners say a proposed median would hut access to their establishments." That's a fair criticism. Is there not a good design solution to this? I mean...

Over in the small brief blurbs, we have news of selection being put off for selection of a developer for the Westgate Theater space. I have a soft spot for the Westgate because I saw many of the great late-70s, early-80s popcorn movie classics like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark there (not to mention crap like Willow), and it's really too bad the adjacent property, The Round--a high density mixed use, transit-oriented facility--has had mixed-to-disappointing results. Fear not, citizens of Beaverton, we will throw you density's cultural life preserver yet! Seriously, though, I hope they won't get scared and make the Westgate another strip mall.

Speaking of which, Beaverton also has agreed to sell property on Southwest Hall Boulevard to Habitat For Humanity for the construction of five more houses, which apparently was already finished last year. Glad the counting of your chickens before hatching went off okay, fellas. Meanwhile, the thought strikes me: should Habitat For Humanity perhaps try to focus more of its resources on high-density housing for the less well off? That seems more realistic to me given the region's density goals.

There are a couple more blurbs I won't bore you with, but all of this, along with my own experiences recently, remind me of the drum that Randy Gragg and others have beaten: that the state needs to get busy rebuilding bridges, looking at more highways, and repairing the ones we've got, all in addition to a serious investment in inter and intra-city rail. I sure hate having lane closures and all the other construction headaches, and a poor journalist has no business campaigning for more taxes. But I'm revving my engine at those parked in the way of reasonable progress.

Big Developers Reloading:Anticipation & Advice

In the last several days, various newspaper reports I've read have indicated a handful of Portland's biggest developers may have projects either in the works or will do so soon.

John Carroll, a pioneering Pearl District condo developer who previously was responsible for The Gregory, the Chown Pella Lofts and The Elizabeth in that neighborhood as well as The Eliot downtown, reportedly has proposed to the City to replace its downtown garage at SW 10th Avenue and Yamhill Street (right near Central Library and between two MAX stops) with 25 stories or more.

Gerding Edlen, developers of the Brewery Blocks and various South Waterfront properties (with Williams + Dame) as well as a handful of condos in downtown Los Angeles, recently sold three of the buildings for about $291 million. That could go a long way toward investing in more condos.

And the Naito family, holders of numerous properties in Old Town and elsewhere, seems to have ironed out its long-running family feud, at least enough to start developing some of their properties. According to yesterday's Oregonian, first up could be a new headquarters for Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects.

I probably don't know any more than you about what these developers have up their sleeve. But instead of waiting to comment on what they unveil however many months down the road, I'd like to encourage anyone to give these developers some unsolicited advice.

These are business people first, and architectural patrons second. That's not a criticism, just a reality. If I had millions of dollars at stake on a business venture, the money would be my biggest concern too.

However, we Portlanders are going to spend probably the rest of our lives looking at the buildings these developers may be talking about right now. What do we want out of them? It's not enough to say good design - that means different things to different people. How do they get there without taking business risks they're unlikely to commit to?

Looking at Carroll, Gerding Edlen and the Naitos, there is a strong previous history of working with two firms: GBD Architects and Ankrom Moisan. Obviously the developers have established a long record of experience, communication and trust with these firms. Can't argue with that. What's more, GBD and Gerding in particular produce buildings with high LEED ratings routinely. (Zimmer Gunsul Frasca and SERA also increasingly seem to have wedged themselves into the condo game, including possibly another condo in Northwest coming soon for SERA near their previous one, The Civic.)

At the same time, it's not healthy for a city or even a neighborhood to have building after building by the same architect, even if within these familiar firms there are countless individuals coming and going and working on different projects.

In some cases, service firms like these pair with smaller but esteemed design firms like Thomas Hacker (with GBD and Gerding for a South Waterfront condo) and Holst (with Ankrom and another developer for the 937 condos in the Pearl). But this probably isn't a perfect arrangement either, giving the exterior skin to one group and the insides to anther - not very holistic, ya know?

Anticipating a project is also way more than what architect gets selected. What else can we say to these developers about executing good design?

With Carroll, for example, I've heard (and made) accusations in the past of bowling-lane-shaped units and neo-historic stylistic moves that are wildly popular with some and lack integrity to others. The guy has a right to make a profit and work with whomever he wants. But is there anything more he should know or do?

The Naitos are more of an open question. I associate them more with existing buildings like The Galleria and various Old Town properties. Who out there can prognosticate what we might see from this developer on new projects?

Of course you also have Hoyt Street Properties, which worked with Ankrom a lot in the past but now has its second project in a row happening with BOORA, The Encore, after first building the soon-to-open Metropolitan. Hoyt Street is on its way to carving out the northern edge of the Pearl where the Fremont Bridge and Naito Parkway intersect. Will it be BOORA-ville? And if so, is that OK, or is too booring?

Some of you are probably yawning at the mere mention once again of Pearl and South Waterfront condos. These two neighborhoods take up a hugely disproportionate amount of discussion, but understandably so because that's where tall buildings are quickly making up the skyline. And how do we feel about that skyline so far? Unsurprisingly, I find myself pretty happy at street level, but pretty ambivalent seeing these towers from a distance.

The Casey's "Ski Resort" Panels

About 10 days ago the always entertaining Matt Davis of the Portland Mercury's Blogtown expressed shock and dismay at new cladding going up on a Pearl District condo.

The cladding, Davis said, "makes it look like a 1970s French ski resort, closed down for the summer off-season" while also comparing the material to "curry, puke" and "puke curry". Pardon me, by the way, if this is spoiling your lunch.

The condo in which this cladding appears is The Casey, designed by GBD Architects and developed by Gerding Edlen, the team that also brought you Brewery Blocks one through five as well as the Gerding Theater for Portland Center Stage at the renovated Armory.

Looking at the under-construction Casey and its cladding on the Mercury blog, I at first thought it was a wood paneling system - perhaps because of Matt's "French ski lodge" comment. But it turns out that this is not wood but a new terra cotta paneling system. I got the following description from GBD:

The Casey exterior skin material is a one-inch-thick, pre-cast panel tensioned with stainless steel wire.  This is a brand new pre-cast panel system designed and developed by Brian Blount with Arcis.  The material is locally fabricated, just outside of Portland, with local materials.  The Casey exterior skin is a true rain screen system with primary and secondary barriers for water intrusion and contains, through the wall, flashing every three floors and weeps above windows, which allows water to drain out of the skin cavity if any gets in.  The wall type assembly has two inches of rigid insulation on the exterior side of studs, thus thermally performing better than a metal stud wall with batt insulation within the cavity.  The pre-cast attachments are G200 (highest quality) - a galvanized clip system meant to last the life of the building.

The inspiration for the panel scale and texture was inspired by the "Bank of California" building on SW Broadway and Washington.  The design intent with the color of the panels was to bring a little color to the neighborhood with its varied ocre hues. The subtle variation in hues was intended to bring a dappled pattern, which playfully interacts with the varied size punched windows on some of the elevations.  Due to the fact that the north elevation has to respect the adjacent building's potential to build up one day, we felt added texture and interest to this elevation was the utmost importance to get away from just a blank wall.

It's also worth mentioning that The Casey is poised to become the first LEED 'Platinum'-rated condominium building in the United States. Along with contractor Hoffman Construction, the GBD/Gerding Edlen team has certainly formed a group that can churn out remarkably efficient and sustainable buildings. They're not always the strictly prettiest buildings, at least not in my subjective viewpoint, but as Mark Edlen of Gerding Edlen once told me, some of these big projects need "a whole cadre" of people to make them so efficient, and they've certainly been leading the nation in that regard.

The building will also make ample use of Bullseye Glass, which I mentioned in a review in today's Oregonian of a new showing of glass works from architectural projects at Bullseye Gallery.

Regarding the terra cotta panels themselves, I really like the fact that the team is trying this kind of new-old material. If you look at downtown Portland from Courthouse Square, most of the surrounding white buildings by the great A.E. Doyle as well as the Jackson Tower are clad in terra cotta. The Casey is harkening back to that tradition but doing so in a forward-thinking way. And while the form of the building seems for the most part to me no better and no worse than most condos of this era, I like the fact that the architects and larger building team are trying to make their building more unique through its materiality. I think what Matt may be responding to is the natural brownish-orange color of the terra cotta, which is painted in most scenarios but not here.

Getting back to Matt's question, though, you tell me: Is this cladding system beautiful, hideous, or somewhere in between?

An Architects Without Borders Fundraiser and...Indian House Music?

As mentioned in previous posts, a team of Portland-area architects, designers, and engineers from Architects Without Borders-Oregon is providing pro bono design for a master plan of the Wollega Academy, a 40-acre site in Dongoro, Ethiopia, as well as design for several new school and housing buildings.

“Currently rural folks, kids and adults, work all day - back breaking work,” says AWB’s Abbey Dacey, “then come to this campus to study with sixty or seventy others, in a classroom big enough for thirty. It is hot, it is dark and it is ten o’clock in the evening, and they are here because education is everything and this is what is available. A lot of things are needed; Architects Without Borders can at least help out with a school.”

The Wollega Academy expansion in Ethiopia will make it one of the only schools in the region providing full educational curriculum for grades 9-12.  AWB-Oregon has joined with local contractor Mike Philips to begin work on a new campus, which features large, day lit, naturally ventilated classrooms, dormitories, and a new library. The new campus will give students of Wollega the opportunity to engage learning in a safe, comfortable setting, virtually unknown in Ethiopia.

The AWB-Oregon chapter is having a fundraiser this Thursday evening at Holocene (1001 SE Morrison St) at 8pm to raise money and drafting supplies (to be shipped to the school's technical drawing teacher) for AWB-Oregon's efforts. Entertainment will be provided by Adrian Orange’s blend of electronic, pop, folk and Brazilian jazz, as well as DJ Anjali’s mix of Indian and other south Asian house music, while a slideshow photos from the Dongoro site plays overhead.

Or, if you’re like me and not a frequent follower of Indian house music (I'm sure it's very nice), you can always just make a donation to AWB-Oregon. And of course if you’re an architect, how about a little design work to save the world?

Actually, now that I think about it, we've got an Ethiopia fundraiser, and a group of musicians: Hey, why not a rendition of "We Are The World" for old time's sake? Or at least "Do They Know It's Christmas?" Maybe if people don't start giving to AWB-OR within a prescribed amount of time, I can start hollering like Ray Charles: "Come on, now, let me hear ya!" Or grunt like Springsteen passing kidney stones: "There's a choice we're makin', and we're savin' our own lives." Indeed.

The Right Kind of Gentrification

Joseph Gallivan has an excellent feature in today's Portland Tribune about the Falcon Art Community that developer Brian Wannamaker has made out of a 1911 apartment building along North Albina Avenue.

When Wannamaker  bought the building 10 years ago, he had to hire "a live-in security guard to shoo out the hookers and the people who slept in the halls." Today, however, it's a hub of musicians and artists, but also includes many of the low-income residents who were there when Wannamaker originally purchased the building. He's allowed their rents to stay below market value.

Meanwhile, the developer has created a strong sense of community. One artist was hired to paint portraits of longtime residents, which hang in the hallway. Wannamaker also built 24 work-only studios in the basement for artists, musicians and writers. He's also in the process of putting in an in-house bar. Naturally, the residents seem to love it -- even guitarist Johnny Marr of legendary 80s Manchester band The Smiths (a personal fave), who stayed here last year while producing an album for local act Modest Mouse. Gavin Shettler, owner of the Portland Art Center, also lived at the Falcon until recently.

If Gallivan's article is accurate, this is a guy who has eschewed the notion of maximizing profits in order to build something more valuable: a place where neighbors old and new, black and white, young artists and elderly retirees, are co-habitating. This is a place people want to be, and in the end I'll bet that will be lucrative for Wannamaker. There aren't hard feelings about longtime residents and members of one Portland's traditionally African American neighborhoods being driven away. Isn't that worth more than a few hundred bucks more collected in rent?

Historic vs. Modern in TVA's Saturday Market Design For Waterfront Park

After shooting down a proposed Apple store in Portland and successfully getting the impressive Kurisu mixed-use project in the North Mississippi neighborhood dumbed down, the curmudgeonly power of Portland Historic Landmarks Commission has risen once again.

As Fred Leeson reported in last Thursday's Oregonian, a design by TVA Architects and Walker Macy Landscape Architecture for the new covered Saturday Market space along Waterfront Park and the Burnside Bridge, which "earned favorable comments from a a citizen advisory committee" and received approval from the Parks & Recreation bureau after months of study and public comment.

The project also has ramifications far beyond Saturday Market (for those of us not needing hemp necklaces). It's a very prominent site along the Willamette and provides a much-needed covered space for enjoying the park during the rainy months. I'd love to see more of these winter garden-like, indoor-outdoor public spaces in our city.

But because Waterfront Park lies in the Skidmore-Old Town Historic District, the Historic Landmarks Commission also weighed in. And they didn't like the design.

There's no doubt the light steel frame and boxy, diagonal form is pretty modern.  TVA more than most firms seems unapologetically modern in that way. The design consists of two adjacent sloping pieces that mimic the slope of the adjacent bridge. I don't want to say I'm in love with this design, but I feel far more reticent about being lumped in with the opposing viewpoint.

According to commission member Carrie Richter, "It looks like it belongs at the airport." Instead, Leeson reports, the commission wants the design to "reflect historical references by acknowledging street patterns, warehouse shapes or maritime themes."

It seems like this is a debate that keeps happening as it extends from project to project. A modern structure is planned for a historic neighborhood and seeks to establish a contemporary identity of its own. But we have reason to feel protective of historic architecture, districts and neighborhoods. It's hard to argue either of those basic principles. So what's the answer?

I personally feel that if the design is good, modern and historic structures can stand next to each other and actually both benefit from their disparate looks. One usually doesn't want any one structure to stand out incongruously if it harms the surrounding historic architectural fabric, but who benefits when a modern building's design is changed to fit in at the expense of the integrity of the design?

Regardless of whether TVA and Walker Macy's design here survives or is changed, I think the design community and city government need to take a look at how the design review, historic resources and other city agencies can benefit the design community and the urban fabric without taking away from it. Because a sizable portion of interested parties (myself included) worry the latter may be happening too often.

"2001" and Movie Theater Design

Tonight at 7PM at the Portland Art Museum's Whitsell Auditorium, I will be introducing a special screening of Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey and leading an audience discussion afterward. Part of the NW Film Center's ongoing Kubrick retrospective, it's a favorite film of mine (in the top 3 with Le Samourai and Star Wars). I wanted to mention this not just as shameless self-promotion, although it is admittedly that, but also because my first 2001 viewing was very much an architecturally important experience.

While I was growing up, I heard about Kubrick's film a lot from my dad - it was pretty much his favorite movie. But I never watched the picture once in those years (I would have been too young to appreciate it anyway). My dad actually made me promise that I would wait, however long it took, to see 2001: A Space Odyssey on a big screen. When I finally got my chance in 1993, I was 21 years old and living in Washington, DC. The American Film Institute held a special 25th anniversary screening at the Uptown Theater, where Kubrick's film had premiered on April 1, 1968. One of the special effects supervisors from the movie came and gave a slideshow presentation before the screening on how they built the sets. Even author Arthur C. Clarke (writer of the original short story) sent a tape-recorded message to the audience from his home (which the guy apparently never ever leaves) in Sri Lanka.

And you know what? It was great. Waiting over 20 years to see the movie on a big screen was worth it. The movie totally blew me away, and I'm not sure that would happened on TV, even without commercials. Funnily enough, though, I almost never go to movie theaters now. To borrow from an old Folgers commercial, I love the big screen, but it's the fellow moviegoers I could do without.

It seems like movie theaters could be going the way of the dinosaur. You can buy a television now practically as big as smaller theater screens. What's to be gained?

But then I think of how seeing Kubrick's picture in the Uptown Theater for the first time was one of the most awe-inspiring experiences of my life. It's why I'll be first in line tonight at the Whitsell even though I'm exhausted with 5 hours of sleep.

That also begs the question: What are Portland's best existing movie theaters? You could answer it based on architecture, technology or other criteria. My favorite is the Moreland Theater in Southeast, where they still have old school red velvet curtains and vanilla Coke, and the ticket taker doubles as the popcorn vendor. Others probably prefer the more luxurious environment of Living Room Theaters or Cinetopia. Still others like the vaudevillian vibe of the Clinton Street Theater. I defy anyone to choose a Regal Cinemas venue, though - too antiseptic and corporate.

Anybody else got a movie palace they love or a movie that can only be seen in a darkened theater?