Portland Architecture

A Narratorium Forum

Portland lacks a proper contemporary art museum. There is also an argument to be made for a design museum. But professor Clive Knights and his Portland State University architecture students have something different in mind. Continuing their explorations of the relationship between urban environments and storytelling, these Vikings are forging onward with discussions of an institution built around verbal storytelling: the Narratorium. Knights and his department are hosting an upcoming event to take the idea forward:

You are invited to participate in an open public discussion to consider the viability of a new form of civic institution for Portland dedicated to the art of storytelling and the traditions of oral history: The Narratorium. Sixteen architecture students proposed many different versions of such an institution this recent Winter term and this work will act as a prompt for conversation and strategizing.

We will be asking: Is storytelling significant enough in contemporary experience to warrant its own institution? Are we failing to nurture and sustain an important dimension of our culture, that embodied in the recital of a tale? Have we lost contact with mythic experience and the power of narrative to articulate our shared values? Does Portland need an oral archive? How can the interest of public and private agencies be stimulated? Can feasibility be examined by learning from precedents such as the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh?

The Narratorium Forum is open to the public and will discuss the actual possibility of such a place here in the Rose City. The meeting will be held this Saturday, May 3, at 2PM in the Department of Architecture's temporary home, the Unitus Building (2121 SW Fourth Avenue), 3rd floor.

Emmons Architects' Deschutes Brewery and the Magic of Chainsaw Art

Last week at architect Stuart Emmons' invitation I visited the new Deschutes Brewery brew pub on Southwest 11th Avenue near the Brewery Blocks. The building was a familiar one: the former Jim Stevens Auto Body building, where my car was repaired a few years ago after being hit by a Tri-Met bus. I was very happy with the body work, but I think most people will get more out of this building now that Deschutes is here. The pub is right next door to Portland Center Stage's Gerding Theater at the Armory, so this would make an ideal pre- or post-theater stop. (As would, admittedly, any number of other nearby outlets from Sushiland to Henry's Tavern to Pizza Schmizza.)

The goal, Emmons says, was to create a brewpub that was in between two other local pubs' styles: the sleekness of Holst Architecture's Bridgeport brewpub remodel and the homey, lived in quality of McMenamins' approximately 10,000 local pubs. And inside, that's how it seemed. You could tell there was a real architect behind the design in terms of the spatial arrangements. There is lots of character to the place, but I had a sense of the vast wide open space being divided into a series of room-like smaller spaces without the overall sense of light and vastness being taken away.

There was also a lot of fun had on this project in terms of textures and accoutrements. Numerous light fixtures are of the vintage, wrought-iron variety. Like a salon-style art gallery show or the tons of mirrors on the walls at traditional French brasseries, Deschutes is covered with tons of gilded frames, some with historic photos of the building and Portland, others with kitschy drawings and artifacts. What I particularly enjoyed was how even the air ducts were enclosed in gilded frames at their wall openings. There is also lots of raw Douglas fir used throughout the space to give it an appropriately rustic feeling without seeming chintzy. This brewpub feels new, but lived in.

The best part of the new Deschutes brewpub, though -- besides their copious supply of Mirror Pond ale -- may be the cornucopia of chain saw carvings on the entry to each dining room. Emmons tells me the artist works without any drawings or guide; he merely creates with his chainsaw in an impromptu fashion the array of owls, goats and other wildlife. I can't say it's the most sophisticated, refined sculpture I've ever encountered. But God help me: I love it. There are actually some pretty delicate, artful carvings to these chainsaw works. Maybe next the guy could do a chainsaw Portlandia, or perhaps a statue of Tom Potter as a going away present.

Meanwhile, look for Emmons Architects to have an increased presence in town. Educated at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, Stuart has long been one of the better architects in town; his Fire Station 1 design competition entry with Hennebery Eddy was terrific, and now the firm is designing a courthouse in Gresham. Gerding Edlen is actually a co-developer of the Deschutes site; here's hoping Emmons may eventually be designing one of their condos when the market comes back. The Deschutes looks terrific, but Stuart should also be doing bigger better jobs than brewpubs - the brilliance of the accompanying chainsaw art not withstanding. Actually, though, can't you just imagine some of this artwork in the lobby of some ultra-modern condo?

Joslin vs. Sauvie Island's Oversized Dump

Most people in the local architecture and building community know Jeff Joslin for his role as the Land Use Manager for the City of Portland, overseeing design review and historic landmarks review. But he's also a property owner on Sauvie Island, and Joslin has a bone to pick with his neighbor, the industrial dump that is looking to expand.

Joslin's property, which contains wetlands listed on the National Wetlands Registry, sits next to a 25-acre property owned by ESCO, and industrial foundry in Northwest Portland. Since 1977 ESCO has dumped foundry by-products like furnace brick and glassy slag there. (I just love the phrase "glassy slag".) As reported by The Sentinel, a North/Northeast Portland paper, last year the company applied for a conditional-use permit to raise the permissible height of its dump by 14 feet.

Joslin and his neighbors argued that the dump was a non-conforming use on land currently zoned for agriculture. The site currently also drains water into Joslin's protected wetlands. He argues it could also begin leaching contaminated groundwater. In fact, Joslin spent $25,000 of his own money on consultants (hydrologists, land-use, engineers, lawyers) to create evidence against the expansion. City employees must be better compensated than I imagined, because Joslin apparently sold his 1997 Porsche 911 to pay for the consultants.

But Multnomah County disagreed. Last month they approved ESCO's request to hugely increase their Sauvie Island industrial dump. County officials cited the fact that while Sauvie Island is zoned for agriculture, it can be used as a dump as long as it is in continuous use as one. In other words, the dump shouldn't be there, but it's been grandfathered in. And because of this idiocy, not only did poor Jeff just gave away a supercar for nothing, but the beautiful sanctuary that is Sauvie Island is gearing up to become a bigger landfill.

Maybe in some future autumn, instead of a corn maze at local farms, they can have one made of glassy slag.

Now Joslin is gearing up for an appeal. We're with you here at Portland Architecture, Jeff!

Visiting PNCA's 511 Broadway Building

Today I took a tour of the circa-1916 federal building at 511 NW Broadway that is being taken over by the Pacific Northwest College of Art with the school's president, Tom Manley, and communications director Becca Biggs. The tour was a few minutes late getting started, which actually was good news, because after passing through the security x-ray machines, I was free to peruse the ground floor lobby a little bit on my own.

511 is going to be a magnificent space for PNCA, which was evident as soon as I entered the thin but cavernously high-ceilinged lobby. There is marble everywhere, lots of ornate detailing, and even ceiling panels that have tons of artful workmanship put into them. Upstairs doors and door panels are clad in unpainted stained wood; the doors even have these frosted-glass windows that look they should have the name "Philip Marlowe" stenciled on them. And there is lots and lots of space here. PNCA ought to have plenty of room to grow.

Wherever you go in this building there are wonderful little tarnished gems. It looks pretty drab and dreary right now, of course. The building has federal agency offices upstairs and some Department of Immigration services on the ground floor. The main activity in this grand entrance area, though, is chitchatting between security guards, building maintenance and housekeeping staff. Plenty of working offices still remain here; those were off limits. But there are lots of empty rooms and spaces that we were able to see upstairs - dark places with low ceilings walls that will be removed.

Although this is a historic building to which certain strictures will apply in terms of preserving the original structure, it has already been changed numerous times. I believe originally the building was for the Postal Service. Both on the ground floor and upstairs, there seem to be many, many opportunities to knock down walls and raise ceilings. In fact, to do so would appear to better honor the original architecture than the current interiors do. Over time this grand building was made into somewhat drab offices. But the bones here are incredible. In fact, there's plenty of flesh and skin to go along with it.

While it's a big heavy building that will hold its thermal mass well (staying cool in the summer and warm in the winter), and it can seem imposing from the street with a lack of transparency, this is actually meant to be a building teeming with natural light. There are numerous huge skylights that were actually covered during various renovations; all of which, needless to say, will be made back into skylights.

There is also quite a nice view or, to be more specific, many different view corridors and framed looks at Portland. That includes a rooftop that could someday be a spectacular hangout or party spot, and which my tour guides and I got to glimpse for a few minutes. One side looks down on the post office across Hoyt Street and Union Station just across Broadway, with the Broadway Bridge, the Willamette River, and the Pearl District in the background. The other side looks toward downtown. Even though it's really just some leftover space adjacent to the rooftop mechanical systems, this could be a special little place to have a party or woo a potential donor (or both).

Merely a serviceable renovation of this building as a new building for PNCA would be great news for architecture in Portland on its own. It's got a lot of great stuff to keep. But as previously mentioned, the architect for 511's renovation will be Allied Works and Brad Cloepfil, which makes the notion of a modern building emerging from this dusty, hulk of an old building an extra intriguing one. As Manley and I were walking down a marble back stairway talking about what Allied might do, I said, "This could be Wieden + Kennedy 2." Manley corrected me and said, "No, this building has a lot more to the original than the Wieden + Kennedy building ever did." So it will be interesting to see how Brad and Allied bring the building alive and how much of that is just opening and cleaning it up versus introducing certain material or spacial modernity inside as well.

511 occupies a strange presence, or at least it has until now. It's a wonderful early 20th century work of architecture on one of the more prominent streets in the center of the city. Yet because it's been closed to the public for so long and kept a very discreet profile, it seems a whole generation has gone by without even the architecture enthusiasts and practitioners among us noticing much that the building is really there. In a few years, that's going to change in a big way. And with the post office being vacated, freeing up that land to re-development (although hopefully some of the original building stays), with a MAX line soon to be going nearby, this whole area seems poised to really go through a metamorphosis over the next decade.

Of course the Portland Public Market had also sought 511 Broadway as a home for itself, and I hope there is a place for them in this area. That said, having now been inside this grand old building, I don't see it as a place for a public market with produce and salami and artisan goods for sale. As has been bandied about in the comments following some of my previous posts about this issue, I think a better home for the public market would be the current Greyhound station two blocks east of 511 - contingent, of course, on the bus company's willingness to move. Or if not the Greyhound station, it seems there are a lot of other nearby parcels with potential for the market, which I'll bet a lot of hungry PNCA students would like to patronize, as would the condo residents.

And as I understand it, in addition to PNCA being able to renovate the 511 building itself, the back parking lot is eventually going to be converted to a new segment of the North Park Blocks. The budget doesn't appear to be there for it now, but if the funds were to become available, what kind of landscape architectural wonder might be conjured there, between PNCA and a renovated post office site at the new edge of the Park Blocks?

Congratulations, PNCA. You've just won a landmark of a new home, and then some.

A New Book of Architect Interviews from PSU

Portland State University's Department of Architecture has published a new book of interviews with several architects called Verge: Between Education and Practice. There are Portlanders represented here such as Jeff Kovel of Skylab, Logan Cravens of SERA Architects, Robert Frasca of Zimmer Gunsul Frasca, and Brian White of Architecture W. There are also several prominent designers from Seattle, Vancouver, and a few other places in the region.

I've been perusing the book over the last few days and thought I would pass on a few random questions and answers. Mostly the conversations tend to focus on design education and running one's practice, but there are a few random other ones as well. For example, Brian White has an interesting answer when asked what his favorite building is right now:

"On this hill on Northwest Broadway, right when you cross the highway and you start to go up the hill. It is to your left, an assisted living building, I-shaped. It is green, [and] the columns are on the exterior and it is [by] a no-name architect. I like it as a mark in the landscape, actually a very beautiful building with landscaping. It is similar to what a lot of people are doing in Europe now, in terms of very simple commercial and the way it is expressed. The glass is green, but there is something very nice about it, kind of like the Christian Science Reading Room downtown. My office is down underneath a bridge. And it is pretty cool. It is not a piece of architecture but an architectural space."

Later, Holst Architecture co-principal John Holmes is asked what he thinks should be focused on for students in architecture programs:

"Drawing is very, very important, being able to think with a pencil. It doesn't necessarily have to be careful or pretty, but being able to think three-dimensionally and being able to draw that. You draw something and then you react, then you draw another thing. It's not that I did my drawing and here's my idea, it's more like I did a hundred drawings and here's the best one. Each one of those drawings is fast and encompasses a lot of thinking...

The other thing is being able to understand money when you draw something. People come out of school very talented, but it takes a long time for that person to understand money. When you are in school, you don't have to deal with that, but that's really where I think a lot of people fail in the profession. It takes another level of creative thought to take a more discerning and disciplined approach."

And finally, Daniel Mihalyo of Seattle's Lead Pencil Studio talks about the challenge of integrating place and regionalism into one's work:

"I definitely used to think that was of primary importance, especially coming out of [the University of] Oregon, which has a very powerful learning structure based on regionalism...In the grand scheme of things, though, I feel like the economy is ridiculously powerful and crushes the weaker force of regionalism. The pace at which things are being built and the scale that change is happening makes it impossible to produce enough regional work to really create a lasting influence. I see a lot of firms that attempt to create regional work but it's being lost in this giant machine that's churning out millions of square feet a day. Even so, we feel it's really important that all architects get the basic grounding for understanding how to build work that's appropriate for the climate and to understand that the sensibility of light and orientation to the landscape is completely different in the Northwest than it would be in Phoenix."

Verge: Between Education and Practice is available through the PSU Department of Architecture and (I believe) at the AIA/Portland Center for Architecture.

Zooming to A New Art Center

A couple years ago, while attending a Third Angle classical music performance, I met a woman named Carole Zoom and her husband Brett, both recent Eugene transplants. We've stayed in touch since then, which is easy because they're culture vultures who enjoy making it to plays, film screenings and concerts. Brett is also an accomplished journalist who has written frequently about architecture for publications like the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, for whom he did a nice Thom Mayne profile last year.

Back in Eugene, Carole did something terrific for the local arts community. She bought a building, rented it out (at a reduced rate) to local nonprofit arts organizations as the Midtown Art Center, and then negotiated to sell them the building. (Carole is also an artist and photographer.)

And now, Carole is looking to do the same in Portland. In a recent email she writes:

In Eugene in 2005 I purchased a building with my personal nestegg in order to consolidate eight arts organizations under one roof, allow them shared infrastructure so that they could use more of their money for their missions. The Eugene Ballet took leadership on the nonprofit side and pulled together the tenants for the 14,000 sqare foot building. Our arrangement allowed them reduced rent for 3 years so that they could do a capital campaign to purchase the building from me in 3 years. That building is now used by the Eugene Ballet and seven other arts organizations, and they are purchasing the building from me this summer.

I am searching now for tenants in Portland for a similar set up. My goal is to buy a building in summer large enough for numerous nonprofits to use and work together to raise funds to purchase it from me as their fundraising allows. I am not rich and am not able to give the building to nonprofits, but I want my investment to work for justice in the community.

She wrote me recently asking if I knew of a building that might be suitable. My immediate first thought was the downtown building on SW 10th Avenue with the colored checkerboard panels. It's been vacant for years despite an ideal location; I've heard it's not in great shape, but I still think for the right tenant it could be a real landmark. Carole looked into it, but found the building has been taken off the market. (Does anyone know the story?)

Another thought I had was for Carole to partner with Oregon Ballet Theater to expand their building on Southeast Morrison between Belmont and Morrison, as originally planned several years ago in a Holst Architecture-designed plan. All these years later, OBT is still occupying the same drab old former bank building with nothing to indicate an arts organization is there save for the sign on the side. It's a great location: just a block away from Grand Avenue (where a streetcar line will eventually be) and the Morrison Bridge east terminus, yet with a little bit cheaper real estate than you'd have across the river on the west side. And yet this area is already well on its way to transforming into a denser and more vibrant urban place.

Carole Zoom is no millionaire philanthopist, but it's clear she's ready and able to make this project happen. Her project could end up being some simple conversion of an old building, as was the case in Eugene. But it could also be something more. What site and architect might best work with Carole to provide not only a home for some worthy art nonprofits, but do so in a wonderful package?

I'm afraid I missed writing this post before Carole's informational meeting about the building held last Wednesday. But I will pass on more information from Carole as it becomes available.

Two Lectures and a Fountain

This week the University of Oregon and Portland State University each will host a prominent architect for a lecture.

On Wednesday, April 23 at 6PM, PSU will welcome Canadian architect Gregory Henriquez to Lincoln Hall (1620 SW Park, room 75). Henriquez's firm, Henriquez Partners, has been around for 34 years in Vancouver and has been responsible for a host of different project types. But the architect is best known for several pioneering mixed use and social housing projects. In his book, "Towards An Ethical Architecture", Henriquez explores the role of ethics, activism and critical commentary and argues that architecture must be a poetic expression of social justice."

Thursday the University of Oregon welcomes one of its former architecture instructors, Thomas Hacker, to its new Portland Center and White Stag building (70 NW Couch Street) for a 6PM Lecture.

As I've written about frequently, after studying at the University of Pennsylvania, Hacker got his start in the Philadelphia office of the great Louis Kahn. At the UO, Hacker and other professors espoused the spiritual modernism of Kahn, and the idea that each design endeavor is a search for how to express the essence of each client and program. When he left UO for private practice in Portland, Hacker also gave prominent local architects of today like Rick Potestio, Brad Cloepfil and John Cava their start. An OHSU building on Marquam Hill has the unique combination of Hacker, Cloepfil and Potestio's mark.

Then there's all the very fine buildings that Hacker's firm has done in the last decade or two: the superlative Woodstock, Beaverton and Hillsdale libraries, numerous university buildings, and now a South Waterfront condo (Atwater Place) and a new headquarters for Mercy Corps. Sometimes when I talk to the most talented younger architects in town, they tend not to get as excited by Hacker's work as some new firms such as Skylab, Holst, or Works Partnership. But I rate the firm's work very high.

Finally, in case you hadn't heard (I sure hadn't), April is Landscape Architecture Month! It's also the 20th anniversary of the Salmon Street Springs Fountain at Waterfront Park. This Thursday, the local ASLA (American Society of Landscape Architects) will hold a festival at the fountain from noon to 1PM. (Wow, an hour-long festival!) Portland Architecture has also learned that a temporary art installation entitled "Spin" will incorporate large red pinwheels assembled around the fountain.

Regardless of whether you or I make the trek to Salmon Street Springs Fountain this Thursday (but I know the pinwheels have piqued your interest), it's worth remembering the stellar landscape architecture that exists in Portland - a pedigree arguably stronger than that of our architecture.

PNCA's At It Again: Going From Rent to Own at Cloepfil-Redesigned Goodman Building

It's another week, time for the Pacific Northwest College of Art to secure ownership of major Pearl District real estate at little or no cost. They can't keep it up at this pace, surely, but fresh off the news a few days ago of securing the 511 Broadway building, the school has reached an agreement with the family of the late Edith Goodman, the building's owner, to purchase the school's home since 1997 on an full block between Northwest 12 and 13th Avenues, Johnson and Kearney Streets. The agreement is accompanied by announcement from PNCA of accompanying financial news, summarized thusly (as Alton Brown would say) by DK Row:

The college also publicly launched a historic capital campaign targeting $32 million in pledges by the end of June 2009, when the college celebrates its centennial. The campaign, which has quietly raised $26 million, went public Saturday with the announcement of three lead campaign gifts of $1 million each from PNCA board president Al Solheim, the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer CARE Foundation and the Maybelle Clark MacDonald Fund. The MacDonald donation is a challenge gift, contingent on whether the college raises an additional $3 million.

Renovated a decade ago by Holst Architecture, the Goodman Building has always been a nice environment, I think, particularly its huge open space in the middle. I've been to award ceremonies there, Japanese DJ concerts, a French philosopher's lecture, a design forum, art exhibits, but all the while the renovated old warehouse itself, with its exposed structure and simple white aesthetics, is itself a particularly nice piece of any experience. From an artist's or curator's standpoint in some of the exhibit spaces, maybe there is more that could be done, but I still like the building a lot. And that's before we even talk about the exterior paint job created by Randy Higgins (above), which is a transcription of an Arthur Rimbaud poem into a language of differently sized squares and rectangles.

According to D.K. Row's Oregonian article, Allied Works will oversee design for the $12 million "light" (says PNCA) re-renovation. That's on top of Brad Cloepfil's firm already being selected by PNCA for the 511 Broadway building (pictured at left). So in effect, for all of the huge commissions that Allied has received over the past several years, for art museums in St. Louis, New York, Seattle, Ann Arbor and Denver, not to mention the Wieden & Kennedy job before those, PNCA will be the Cloepfil client with repeat business for his firm. And though it may not be for a few years, I'm betting PNCA isn't done acquiring buildings with these two, wonderful a foundation (pardon the pun) as they may be. How about a ground-up building for PNCA on some of the post office's surface parking lot in the back? Or perhaps something further north, out by the Fremont Bridge and Centennial Mill?

A Super-Green House With...Dirt Floors? (Updated)

Last Friday The Oregonian's Gail Kinsey Hill reported on a house in Portland being designed and built by two brothers, Dustin and Garrett Moon, that will achieve a level of green that even substantially bests the US Green Building Council's LEED ratings. It will be an almost entirely self-sufficient, truly sustainable home. And as Hill's report indicated, these aren't top local architects doing this project, but a couple of young guys (22 and 30) heretofore unknown in the architecture/building community.

[In the image above, which I took from the Oregonian article, the numbers denote several individual features: (1) green roof, (2) rain capture system, (3) translucent movable roof, (4) a movable wall, (5) insulating concrete walls, (6) photovoltaic modules, and (7) a shop and garden.]

The house used as its guide the Cascadia USGBC chapter's Living Building Challenge, which favors simple performance measurements over the point system of LEED. Their project may be the first in the country to meet these more stringent standards.

Historic preservation fans may cringe at the fact that Dustin and Garrett are tearing down an old Southeast Portland home to build this new version. But as they explained in the article, the solar orientation was all wrong. This will be a very glassy home wrapped around a courtyard. It'll also have composting toilets and even a movable roof and interior walls. (The photo at left is by Stephanie Yao of the Oregonian.)

One of the admirable aspects of the project is that the brothers are building the house themselves as well, using lots of recycled supplies from places like The Rebuilding Center. The whole thing will only cost them about $200,000.

However, one thing that made me scratch my head was that Dustin and Garrett's cost-saving measure to have bedrooms with dirt floors.

Sustainable design and construction has always had this aspect to it. I think of the cob benches I see at various co-op groceries, bike shops and the occasional cafe around town. Or the rammed-earth projects one reads about in various rural locales. You don't get much more basic and sustainable than using the ground beneath our feet for architectural purposes.

Still, I keep saying to myself, "Dirt floors?" When I think of those few conservatives out there who are skeptical about green building, cob benches and dirt floors are to me precisely the kind of stuff they'll ridicule.

I absolutely love Dustin and Garrett's chutzpah making a do-it-yourself project into one of the nation's most sustainable homes, all on a tiny budget and lots of their own sweat. Yet if you're spending $200,000 on your future house, which is cheap by most standards but still a huge amount of money, couldn't you just spend the extra few hundred dollars for some simple flooring? If they want to stay green, there are countless fine options in bamboo, true linoleum, cork, etc.

Imagine their mom staying there and saying, "You boys are grown men and you're still tracking dirt all over the house. Wipe your feet!" And they of course retort, "But mom, it's our floors!" Maybe it's just the neat freak in me, but I'm with mom on this one.

UPDATE 4-18-08: As many have already read in the comments to this post, it's not really dirt floors that will be in the Moons' house. Rather, it's an earthenware flooring that is more akin to hardened clay. Regardless, I was being at least partially tongue-in-cheek when I harped as much as I did about these guys' floors. I just am not fond of the cob and rammed-earth aesthetic, although I certainly can't fault the function and sustainability of these age-old practices. As one commenter said, earthenware floors are a lot less weird when you think about it than cheap synthetic manufactured linoleum leaking chemicals into the air of our homes. And above the floor in the Moons' house is an aesthetic (and a function) I do love: lots of glass. So whether it's dirt or earthenware beneath their feet, nice going fellas!

Tonight Only: The Randy, Sam & Sho Show (or: Why I'm Voting For Adams)

Tonight at Jimmy Mak's jazz club in the Pearl District (221 NW 10th), Portland Spaces editor Randy Gragg will be interviewing the two principal mayoral candidates, Sam Adams and Sho Dozono, about their takes on design, planning and development issues. Doors open at 5:30pm.

This is a great opportunity - perhaps even the only opportunity - to hear how the next mayor of Portland approaches the creation of the city itself.

I've often heard elected officials and politicians talk about development, planning and other issues surrounding design. But I've rarely heard an intelligent take on design itself, unless it's just a boilerplate quote about how design is important.

For example, where do Adams and Dozono stand on design competitions? The easy answer in Portland, after the tram and the aborted Fire Station 1 project, is to say we have to be careful about huge cost outlays. Unfortunately that's the only lesson about the tram that seems to have become common parlance. But we also got a great design for the tram, one that made all the other budget headaches worthwhile. Would either candidate stand up and admit that? What would they do with the Portland building? Who is their favorite architect? What might they have done differently with the Art Museum expansion? Can they tell us, without looking at their notes, who Pietro Belluschi was? Who Brad Cloepfil is? Do they think sustainability is the principal measure of great design and beautiful buildings?

Also, when Vera Katz was mayor, she instituted a Mayor's Design Initiative that included but was not limited to (unless you're Tom Potter) handing out a special AIA award each year. What about using that Initiative to make sure, for example, that PDC and other city-sponsored projects favor design excellence and not just an on-time/on-budget mentality? To do otherwise is short sighted. What about the way design is weighed in the RFP/RFQ process on city jobs? Are recent project competitions like Centennial Mills and Burnside Bridgehead, with developers handling architect selection and the city choosing developers, the right way to do this?

Portland also has a lot of new planning coming up, such as a re-done Central City Plan and decisions about the northern Pearl District. We also have taken steps to radically alter Burnside Street to make it a one-way couplet with Couch. How does that fit into city-wide planning efforts - or does it?

According to an email I received from Randy, one poll has Adams and Dozono in a dead heat. I recently saw another poll conducted by the Portland Mercury that gives Adams a sizable lead.

Personally, I have no doubt in my mind that I'm voting for Sam Adams. I'm not necessarily telling any of you to follow lock-step with my own decision, but for me this is a really, really easy choice. I say this knowing Sho Dozono is a really good man.

Three years ago I went on a trip to Japan with a group of local business leaders and government officials that Dozono's Azumano Travel put together, and found both Sho and his daughter and others from the agency to be really capable, nice, helpful, smart people. In watching Sho Dozono over the years as a local business leader, I consider him one of the most admirable and esteemed members of the local private sector. But he's not the man to lead Portland for the next four-plus years. He's not someone brimming with ideas about the inner workings of city government. He doesn't even know anything about city government because he's never held elective office.

Time and time again in this country, the electorate treats experience from a politician or elected official as a liability. But Sam Adams, in my mind, has been training for the mayor's job for over a decade, first as a member of Katz's staff and then as a go-getter of a city commissioner. If this were a kitchen, I'd say Adams is the sous chef ready to take over as chef. Dozono is a nice guy who eats at the restaurant a lot and has toyed with buying the place because people have encouraged him and he has a notebook full of recipes at home.

I never sat down today intending this post to be an endorsement of Sam Adams per se. In particular I hesitate because of Adams's commitment to the Burnside couplet plan, which as I've often said I think is a bad idea. But I think Adams is exponentially more qualified and ready to be mayor than Dozono.

Think of it this way: Our current mayor, Tom Potter, is like Dozono a good man, but has spent the last four years leaning the ropes of city hall. And he actually had prior governmental experience in the Police Department. Dozono doesn't even have that. Casting aside names for a moment, how many of you would go to the voting booth and say, "Knowing what I know now about Tom Potter, I want to choose someone with less experience."

Don't take my word for it, though. Go to Jimmy Mak's tonight and talk to the candidates. Listen to Randy question them and then decide for yourself. Heck, maybe I'm totally wrong about Adams and Dozono. After all, I still am holding out for a third term for Bill Clinton. But for one night at least, it's great to see the two mayoral candidates talking about and, even better, listening to others talk about design and its huge importance for the city.

Artist Hub on 82nd: Visiting Milepost 5

If developers Ted Gilbert and Beam Development, the architects at Works Partnership and creative director Gavin Shettler have anything to say about it, 82nd Avenue in Portland may no longer be seen as the armpit of Portland with its an unpleasant melange of traffic, big-box chain stores and prostitutes.

Recently I made the trek out to 82nd near Burnside to see Milepost 5, an ambitious but welcome live-work development intended for artists and other creative types. The  development consists of two renovated buildings: a new just completed structure designed by Works that consists of for-sale loft condos and work space, and a to-be-renovated old brick retirement home next door, Baptist Manor, that will offer rental units to live and work in. Both the old and new structures will also endeavor to create a strong sense of community and collaboration.

The completed building by Works provides the best eye candy, and it's where I'd want to live. But older Manor building has lots of spaces with tremendous potential, such as a huge industrial-sized kitchen, and immediately adjacent to it a former church sanctuary, complete with pews, that would make a terrific screening room. There's also a wrap-around courtyard that the kitchen looks out onto, which would make a great restaurant with outdoor seating.

I don't think a painting or sculpture is required as proof when one signs the lease or mortgage agreement, but it's easy to imagine a group of young, creative people here -- some staying for many years and others just passing through. Most of the for-sale units are somewhat affordable, too. A 443-square foot loft spaces starts at $134,995, although naturally it's on the east side of the building, which sits on busy 82nd. Milepost 5 does look out on a lovely park, though. And for those considering such a dwelling but iffy about the location (I sure would be), keep in mind that the place is just a few blocks from the 82nd Avenue Max station.

The hiring of Gavin Shettler, who for the last few years led the nonprofit but now defunct Portland Art Center, is particularly nice to see. Shettler will be exhibiting art in several of the uninhabited units each month, and he'll also organize a lot of other events there. It's great to see him having landed on his feet after the unfortunate PAC closing. Kudos should also go to Gilbert, commissioner Sam Adams and others behind the scene making this happen.

If you move into the for-rent older building, though, where there are 70 years of history as a retirement home, be prepared for the occasional ghost. While Shettler and I toured the space, one room had a locked door and the audible sound of a TV inside. Everyone has long since moved out and there weren't any employees scheduled to work that day. I half expected Jack Nicholson to peek his head through the door and say, "Heeeeerrr's Johnny!" Considering this is an artists' enclave now, I fully expect this to be put to creative purposes.

Continuing Kahn's Legacy: Cutler Leads Latest UO Lecture

This Thursday (April 10) at 6PM, the University of Oregon Department of Architecture will welcome Seattle architect James Cutler, FAIA, principal with Cutler Anderson Architects.  He will speak at the new White Stag Block facility at 70 N.W. Couch Street in the public event room on the first floor. 

From the press release:

For over three decades Cutler’s attention to detail, to material qualities and to context and place have put him at the forefront of the Pacific Northwest Regional movement, creating architecture that is at once environmentally sensitive and deeply humane.  Projects such as Grace Episcopal Church, the S’Klallam Tribal Center and residences like the Long House in Orcas Island serve not merely as expressions of client and place, but of Cutler Anderson’s rigorous pursuit of a holistic architecture.  Cutler has taught at the UO as the 1999 Pietro Belluschi Distinguished Visiting Professor as well as at the University of Washington, UC Berkeley, Harvard GSD and the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied under Louis Kahn."

Considering the Kahn disciples who taught at UO and now practice in Portland, such as Thomas Hacker, along with Cutler in Seattle, it really seems that there is a Kahn legacy in the Northwest. Which is appropriate because Kahn, like Frank Lloyd Wright, created the most spiritual of modern architecture - perfect for our beautiful landscape of snowy peaks rugged coasts, and green valleys.

“The ultimate goal on every project is to produce projects that are not only beautiful but also emotionally enlightening,” says Cutler, whose firm's Grace Church on Bainbridge Island is picutred above. Cutler Anderson has received over six National Honor Awards from the American Institute of Architects and more than thirty other national and regional awards.

Green Investment Grants and a Resurrected One Waterfront Place

Earlier this week the City of Portland's Office of Sustainable Development and the Energy Trust of Oregon announced $425,000 in grants to several sustainable developments as part of its Green Investment Fund.

The projects include Mercy Corps' global headquarters being built in Old Town, with a design from Thomas Hacker Architects; 14th & Everett, the old Meier & Frank warehouse in the Pearl District being renovated by Gerding Edlen Development from a GBD Architects design; Park Avenue West, the Tom Moyer-developed and TVA Architects-designed condo tower just west of Pioneer Courthouse Square; an addition an aquatics center in east Portland that will make innovative re-use of water; Simpsons Commons, an affordable housing project; 12W, a new mixed-use tower; and One Waterfront Place, developer Jim Winkler's BOORA Architects-designed office building.

I was especially surprised to see One Waterfront Place on the list, because this project was planned several years ago and has been languishing in search of an anchor tenant seemingly named Godot. It's been so long, in fact, that one of the primary architects at BOORA with whom the project was associated, the exceptionally talented Frenchman monsieur Eric Cugnart, has been gone from the firm for a few years. (He's now at Mulvanny G2.)

Originally, though, One Waterfront was supposed to rise near the Broadway Bridge around the same time another office project, One Main Place by GBD Architects, was set to be built at the west end of the Hawthorne Bridge. One Main also languished unbuilt in a slow office market for a few years, and it's now under construction. So perhaps it's fitting they come up together again. One Waterfront is also supposed to have a pedestrian bridge connecting the Willamette Greenway to the Pearl, so that will also be an interesting extra. When completed in 2010 (which I'll believe when I see), the building is poised to be the first Platinum LEED-rated speculative office building. That would have been even more impressive a few years ago when it was originally planned. Still, you've got to admire Winkler's stick-to-it-iveness.

One Waterfront actually received 27% of the total GIF funds, which will be directed toward an innovative storm water system that will disconnect the building from the city's storm water system by filtering and percolating all site storm water into the aquifer. As it says on BOORA's website, "The project's design team and the grantmaking entities believe that disconnecting the entire 3.27-acre brownfield site from the city’s storm water system represents a solution to on-site stormwater management for brownfield sites that can be replicated in other development projects. If widely adopted, this innovative stormwater management system has the potential to curtail future investments in CSO (combined sewerage overflow) mitigation measures, which have become a large cost to municipalities throughout the country, including Portland."

Meanwhile, the migration of offices from downtown to the Pearl continues. When you've worked in an office space with lots of natural light and ventilation, along with all the other amenities of green, it's pretty dreary to be anywhere else. What will become of the countless old office buildings downtown? Can we rebuild them green in a way that favorably compares with the new offices north of Burnside?

One other thought, though: Is it right that these projects, many of which seem to come from the city's biggest developers, are the ones getting a lot of the public investment from the GIF? I'm not saying it's wrong. These guys in the private sector, particularly Gerding Edlen and GBD, are leading the way in this field. Maybe I'm imagining some more romantically ultra-sustainable little projects out there that either don't exist or didn't apply for GIF funding.

PSU Seeks Accreditation...Again, UO Cash For Graduation

This just in from FOPA (friend of Portland Architecture) Matt Janssen: Although the effort has been in the works on and off for years, this coming weekend, Portland State University kick starts the process of becoming only the second accredited architectural program in the state of Oregon. The National Architectural Accrediting Board is sending a team to begin the multi-year long evaluation process whereby PSU could/should have a graduate program in place in the fall of 2009 with full accreditation coming in the summer of 2011.

There will a reception (read: free beverages and food) occurring this upcoming Monday at 6:00pm at the AIA Center For Architecture at 403 NW 11th Avenue. As Matt reminds us, "A strong show of support from the architecture community would go a long way in letting the NAAB team know that you/we believe in the creation of a second venue for architectural education within Oregon."

With a new Portland campus in Old Town, I'll bet the University of Oregon isn't too keen on PSU giving them competition with an accredited school of their own. But even as the Biggest Ducks Fan In the History of Humankind, I'd argue that PSU getting accreditation is a great move.

Although ours is increasingly a city becoming known for its quality design, Portland lacks enough accredited architecture schooling. PSU isn't ever going to be a top American architecture school, most likely, but it'd help the overall case for design here to have more kids able to start and finish their architectural education here in town - without having to spend time in Eugene or elsewhere. I hope PSU gets its accreditation, that UO doesn't fight it, and then they play in football with a 63-2 Ducks victory.

Oh, and speaking of UO, graduating Portland-based architecture students will be holding a variety/talent/cabaret show Friday at 7:00PM at the school's new facility at the White Stag Block in Old Town. For $5 you can see these future architects reveal their hidden performing talents. Why are they putting on the show? Because the school doesn't provide any funds for their graduation ceremony, I'm told. Isn't that just pathetic of my beloved Ducks? With all the UO architecture alumni in town, not to mention 'Uncle Phil' out in Beaverton (yes, Nike is in Beavertron, no matter what they say), you'd think these builders and dreamers of Portland's future wouldn't have to resort to this. Perhaps they could rig a deal to have caps and gowns with a swoosh and faux-diamond plating. But failing that, I can vouch for the fact that one of the students, my friend Adrienne, plays a wicked clarinet.

Bridge Over Troubled Potter

It's a funny, audacious idea: take the old Sauvie Island Bridge that was recently replaced by a new span, and recycle the structure into a new bike and pedestrian bridge over I-405. It also may be an indication of the risk and reward of Commissioner and mayoral candidate Sam Adams, a proponent of the idea, versus current/outgoing mayor Tom Potter.

The bridge has been discussed for a few years, but originally the idea was to make it a simple, cheap concrete crossing. That's what Mayor Potter still supports, according to an article in today's Oregonian, because it's about $1.5 million cheaper than recycling the Sauvie Island Bridge. But $1.5 million is practically pocket change to a major metropolitan city like Portland, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who wouldn't choose, money aside, the Sauvie span for its superior aesthetics and the message it sends about Portland's values.

Potter has every right to oppose an extra budget outlay, but when I read that he opposes Adams on this matter, I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Tom Potter is a good man, no question about it. But this is the latest case where, at least when it comes to the built environment, he just doesn't get it. Adams does.

I mean, a long ugly concrete slab in the central city, to save a million and a half? That's like choosing a kiddie burger over a Big Mac to save a nickel.

At the same time, the fact that Adams, as head of the city's transportation department, may be able to push this through, also may show his danger, or at least the irony of this whole thing. The original discussion about a bike/pedestrian bridge was born of talk about the Burnside couplet, which Adams has pushed hard. The bridge itself is just the kind of project that Adams ought to champion, but the couplet is a rogue project that is about much, much more than transportation; a change this big really ought to come as part of a larger central city planning process coming from...city planners. So in other words, I think the bike bridge battle shows Adams at his best, but it's also inextricably tied to a bad idea.

Adams and Potter are like the eager son and the fatigued father. I'd rather have the son leading in this case, but he could perhaps use just a little of the father's restraint. In the case of this proposed bike/pedestrian bridge, though, I think the island is Potter, not Sauvie.

As always, though, I say this as a conversation starter, not an ending. What do the rest of you think?