Portland Architecture

No Ordinary Boathouse: Mulvanny G2 Unveils Waterfront Portland City Storage

It was over a year ago that developer Derek Hanna announced plans for a unique dry boat-storage structure shaped like a long cylindrical tower overlooking the Willamette from a riverside spot just south of OMSI on the east bank. The single-tower was a mere rendering based on a German auto storage tower by the Palis company. Now, Hanna's architects at Mulvanny G2 in Portland have revealed the real design.

It's not a single tower anymore, but Portland City Storage has the opportunity to occupy a very prominent if not iconic position along the waterfront. Meeting yesterday with lead designer Eric Cugnart of MG2 (lead designer of the Adidas Village and One Waterfront Place for BOORA before switching firms) as well as principals John Flynn and Gary Larson, I learned the 350-boat facility's design has gone through five or six iterations. "We sort of discovered the program as we went," Flynn told me. The project now consists of two towers, with the front of each tower set back at the front corner.

Cugnart is particularly proficient when it comes to facades, such as the colorful Adidas design and some work for BOORA on the Hatfield US Courthouse. For this project, the budget was much lower. It's also a transitional building between industrial warehouses and something more ambitiously architectural. The Portland City Storage boat storage buildings will be clad in a transparent polycarbonate and layers corrugated translucent fiberglass. For the most part, the structures will be translucent but not transparent. But there will also be glass portions that allow viewers to peek inside at the boats stacked about 100 feet high on several levels with a giant forklift. Larson cited a building by the great Herzog & De Meuron for a dance company in London as an inspiration, with its "partial revelation" of the goings-on inside, which will also include office spaces and a cafe.

The project is also shooting for a Gold LEED rating and one of its distinguishing features is a series of vertical wind turbines and hopes to achieve a "net-zero" energy metering. The project also will harvest its own rainwater to save 20,000 gallons of potable water per month, which will also be a visible part of the project as the two cut-out portions of the front facade will feature collecting pools for the rainwater that recall the upcoming World Trade Center memorial, "Reflecting Absence". It's also much better environmentally for the Willamette River to not have these boats rusting and leaking away in the water.

Also noteworthy is that the river's greenway trail will be continued to cross the storage buildings at the front in an elevated path overlooking the river. The boat launch will be directly underneath the elevated path, so you can stand there and watch the boats slipped down mechanically.

There are other large boat-storage facilities throughout the United States, but this project is unique in how it's also a real work of architecture that people and not just boats will occupy. It will be situated beside the Ross Island Bridge (just across from the undeveloped area north of South Waterfront) between Ross Island Sand & Gravel to the south with the Portland Opera headquarters (formerly KPTV studios) and OMSI to the north. Groundbreaking is expected for this summer with complete buildout in summer 2010.

“Platinum Will Be a Yawner”, And Other Notes from Friday’s Green Building Forum

Last Friday at the Gerding Theater I attended the panel discussion about green building in Portland moderated by Metropolis editor Susan Szanasy as part of PNCA’s “Idea Studios”. My notes aren’t comprehensive, but hint at the 90-minute long conversation.

The panel was first asked to put Portland in the national context when it comes to green building. “Portland is definitely out near the front if not in the front,” Scott Lewis of Brightworks said. “I think there’s a danger of resting on our laurels. But I get kids applying for jobs because they want to move to Portland, because they think it’s the greenest city in the country.”

Greg Bob Baldwin of Zimmer Gunsul Frasca added, “We’re in a place where it’s relatively easy to do well. If there’s something that troubles me…we don’t necessarily put the pieces together. It’s building by building.”

Mark Edlen, head of Gerding Edlen Development, said, “Green building is in our DNA more than other cities….But pretty soon, getting to LEED Platinum will be a yawner. We need to get to net-zero and regenerative buildings.”

Susan Anderson, head of the city’s Office of Sustainable Development, noted that greenhouse gas emissions are down 14% in Portland since 1990 while the national average is up 16%. “The challenge is we need to reduce emissions by 80%,” she said. Anderson also added that we should retrofit and weatherize every building in the city within 10 years, pointing to a program in Berkeley, California where banks and the city sell bonds to provide loans for retrofitting.

Randy Gragg, editor of local home magazine Portland Spaces, pointed out there’s a difference between strategic and tactical. We have a long history of public-private partnerships, and a comprehensive planning tradition, but the last few years we’ve been more tactical than strategic with ill-advised affairs like the Burnside couplet. Gragg also cited Lawrence Halprin’s Keller Fountain as the beginning of the downtown rebirth, acting as a metaphor for the return of the watershed.

Lest we pat ourselves on the collective back here in Portland, though, Scott Lewis had this reminder: “If we get every building to LEED platinum we’re still going off the cliff.” He cited a city in Abu Dhabi intended as an entirely net-zero metropolis, and asked, “How fast can our region run on 100% renewable power?”

Mark Edlen also connected worldwide food shortage and poverty to green building. “Until people in Africa can stop worrying about feeding their kids, they’re not going to worry about solar energy.” But he also called sustainability, “the biggest grassroots movement ever.”

Oh, and most importantly of all given the morning hour at which Friday’s panel was held: The event included lots of tasty, highly fattening donuts and some very respectable Illy coffee. I hope some of the rest of you were able to access the couple of pastries I didn’t scarf down.

Portland Spaces Magazine Announces 'Root Awards'

Portland Spaces magazine has announced a new set of design and architecture awards, called the "Root Awards: Portland Design from the Ground Up." Awards will be given out in more than 20 categories, including single family homes, individual rooms, commercial offices and restaurant interiors. The winners will be featured in the magazine's November/December issue this fall.

Root Awards nicely conveys a sense of permanence and ties to the past for a brand new magazine's brand new awards. Perhaps they could give individual names to awards like The Carrot for Lifetime Achievement, or the Turnip for Best New Architect.

Editor Randy Gragg and company have put together an accomplished four-person jury: Karrie Jacobs, founder of Dwell magazine and architecture/urban planning critic for New York magazine, the New York Times, and Metropolis; Katherine Lambert - leading advocate of ecological design, founding principal of Metropolitan Architectural Practice, and chair of interior design and professor of visual studies at the California College of the Arts; and Iris Harrell - president and founder of Harrell Remodeling in San Francisco. I would imagine Randy having some say as well, although that's only conjecture; however I do like the idea of one juror in the quartet (or quintet) being from here and having a strong sense of Portland. But perhaps there's also more integrity in having a jury entirely from outof towners looking at it fresh. That's how the AIA has always done their annual design awards.

The competition is open for submissions now to July 14, 2008. Submitting is easy: send Portland Spaces a 500-word description of the project, up to eight high-resolution images, and a $50 fee per entry (with discounts for early and/or multiple submissions). The entry form and complete instructions are available at www.portlandspaces.net/designawards.

Nominations also will be accepted in four special categories: The Masters; Rising Stars; Portland, World (for exported design); and Sustainability. I think these are particularly interesting and fun. Who do people naturally see as Portland's masters, rising stars, and sustainability gurus? I of course have my own preferences and opinions, but I'd be curious to here somebody else's out there. Maybe some of my own ideas about people in these categories is knee-jerk stuff. Design a cool retro diner and you're a rising star, an impressive big public building and you're a master. Add oil, vinegar and salt to taste. It'll be interesting to see another set of awards articulate the successes out there, and possibly in a slightly different pecking order. Hopefully there will be room for both this and the AIA awards. Why shouldn't there be?

In addition to celebrating the incredible design work being produced in the Portland metro area, the Root Awards will benefit a new college scholarship fund that will provide cash awards to top local students in the fields of design and construction. That may be the best part of this whole thing.

Hello Szenasy: PNCA Idea Studios Welcome Metropolis Editor For Discussion of Portland Sustainability

Tomorrow (Friday) morning at 10:30am, Metropolis magazine editor in chief Susan Szenasy will be on hand at the Gerding Theater to lead a panel discussion called "Green With Envy: How Innovative is PDX in the Quest for a Sustainable City?" The event is the latest in the Idea Studios presented by Pacific Northwest College of Art as part of their Ford Institute for Visual Education.

The panel will also include a number of prominent Portlanders in the green building field, such as Susan Anderson of the Office of Sustainable Development, Greg Baldwin of Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership, and Mark Edlen of Gerding Edlen Development.

In the meantime, maybe some of you have an opinion: just how innovative is Portland when it comes to green design?

If you're not familiar with Metropolis magazine, I'm attaching a PDF with several articles I've done for the magazine over the years, including reports on PNCA and the Gerding and other local sustainable projects and the work of local firms and designers like GBD, BOORA, SERA, Kevin Cavenaugh and Randy Higgins. Metropolis is really the best magazine out there at giving a sophisticated look at design and architecture without resorting too much into academic or over-technical dialogue geared to the profession, or puffy picture-stuffed PR.

Jamison Square Reconsidered

When I wrote last week about Randy Gragg’s interview with Brad Cloepfil, the one issue that seemed controversial, or that readers really seemed to disagree with Brad on, was his position on Jamison Square Park in the Pearl District. “It’s a theme park,” Brad said of Jamison “It’s an urban artifice. You could have done something so much more elegant.” He told Randy that the Peter Walker design tried too hard to program a particular type of setting: one of children, families and dogs frolicking near the fountain. Cloepfil lives in the Pearl District near Jamison, but he said he completely avoids the park.

However, an overwhelming majority of people whom I’ve talked to and commented here seem to like this Peter Walker-designed landscape a lot. “I like Cloepfil but he is wide off the mark on Jamison Square,” one commenter said. “Jamison Square is an extremely succesful urban space. In my mind it is incredible how well it functions.”

Although the central attraction is a wide swath of stone blocks from which water flows before gathering in a small pool below and then draining, Jamison also has the ambiance of outdoor diners from Fenouil restaurant overlooking the park. There are also the wonderful Kenny Scharff “Tiki totems” on the west side of the block, and a boardwalk on the east side. The boardwalk also continues north toward and through Tanner Springs Park. It’s a multifaceted experience.

At times in the past I, like Brad, have avoided spending much time there because it’s a little louder environment than I prefer. I like parks with lots of places to sit contemplatively under a canopy of trees. Even so, it may be short-changing Jamison to say that can’t happen here. The trees have started to fill in and grow up on the park, and although it’s a slow process of course, I was really struck visiting Jamison last night at how there really is a marked transformation happening in this respect. Trees really make all the difference in any park.

What’s more, I think Jamison Square has to be considered as a companion to Tanner Springs. The latter is a much quieter space, and thus the two parks seem to work well together. If one heads to Jamison on a sunny afternoon and it’s resembling Romper Room with lots of water-born kid fun, one can go to Tanner and read that dog-eared copy of Proust or meditate over the finer points of, say, Mounds versus Almond Joy or Amanda Fritz against Jim Middaugh.

One thing that City of Portland chief urban design strategist Arun Jain (my guest at tonight's "Designs on Portland" discussion series) told me lately seems relevant to a Jamison debate as well: there's a big difference between people's feelings and emotions about design versus empirical evidence and fact. I think in the past I've been guilty of dismissing Jamison because it's not necessarily the kind of place I would ordinarily spend a lot of time. But I'm hugely sun-phobic (my Nordic skin burns in mere moments) and don't hang out in direct-light open spaces that much anyway, which makes my own ability to evaluate the design objectively somewhat skewed.

As we’ll soon reach the ten-year anniversary of Jamison following its 2000 opening, how do the rest of you use and/or evaluate the square? What do you like and dislike about it? And is one of the other commenters to my Cloepfil post that started this discussion right in saying that Jamison is not only successful, but overtaking Pioneer Courthouse Square as Portland’s living room? In the latter case, I’d say not. But Jamison may indeed be the city’s family room. Although if that's the case, I don't know what that makes Waterfront Park: the city's great room? Its den? Its front lawn?

Latest Designs On Portland Discussion: "The Ever Growing City" With Urban Designer Arun Jain

What will Portland look like as it continues to grow in population? How do we maintain our reputation as a model for sustainable development, craft the right balance between a host of different competing interests and values, and add thousands of new residents without sacrificing what makes our city successful? How many questions will be in this paragraph?

For the third installment of the bi-monthly discussion series "Designs On Portland" at Design Within Reach in the Pearl, I will be discussing these ideas with Arun Jain, Chief Urban Designer for the City of Portland. Jain didn't lay out the street grid or make Portland a bike and green-friendly city, but with his help we can keep it that way. Maybe we can even improve a thing or two (he said half facetiously).

Jain joined the City of Portland Bureau of Planning as its first Chief Urban Designer in January 2003. In this role he oversees civic and design quality issues throughout the city. In this role he advises Portland's mayor and the city on issues surrounding the physical quality of the community. A frequent member of several mayoral task forces and advisory committees, Jain's team instigates, creates and directs visions, ideas and solutions to ensure good urban design and an appealing, sustainable public environment in Portland.

With over 25 years of experience as an urban designer in practice and academia, Jain holds two masters degrees from the University of Pennsylvania’s Urban Design Program. He taught for over 10 years at the University of California Berkeley and remains an invited critic by universities around the world. Jain is also an internationally invited speaker and mentor on urban design and development issues. Professionally and philosophically, he seeks better balances between environmental and economic sustainability.

"Designs on Portland: The Ever-Growing City" will be held this Wednesday, May 21, 6-8pm at DWR's Portland Studio, 1200 N.W. Everett. Admission is free and refreshments will be served. Also, we hope to have some minor audio and timing glitches taken care of, and I will set a goal of not interrupting quite as often. (Guess I've been watching too much Charlie Rose.)

Casey Becomes First LEED Platinum Condo

The Casey Condominiums in the Pearl District have been certified by the US Green Building Council at the top 'platinum' level of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). That makes the Gerding Edlen-developed, GBD Architects designed building the first high-rise condominium residence in the country to reach this highest standard of green building.

This is Gerding and GBD's third LEED platinum project, following the Gerding Theater (the nation’s first platinum historic renovation and performing arts center), and Oregon Health Science University’s Center for Health & Healing (the nation’s first and largest LEED platinum medical office building). Gerding Edlen also has 38 LEED projects in its portfolio, more than any other developer in the country.

The Casey achieved all of the 55 LEED credits it applied for, exceeding the 52 required for platinum. The building incorporates reduced usage of fossil fuels; sustainable, regional, renewable and low-VOC materials; water-efficient fixtures and appliances; glazing to reduce glare and heat gain; an eco-roof for storm water management and to reduce the heat island effect; efficient mechanical equipment; a solar PV system to provide renewable energy to the building; and ERVs (Energy Recovery Ventilators) in each unit that recover exhausted (waste) heat and use it to preheat incoming fresh air. These features are expected to achieve a 52 percent energy savings over a code-compliant building.

The Casey is also one of three high-rises across the country participating in a pilot Energy Star for High Rise Multifamily Building rating system.  Multifamily high-rise structures are a unique hybrid of residential and commercial, and currently have no clear methodology for establishing high performance under the Energy Star labeling program. The Energy Trust of Oregon, which is coordinating the pilot rating system on behalf of the EPA, is using the Casey to inform the development of this new standard.

The Portland Mercury's Matt Davis once called the sight of The Casey's colorful precast panels "puke curry". But it's got matchless green qualities, and it's also a wonderful precedent for Pearl condos to be built on a quarter-block. It's not necessarily my favorite visually, but I'd withhold any comments about Indian food or gastro-intestinal problems. Architecture also needs a lot more color. And I think The Casey still looks better than most Portland condos in large part because of this quarter-block scale, which proportionally seems favorable to most half-block or full-block behemoths out there.

Congrats to Gerding and GBD on another piece of platinum for their mantle.

Can We End Gas Mowers In Portland? Leaf Blowers?

This afternoon, taking advantage of the the beautiful sunny day I took a walk in my neighborhood. Indeed the weather was great, but it seemed like everywhere I turned here in residential Southeast Portland, there was a chorus of loud, belching gasoline-powered lawn mowers and leaf blowers. People may not like the wintry rain, but at least you can walk down the sidewalk without taking a lung full of carbon monoxide, dust and swirling grass trimmings.

It got me thinking: If Portland is really a leading sustainable city, why not set a goal of curbing or even ending use of gas-powered mowers? Retiring these crude cutting machines would be a small but effective step in further cutting use of fossil fuels as well as pollution. And saving my psyche. How would we go about it? I'm not sure if incentives for manual or battery-powered mowers would be enough, yet an outright ban might not be realistic either.

Leaf blowers are just as loud and obnoxious as gas mowers, if not worse. But is there technology out there to do the same job without the noise and gasoline? My understanding is mowers have come further, although a good old rake or broom surely would more often than not suffice for a leaf blower in my book. Or might there be some Scandinavian or Japanese industrial designer coming up with a silent, solar-powered leaf blower as we speak? Speaking of industrial designers, how about we get Sohrab Vossoughi and the gang over at local award winning firm Ziba started on this right away?

In my neighborhood a good portion of houses seem to rely on lawn-care companies that sweep in every couple weeks during the spring and summer with an arsenal of big, loud lawn equipment. Many of these are small businesses with largely minority workforces, and I wouldn't want regulations or bans to harm what they do. Even so, I feel like walking through my neighborhood is an obstacle course for my ears and allergies whenever they're around. Is this the only way to keep a clean yard or sidewalk?

Synagogue Shuffle: Hubka at White Stag

Sorry for the short notice on this, but this evening visiting UO architecture professor Thomas C. Hubka will discuss his research on vernacular form and Jewish culture in a lecture titled, "The Art and Architecture of Eighteenth-century Wooden Synagogues" at the UO's new White Stag Block campus. The lecture begins at 6PM.

In 2006 Hubka received the Henry Glassie Award for special achievement in the field of vernacular architecture in honor of his 2003 book, Resplendent Synagogue: Architecture and Worship in Eighteenth Century Polish Community. (By the way: I just love Polish pierogies and stuffed cabbage.)

Hubka, a professor of architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is serving as a visiting professor for the spring term in Oregon's architecture and historic preservation programs. Previously he taught at UO from 1972-83. He also wrote Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn: The Connected Farm Buildings of New England in 1984. (I particularly appreciated the chapter on the Charles Ingalls House.) His spring studio project is a museum of Ukrainian Jewish history and restoration workshop for historic wooden structures. Hubka was awarded a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant to travel to Lviv, Ukraine, in the fall where he will present proposals for the museum at Lviv University.

Hubka's historic preservation class is conducting a survey of common housing types in Springfield of the past hundred years. His findings were presented to the Springfield Historic Commission on May 10.

The professor's research into synagogues also reminds me: Although it's not often discussed, the Temple Beth Israel at 19th and Flanders is a real treasure. Built in 1927, it was designed by Harry Herzog. According to Bart King's Architectural Guidebook to Portland, its plans were revised 14 times. The Byzantine style synagogue's 100-foot-high dome, topped with its original terra cotta shingles, is one of the top architectural sights (and sites) in Portland.

Even so, one of the top architectural works not in Portland is the original Temple Beth Israel, erected in 1889 but burned by an arsonist in 1923. Before that, it was the largest place of Worship in the city. Damn you anti-semites! What would it have been like to have this wonder in our city? They even sell posters of the church like this one online. How many other Portland churches, even those by Pietro Belluschi, can say that?

Cloepfil Plays Jimmy Mak's

With a book on Allied Works being published next winter, Brad Cloepfil told Randy Gragg during their interview Monday evening at Jimmy Mak's jazz club that he’s been looking back on the firm’s early career. “The last thing we need is more buildings, but we certainly need more architecture,” he said. The essential question for Allied Works, he added, has been, “What can the work heighten or reveal…that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to see?”

Following are some notes I took over a Stella Artois.

Talking about Allied’s Museum of Art & Design at 2 Columbus Circle in New York, currently finishing up construction (and looking quite dazzling, I think), he said the design approach working with the decades-empty but architecturally significant Edward Durrell Stone original building was “removing structure as a way of creating experience.” Cloepfil described the original as “the inert box that was rendered transparent.” The façade now acts as a series of cantilevers, and the museum’s cladding “literally created a new glazing that brings color and iridescence in certain light.” In that way, 2 Columbus Circle resembles Cloepfil’s W+K building in that it is also “first an act of editing.”

For the Seattle Art Museum, he showed the pattern of a spider web and talked about being “given an existing envelope and prescribed boundaries.” It’s a stainless steel building that “gathers forces”. Not much time spent here, though.

Allied’s vacation house in Duchess County, New York is a “visceral glass house, intended not just to be clear, but a diaphanous part of the landscape.” Artist Doug Aiken filmed construction of the house during four different seasons and is projecting the footage onto the fours sides of the house. “You begin a conversation with the architecture that the art extend," he said. "Buildings are less important as objects. The real value of the building is how people can act upon it.”

On his time at the University of Oregon and in Thomas Hacker’s office, both of which brought Louis Kahn’s influence: “We were so lucky when Lou Kahn’s office closed in ‘74 or ‘75, there was a migration of five of six of them to U of O. I was just a suburban kid then. I assumed it was just the way you talked about architecture.”

“There was a morality to Tom’s work I resisted,” Cloepfil also said of Hacker, “but it has stayed with me in some ways. It’s the nature of a good teacher…that you don’t have to push against ideas because you can come to own them yourself. Our St. Louis building was about structure, for example, whereas Lou Kahn was more about plan.”

Cloepfil also talked about the influence sculptors had on him, particularly while he was in graduate school in New York at Columbia in the mid-1980s. “It was a dark time for architecture,” he remembers of the postmodern age. “Art filled a void in ‘70s and ‘80s architecture and extended it through 15 years of silence as far as ideas go.” Works by Richard Serra “blew my mind. It was the most powerful piece of architecture I’d been in. Everything I’d learned about architecture I saw in that work. Then you look at stuff like the Portland Building and you see people got lost.”

Talking later about Allied Works’ magnificent 2281 NW Glisan building, Gragg remarked at how the project managed to narrowly avoid a  implementation of a historic landmark district, who’s chair later said he’d had have allowed Cloepfil’s glass building over his dead body. The architect also remembers getting some eloquent hate mail about the building. But, he says, the Glisan project was a sensible approach to its historic context. “Given the closed buildings around it, wouldn’t it be great to open up?” he asked, by way of explanation. “We said, ‘Let’s do a 20th century building before they close the 20th century.”

Cloepfil had strong criticism for how neighborhoods subject to historic landmarks commission review overstep and misunderstand their role as stewards of architecture. “It’s demeaning to history to mock it,” he said. “Be respectful by how you juxtapose it to the new. But the United States is the worst about this.” In the 1970s, he said, with such destruction happening from urban renewal, and areas like the south auditorium district leveled as a result, it was understandable to try and freeze neighborhoods subject to unwanted change in order to protect them. But now, he added, “We need to have a new conversation about historic architecture.”

Asked to critique the overall architectural caliber of the wave of new condos in the Pearl District and South Waterfront, he said, “I wish there was more diversity of style and voice. But the Upper West Side of Manhattan is probably one of the most architecturally bland areas of New York. Both neighborhoods were built very fast, over about 20 years. Here in Portland, I think there’s not necessarily an iconic building [among the new condos], but there’s a scale and quality that’s a good fabric for the city. But can we do more than the nice, the status quo? Granted, other cities don’t do that, and hence the success of Portland. But it would be nice to take a stab at something bigger.”

Probed to comment on a series of projects, Cloepfil had a big thumbs-up for Memorial Coliseum. “It would be insane if it’s not saved,” he said. “It’s a beautiful glass pavilion.” He was not as complimentary, though, toward the popular Jamison Square Park in the Pearl. “It’s a theme park. It’s an urban artifice. You could have done something so much more elegant.” On South Waterfront the architect said, “It’s contained, it’s dense, but it’s so isolated as a pod. That frightens me.”

I believe the conversation continued onward from there, but I've got a 24,000 word writing assignment due Thursday, so I had to sneak out just a tad early.

A Cloepfil-Gragg Discussion, and A Visit To Allied Works' Macleay View House

On Monday night, in the second installment of Portland Spaces magazine's Bright Lights Discussion Series, editor Randy Gragg will be interviewing architect Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works.

Not only has Cloepfil's firm finally going to be working on a major Portland project again with PNCA's 511 Broadway building renovation, as well as a more modest rehab of the school's existing Pearl District space, but Allied Works also saw completion of a West Hills home with another on the way. Then there's the projects Allied has going in Denver, Dallas, New York and beyond.

The Macleay View House was unveiled several days ago at an opening party ("Whoa, is that Gus Van Sant?") thrown by the people behind this Cloepfil-designed speculative single-family house: Wieden + Kennedy executive creative director John Jay and his wife Janet, as well as builder-developer extraordinaire Don Tankersley, whose past work includes the magnificent Rick Potestio-designed Lair Condominiums, the Jays' own Pietro Belluschi-designed, Brad-Cloepfil-renovated/expanded house, and numerous other boutique projects around town by Potestio, architect Jeff Lamb, and others.

I mention Don Tankersley also because, although the Macleay View House is unquestionably an Allied Works design, it also reminded me a little bit of the facade at the Lair Condos (pictured here) that Tankersley both developed and built from Potestio's design. The Macleay has a quite vertical feel, which is dictated mostly by the steep incline of its West Hills site and the expansive view it affords of Portland. At the same time, the interior of the house seems oriented around a series of stairway climbs from one level to another, wrapping a 32-foot atrium. The house also, as it happens, has an elevator.

I've heard it said that once an architect starts doing mostly institutional-scale work, as Allied is now, it's hard to go back to designing the much smaller single family home. Although there may be something slightly formal or a faintly institutional building feel here, overall Cloepfil and company pass with flying colors. The house is filled with gorgeous deep brown wood, a large central open kitchen, and an upper balcony covering the whole width of the house.

The Cloepfil-Tankersley partnership is also continuing with another Southwest Portland residence that's currently under construction for investor John Von Schlegell, which seems like it might be even more ambitious than the Macleay.

Meanwhile, Randy Gragg's discussion with Cloepfil will begin at 6PM at Jimmy Mak's, 221 NW 10th Avenue. Unlike when some of the club's esteemed resident jazz musicians take the stage, there is no cover charge. (Although believe me, Mel Brown and company are worth it.)

Republican Party Endorses Dozono, Every Major Newspaper Endorses Adams

As the race for Portland mayor and other local races heats up, a string of endosements have been handed out. Here's a summary of some recent ones for mayoral candidates Sho Dozono and Sam Adams:

Endorsement for Dozono: Multnomah County Republicans. "A man of proven leadership in increasing society's wealth," they say in a run-on sentence (must be the education cuts). The local Republican party has also endorsed Amanda Fritz for City Council. They cite her commitment to suspending streetcar expansion in favor of more buses. If only she were willing to eat her young.

Meanwhile, here are some endorsements for Sam Adams: The Oregonian. The Portland Tribune. The Portland Mercury. Willamette Week. "Adams is by far the most qualified to lead and most in tune with what Portlanders want," WW wrote. "If elected to replace retiring Mayor Tom Potter, Adams would restore assertive executive leadership to a city government that for three and half years has been wandering in a multitude of directions," said the Tribune.

As I said in a previous post, I'm not sure I feel entirely comfortable telling people how they should vote. But the Adams-Dozono choice seems painfully obvious to me. I mean, let's see: a longtime City Hall veteran who got his start working for a successful three-term mayor, or a travel agency owner who flubbed his public campaign funds, initially refused to pay the city for his Bush Garden rent even after it was reduced by half, and who has zero experience in government.

I haven't made up my mind about the City Council races yet. The only candidate I've met personally is Chris Smith, who is an exceptionally knowledgable guy about transportation and more. He woulnd't be nuts enough to get rid of the streetcar. In the close race for State Representative in the Southeast Portland district I belong to, I think some of the values and endorsements of candidates like Jules Koppel-Bailey and Teddy Keizer best match my own feelings, but long before the flood of political mailers began arriving in my box from those two, their opponent, Regan Gray, knocked on my door last summer to ask what issues were important to me. So I stood there in the doorway and squawked to her about design and architecture for 10 minutes and she asked intelligent questions. That experience means more to me as a voter than if Keizer and Koppel-Bailey mailed me two tons of flyers.

Who do the rest of you believe are the best design-and-architecture candidates, and who are the ones most to avoid?

Portland and the COTE Top 10 Green List

A couple weeks ago the American Institute of Architects' Committee on the Environment released its annual Top Ten Green Projects list.

As described by the AIA, the program "celebrates projects that are the result of a thoroughly integrated approach to architecture, natural systems and technology. They make a positive contribution to their communities, improve comfort for building occupants and reduce environmental impacts through strategies such as reuse of existing structures, connection to transit systems, low-impact and regenerative site development, energy and water conservation, use of sustainable or renewable construction materials, and design that improves indoor air quality."

Considering that Portland has often been called the nation's greenest city, and at various times we've had the most LEED-rated projects in the nation, you'd think we'd be all over this list, either the new one or past lists of the top 10 green projects. Actually, though, that's not the case at all.

This year's AIA/COTE Top 10 honors projects in New York, Pennsylvania, Boston, Seattle, Wisconsin and elsewhere.  But there's not one project from Portland. And if you look back at past years of COTE lists, Portland has hardly any presence at all.

Last year, the Gerding Theater at the Armory by GBD Architects (pictured above) received an Honorable Mention, but still failed to crack the 2007 Top 10 list despite being one of the nation's first ever LEED Platinum rated historic renovations. A Eugene project with an assist from a Portland firm was on the list, the Morse US Courthouse, but legendary architect Thom Mayne is really the auteur of that project, not DLR Group.

In 2006, a Portland project indeed made the list, the Lloyd Crossing Sustainable Design Plan, but it wasn't a work of architecture and it wasn't from a Portland firm (the designer was Mithun of Seattle). 2004 had no Portland firms or projects on the list, nor did 2003. In 2002 the modest but very sustainable Bank of Astoria in Manzanita by Oregon coast architect Tom Bender made the list, but that's still not Portland. The awards began in 1997, but if you go all the way back to the beginning, there is still no accolade for local firm or project.

Meanwhile, our northern neighbors in Seattle are all over the COTE Top 10 list almost every time. This year's list includes the Discovery Center at South Lake Union in Seattle by local firm Miller/Hull Partnership, as well as the Pocono Environmental Education Center by Seattle firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. Miller/Hull, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Mahlum Architects and Mithun, all from the home of the NFL's Sea-turkeys, each have multiple AIA/COTE Top 10 finishes: Mithun for two different REI stores and the Puget Sound Environmental Learning Center, Miller Hull for this year's Lake Union project as well as past list-makers the Bainbridge Island City Hall and Pierce County Environmental Services, and even Mahlum has both Ben Franklin Elementary in Kirkland and and a building at Evergreen State College in Olympia.

So here's the question: Does the history of the COTE top 10 show that Portland is over-rated as a green building city, that it's under-recognized, both or neither? I think of landmark sustainable projects here like GBD's Center For Health and Healing at OHSU, a LEED Platinum rated design that's a whopping 50% more energy efficient than code, which is stunning for such a big building. Or the Ecotrust Natural Capital Center in the Pearl. Or the net-zero energy Rose House by SERA Architects. Or the Brewery Blocks. They're all supposed to be leading-edge sustainable projects. Are they not? Or if they are, why aren't they on the list?

Then again, maybe it's just the nature of awards and lists. I mean, other than maybe this year and a few other exceptions, the Academy Awards almost never pick the right film for Best Picture. Rocky over Taxi Driver? Oliver over 2001: A Space Odyssey? Crash over...anything? Even Kevin Costner has a Best Director Oscar and neither Alfred Hitchcock nor Orson Welles ever got one. 'Nuff said.

Even so, I'm curious whether people think COTE ignores Portland, or whether we're not as special as we think.

Welcome Sponsor

Portland Architectue is happy to welcome the sponsorship of Realtor Justin Milan Cole, who recently relocated to Oregon from California and is registered in three states (OR, WA, CA). In addition to realty, Milan (he goes by his middle name) is a general contractor. So once an architect designs something for this guy, he can build it and sell it.

PSU's Portable Classroom On Alberta

Portland State University architecture professor Matthew Bietz is teaching the first phase of an architecture studio that will be designing and fabricating a portable classroom on NE Alberta Street at 15th Avenue, on a vacant property Bietz purchased next door to his home.

The classroom will be not for Bietz’s students, but for fellow PSU professor Harrell Fletcher’s Social Practice students going for their masters of fine arts. The Social Practices program emphasizes community engagement through non-studio creative activities executed in the field. “I heard that Harrell was looking to collaborate with the Architecture department at PSU," Bietz explains, "and that his new Social Practice class has no studio space on campus. Also, [then architecture department head] Rudy Barton has been asking me to teach a design-build class for some time now, because of my experience in Mexico with Steve Badanes and the University of Washington’s design-build program.”

There will be a hands-on construction studio beginning in July, with completion and ‘arrival’ of the project on site as part of PICA’s TBA festival this fall.

The site is a 50x100 empty lot. Once on site, the project will become the base of operations and community outreach center for the Social Practice students. After a 3 to 6 month stay, it will remove itself from the site and travel to a new location in a different neighborhood to repeat the process.

The intent of Bietz’s studio is to explore architecture as a mode of social outreach through community engagement, with specific focus on portability, prefabrication and recycled and re-used materials.  The process began with 15 concepts that were then condensed into five projects. The projects range from panelized systems and tent structures to expanding shipping containers and unfolding spaces on wheels.

Bietz moved to the Alberta neighborhood in 1998 “when houses were still under $100K and an architecture intern could afford to buy a house in Portland.” A decade later, “my house has appreciated to the point that I could afford to refinance and purchase the lot next door to me, for a possible development. But with the current mortgage crisis, and no one willing to lend me 500K for speculative housing, I started looking for other ways to use the property. Put that all together and you have a pretty interesting potential project. One that needs some funding, but will no doubt be built this summer.”

In the images above, the first is the "Sliding Cube and Tent Structure" by Junior Carbajal, Hussien Al-Baiaty and Gulia Gulnara. The second is "Dynawall" by Ralph Loielo and Paul Nordlund. The third is called "Unfolding Shipping Container" by Max Dehne, Craig Moore and Olga Reuven.

New Condos In Multnomah Village

If you drive around close-in Portland neighborhoods these days it’s easy to find a new condo or apartment project going up, even in the increasingly gloomy economy. A case in point is the new Vanguard condos at SW 45th and Multnomah.

I’ve always been more a fan of the east side, downtown and the Pearl than the winding sidewalk-less streets of Southwest. But Multnomah Village is a wonderful little neighborhood that feels like the old town center it used to be when one of the state’s first railroad stops was built here a century ago. I particularly enjoy the Fat City Café for its hash browns and Annie Bloom’s books. And now, the Vanguard is increasing the density of this area, and doing so with a modestly handsome look.

Originating from the same owners who developed the brilliant Rick Potestio-designed Lair Condominiums, The Vanguard began as a project for DiLoreto Architecture but has been finished up by architect Bryce Allison and his small firm, Divergent Design & Architecture. The project features six small condo units, three garden level studios and three upper level one-bedroom units.

“This is the third project we designed for the site,” Allison says. “The first two just didn’t pencil once the bank got involved. This last version is a bit compromised as it was originally laid out as six apartments then flipped back to condos during the permitting phase. It’s a tiny yet efficient project, and the client is very excited about what we’ve created together. Nearly two and a half years ago they asked us to design them something ‘Dwell cool’. All things considered, we feel like we did a good job of getting close."

Noticeable right away is the wood exterior cladding, which seems to be what will mark this era of multi-family housing in Portland. It livens up what is otherwise a pretty boxy, simple form. Hopefully, as with other wood exteriors such as the Thurman Street Lofts and Belmont Lofts by Holst Architecture, or the B39 condos going up at SE 39th and Belmont, these facades will still look good in twenty or thirty years.

Meanwhile, congratulations to Bryce Allison as the latest young architect to take the reigns and start getting things built. I know many architects who want be designing and developing stuff, but it takes a certain breed to make it happen.

Greenworks and Ankrom Moisan-Led Team Among Metro Integrating Habitats Competition Winners

Last month Metro held its Integrating Habitats competition, and although I’m late in writing about it, wanted to touch upon at least one of the winners.

The purpose of Integrating Habitats was to generate designs that integrate built and natural environments. According to metro, winners would “redefine the current language and standards of environmental sustainability by fostering balance between conservation and development, maximizing biodiversity and safeguarding water quality for this generation and those to come."

The jury included Stuttgart/Los Angeles architect Stefan Behnisch; University of Michigan landscape architecture professor Joan Nassauer; Tom Schueler, founder of the Center for Watershed Protection in Maryland; Metropolis magazine editor Susan Szenasy; Portland developer Jim Winkler; and David Yocca, director of the Conservation Design Forum in Elmhurst, Illinois.

In the commercial category, a collaborative group from Portland was the winner. Team members came from Greenworks, Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects, ESA Adolphson, SWCA Environmental Consultants, and Bruce Rodgers Design Illustration. The submittal, which drew from Metro’s 2040 Growth Concept and Portland’s Peak Oil Task Force 2007 Report, involved a lowland hardwood forest habitat interface with a big-box green home center, parking, and remnant wetlands.

"We were drawn to Category 2 because it is a type of project (big-box) that is not typically known for sustainability," Greenworks' Jason King told me. "It was mostly a parking problem. We also asked ourselves, "How will design and development change due to peak oil?  How can we design now to respond to the future variability? Our aim was a project that could be viable, one a developer would look at and say 'We could build this.'" 

King also, in his email to me, quoted the landscape urbanism theorist Charles Waldheim: "Landscape replaces architecture as the basic building block of contemporary urbanism... Landscape has become both the lens through which the contemporary city is represented and the medium through which it is constructed."

Among the plans are for unwanted yard and food wastes to be brought on site and transformed into compost. Stormwater collected and cleansed with technologies that replicate wetland processes and habitats. Economically, they explain, “our development model taps into Portland’s leading market for sustainable building practices and lifestyles, and fosters community by creating service- oriented building centers near regional and town centers to meet the challenges of post peak-oil conditions. Through daylighting, façade articulation and site responsive features, the architecture provides a contrasting experience that will attract nearby shoppers from adjacent big box developments for the engaging experience the site will offer them.”

To me this isn't a radical re-invention of the big-box store. It's really just about breaking down the bulk of the store, stopping the roof from being an eyesore and a heat island by landscaping the top and sloping one edge down. And then it's making the surface parking lot softer around the edges.

I wonder if an even greener solution, which for all I know the competition brief didn't allow, might be to put another store next to the big box where the surface parking lot would go, and have the two side-by-side stores share the cost of putting parking underground. You could still integrate nature in but get rid of that ugly surface car lot instead of window dressing it.

Having said that, I would love to pull up at this instead of the hideous, life-sucking environment of the Jantzen Beach Center Target store and its sea of asphalt I visited a couple weekends ago. There are empty buildings all over there, and to walk from Target to, say, Barnes & Noble or Old Navy next door, there's no place to go for a pedestrian except for over grass berms and along the asphalt right next to the cars. If they could clear out all the people and valuables first, I'd have no problem with them demolishing almost the entire Hayden Island shopping area and start over...with stuff like this (and connected by MAX).

You can read more about this winning commercial entry on the Greenworks site. Also, the winning entries for the competition were on display in the Bureau of Development Services at 1900 S.W. Fourth Avenue throughout April, and I believe they'll be shown somewhere else in May - more on that shortly.