Portland Architecture

Triangle and Fitzgibbon Glass: visiting two NW Portland warehouse conversions beneath the Fremont bridge

Michael Flowers and Judson Moore both grew up in west Texas and attended Texas A&M. After graduation, they followed a professor to Montana State University and briefly taught there. Ultimately they set up practice in Portland, but many times drove back and forth between College Station, Texas (home of A&M), Bozeman, Montana (just like the hero of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance), and Portland.

As a result, they came to love, as legendary French architect Le Corbusier did when he visited the United States a century or so ago, the simple agricultural silos and other architecture. It make sense: Texas A&M's team is of course the Aggies. It's for that reason, and their west Texas heritage, that their new-ish architecture firm, established last July, is called Farm Architecture and Research. I found this a personal bond as well, having been raised in McMinnville and having farmers in the family. I don't miss living in cow country, but I love some of the old agricultural buildings in my old 'hood.

Moore and Flowers came to think of Bozeman, College Station and Portland as a personal geographic triangle, and coincidentally, one of their first completed building projects as Farm Architecture is for the Triangle Building, a renovated warehouse at 1800 NW 16th Avenue near the base of the Fremont Bridge where Naito Parkway meets Thurman Street in Northwest Portland (the building is pictured in these first three shots, all of which were provided by the firm).

Visiting today with Tim McCarron of Pettigrove Venture, the developer, we started in a coffee shop on the ground floor of the Triangle that was designed with another small firm, Bolighus (whose work I already liked and blogged about here a couple years ago). There is also space above and behind the cafe for creative and building industry tenants, or whomever.

The architects and developer apparently wrestled with whether to seek National Register status for the LEED Silver-rated building, but decided against it because they wanted to add larger window openings. And whether it's inside the cafe or upstairs, I can vouch for it being a good decision, at least as it relates to being inside the building. For an old brick warehouse, it's teeming with natural light.

All of the brick was left exposed, as were the old wood-framed ceilings. All of the wood flooring is from timber reclaimed onsite. It's really a lovely little building.

A couple blocks away I also paid a visit to another warehouse-to-creative-flex-space conversion by the same developer. The Fitzgibbon Glass building at 2001 NW 19th Avenue is a LEED Platinum-rated renovation. These next six shots, the first of which was provided by the developer (I took the rest) are of the Fitzgibbon.

On its public corner, the building is a pretty reserved but well-done version of a standard warehouse turnaround, but the back parking lot (which they hope to eventually expand the building into, as the original client, Nau apparel, was planning before going out of business (since resurrected but owned by someone else). On that back side, there are a succession of double-height spaces for lease, and an elevator core at the corner clad in natural wood panels. The architect for this project was Stem Architecture of Portland, which frankly I don't know anything about yet but hope to find out.

Nearby the Triangle Building and Fitzgibbon Glass building is not only the base of the Fremont Bridge, but train tracks, Naito Parkway, and a succession of new waterfront condos, as well as numerous industrial buildings such as a gear manufacturer. There is also a Montessori school across from the Triangle, and while we were at the cafe, a group of the kids were playing basketball on a playground in front of us, with a train going by behind that and the river further back still, not to mention the cars moving by overhead on the bridge. 

It's a subtly incredible intersection of cars, trains, and boats as well as industrial and burgeoning condo districts. 

And nearby on the other side of the Fremont Bridge's base, you'll soon have the Northern edge of the Pearl District, an open-field park, and the Centennial Mills redevelopment. 

This is one of those sleepy little areas of close-in Portland that is about to wake up, it seems, in a big way. And it's often these kinds of slightly out-of-the-way or in-between pockets of land where smaller firms such as Farm and Stem get a chance to show what they can do. Funny how in Portland how these tiny industrial pockets and million-dollar condovilles can be right next to each other.

Knight gives $100 million to OHSU

For all of those people complaining that Nike co-founder Phil Knight only gives money to Oregon Ducks athletics, check out the $100 million he's giving to Oregon Health and Science University, announced earlier this morning.

The donation, easily the largest in OHSU's history, will go specifically to their Cancer Institute. The center recently lost Lance Armstrong's cancer doc, Craig Nichols, to Providence Health System, but apparently Lance's athletic company of choice was not dissuaded to give a mighty bankroll to Pill Hill.

The first $2 million will go towards building a laboratory suite at the hospital, but the remaining $98 million Knight Fund will be "at the discretion of the director" of the Cancer Institute, Brian Drucker.

OHSU has already announced plans earlier this year to build a "Life Sciences Collaborative" set of buildings between the Ross Island and Marquam Bridges. Might a future cancer research center be built in this spot? Or somewhere else in South Waterfront?

With the condo boom suddenly over, and South Waterfront only partially built out, one can't help but wonder how this $98 million might help OHSU realize its ambitions along the Willamette.

Now if Knight would just stop ruining Oregon's football uniforms.

You call this a "preservation triumph"?

Maybe I'm just in a bad mood because of Greg Oden's injury last night. But turning from the sports section to an editorial in today's Oregonian didn't help matters. 

The editorial hails the saving of the Ladd Carriage House, which was moved back to its original location on SW Broadway a few days ago, as a "preservation triumph". "The city owes thanks to a church, developer, and group of activists who saved the Ladd Carriage House."

I'd love to join in the applause if it weren't ignoring the other half of the story.

The editorial also begins by quoting a 1988 Oregonian article by Mike Francis on preservation in downtown Portland:

"In Portland's core, where the preservation movement has largely run its course, civic leaders seem satisfied to retain the flavor of old Portland in carefully bounded pockets, such as in the Yamhill and Skidmore-Old Town Historic Districts. Elsewhere, almost any city block...is in play. If the right deal comes along, new buildings will supplant structures that have the ill fortune of having been built on the wrong lot."

Today's editorial argues that a "tip of the hat" for the fact that such rules apparently don't apply any more: that new buildings no longer supplant old ones cursed with being on the wrong lot.

But as I've mentioned many times before, in response to the wave of back-patting being done about the Ladd Carriage House, there was a beautiful building right next door to the Ladd Carriage House torn down: the Rosefriend Apartments. Quite simply, a new building supplanted this one because it had the ill fortune of having been built on the wrong lot.

I'd suggest maybe the Oregonian editorial writers forgot about the Rosefriend Apartments if not for the fact that the building was directly across the street from The Oregonian's offices. 

I can see lauding the Ladd Carriage House effort. I'm glad too that it was saved. But I am fed up with people trying to re-write Portland's preservation history and say this was only a win because the Carriage House was saved. Imagine if the paper reported on the Blazers' 20-point opening night loss Tuesday evening but didn't mention that Greg Oden hurt his foot 13 minutes into his first game after a year's wait because of another injury? 

In the best possible scenario, this was one win and one step back. But to read the editorial's rhetoric, you'd think there was no controversy, no disappointment, no tragedy, not even a slightly raised heartbeat or even the tiniest hint of mixed emotions.

Here are two videos so you can decide for yourself. The first is The Oregonian's footage of the Ladd Carriage House being moved. The second is of the Rosefriend being destroyed. What does the footage tell you?

Demolition of the Rosefriend Apartments from Brian Libby on Vimeo.

I know some people must be tired of me bringing up the Rosefriend, or of me raining on the Ladd Carriage House's parade. But every time I tell myself I'm going to forget about it, somebody comes bounding in unqualified enthusiasm about how great it was to save the Carriage House, without ever even mentioning the complicating factor of the Rosefriend. We already lost the building itself. Can't it at least have a place in the history and memory of the city without this story being white-washed?

Buckminster Fuller: "fairy godfather" of Portland Design?

Now through December 7 at the Gerding Theater, Portland Center Stage is producing "R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe", written by D.W. Jacobs and starring Doug Tompos as Fuller.

In a press release sent out recently about the play, it's argued that Fuller is a special touchstone for this city despite not ever having a presence here: "Technology gurus (Linus Torvald), sustainability prophets (Mike Houck), public policy advocates (Sam Adams), Alberta Street hipsters and innovative design firms (Ziba) take heed: you are about to meet your spiritual fairy godfather."

Fuller was reportedly inspired in 1927 after his daughter's death, which he attributed to the drafty Chicago building the family lived in, to embark on what he called "an experiment, to find what a single individual [could] contribute to changing the world and benefitting all humanity." Fuller came up with the geodesic dome as a result, but also influenced the future of sustainable design and many other fields. He coined terms like "Spaceship Earth" (which Sun Ra and George Clinton are no doubt thankful for), "ephemeralization" (which artists talking about their work are surely glad to borrow).

Fuller's biggest architectural contribution was of course the geodesic dome, the influence of which has been seen in numerous domed sports stadiums, planetariums, and futuristic biospheres like the Eden project in England.

Are architects in Portland inspired by Bucky? Or is he really more of a cartoonish figure than a true day-in-day-out inspiration, or a fairy godfather?

OCAC unveils new Charles Rose-designed campus buildings

Recently the Oregon College of Art and Craft broke ground on its first of numerous new buildings by Charles Rose Architects of the Boston area (with COLAB Architecture + Urban Design of Portland - our city's biggest design presence in Dubai), the Drawing/Painting and Photography studio building.

The two-story DPP provides just under 15,000 square feet and is designed to meet LEED Silver specifications. There about 6,200 square feet for drawing and painting upstairs in the spaces with most of the natural light, while the lower floor adds another 5,600 square feet of studio space for darkrooms, photography studios, a digital photo lab, and expandable classroom spaces.

Slated to open in summer 2009, the DPP will also be linked to existing and future buildings by a central spine of stairways and ramps around a series of lush courtyards designed in collaboration with Murase Associates landscape architecture. BOORA Architects of Portland created the master plan from which the whole affair operates.

The LEED Silver target will be centered around five key areas: site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor air quality. I'd be curious to know: why not Platinum or Gold? Presumably cost, of course. But boldly reinventing yourself, as OCAC seeks, might have come out bolder with Platinum. Even so, one ought not to be dismissive of LEED Silver. Or has it really come to this in Portland?

The original 9.5-acre OCAC campus, about two-thirds of the way to Beaverton out on Barnes Road, was designed by seminal local architect John Storrs (known also for Salishan on the Oregon coast) and landscape architect Barbara Fealy.

It must have presented an interesting challenge for Rose, COLAB and company, because to me the original campus is both architecturally significant and a bit of a dump. Well, dump is too strong of a word. But it's surprisingly rustic feeling for an urban art school, although admittedly by design. In fact, the seclusion of OCAC is ultimately part of its charm. I can't wait to see how the feel of the campus changes with the new buildings, of which there will be more in the years ahead.

Allied Works, Brett Crawford win top AIA awards, Works Partnership and Vallaster & Corl are multiple winners

Architect Brad Cloepfil's firm, Allied Works, took the top prize at Saturday's AIA Design Awards, held at the newly opened Nines hotel in the former Meier & Frank building. The Honor Award, as it's called, went to Allied's design for Booker T. Washington high school in Dallas.

As with Allied's legendary Wieden + Kennedy building in Portland as well as its new Museum of Art & Design in New York, this is a rehab of an older building that re-imagines it. The arts-oriented high school (pictured above left), attended by musicians Norah Jones, Roy Hargrove and Erykah Badu (as Tim DuRoche notes on the Burnside Blog), was originally built in 1922. Allied added 170,000 square feet that includes two theaters, science labs, dance studios, and a costume design shop. The form takes a series of floating planes, clad in grayish brick with a random-looking pattern of vertical window strips that makes the facade look a bit like an inside-out barcode. This project was on hold for years; Cloepfil had already completed most of the design when I interviewed him for a profile in 2003. So it's good to see it finished.

Brett Crawford Architecture + Planning won the night's other Honor Award, in addition to a Sustainability Award, for the 1310 Condominiums in Southeast Portland. (My apologies - I initially had Allied's as the only Honor winner.) 

The 1310, also featured in the January Portland Spaces issue, is clad with handsome Okume wood panels and an innovative rain-screen system, as well as numerous passive sustainable features from natural ventilation to skylights and tankless hot water heaters.

Although no project by Works Partnership won a built award (none were submitted), the firm was one of only two double winners in the architecture category. (The IIDA also honored interior design in the same ceremony, and Portland firm Corso Staicoff was also a multiple award winner.) The firm won in the Unbuilt category for 300B, a theater and club being developed by Randy Rapaport and Beam Development's Brad Malsin.

In the jury critique session held at the AIA's Center for Architecture on Friday night, the trio of jurors--while not divulging any winners--clearly seemed enamored with this project. Shaped like a black cube, its facade on the top and sides has a series of organic looking fissures cut for windows and skylights. Although it's unclear if this theater will get built, Rapaport in particular seeks a bold, eye-catching design. While in the past working with Holst Architecture, Rapaport is now very much into Works Partnership, as Beam has been for some time.

That same firm also won an Unbuilt award for Grow.PDX (right), a 19-unit housing development proposed for the St. Johns neighborhood near Cathedral Park. In the rendering, Grow.PDX looks a little bit like a 22nd century version of a 1960s public housing project.

Another Merit award went to Mahlum Architects for its latest Providence Health System clinic. Although not known as a high-end design boutique per se, Mahlum has a long history of fine sustainable buildings. At Friday's critique session, the jury made note of this project's "plasticity" and "layers of light" - that it was a modest building with complexity and beauty. 

"We looked for decision making in projects," said juror Marlon Blackwell of the University of Arkansas of the awards selection process. "What resources did you have and how did you use them?" To receive an Honor Award, the top prize, a project has to be "resolute at the scale of the city, of the site and street, and of the hand," Blackwell added. "Very often architecture is not a big move so much as a game of inches."

A Craftsmanship Award went to Fletcher Farr Ayotte's design of the University of Oregon's White Stag block, which recently also received LEED Gold certification from the US Green Building Council.

No stranger to the AIA awards, the venerable Thomas Hacker Architects took home a Merit Award for its Humanities Complex at the University of California/Santa Cruz. The firm's Atwater Place condos in South Waterfront were apparently shut out for an award. But look for Hacker's Mercy Corps headquarters and Cyan apartments to compete for awards in the next year or two. Thomas Hacker Architects is also celebrating its 25th anniversary this week.

Another out of town project by a local firm, the WestTown on 8th condos in Eugene by to Vallaster & Corl won a Merit Award as well. The firm, which is among the most venerable condo designers in town, also received a Citation Award (one notch lower than Merit, two lower than Honor) for the Jefferson Condos on SW 18th and Jefferson pictured at right. ("Fish don't fry in the kitchen, beans don't burn on the grill.") I've been a fan of this elegantly curving brick building in Goose Hollow, a throwback to the effortlessly beautiful fabric buildings of Holland, since it was first completed last year.

Some of the most acclaimed and/or biggest firms that have won a lot of design awards in the past, such as Holst Architecture, Skylab or even Zimmer Gunsul Frasca, weren't honored as much this year - although Hotel Modera, which Holst worked on, was honored by the IIDA for its interiors by Corso Staicoff. In the jury critique session on Friday, the jury alluded to not having a full sense of Modera from the photographs; although that apparently didn't bother the separate interior awards jury.

At Friday's critique session, the jury also had some words about Portland - although only (as usual) after a longer period talking about their own work. I'm always slightly frustrated by the crit session for this reason. I like hearing the jurors tell their own stories, but by the time they get to talking about Portland and Portland projects, there are only a few minutes left. And that time got spent talking largely about little practical details of the proposals and how the jury went about their selections.

Talking about Portland, though, they (unsurprisingly perhaps) made note of the city's streetscape and attention to public-facing facades. "We saw some really good facades," juror Ron Radziner of LA's Marmol Radziner & Associates said. The jury also expressed surprise at not seeing more single-family houses or retail designs entered in the competition - although more of those were present in the IIDA awards. The jury speculated that Portland is more civic minded, and perhaps that is why there were more mixed-use projects entered and fewer houses, the latter of which would comprise a lot of most other design award competitions. 

Debating the value of stadiums and athletic facilities

Two pieces in today's Oregonian demonstrate the polarized opinions people have about investing in sports facilities: what roles the public and private sector should take in building them, and the role these places play in the city's social and economic fabric.

Jules Boykoff, a political science professor at Pacific University, wrote an op-ed titled "Pro soccer? Please. Public Money? No." Although Boykoff loves attending Portland Timbers games with his daughter, he cites a recently released 30-year study by sports economists Dennis Coates of the University of Maryland and Brad R. Humphreys of the University of Alabama that concluded professional sports "generally have little, if any, positive effect on a city's economy." Needless to say, Boykoff opposes the request by Timbers and Portland Beavers owner Merritt Paulsen (son of US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen) for $85 million in public funds to upgrade PGE Park as a soccer-only home for a MLS team and build a smaller baseball-only stadium in Lents for the Beavers.

Then in the Sports section, Doug Binder reports on a campaign underway to raise $3 million for a new athletic complex at Roosevelt High School. (The accompanying photo here by Brent Wojahn ran with the original article. It's of some Roosevelt students and Multnomah County District Attorney Terry Shrunk, a Roosevelt grad, testifying before City Council.) The message in this story, contrary to Boykoff's op-ed, is that this poverty-plagued school could be uplifted and revitalized by having new artificial turf practice fields, a new football stadium, a track, tennis courts and a future community center adjacent to the school. "If you give these kids something to be proud of," says Roosevelt football coach Cam McFarland told Binder, "they'll stay home." Meaning, essentially, that despite how these facilities would cost a lot and deliver essentially nothing back financially, the creation of better and more attractive places where people want to be and be together will ultimately be for the good of the entire community?

Naturally Paulsen's campaign and Roosevelt's aren't the same. One involves a pair of minor league professional sports franchises and two stadiums (or should I say "stadia"?), while the other concerns a public high school. They both, though, are asking Portlanders to evaluate just what we're getting for our money.

My retort to Boykoff would be that economics are only part of the measuring stick for the success of any building project. What's more, by definition any stadium or other athletic field/court/place of play is a public gathering place. It's a kind of park, even if it's technically private property. Even though Paulsen owns those teams, the public and fans who have supported the Timbers and/or Beavers have an emotional stake in the teams. 

I can already imagine all the non sports fans reading this groaning at the idea that their tax dollars should go to frivolous endeavors, like how a character in Woody Allen's Annie Hall described basketball as "a bunch of pituitary cases running around trying to stuff a ball through a hoop." But how is that any weirder than a fat lady with Viking horns singing? 

The point is an investment in athletic facilities, be they with high price tags like Paulsen's or modest ones like Roosevelt High's, is that they're an investment in culture. Being a political science professor, Boykoff of course understands that keeping the polity content and maybe even a little distracted from the dangers and struggles of everyday life, is the key to a stable society.

In these economic times, Boykoff is absolutely right that we must be rigorous in debating and perhaps downright conservative (fiscally speaking) about any major public investment.  But the principal behind doing one is sound: that it's about way more than money. Just as we measure the value of our homes by more than much more than square footage, bedrooms or what it would fetch in the market, so too must we look at each of these proposals as how they would be enjoyed by the community.

And while this is going to sound hopelessly arrogant of me, I just don't believe completely in the findings from the Coates-Humphreys study that stadiums have no economic impact. I think you have to take these things on a case-by-case basis given how the facility is integrated into the community. In Seattle, both the new-ish pro sports stadiums (Qwest Field and Safeco Field) are downtown, but they're severed from the street grid by a gigantic parking lot. There's also, though, an adjacent Amtrak station there that figures in economically. Outside the old Yankee Stadium, on the other hand, practically every business on the street across from the facility either sells Yankee merchandise or food & drink catering to fans wanting a fast bite. When I first started visiting The Bronx to see games there in the early 1990s during college, it's not like the rest of the urban fabric was a retail paradise.

Here in Portland, though, I'd agree that the Rose Garden and Memorial Colisseum aren't contributing in a positive way to the urban fabric because they're too much of an island and not well integrated enough with pedestrian oriented mixed use surroundings. Even so, thousands of people who come to Blazer games are eating at a handful of small restaurants and fast food outlets in the Lloyd Center area and on NE Broadway. How is that not an economic stimulant on some level?

Ultimately I prefer to favor investing in sports facilities, but with the caveat always in mind that you could build about 28 Teddy Roosevelt Athletic Centers (that's what they call the high school's proposal) for one of the Timber-Beaver set of projects. Even then, though, it's not so simple, because I care a lot more about the fortunes of the Portland Timbers than I ever will about Roosevelt High (sorry kids) - fortunes in the games themselves, that is, not the institutions or the people. And I'd love to see the Timbers get to join MLS instead of the bush league they're in now. Honestly I'm not sure what the answer is. As a Ducks fanatic, though, I can't help but wonder if Paulsen should just call Uncle Phil out in Beaverton. 

Architect Layoffs

Whenever there's an economic downturn, the building industry seems to take a large hit. And in talking anecdotally with architects in town lately, I've heard several firms have been laying off in large numbers. I also have heard from some recently graduated architects that the job market is really tough right now. Even Frank Gehry's office reportedly laid off some employees this summer. What's a Portland firm doing lots of condos to do? Staff cuts seem inevitable, at least in the short term.

How bad is it really out there for architects and other designers in Portland right now? Obviously there are a lot of condos getting built a year or two that aren't getting greenlighted now. So are we at a point yet where a lot of architects in this city are collecting unemployment? If you're one of the affected, the worried, or someone with more an optimistic take, I'd like to hear the story.

According to one recent AIA 'On the Boards' survey, billings by architecture firms over the last half-year have been the lowest in the 13 years the organization has tracked these figures. West Coast firms are said to be doing particularly bad as well. The AIA survey did also note, however, that the billings drop has stabilized somewhat over the last two months. I'm betting it'll be down again the next time the survey comes out. But if the Dow ultimately is able to inch upward, perhaps that optimism can carry forward in the building industry. Or maybe in Portland we're a little more insulated from the highest fluctuations in the market because people keep moving here.

Sometimes when I talk to realtors things can sound really dour and then suddenly they'll say things will pick up in a few months. Is this one of those times, or are we going to see a years-long drop off in the forest of condos and offices that have sprouted for the last decade? 

Looking at certain condos currently under construction, I can't help but wonder if these represent the last of a group crossing the finish line, with another pack still pretty far in the distance. And if so, where does that leave places like South Waterfront that are only partially built out? I think even SoWa would ultimately survive. Even just filling out the buildings that are finished or under construction there ought to be enough for a neighborhood, and signs of such are already sprouting there. But it's so deflating to think of momentum being lost, or at least lost entirely.

Ultimately I don't want any architect to lose his or her job or be unable to find one, but I'm optimistic that the building pace will pick up again within a year or so, although not at the volume we've seen in the past. 

BetterBricks Awards honor top green practitioners

Last Friday morning in a crack-of-dawn breakfast ceremony at the Hilton, the BetterBricks Awards honored members of Oregon's design and construction community for their efforts in creating energy-efficient architecture.

BetterBricks, a nonprofit initiative of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, is also a sponsor of this website. Hopefully this post will not seem like advertorial-style promotion for BetterBricks. But I deemed the awards a relevant story to report.

The awards were given out in six categories: (1) owner/decision-maker, (2) architecture, (3) engineering, (4) facility management/building operations, (5) advocate and (6) emerging leader. Continuing a trend from past years, honorees came from Gerding/Edlen Development, architecture firm SRG Partnership and mechanical engineer Interface Engineering, as well as a few other sources.

The owner/decision maker award went to Mark Edlen, head of Gerding/Edlen Development. This was probably a no-brainer for the jury, considering that Gerding is not just Portland's most active and large-scale green developer, but one of the nation's.

The architect winner was John Schleuning of SRG Partnership. Schleuning is the 'S' in the firm's acronym, and has guided SRG through decades of very solid design work. I actually associate Kent Duffy as much or more with SRG's most significant projects of recent years than Schleuning, but Duffy's boss is a guiding hand for the whole firm and has an impressive long track record. Duffy has previously won a BetterBricks award anyway. SRG doesn't have as high a profile as other comparable medium-sized firms. They've largely sat out the condo boom of the last several years, for example, instead focusing on public buildings such as libraries and universities. Even so, much of SRG's biggest projects include leading edge green design, such as the Lillis Business Complex at the University of Oregon and an expansion of the Mt. Angel Abbey campus beside Alvar Aalto's masterful library there.

The engineering award was a tie, between John Gray of Interface Engineering and Mike Kaplan of Kaplan Engineering. Again, I'm not sure how BetterBricks chooses what individuals from these firms receive the prizes. When I wrote about Interface's work on the GBD Architects designed, LEED Platinum OHSU Center for Health & Healing, for example, it was Andy Frichtl from that firm leading the charge. But Frichtl is a past winner for Interstate, so I guess they decided to spread it around. Regardless, Interface is a strong force in Portland green building because the mechanical engineering they offer is hugely responsible for an efficient structure: they create the guts of the building that uses energy to heat and cool the structure.

Salem Public Schools' David Furr and Kathleen Hill were the facility management winners, while Renee Loveland of Gerding Edlen Development was recognized as this year's top advocate. Dennis Wilde of Gerding is usually considered their big long-term sustainability advocate, but he's also a past winner. Naomi Cole, sustainability coordinator for Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership, was honored as this year's emerging leader. She must indeed be emerging: I've visited ZGF countless times and have never met Naomi or heard her name. But ZGF does increasingly impressive work with strong sustainability credentials, particularly when working with Gerding Edlen.

Meanwhile, congratulations to all the winners. And as we look ahead, who are some of the developers, architects, engineers and other players deserving of recognition?

Have you visited the Ford Building....lately?

When it was originally built in 1915, the Ford Building at 2505 SE 11th Avenue at Division was just that: an assembly plant for Ford automobiles, and the only one in Oregon. They built Model Ts here, Falcons, and maybe even an Edsel or two.

Now, courtesy of Portland's Emerick Architects and a California developer, the massive 82,000 square foot brick building has new life as a flexible office and retail space intended for creative industries. And indeed, when I visited recently, strolling through the several floors and cavernous halls, it seemed like nearly every one of the scores of units was occupied by some sort of photographer, yoga studio, or web design company.

The Ford Building also is also calling upon one of its tenants, Gallery Homeland, to curate art for all of the public areas in the building, of which there is a lot: more than 5,000 square feet. I recently reviewed one of the current shows, by artist Susan Murrell, for The Oregonian, and was taken by what an installation opportunity this building is. The Ford isn't the first old warehouse conversion that has filled its public spaces with art; Beam Development's Works Partnership-designed Eastbank Commerce Center and Olympic Mills Commerce Center warehouse rehabs in the Central Eastside do much the same. Still, it's an encouraging trend.

Emerick Architects has done a few other noteworthy building renovations in the past, such as the circa-1920s Porter Building in the Pearl District, a new-old headquarters for Grand Central Baking near the burgeoning North Mississippi area, and a grand old Masonic temple that's become the headquarters for SEIU local 503 (and I love the idea of working-class union guys taking over for weird elitist Masons). The firm's Northwood Home along the Willamette was also the first house in the area to receive the US Green Building Council's LEED for Homes designation.

But chances are the Emericks (principals Brian and Melody) won't ever design and/or renovate a building of this scale again, unless somebody comes calling for a stadium or a blimp hangar. The Ford Building also occupies a unique site that's somewhat removed from the rest of the Central Eastside, which lies to the west and north. The Ford occupies a small stretch of Division Street at 12th Avenue that, with Genie's restaurant, Lovecraft Biofuels and Ramekin's Cafe (among others), is becoming one of numerous little retail clusters scattered throughout Portland's neighborhoods.

Although the brick facade and the massive scale are impressive, ultimately the Ford Building will benefit from more storefront retail on the ground level. It's an imposing structure with too much streetfront space shut off to the outside. But as businesses like Seyta Selter's terrific Dutchess clothing/tailor shop (home of the swell $500 individually tailored suit) occupy some of that retail frontage, the Ford will really come alive even more -- and not just when one a freight train rumbles just a few feet outside.

It's been decades since Ford Motor Company produced any automobile designs to get me excited. You'd probably have to go back to the late '60s Mustang for that. (It could be worse, though: they're not GM or Chrysler. Have you seen the PT Cruiser? Or the Chevy HHR? Eeewww!) But the Ford Building seems to epitomize much of what's right not only with preservation in Portland, but those occupying the spaces.

[UPDATE 10/15: I'm also adding some photos below (in addition to my own) provided by Val Ballestrom of the Bosco-Milligan Foundation]

Following Path Architecture

Most who are already familiar with Path Architecture, the firm headed by Corey Martin and Ben Kaiser, may associate it with two projects along Williams Avenue that were planned before the economic downturn and never came to fruition: the Backbridge Lofts and Backbridge Station. The firm is not only still active after those setbacks, but is seeing projects get built.

Two projects I visited are currently under construction (both houses), while the Williams Five condominium project (some of which has gone rental) has recently seen completion. Yesterday I visited the project with Corey Martin, the principal designer. Although a relatively modest project, this five-unit building uses a simple wood, glass and masonry palette to fine effect that both ties in with the residential historic vernacular and stands alone from it.

Martin got his start working for Brad Cloepfil and Allied Works Architecture on projects like the exquisite 2281 Glisan building; although not seeking to wrestle credit away from Cloepfil, he called Allied's Maryhill Overlook sculpture at the Maryhill Museum in Washingon "my baby."

Especially impressive at Williams Five, which includes three condos and two storefront live-work units, is the distribution of light. Martin favors big corner windows that use the adjacent walls to "wash" the space, as he describes it, with illumination.

Also peculiar but successful inside some of the units is a portion of the second floor made of metal grating, which is employed to help distribute light from the large ground floor, floor-to-ceiling sliding doors into the upper portions of the space. The grating wouldn't be very comfy on the toes, but it does indeed help render artificial lights totally unnecessary in daytime. I was there on a very foggy morning and there was plenty of light.

Apparently the clientele buying in at Williams Five speaks to the coolness of the architecture. Although the live-work spaces are unsold, recently arrived tenants in the other units include a successful rock band promoter and two artists.

Only about eight blocks away, Path also has a luxury duplex overlooking Unthank Park in North Portland. One of these homes Martin will occupy himself, and I believe the other is already spoken for by a top professional photographer. This project has a look of protruding glass boxes that resembles Holst Architecture's under-construction Sunrose Condominiums on SE 28th and Burnside. Even as I was briefly perusing the half-built house, somebody stopped to inquire about the project and ask if any units were available. This on a day the Dow-Jones dropped another several hundred points.

In Southeast Portland a few blocks south of Hawthorne Boulevard, Path is in the final stages of construction on a wood-ensconced three story house that gently cantilevers over its ground-floor portion to rise and reveal views of downtown that can be enjoyed on a rooftop deck. Who says you have to build a pitched roof?

You never know which small firms are going to rise from smaller projects into big-time commissions. A few years ago I believed firms like Colab and Emmons Architects would be doing condo towers and office buildings by now because of their talent, but so far despite continued success the big jobs haven't turned out that way. Which is fine, because design quality of course isn't measured by size and scale of projects.

Even so, Path Architecture is a very promising firm with not only impressive talent but the hutzpah to develop their own work much of the time. Before long in addition to the projects mentioned above, they'll also be building a medium-sized new mixed use building in the burgeoning North Mississippi neighborhood, and hopefully more than we even can say now. I'll be continuing to follow their path for awhile.

Visiting the Center for Architecture

Although I've been to the American Institute of Architects' new Center for Architecture in the Pearl District several times since it opened earlier this year, last week I was given a tour by one of the architects involved in the design, Dave Otte of Holst Architecture.

Fist, though, in proper disclosure: AIA/Portland is a leading sponsor of this weblog and a former employer of mine. Although Portland Architecture is a blog and not journalism, I want to be upfront about the fact that I'm writing about a sponsor here. Particularly in its new home, the Center For Architecture seems very relevant to local architects and design enthusiasts as a place to connect.

Occupying what was originally a brick horse stable on 11th Avenue, and much more recently also was home to the SK Josefsberg photography gallery, the CFA is defined by its spatial flexibility and sustainable design and construction. 

The 5,000 square foot project is slated to earn a Platinum LEED rating from the US Green Building Council.

In addition to Otte, the design team also included architects and past AIA/Portland presidents Stan Chesshir, Nancy Merryman and Doug Benson as well as Brian White of Architecture W. "It definitely was a lot of cooks in the kitchen," Otte told me. "It made it a more lengthy process, but I think it was still better for it, getting all of those ideas into one project."

At the old AIA space on 4th Avenue, the many committee and community meetings held there were in the back of the space; here, they're upfront along a bank of large windows. Coupled with numerous skylights that are outfitted with movable louvers, the natural light is more than plentiful enough to render artificial lights unnecessary.

A massive rainwater collection system stores water underground, and the water tank itself includes a system of steel beams that actually provide support for the rest of the building (a seismically bracing wall was removed during construction for more openness). An underground forced-air HVAC system delivers heating and cooling, while the concrete floors (poured with a high concentration of recycled fly ash) hold their thermal mass to prevent any temperature extremes.

On the exterior (pictured above in a shot by Katy Cannatelli - the interior shots are mine), there is also a green or living wall beginning to grow on a vertical trellis. The system was originally supposed to be flashier, with a metal and modern-looking apparatus. But for budgetary reasons it was cut back, and as it happens, this simpler trellis seems more fitting anyway.

This month the in-house gallery at the CFA features a display on the design and construction of the building. And this Friday afternoon at 4PM, the Center For Architecture will also play host to a salon and discussion with Eric Cugnart of Mulvanny G2 Architecture on the proposed SMART Tower.

Next time you're out gallery or restaurant hopping in the Pearl, check out the Center For Architecture. And although it's an AIA office and gallery now, the CFA may be poised to become its own nonprofit organization promoting the cause of design in Portland. Congratulations to Saundra "Big S" Stevens, the longtime AIA executive director, as well as the rest of the AIA staff, the CFA's financial and design supporters, on a job well done.

Checking the signs

Two vintage retail signs marking seemingly long-gone businesses have come under threat lately.

The first and most prominent one, for the Hung Far Low restaurant at NW Couch Street and 4th Avenue in Old Town, is already down. But it's the one with a safer-looking future. The Portland Mercury's Sarah Mirk first reported the unintendedly sophomoric laugh-inducing sign being taken down last Friday. Although Hung Far Low moved to 82nd Avenue three years ago (part of a larger migration by the Chinese community from Old Town eastward), and didn't need the old sign, it has become a quietly beloved part of the neighborhood topography. 

There's good news, though. Walking past the Hung Far Low corner (so to speak) over the weekend, I found a small notice taped to the window; it explained that the sign had to be removed because of disrepair, but that it was being fixed up and would be re-installed. Obviously we can only breathe easy when that promise is fulfilled and the sign is back, but perhaps the alarm bells needn't sound just yet.

The other sign, which Sarah Mirk also blogged about for the Mercury last week, is for Ryan Gwinner Press on Northeast Seventh Avenue near Broadway. Although the sign stands alone several yards from a delapidated home on the same lot, it turns out there really is still a business by that name operating in the house. However, in this case the sign is either already torn down or will be soon by none other than Richard Gwinner, who runs the stamping, embossing and foiling business.

"Back in the 50s, the sign was neon," Mirk explains. "But once the tubes broke, the family never replaced them and since then it's been slowly becoming a beautiful safety hazard."

The issue of saving old retail signs last came up a few months ago during the case of the former Crown Motel, which was razed to make way for the new Patton Park Apartments, a new affordable housing project. In that case, the sign was saved when someone agreed to store it. But there was some quandary about whether REACH Community Development and SERA Architects, the developer and architect, might have tried to keep the Crown Motel sign right where it was.

As we see more signs like Ryan Gwinner Press taken down, though, it feels more like there needs to be a safe have for these signs, and that some day a collection of these restored 20th Century auto-age artifacts would make a fun display and attraction. There's been talk of a design museum in Portland; might the signs be collected there someday? Or perhaps something more lowbrow and low-tech is needed, like a graveyard for signs where they could be seen by the public but allowed to continue aging. At a certain point, the patina that has developed on these signs is an inseparable part of them. What's the best way to preserve such signage?

Remembering architect, artist, civic leader Pamela Webb: 1943-2008

Funeral services are being held later today to mark the untimely passing of Pamela Webb, a local architect, artist, curator, civic leader and much more.

The daughter of a military man, Webb lived in a variety of locations as a child before heading to Harvard University, where she earned an anthropology degree in 1966. She began working as an artist and potter, and moved with her husband to Portland in 1972. A few years later, Webb co-founded Blackfish Gallery, an artists' cooperative space still running today.

In 1981, Webb headed back to school to become an architect. She was a member of the first class at the Oregon School of Design, Portland's first architecture school. Over the ensuing decades, she designed many significant buildings across the state: the Warm Springs Early Childhood Learning Center in Central Oregon, Seaside City Hall on the coast, and the Forest Heights community in Portland. For the latter project's first multifamily housing, Austen Row, she also won a local AIA design award. She was also one of the architects for the very popular Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade.

An active community member, Webb also served on the board of Tri-Met, was president of the Harvard Club of Oregon, a board member of the American Institute of Architects Oregon chapter.

Ever the renaissance woman, In recent years, Webb branched off from architecture to create jewelry as well as specialized decorative fused-glass windows and plates. And she even wrote a children's book, which has been accepted by Blue Apple Books for posthumous publication.

Although gender makeup at architecture schools is today roughly even between women and men, this is still somewhat of a male-dominated or at least male-heavy profession. Many women seem to choose interior design over architecture, and there's obviously nothing wrong with that. But the lower rates of women working as architects made Pamela Webb all the more important as a role model to other young female designers.

Contributions in Pamela's name are welcomed at Havurah Shalom in Portland, or the International Archive of Women in Architecture at Virginia Tech University, which will house her professional papers.

Grand opening and first impressions at UO's White Stag block

Today begins a four-day grand opening celebration for the University of Oregon's new home at the renovated White Stag block, in Old Town at Naito Parkway and Couch Street beside the Burnside Bridge.

I got a jump on the proceedings by visiting yesterday. Overall I like this project a lot. It was designed by Fletcher Farr Ayotte of Portland along with the university. And I think it will be a tremendous step forward for the University of Oregon in Portland and for the school of architecture.

It's also exciting to think of how this will invigorate the Old Town area, particularly its relationship with the waterfront. Having the school there will also transform not just the buildings, but the feel of being in this place. The Oregon College of Oriental Medicine is also set to move in nearby in a year or two, so this stretch of Old Town will soon be crawling with students. And that should mean a new generation of retail, restaurants and other amenities moving in too.

I really loved the public spaces created by the White Stag. As one enters, there is a dramatic stairway that defines the ground floor space. Even better is a skylight there that actually exists in the space between the White Stag and its adjacent buildings. So when you look up, the skylight seems like a small winter garden as it canopies between the old brick facades. Standing here, bathed in natural light with a blend of new and old architecture so visible is a joy.

Crossing Naito, I also really enjoyed seeing the building from Waterfront Park. This building isn't big enough to occupy a big presence on the skyline, but because it fronts the park and the water, it's part of the skyline's front row. That these late 19th and early 20th Century buildings are being well preserved by people like developer Art DeMuro (whose Venerable Properties developed this project) and developer Jim Winkler is a major credit to Portland. Buildings like this also make a wonderful contrast with newer contemporary architecture, at least when the latter doesn't try to kowtow by deliberately looking old.

Oh, and this project has just been awarded LEED 'Gold' certification from the US Green Building Council. Never easy for historic preservation to pull off.

Other aspects of the project, though, seem less successful - at least to me. For example, although the White Stag building looks out at Naito Parkway, Waterfront Park and the Japanese American Historic Plaza memorial, with retail frontage of the ground floor Duck Shop, you can't enter the building that way. All the doors are locked. Virtually the same goes for the connecting door with First Avenue and the MAX stop right outside. When I walked out that door, it would let me out but was locked as I tried to re-enter.

Instead, the only way to enter the building is through a side entrance on Couch Street. They've put a little modern canopy over the door and hung a long, tall sign outside as well. But I'm sorry: it just seems totally absurd to lock all the doors except for on Couch. I understand that the university is concerned about security, and that having everyone enter through one door allows them to keep a measure of control. Even so, the feeling I get from that entrance is not just that it feels architecturally incorrect, but that the university is at least implicitly saying, "We've made this move down to Old Town, where there are a lot more vagrants and dirty people walking around, so we're going to hedge our bets by putting the clamp-down on our security, just in case."

If any of those undesirables do make it past security, though, they can recline in the lobby on a quartet of Eames lounge chairs. These babies retail for $3,600 to $4,500 apiece on the Design Within Reach website. Was the budget for White Stag sizable enough to spend over $15,000 on four chairs, or was there a donation made? (And if it's the latter, where do I get mine?)

Moving through the rest of the building into its upper floors, I was also surprised at the lack of transparency. Most of these spaces, as I understand it, are classrooms and offices. I can't speak to all the functional needs here, and of course this is a historic building with a different feel from open-spaced newer buildings. Even so, I'd have liked to see much more done to bring natural light, both its illumination and its visual connection to the outside, brought further into the space. 

The one exception is the top two floors, where the architecture department holds court. Standing up here, where you can see the view outside even from the elevators in the middle of the building, was what I imagined I'd experience in much more of the upper portion of the building. However, a friend formerly at UO expressed to me some concern that there's not enough pin-up space or studio privacy in this area. Indeed, there's a difference between the kind of visual evaluation/reaction I give and one based on actually using the space.

My feelings about the architecture may have been somewhat mixed, but I hope it all is taken within the context of being very glad to see this project come to fruition. I'm sure Oregon State would have done a much lesser job.

Oh, and over the next four days, UO will hold several lectures and panel discussions as part of the grand opening. Today brings a lecture called "Urban Planning and Sustainability" with visiting professor Alexander Schmidt. Tommorow (Thursday) brings a lecture called "Placemaking: Lessons From Portland" at noon and a panel discussion at 4PM on media coverage of the presidential race (I particularly love Tina Fey's contributions).  Friday at noon brings a lecture on multimedia history from Dana Plautz, and at 4PM a lecture from German urban planner Thomas Sieverts as part of the "Suddenly" art and literary series. There'll also be a free classical concert that evening at 8. Saturday brings a series of art and architecture exhibitions....and a very tough game for the football team with USC.