109 and young again: visiting the restored Claire Apartments

Looking at this decade's apparently now-completed economic boom times, it's easy to focus on big buildings by big developers: the tall condo towers, the industrial neighborhoods transformed into dense urban enclaves, or the companies like Gerding Edlen, Williams + Dame and Hoyt Street that made them happen.

But another trend during these boom years has been people from outside traditional design and construction or development and real estate communities trying their hand at building, or people who had heretofore only dabbed their toes in development by flipping single-family houses escalating their efforts to create larger multifamily condo or apartment projects.

Frederic Dupeyroux falls in the latter category. Originally he emigrated from France to Oregon to be a program manager at Intel. But over the years he began remodeling houses on the side. Then came a significantly bigger opportunity: the chance to renovate a circa-1900 apartment building in Southeast Portland.

"I’m a big fan of modern architecture myself," Dupeyroux told me. "But I also believe that when rehabilitating a structure, one must allow the building to speak for itself, so to speak. This building was built in 1900 and had suffered a rather ghastly 'modernization' at some point that involved encasing the whole thing in stucco. We felt that restoring the original design and balcony structure and exposing the original siding and trim was most fair to the building and the surrounding neighborhood."

The building, at 13th and Taylor between Hawthorne Boulevard and Belmont Street, was restored from plans by Communitecture, the Portland firm headed by longtime architect and community activist Mark Lakeman that specilizes in sustainable, community-oriented design.

 

What is community-oriented design? According to the firm's website, Communitectur's work "often includes public processes to involve communities in design and decision-making for public place-making projects and individual buildings. This process can often involve public presentations and educational workshops."

 

Lakeman's firm has been instrumental in bringing the annual Village Building Convergence here each year, and has also put its design stamp on the city with projects like Rejuvenation The Rebuilding Center on Mississippi Avenue (pictured below), which is in its own way a kid of present-day architectural icon that epitomizes the dusty do-it-yourself spirit of place. The firm is also responsible for the traveling 'tea horse' that hosts neighborhood gatherings all over the city. Communitecture is also about to unveil its first net-zero-energy home.

In the past, although I have always had a healthy respect or Communitecture, I have occasionally referred to Mark Lakeman, Patrick Donaldson and their colleagues there in a flippant way as 'hippies'. This is not at all fair to these talented architects and planners doing good work. So I'm sorry for that. It's not 1967, and these people are not unshowered, tie-die-wearing flakes merely building communes and naming their kids after solar systems. Perhaps Mark Lakeman was right when he said recently by email that the term hippy "...reminds me of the Roman use of 'pagani' to marginalize all things not of the empire." If these guys are barbarians or Gauls, I'll take them over the Romans anytime.

One finds in the Claire building, which holds 20 single bedroom, studio, and two-bedroom apartments, the kinds of materials here that would never be found in a new building, such as the Ionic columns in the foyer made with hundreds-of-years-old Douglas fir. Inside, the building's historical accuracy has been thoughtfully maintained. I especially like the claw-foot bathtubs and FSC-certified red oak floors.

Although the Claire Apartments did not seek LEED certification (because of the estimated $5,000-7,000 extra cost), it is an admirably green project. The money saved from not seeking LEED went to things like added insulation, zero-VOC (volatile organic compound) paint, ultra-efficient windows, dual-flush toilets, and forced-air heat. Water usage is metered to each unit, which studies show can cut consumption by almost half.

Congratulations to Monsieur Dupeyroux and Communitecture on an excellent project. And hopefully the new economic reality will not dissuade the more enlightened non-developers out there from trying their hand at architecture.

 

Comments

[val]

Nice Renovation - except I wish they would keep and repair original windows instead of always ripping them out. Still, we could use more projects like these, where small, presumably affordable, housing is renovated and original character restored. Too often the first solution is to tear things down. Case in point: a planned development at NE 6th and Couch will lead to the loss of two smallish early 20th century apartment buildings.

[charles]

Brian
I think you may have meant Rebuilding Center rather than Rejuvination in referencing Communitecture work? I love that projects like this are being done. There are alot of apartment buildings around town that are not aging very well and to ecologically restore them makes more sense than much of the new 'green' construction. Hats off to the whole crew on this.

[ws]

That's a beautiful building and I'm glad to see it carry on so well equipped. Years back, I used to go to the T-horse gatherings. Hippies? Sure, but in a very good sense. People involved in putting that idea together are first rate innovative thinkers. Another guy associated with the T-horse is the person that started up FreeGeek...sorry, his name slips my mind.

[Scott]

Great coverage, Brian...agree with all above...great to see such projects happening whenever possible...that really is a handsome building with a really welcoming-looking interior. Also agree with the first poster, the possible demolition of the 2 buildings on NE 6th and Couch is very upsetting.

[Aneeda]

Great renovation...but I curse the day all those miserable rotting and uncomfortable cobb benches showed up around SE. Wasn't Mark responsible for these? I've never seen them function as "public space" or seen a soul using them to...well...sit.

[charles]

Yes, City Repair and the Village Building Convergence are responsible for many of the rather uncomfortable and out of context cob benches dotting the southeast. To me, the intention was a great one - intersection repair and bringing back public placemaking to our street corners. Unfortunately the form to express that place making became many of these hobbit like cob benches that don't seem to attract the very people that was core part of the original intention. I hope the forms can evolve for future place making efforts.

[ineeda drink]

The other night I thought I saw bilbo baggins and a couple of his friends sitting on one of the cobb benches.

[ws]

When you innovate, rather than go with the guaranteed sure thing, you try things different. They don't always work out, but then again, because of this willingness to do something unusual,sometimes the results are way better than the guaranteed sure thing.

At any rate, it's pretty solid bet that getting rid of the funky cobb benches is going to be a far sight easier than getting rid of say, the tower part of the Ladd Tower... . I'd be happy to make a regular practice of sitting on those benches if that tower would go away, or be shorter, or look like something besides a table cigarette lighter.

[Aneeda]

ws - very true. that is a horrid looking building. who designed it? how does something like that get through design review?

[Mark Lakeman]

From Mark Lakeman at Communitecture:

I'll comment on the contextual aspects of cob benches farther below, but first- thanks Brian for a very nice piece of writing on The Claire, and also your comments about Communitecture. About The Claire, Frederick has done a wonderful thing for the inner SE community with this effort. He's set a great standard with integrity and I hope that people notice and are influenced by The Claire. It was an honor for us to be able to support Frederick through our work.

Regarding the cob projects that City Repair has been helping to create all over the city, Communitecture's part in this work has been help each community to develop a design that emerges from within their OWN culture. If kids say it should look like a dragon, who am I to argue? This process has been incredibly educational for me, going deeper into issues of the public realm that university or conventional professional work ever took me. Each project that has been created is an actual reflection of a living, place-based culture in that locale. When you consider that in many cases Portland neighborhoods almost never reflect community interaction within the public right of way of the neighborhood zone, though a neighborhood may have existed for over a hundred years, it is actually an enormous achievement to have people come outside and work together in these ways. What it looks like to outsiders who don't bother to know the story or process scarcely matters.

With all that I now understand of urban design and architecture, and who we seem to be trying to become in Portland, it feels to me that the world I want to serve is who we are ready to be. I support each of the cob projects that people all over Portland have been creating because they are part of that emergent world; they have been imagined, designed, funded, and built by local communities, and are reflective of their own stories and metaphors. Accessable, non-toxic, inclusive, inherently sculptural, localized in identity and materials. Each is a ecological and social model of sustainability, beginning with collaborative processes of sharing and listening.

Again, for many neighborhoods these arrive as the first "Historic" expression of community collaboration. Naturally something co-created will appear strange in a world used to consuming commodities, in which design is the province of experts and design literacy is not braodly held. It's fine but misguided to judge the appearance of a thing without knowing the story or context of it, or without trying to understand the motives or goals of people who are working in their own place to solve their own problems. Because I know many of these stories, what I get to enjoy is a richer experience of being in Portland.

Have a lovely springtime everyone!
Mark

[ws]

Aneeda, I thought you probably would know the details surrounding the Ladd Tower and how it came to be. Ankrom Moisan was the architectural firm. The design and construction of the tower and its role in the destruction of the Rosefriend Apartment building was vigorously debated on this weblog.

It's a heckuva story, from the exposition of the power struggle between people seeking aesthetics and infrastructure conservation and those beholden to the bottom line and the prospect of profit, right down to the church's larcenous former preacher. I feel like I learned a lot from that episode in Portland's history.

Mark, I found your comment to be a very helpful explanation of your working philosophy.

[Aneeda]

Yes, I followed the Rosefriend Apartment destruction, but didn't realize that this was the result of all that. Thanks (I think) for the update.

Thanks, Mark, for your response. It's too nice outside to argue with you.

[ChrisPDX]

Having lived in one of those two buildings on 6th and Couch, I'll be glad to see them go. The prior owner let those properties slip into neglect and serious disrepair -- but the original architecture was fantastic !!! I left as the new owner was dismantling the gothic column and porch structure due to dry-rot. Sad, because it looked so classic Portland, but I understand why that property needs to be redevleoped.

[ws]

Redevelopment, when needed, is fine. I think a very valid question though, is whether in redevelopment, the design of replacement buildings, if that is that route that happens to be decided upon, has to follow some latest trend outa-the-box extruded this'n'that metal with glass and ipe wood formula.

That's what a lot of developers seem to want to do, (or feel compelled to do, out of economic constraints...), either oblivious to or out of complete disregard for surrounding context of the setting that they're building in.

I'm glad the 109 escaped that fate. That it was able to do that in the hands of people sensitive to its significance raises the question of what kind of consideration the early 20th century apartment buildings at NE 6th and Couch that Val and ChrisPDX were given, and what take their place.