Portland Architecture

PDC elects new officers: is design missing?

The Portland Development Commission (PDC) held its annual election of officers at its June 24 board meeting and chose Scott Andrews, president of Melvin Mark Properties, as the new board chair.

The agency has even prepared this video report on the election, posted to YouTube:

Although Andrews only joined the PDC board in August of 2008, he has a history of civic involvement. He previously served as chair of the Portland Business Alliance and is currently chairman of the Regional Business Plan Steering Committee. For Melvin Mark Companies, one of Oregon’s leading commercial real estate businesses, Andrews supervises all leasing activity.

While Andrews and the other board members may be solid citizens, and deserve kudos for their public service, I've long found it disappointing that the PDC board does not include more members of the design and architecture communities on its board.

Take a look at the rest of the new and outgoing officers and board members. Andrews, the new chair, replaces Charles Wilhoite, who is managing director of Willamette Management Associates, a financial consulting firm. John Mohlis was also elected secretary of the board and Bertha Ferran was elected acting secretary. Mohlis is the secretary/treasurer for the Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council and Ferran is a senior mortgage consultant at Windermere Mortgage Services. Also on the board is Steven Straus, president of Glumac.

So out of that group, you have members of the real estate industry, finance, a labor union, and engineering. Indeed, most all of those fields have something to do with buildings, either their sale, construction or, in the case of engineering, even a bit of design. But no architects.

The nature of an agency like PDC is that it must juggle the competing interests and expertise of many different people. The agency is part developer, part planner; part public, part private. It's rife with politics and has a history of both wonderful successes and second-guessing. Obviously there is no sinister campaign to keep architects out of the board, but might there be some missing contribution to the PDC board that could come from people with design expertise?

Courtyard housing competition brings zoning code amendments

In 2007, the City of Portland invited architects from around the world to share ideas on the design possibilities for housing oriented around shared courtyards. The Courtyard Housing Competition that followed illustrated the range of possible designs for family-oriented housing built around courtyards.

Following the competition, the winning designs were analyzed against zoning regulations. This resulted in a list of changes that would allow these designs to be built.

Now, to promote the development of more courtyard housing within Portland’s neighborhoods, the city is preparing to amend its zoning code to remove provisions that would pose barriers to the design and build of this type of housing. Without the code amendments, many of the design concepts put forth in the competition could not be built as proposed.

(The images included here are from the winning entry in the courtyard competition, from Keith Rivera and Kristin Anderson of Santa Barbara.)

“Courtyard housing in Portland has deep roots,” said Nick Fish, the City’s Housing Commissioner, in a press release issued by the city. “We are rediscovering it because it satisfies so many of our sustainable development objectives. It is family-friendly, energy-efficient, and fits beautifully in our established neighborhoods. I hope these changes will pave the way for a new generation of homeowners.”

A formal “discussion draft” of proposed zoning code amendments is now available for review, and a Planning Commission hearing on the discussion draft is scheduled for August 25, 2009.

I decided to look at the discussion draft before writing this post, but it's 225 pages long. This is why I never became a planner. All these millions of details! Thank goodness people at the Planning & Sustainable Development Bureau are on the case like Eric Engstrom, Rodney Jennings and Phil Nameny, who put the report together. Here are a couple of the items in the report, just by way of example of the extensiveness something like this takes:

Item 36 – Greenway Water Quality Zone and Greenway Goal Exceptions

Problem Statement: The Greenway River Water Quality or “q” overlay was applied to all land adjacent to the Willamette River (with some exceptions) in 2002, to bring Portland into compliance with Title 3 of Metro’s Functional Plan. The q overlay is applied to land that already includes other overlay zones including greenway overlay zones. The greenway overlay zones are intended to implement State Goal 15, Willamette Greenway. However, the q-overlay requires a larger setback from the top of bank than the other greenway zones. In general, greenway setbacks limit development and the types of uses in accordance with State Goal 15. Development that is not river dependent often needs a greenway goal exception. However, since the q-overlay is not part of the state goal requirements, a goal exception should not be required if development that is not river dependent is proposed in the larger q-overlay setback area, but outside of the other greenway setback. The code needs clarification to ensure that a goal exception is not required in those situations.

Analysis:  Although the amendment to correct this issue is a fairly simple code fix, the issue has already been included in discussions for the River Plan North Reach. Since this project is taking a more holistic approach to reviewing the regulations along the Willamette River, it makes sense to include this issue within the River Plan amendment rather than review it separately through Regulatory Improvement. 

Item 25 – Alternative Driveway Paving Problem Statement

Problem Statement: The parking and loading chapter of the zoning code requires that driveways and parking areas be paved. It is not clear that alternatives to traditional paving materials, such as grasscrete, porous pavers, and pervious asphalt are allowed by the code.

Analysis:  The zoning code requires that driveways and parking areas be paved. The actual construction of driveways and parking areas is governed by Title 24, the City’s Building Regulations Title. Title 24 allows alternatives like grasscrete and porous pavers to be used as alternatives to traditional asphalt and concrete paving.

Meanwhile, I look forward to seeing more courtyard housing in Portland. It's a way to encourage more design creativity while allowing more of a sense of community that will serve families and singles alike, while maintaining a scale that fits in with a surrounding fabric of single-family homes.

Another look at PGE Park, and rebuttal to latest Coliseum demo talk

 

The situation involving Timbers MLS soccer in PGE Park, Beavers baseball...somewhere, and the future of Memorial Coliseum is in a kind of limbo right now.

City Council has de-coupled the PGE Park soccer renovation plan from the fate of the Beavers, meaning the plan to upgrade PGE as a soccer-only facility can go forward to meet its stipulated September timeline without being threatened by the Beavers' open-ended search for a new home.

That's particularly important given that Lents is now officially out as a potential location for Beavers baseball. In the weeks ahead, the City will be making a final search for a ballpark site that keeps the Beavers in Portland or, at the very least, in the metro area. 

Suburban sites like Hillsboro or Clark County have been suggested for a Beavers park, and here in Portland proper there have been numerous inner-city sites proposed: Delta Park, the Terminal 1 former shipyard facility, the Oregonian's vacant property in Northwest Portland, South Waterfront, the Lloyd Cinemas parking lot, among others.

Personally, I feel that PGE Park has never been completely or properly examined as a home for both the Timbers and Beavers.

Clearly Major League Soccer is opposed to having both soccer and baseball played in any of its venues. That's because the league, quite justifiably, believes strongly in having a quality fan experience that also translates well for television: namely, having all four sides of the soccer field lined with seating. So in the upcoming soccer-only renovation, you'll see seats moved much closer to the field. And that's a good thing for fans.

Baseball and football fans can also remember the days in the 1970s and '80s when a slough of multipurpose stadiums brought a compromised experience to both sports. Whether it was Veterans' Stadium in Philadelphia, Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, or Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego, these were bland circular concrete cookie-cutter stadiums who nobody was that sorry to see go.

Even so, I think Portland's culture of strong design and innovation could chart the course for a new kind of multi-purpose stadium, one where the experience is as good as single-use stadiums but the wastefulness of building entire buildings for individual sports is abandoned for its unsustainability.

PGE Park is basically in need of a design solution. We need the Timbers to be able to play with the field surrounded by fans. And then we need the Beavers to be able to play on that same field with some of that seating removed to make way for the extended outfield. But that is absolutely doable with today's seating technologies.

Whether it's Audience Systems from the United Kingdom, Australian Seating Systems in Australia, or Spanish and US-based Figueras International Seating, there are numerous companies around the world that could create retractible seating for PGE Park that would help the Timbers and Beavers co-locate there while keeping both soccer and baseball fans happy.

In conversations recently with seating experts, I was told that it would be preferable at PGE Park if there could be retractible seating that is simply moved rather than temporary seating that must be disassembled. And that would be a more expensive proposition. But as it happens, Portland Beavers and Timbers owner Merritt Paulson is planning to spend many millions upgrading PGE Park.

Having an innovative solution at PGE Park that houses both the Beavers and Timbers but does so in a way that delivers optimal fan viewing would be a major design innovation that the rest of the world would take notice of. We've been in an era over the last ten to twenty years where teams build single-use stadiums. But that has happened in an unprecedented economic boom time. Returning to multi-use stadiums but doing so in a new, innovative way is precisely the kind of sustainable innovation Portland ought to aspire to. It would also solve a political soap opera that has been going on too long.

Meanwhile, although it's probably better not to even dignify it with a response, a reader named Samuel Baron of Fairview in Portland's outer outer suburbs chimed in today with an op-ed in The Oregonian arguing that Memorial Coliseum be torn down for a Beavers ballpark at the Rose Quarter. Luckily Mayor Adams and the Portland Trail Blazers have both adamantly said this will not happen. But just in case anyone reads that op-ed and is swayed, keep in mind this rebuttal.

Baron is admittedly new to the Portland area, having relocated from Baltimore. He thinks that city's now-gone Memorial Stadium is the same situation as Memorial Coliseum. Memorial Stadium in Baltimore had "outlived its usefulness" and was demolished. By that rationale, Baron says, our Coliseum should too. He even recounts how the cramped Baltimore neighborhood where Memorial Stadium was razed was relieved to have it gone.

But Memorial Stadium was not the unique work of architecture that Memorial Coliseum is. And Baltimore is not Portland. Is this what passes for informed commentary in the city's daily newspaper? Some guy from Baltimore piping up that we should get with the demolition program like his east coast hometown? Please. Couldn't we at least have a longtime Portlander making this wrong argument?

Hopefully the City Council knows better. (Luckily the Blazers already do.) These trite, tired arguments for razing the Coliseum have all been aired in the past months, and the community rose up in opposition. Sometimes buildings' value does not come only from their purpose, but from the relationship architecture has with the people of its community. Face it, Samuel Baron, Portlanders cherish Memorial Coliseum and are not going to follow the lemmings' path of destroying are most cherished buildings.

Highlights from the Oregon Sustainability Center feasibility study [updated]

Yesterday the consortium of public and private entities working on the proposed Oregon Sustainability Center released a draft executive summary and feasibility study.

What does that mean? Best I can tell, it's an extensive research and design process for the building, but does not guarantee that the building will be built. That's to be determined in Phase 2. This feasibility study is Phase 1.

The building was designed by GBD Architects and SERA Architects, with development from Gerding Edlen. Additional team members have included Interface Engineering, Glumac, PAE Consulting Engineers, and Hoffman Construction, with advisors from all three major universities (UO, OSU, PSU), Earth Advantage, the Energy Trust of Oregon, and Guy Battle of London-Based Mattle McCarthy Engineers.

Pictured above is a rendering of the Sustainability Center as it might look once constructed. It would be unfair to judge a building so innovative and so green on its exterior aesthetics. At the same time, it is written in the summary, "The Living Building Challenge is unique, among programs that encourage and evaluate accomplishments in sustainable design, in that it mandates beauty as well as aggressive goals for energy, water and waste systems." It certainly seems like the team has met the aggressive goals. Have they met the beauty mandate? That's a harder goal because it's of course in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I am not crazy about the look of the roof. But of course the design could continue to evolve.

Here is a portion of the text from the 14-page Sustainability Center draft executive summary that explains the process:

The project’s mission is to create a world-class center of excellence in sustainability that celebrates and nurtures the values and strengths of Oregon’s leadership in climate change, land use planning, smart growth, green building, environmental stewardship, civic engagement and social justice.

Predominantly an office building, the Center’s top floors will house a variety of non-profit, government, academic and business tenants who are working to promote sustainability. The public spaces on the first and second floor will serve as exhibit space, including interactive displays and signage that tell the story of the region’s innovations in sustainable technologies, policies and practices. A resource dashboard will let onlookers review the building’s energy and water use in real time. The lecture halls, classrooms and conference rooms on the second floor will support higher education, as well as networking for public, private and academic purposes. This area will also include a visualization lab, which will bring together researchers and community groups to solve regional issues in an experiential way. An active retail environment will anchor the first floor of the building.

The current headcount for the building includes approximately 725 weekday office users and an estimated 1,400 students and faculty, who will utilize the classrooms and conference center each day. Visitors attending events and touring the facility could range from the dozens to the hundreds, depending on the building’s daily schedule.

At the core of the project is a 220,000+ square foot urban, mixed-use high-rise located on the eastern edge of the Portland State University campus, between SW 4th and 5th Avenues and between Harrison and Montgomery Streets. The Center is also the proposed anchor for Portland’s first Eco-District, a neighborhood development strategy that combines high performance buildings with city infrastructure, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, energy use and water use.

The building’s size is strongly influenced by the site’s capacity to generate renewable energy. The 13-story structure is predominately concrete and glass and includes one level below grade. The second floor classroom and conference center is accessible from inside the tower, as well as from a monumental exterior stair, which connects this floor to the ground floor plaza. The tower is crowned with a large structure that supports its primary solar array. Artfully shaped and strategically oriented, this distinctive structure will establish a strong presence on Portland’s skyline.

The 33,500 square foot site (currently a surface parking lot) is located on the south end of downtown Portland, on the eastern edge of the PSU campus. It is a nexus for public transit with bus, streetcar and light rail systems all immediately accessible either on-site or on surrounding streets. The design anticipates a permanent streetcar alignment that will diagonally bisect the site.

The front door to the Center will be SW Montgomery Street. Efforts are underway to transform eight blocks of Montgomery into a green street, which will celebrate creative stormwater reuse. Coupled with its display of sustainable site features, the Center’s urban design and integration with the district’s green street will create a unique and extraordinary place for individual reflection, social interaction and public events.

The current site is zoned RX (a classification for residential uses) that allows only limited commercial uses. The site also has a height restriction that limits new buildings to a maximum of 125 feet. As a result, a legislative zone change will be required, as part of the entitlement process, in order to allow the development to proceed as currently conceived. A strategy for enacting the zone change has been developed with guidance from the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.

The Living Building Challenge is unique, among programs that encourage and evaluate accomplishments in sustainable design, in that it mandates beauty as well as aggressive goals for energy, water and waste systems. The Center has been designed in this spirit, integrating and often expressing the technical features that enable the building to perform to the highest green building standards.

UPDATE, 6/27: I'd like to respond to those who have said it was a "copout" of me to not criticize the building's look.

What I meant was that I wanted to judge the building fairly and holistically. It's very very innovative when it comes to performance and sustainability. That is worth our praise.

At the same time, I do agree with the more negative commenters that the rendering makes this look like an ugly work of corporate architecture. I'd also heard these same whisperings of concern from the city in recent weeks, that the project was turning into an Edsel.

We should also keep in mind, however, that the rendering above is just that. It's one rendering. This is not the final design, nor is it a complete look at the building.

The team putting this building together is absolutely first rate when it comes to green credentials and track record. That should not be underestimated. These people are world leaders in their field. That's why they were selected.

At the same time, I'm not sure beautiful buildings are the strong suit of GBD, SERA and Gerding Edlen. They all design handsome enough architecture, I suppose. But it's not the focus. The Oregon Sustainability Center figures to have that same set of strengths and weaknesses.

Green building is unquestionably the dominant movement in contemporary architecture today. But unlike modernism or postmodernism, it's not an aesthetic movement. It's not to say there can't be beautiful green buildings, but the guts are more the focus than they used to be. That's not a bad thing at all. Architecture absolutely has to transform in order to meet the future's energy needs. Being great green architects and being the conjurers of aesthetic beauty do not always go hand in hand.

But, having said that, it would not have been impossible to create a net-zero energy building with more than net-zero looks.

A renovated Elks lodge

Mike Francis had a nice piece in The Oregonian yesterday about the renovation of a historic YWCA building turned-Elks Lodge at North Williams Avenue and Tillamook Street in the Eliot neighborhood.

"A few years ago, it was a dilapidated building with holes in the roof and dry rot in the floors," Francis writes. "Yet it was one of the last reminders of a time when the close-in north and northeast Portland neighborhood was a lively cultural center for African-American Portlanders and immigrant communities. Now the building is a crisply refurbished meeting hall and event center, following a community-wide effort to save and restore it to its prewar elegance."

The YWCA was constructed in 1926, largely for African-American women, who were excluded from the downtown Portland YWCA. $12,000 in funding (no small amount at the time) came from Portlander named Mary Laffey Collins, who would go on to establish one of America's most prominent foundations, the Collins Foundation. There is a plaque at the lodge from 1939 honoring Collins on behalf of "the Negro citizens of Portland."

During World War II, the building became a USO for African American soldiers, and after the Vanport flood of 1948, it was used as a shelter for families who lost their homes. The Elks, a chapter of the national Elks organization for minorities, purchased the biulding in 1959, which it remained for decades. Below is a 'before' shot of the building prior to its renovation this year. (This and the photo at the top of the post were provided to The Oregonian by Faye Burch.)

The push to renovate the building came from a volunteer coalition let by people like Wanda Broadous-Mills, Faye Burch, and James Posey, the latter of whom is the outgoing president of the National Association of Minority Contractors of Oregon. Today the building is a meeting hall and events center available for rental.

Congratulations to everyone who helped save and refurbish this humble but beloved community building.

A man struggling: Guy Battle comes to Portland

Britain's Guy Battle, director of the multi-disciplinary Battle McCarthy Consulting Engineers, has become one of the leading environmental building engineers in the world. And this Wednesday, he'll be in Portland to deliver the latest talk in the Cascadia Green Building Council's Transformational Lecture Series.

Guy Battle is not really "a man struggling," as I called him in the title of this post; more like a man succeeding with flying colors. But I had to have some fun with his name, which sounds like a description of some gladiatorial bout.

Guy Battle? Nice to meet you. I'm Fella Conflict. Have you met Dude War? The image at left was one of the first that came up when I did a Google image search on Mr. Battle's name.

Battle’s lecture is titled, “Low Energy Buildings and Sustainable Communities: Designing for the Zero Carbon Economy,” and will take place at the White Stag Block (at SW Naito and Couch) at 5:30pm with a short reception to follow.

As the press release says, "Battle has been responsible for developing a unique approach to sustainable development while still keeping an optimum balance between the environmental impact, social benefit and financial return both for his clients and the community. Battle has worked on a wide range of international projects and with many world-renowned architects including Foster and Partners, Will Aslop and Sir Richard Rogers. During the past 15 years, Battle is credited with developing an innovative approach to sustainable environmental master planning including Greenwich Peninsula and ParcBIT Sustainable Masterplan, Mallorca."

I saw a presentation at the Greenbuild conference in Chicago two years ago for the Mallorca masterplan, and it was incredible: practically an entire island running on net-zero energy usage.

Also, a few years ago Battle spoke in Portland during the 2005 Greenbuild conference and I did a Q&A with him afterward. Here is a portion of that discussion:

How did you become interested in green building?

I went to the University of Bath in England, and I was educated in architecture as much as engineering. As a result, I learned to speak architecture, to understand its language, which is very important. During that period, I also had a number of tutors who professed interest in the environment. I picked up on that, and my thesis was on intelligent buildings skins which reacted to their environment. From there, I got interested in architecture that responds to climactic conditions.

Would you advocate that there be more integration in the educational process between architecture and engineering?

There’s not nearly enough. In this country [USA] it’s amazing to me that so few architects are able to speak to engineers and vise-versa. Half the problem is the architects don’t invite engineers to the table early enough. And if they do, the engineers feel somehow restricted, unable to take up the conversation. I think that’s due again to the education of engineers. They’re not taught to be creative.

How does this compare to Europe?

There’s a big difference. There’s a wealth of European engineers who are amazingly creative, and at the moment taking over the States. You’ve got Buro Happold, you’ve got Whitby Bird, you’ve got Arup, you’ve got Tim MacFarlane, you’ve got ourselves. These are environmental structural engineers who know how to be creative with their designs.

And of course green building requires greater collaboration between architects, engineers, and the rest of the building team.

Sustainable design means a greater level of integration. As an architect you have to conduct more people into the process: the engineer, the acoustician, the landscape architect. That’s why at our practice we have structural engineers, M/E/P engineers, and landscape architects, because we believe we have to produce an integrated package that will support the architects.

And then there have also been studies linking green buildings, or specifically daylit buildings, to improved human performance.

How far along do you think we are to taking green building mainstream?

If you look at the bulk of building in the States, 75% or 80% is people who are ignoring the issues. But I think there is a trickle-down effect. Obviously, though, the most basic means of change is the code. The bottom line is that if you don’t obey the code, the building is illegal, so it’s always the barest minimum. That has to be the starting point. And then you have things like incentives, which organizations like BetterBricks are a part of. It helps architects and engineers to do analysis work. And then you’ve got the straightforward incentives to do with photovoltaics or wind turbines or whatever it might be. So I think carrots alone will not make changes. You need sticks and carrots. 

You believe that within five or ten years the US will be more advanced than Europe in green building.

Yes, I passionately believe that actually. Coming here to Portland, you’ve got some architects doing amazing stuff, and engineers supporting them. I really believe that once you guys create a bit of momentum, there will be no holding back, because ultimately green building is driven by money. Once the US realizes that, it will be developing the best products and processes. And that’s why our firm is working here in this country. I’ve seen a massive sea change in attitude just in the last twelve months. It really is very exciting.

In your lecture here, you talked about a Battle McCarthy project, the Peckham Library in England, and how its architects, Alsop and Stormer, believe green building need not operate according to any particular stylistic principles. Do you agree?

There is a big debate about whether green buildings should look green, or whether they should just look like a piece of great architecture. And I think both are valid, but one thing that’s definitely true is that a green building does not have to wear its credentials on its sleeve. Alsop’s work is all about following a green agenda but very much interpreting it in a very artistic fashion. I think that’s actually very important.

Relatedly, it seems unfortunate that even though we live in an age of celebrity architects, few of them seem to have incorporated green principles into their design. There is a bit of a disconnect. I might go so far as to say there’s a new movement in architecture that’s environmentally driven, but it’s found outside the celebrity environment, although [Norman] Foster is doing some interesting stuff. If you go back to architects like Louis Kahn, Walter Gropius and even Le Corbusier, however, before air conditioning was invented much of their work took an environmental form. They were really interested in climate.

What aspect of your career gets you the most excited about getting up and going to work every day?

I enjoy the challenge of forging design with good architects. You cannot do better than to sit down with an architect and sketch for three or four hours together. You just can’t beat that feeling, because it’s the whole essence of giving birth to a design. Working with SOM, KPF, Gensler, Grimshaw, Farrel, or Foster, these are all architects who, given a set of criteria, will all do something different, and that is very interesting and challenging for an engineer, to allow that creativity to occur and enhance it. But looking at the bigger picture, sustainability is also what drives me and my practice. The ideas are rote sometimes, but they’re not easy to come by. To be able to deliver them is another sort of layer that is also very important to us.

Do engineers deserve more credit?

Yes, I think so. Engineering is the hidden hand. They have an enormous amount to contribute to architecture, but too often their contribution is gently put to one side. I think it’s something that should be celebrated. You look at someone like Peter Rice or Neil Thomas, Chris Wise, Guy Nordenson, and a host of other fantastic engineers, and they don’t really get the recognition they deserve.

A diamond in the Pearl: visiting the 937 Condominiums

Last fall the 937 Condominiums arrived just as the housing boom that made the project possible was coming to a crashing end. The building, designed by Holst Architecture and Ankrom Moisan, opened its doors in October, a time when most other condo projects coming on line were frantically switching to rental apartments. 

While I can't tell you how sales have fared, the building itself represents one of the best highrise condo designs of this era. In fact, with apologies to other successful recent condos like BOORA Architects' The Metropolitan, THA Architecture's Atwater Place and GBD Architects' The Casey, I think 937 may be the very best.

On the outside, the building has a random window pattern resembling natural fractal patterns set against cream-colored brick. The building was designed from the outside in to maintain the integrity and bold look of the facade, so each unit has a slightly different window configuration. The randomness of the exterior glass pattern is offset by subtle symmetry, with each window spaced both vertically and horizontally from each other in the same dimensions. The brick is an attractive touch, recalling the early 20th Century architecture of downtown Portland such as the Meier & Frank building or the Jackson Tower, while the crisp clean look of the exterior and its tall, slim form is faintly comparable to modernist classics like Mies van der Rohe's Lake Shore Drive apartments in Chicago.

If we're talking about windows and 937, though, the real story may be inside. Stepping into model units of various sizes and prices throughout the building, I was struck by just how much natural light permeates each space. I've been in numerous LEED Gold and Platinum-rated buildings, including condos (The Casey was America's first Platinum condo), and I'm quite sure I've never experienced so much natural daylight as in 937. Usually to meet energy code strictures, buildings with lots of glass have to apply coatings to filter out excess sunlight that can make the glass seem dark, inside and out. Not so here. It seems clear as can be.

The bountiful daylight at 937 comes not just from windows and lots of them, but also from the form itself. This is a thinner, taller building than most all of the squatty condos in the Pearl. Looking from 937 across Glisan Street at the Elizabeth Condos, for example, one sees asquatty, dark building where units offer light on only one side, or two at best.  The units I visited in 937 all had glass on at least two sides of each unit, and often times three.

This is the second design-development collaboration between Holst Architecture and developers Patrick Kessi and Geoff Wenker, who previously worked together on the Thurman Street Lofts. It's also a partnership between Holst and Ankrom Moisan. You could perhaps say Holst did the outside and Anrom the inside, but there seems to have been more overlap than that. Considering that the inside units and outside facade work in such wonderful harmony, it's got to be a testament to how these teams worked together.

Hopefully the success of this collaboration will spur more condo developers in the future (if there are any) to employ such partnerships between studio-sized firms with the most acute design acumen and larger service firms with the ability to deliver the less sexy but very necessary aspects of a major building project.

At the same time, such success is never a given. On the Eliot Condominiums downtown, for example, an Ankrom Moisan/Zimmer Gunsul Frasca collaboration yielded a very attractive outside and some less successful interiors, with cheesy Caesar's Palace-esque chipped marble decorations yucking up an otherwise attractive contemporary look. At 937, though, everything is in harmony. There aren't crass marble countertops trying too hard too look fancy, just refined dignified interior design with a simple natural wood palette.

And while the age of luxury and booming economics may be over, some lucky affluent tenant who buys the 16th Floor penthouse at 937 will have perhaps the only condominium with its own outdoor hot tub. In this unit, a triple-wide glass door slides open to give the penthouse an opening out onto its balcony more width than a garage door. Even in a hot day such as when I visited, the cool air just pours through the space.

Although 937 doesn't wear its green credentials on its sleeve like some projects, the building is slated to earn a Platinum LEED designation.

While this is a joint design by Holst and Ankrom Moisan, 937 really ought to help elevate Holst in that it represents probably the biggest-scale work the firm has ever done. When you combine 937 with the Ziba Design headquarters finishing construction a few blocks away in the Pearl, suddenly Holst Architecture has reached a new size and scope of architecture projects in Portland. Although the firm has still designed little to nothing outside of Portland, 937 and Ziba ought to represent a kind of new beginning for John Holmes and Jeff Stuhr's firm. Could Holst become the next Brad Cloepfil, the next architects from Portland to gain a national or international following?

Two units from 937 (including the jacuzzi-stocked penthouse) will be included in the Street of Dreams home tour this August, along with The Encore (by BOORA), the Waterfront Pearl (by Vancouver's Soren Rassmussen and Portland's MCA Architects) and the Pearl Condominiums at Block 90 (by Vallaster & Corl). So you are encouraged to take a look in a few weeks when the opportunity comes. I haven't been on the Street of Dreams tour since I was a kid dragged by mom, but with the tour coming to the Pearl District, this annual symbol of all that's wrong with home building just mined, in 937, everything that is right.

Two tales of bridges

 

In Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Duke University civil engineering professor (and author of popular books like Remaking the World and The Evolution of Useful Things) Henry Petroski has an article called "Bridging the Gap." The article cites a series of bridges along the Oregon Coast as an example for the nation:

"Our roads and bridges are crumbling, yes, but most are also mediocre, reflecting neither engineering sense nor architectural sensibility."

"It need not be this way. In the midst of the Great Depression, Conde McCullough, the state bridge engineer in Oregon, oversaw the design and construction of a series of graceful concrete and steel bridges along the state's Pacific Coast Highway. They stand today as delights to see and use, and they demonstrate that essential structures need not be inferior."

I was actually staying on the Oregon Coast as I read the article, and the bridges Petroski writes of came viscerally to mind (such as Newport's wonderful Yaquina Bay Bridge pictured at the top of this post). Oregon has a wonderful coastal bridge legacy that extends from Astoria (pictured below) to Brookings.

Striking nearly the exact opposite tone, however, Dylan Rivera's article on the front page of The Oregonian today is called "THE PRICE OF ORIGINALITY". (Their all-caps font, not mine.) The article also recalls a previous Rivera story about the Columbia crossing that asked, "Can we afford pretty?" Notice in both stories, even the headlines themselves seem to characterize first-rate design as something indulgent. I wonder why that didn't seem so to Oregon's leaders during the Great Depression.

Looking at the Willamette bridge design and construction process being overseen by TriMet, Rivera frames the discussion in this manner:

"It comes down to this: Is it enough for the bridge to offer a design that's new to the Portland area and comes in on budget - but isn't unique, with similar structures in Eugene and Kennewick, Washington? Or should the region aspire to a design that would put something original on the city's skyline, even if it could cost significantly more than the $134.6 million budget?"

But I'm not sure it "comes down to this," as Rivera writes. The unequivocal higher cost for the hybrid bridge being proposed is based on highly debatable numbers, as I wrote about in a previous post following TriMet's Willamette River Bridge Advisory Committee meeting on May 28.

Many of the extra costs piled onto the hybrid in estimates are called things like "requirements risk" and "design development risk". The construction costs for the hybrid were also listed at $75 million compared to about $62 million for the cable-stay, even though the materials would be about the same. Hybrid designer Miguel Rosales and Stuttgart, Germany-based Schlaich Bergermann und Partner believe the books were more or less cooked to make their design seem more expensive and risky.

Even so, the Willamette River bridge debate is all but over. TriMet's WRBAC committee, made up of a couple people from the design committee and lots of other stakeholders from the Portland area, recommended the off-the-shelf cable stay design option, and there seems almost no chance at all the steering committee will go against that. If the cable stay gets built, it won't be a bad bridge. Just not something to be really proud of.

Oregonian columnist Barry Johnson also had this to say in a piece called "Godzilla on the Willamette":

"A cable-stayed bridge is absolutely wrong for the relatively narrow space between the Ross Island Bridge and the Marquam Bridge, I would argue. Its towers will rise above the Marquam, and its bristling rows of cables will thumb their collective noses at the far gentler Ross Island Bridge. Worse, the bridge is inappropriate to its use -- as a light-rail, bus, pedestrian bridge. 

If ever you wanted a low-impact bridge that says we know how to live in a "light" way, this is it. Light rail is an ongoing piece of our somewhat humble efforts to develop sustainably, which is a buzz word that simply means we understand that we live in a time when resources are getting scarcer and dearer."

 

The hybrid issue did indeed seem to push TriMet to at least build a more refined cable-stay bridge than might have otherwise happened. But if you love the best bridges in Portland, such as the graceful St. John's bridge (pictured above), don't expect our generation to rise to that level of grace and beauty.

Luckily, when we drive to the Oregon Coast, or over spans here like the St. Johns, we can at least take pride in the efforts of Portlanders past.

Irvington gem: visiting the Stuart House

A few months ago I visited what must be one of the most grand and impressive houses in Irvington, a Portland neighborhood already known for its historic homes (but most of them more modest foursquares and bungalows). The house is being featured in the current issue of Renovation Style magazine. (Photos you see here, taken from the article, are by Jon Jensen.)

As I wrote in the article, the Stuart House is said to originally have been built for a member of Scottish royalty who moved to Portland and built it in 1913. But by the turn of the 21st century, the home was in disrepair. That's when homeowner Gai Williams and designer Sheila Reilly stepped in to complete a loving restoration.

"It's strong and much like Oregon," Reilly told me. "It has a wonderful classicism, but you can feel the trees that put it together."

The interior is thoroughly ensconced in wood, most notably the Greco-Roman columns marking the entryway, but also the array of bannisters, mantels and moldings. 

Redesigns of old homes often have a particular challenge. The homeowners almost always want to remove some walls and make the space more contemporary and open. But people also want to preserve the house's original integrity. Reilly and her client did a nice job with this balancing act, focusing their biggest changes on the kitchen and breakfast nook.

For all the condos and offices and public buildings that comprise most architecture and design news, there are almost always a lot of home restorations that largely go unnoticed. The Stuart House isn't anything new or different when it comes to Portland architecture, but it represents the best of what we have.

Time to re-sound the alarm? Oregonian story implies Coliseum could be back in play as baseball stadium site

It's just never over, is it?

A report on the front page of today's Oregonian by Ted Sickinger and City Hall reporter Mark Larabee seems to indicate that Portland's landmark Memorial Coliseum could once again be considered as the site for a baseball stadium.

"Coliseum numbers better than Lents site," the headline reads.

The story goes on to say that a city-produced study has found that Lents Park, the proposed site of the stadium, "falls short on almost every measure - attendance, development prospects, ticket revenue and parking - compared with the former front-running site at Memorial Coliseum."

Nobody in the story, from the City Council to Merritt Paulson (none of whom are pictured at right), is yet suggesting that attention be turned back to demolishing the Coliseum. But that is the clear logical extension.

The story does quote Council member Randy Leonard, who points out a a major flaw in the study, conducted by HVS International. It calls Lents a suburb, and uses numbers from previous suburban stadiums with lesser revenue numbers. To some this might seem like splitting hairs, but it's an important distinction. Lents is an outer neighborhood in Portland, but because Portland is not a sprawled-out metro area like most big cities in America, it's much more easily accessible from the center of the city than most suburbs would be in this country.

More importantly, the point to be made here is that if City Council, Merritt Paulson or anyone else makes a second attack on Memorial Coliseum, that effort will be met with a ceaseless chorus of opposition.

Memorial Coliseum is one of the great works of architecture ever built in the city of Portland. It is designed by a legendary architecture firm, Skidmore Owings and Merrill, representing the best of mid-20th century building with a combination of engineering prowess and transparency to make an arena unlike any other in the world: one with natural light pouring through.

Just like Pioneer Courthouse Square, the Pietro Belluschi-designed Portland Art Museum and Equitable Building, the Pittock Mansion, the Ladd Carriage House, the Benson Bubblers, the Park Blocks, the Jackson Tower and other beloved landmarks in this city, Portland and its people will not let stand some ridiculous plan to destroy our most beloved architecture in the name of a baseball stadium a few thousand at best will ever visit, or a minor-league team few in the city care about.

If you are reading this and feel even half as strongly as I do about preserving Portland's history and saving this exceptional work of architecture, please consider contacting City Council to say this: Don't even think about trying to tear down Memorial Coliseum.

Mayor Sam Adams

Phone: (503)823-4120

Email: Samadams@ci.portland.or.us

Commissioner Randy Leonard

Phone: (503)823-4682

Email: randy@ci.portland.or.us

Commissioner Amanda Fritz

Phone: (503) 823-3008

Email: amanda@ci.portland.or.us

Commissioner Nick Fish

Phone: (503) 823-3589

Email: nick@ci.portland.or.us

Commissioner Dan Saltzman

Phone: (503)823-4151

Email: dsaltzman@ci.portland.or.us

Meanwhile, here is a copy of the previously-posted letter from the National Trust for Historic Preservation:

Dear Mayor Adams:

On behalf of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, we are writing to express our support for the preservation of Portland’s Memorial Coliseum. We were alarmed to learn of your proposal to demolish this architecturally-significant modernist building and brazen pledge to seek City Council approval for demolition within a month. As detailed below, the unique qualities of this structure and its importance to the community require a careful evaluation of alternatives before demolition is considered. We are also highly skeptical of claims that the demolition of this Portland landmark is a “sustainable” solution. In fact, demolition followed by new construction would be a dramatic step backward in Portland’s goal of becoming the world’s most sustainable city.

The Memorial Coliseum is an historic building that contributes significantly to the community of Portland and the State of Oregon. Designed 1958-1960 by the firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (established in 1936 in Chicago), the Coliseum is architecturally notable for its cantilevered steel-truss roof floating over a free-standing concrete arena bowl, the whole enclosed by a glass curtain wall. An all-glass exterior façade is an uncommon treatment for arenas of this era. The rarity of this style contributes to structure’s historic significance.

With the successful reuse of this building, Portland can demonstrate its leadership in the preservation of historic architecture and work cooperatively towards developing a practical model for communities that are debating new uses for their aging arenas. In 2002, William P. Macht, an adjunct professor of urban planning and development in the College of Urban & Public Affairs at Portland State University, put forward four alternative plans for the preserved coliseum, created as part of a three-month development planning workshop. These particular options -- a headquarters hotel, an arts complex, a sustainable technology center and an urban home center –prove that alternatives do exist and should be more fully explored by the City before any further decisions are made.

Finally, we are concerned that the Mayor has supported demolition of the Coliseum under the mantra of “sustainability.” We question the accuracy of this assumption. Choosing new construction over reuse is rarely the most sustainable choice. New construction requires a massive expenditure of energy to manufacture or extract building materials, transport them to the construction site, and assemble them into a new building. A substantial amount of energy is already embodied in the Coliseum’s sizable steel and glass frames. The replacement of existing structural components with newly manufactured and newly extracted materials must be factored into the environmental cost if the City is to tout sustainability as an objective of this plan.

In light of community support and significant historic evidence, the National Trust asks that the reuse and renovation of Memorial Coliseum be the City’s first priority regarding the future of Rose Quarter area. The Trust also asks that the City consider the historic importance of the building relative to the rapidly diminishing number of significant modern works of architecture in the State and nationwide.

Metro seeks feedback on latest Urban Growth Boundary expansion proposal

The Metro regional government is seeking public feedback on how to accommodate up to 300,000 new homes by 2030. To expand the urban growth boundary or not to expand. The Metro Council produced a preliminary report earlier this spring, and before the official draft comes out in September, they'd like to receive comments on the plan - due no later than June 30.

The preliminary report makes a somewhat surprising argument given that the UGB has expanded a few times in the past: that future growth can be absorbed through a combination of zoning changes, density increases, clearing brownfield sites, incentives for housing near transit centers and new financing tools to pay for infrastructure. Metro also listed these criteria or operating assumptions.

(1) People live and work in vibrant communities where they can choose to walk for pleasure and to meet their everyday needs. 

(2) Current and future residents benefit from the region’s sustained economic competitiveness and prosperity.

(3) People have safe and reliable transportation choices that enhance their quality of life. 

(4) The region is a leader in minimizing contributions to global warming.

(5) Current and future generations enjoy clean air, clean water and healthy ecosystems. 

(6) The benefits and burdens of growth and change are distributed equitably.

There is also an economic component here, of course. Metro cites the Case-Shiller index, which measured home prices during the period of December 2005 to December 2008. Prices in the Portland region decreased by only three percent, compared with decreases of 43 percent in Las Vegas, 31 percent in Tampa, 13 percent in Atlanta, and 40 percent in San Francisco.

Comments should be submitted to Malu Wilkinson at malu.wilkinson@oregonmetro.gov.

One resident in particular, Robert Nobles, is keen on residents sending Metro a message. He's written me a few times urging a post, and when The Oregonian posted a notice about the issue, he was one of the first to comment. But Nobles' point in that comment is a good one:

"The real issue is what type of housing those people live in. Builders want huge swaths of land that they can build the same house like an assembly line.This mens more profit for them, but homogeneity and poor planning for the city," he writes.

"The people want well planned neighorhoods with a diversity of housing types and incomes. This means infill lots, condo towers or mid-rises, duplexes, granny flats, etc. What the poeple want cannot be built like an assembly line, and since there is not enough supply of it, the average income gets priced out of it due to high demand. There is room within the boundary for many more people with the type of housing choices we all want, but speculative builders mostly want to build fast cheap efficient crap."

Personally, I believe the reason we have a growth boundary is so it acts as one. Expanding it is contrary to that effort. So I almost always argue against expansion. Even so, it's not always a black and white issue. People need affordable places to live just as we as a region need to limit sprawl. There needs to be a balance, although ultimately tipping that balance in a direction that encourages cheap suburban auto-dominated environments will hurt people who are economically struggling more than it will hurt people better off.

Architect's Questionnaire: Brett Laurila

A few months ago Portland Architecture began a new, occasional series called "The Architect's Questionnaire", in which a local architect answers a prepared set of simple questions about his or her profession and experiences. So far architects Nathan Cooprider and David Hyman have been profiled, and the latest is architect Brett Laurila.

Laurila is a registered architect in Oregon as well as California and Nevada. His firm, BKL/A Architecture, is a two-person company run with Aleta Mekvold. Lauria's design experience includes commercial, multifamily, adaptive re-use and public architecture, as well as planning.

Portland Architecture: When did you first become interested in architecture as a possible career?

Laurila: My grandfather was a master carpenter, and my father was an engineer. As a youngster, I was able to visit job-sites in various states of construction with my grandfather in addition to my Dad's office. Dad had a few architects on staff. The architects’ desks were, in contrast to the neat and orderly engineers, messy, had kneaded eraser figurines and taped up sketches of various concepts. It appeared to me that the architects enjoyed their jobs. Every Christmas, one the architects would sketch a cartoon Christmas card. Those images left an indelible imprint in my mind. My father passed away after my 13th birthday, but my grandfather’s influence continued until he passed at 82 years young.

Where did you study architecture and how would you rate the experience?

My education was less than traditional. I entered the School of Architecture and Allied Arts at Oregon in the late 70's as a sculpture major when I didn't get accepted to the school of architecture. After completing my freshman year, I took off a year and attended a technical school to learn to draft, so that I could get a job in an architect’s office in order to support my tuition requirements. The economy in 1980 was much like it is now. There was very little work here and I needed to work to pay for school. This led me to attend SCI-Arc in January 1981 where I was able to work for an architect and attend school. SCI-Arc was a great educational experience for a me.

What is your favorite building project that you’ve worked on?

I am not going to pick a favorite. Honestly, every project has its positives and negatives. More recent projects seem to be fresh in mind, but the 2001 Cascadian Court Condominiums would have to be the most challenging effort in my career to date. You could write an entire book on the issues and complexities; personalities and conflicts that project garnered to complete. I took over a project in complete disarray, revised the design, completed the permits and worked with great general contractor to complete a difficult and contentious project, that still resembled the intent of the original designer.

Who has been an important mentor among your colleagues?

I have two that profoundly affected my career. Ted Tokio Tanaka and Gerald Lomax. While attending SCI-ARC in the early '80s, a classmate and long time friend worked for Gerry and his partner John Rock. Gerry became my mentor, by default, when I would stop by to see my friend. We would end up in long and fruitful discussions with Gerry related to the practice of Architecture. When I was looking for work, Gerry referred me to Mr. Tanaka. Working for Mr. Tanaka was an extraordinary experience. Every project there was an event to be designed and experienced.

What part of the job do you like best, and as an architect what do you think you most excel at?

I love the challenges that architecture provides daily. Unfortunately, I have become known as someone to take on difficult projects and bring them to fruition.

What are some Portland buildings (either new or historic) that you most like?

Portland Art Museum, Weiden+Kennedy adaptive reuse, and the recent remodel completed by Brett & Dana Crawford [the 1310 Condominiums].

What is your favorite building outside of Portland and besides any you’ve worked on?

I can't really pick one. Every day sees a new project somewhere in the world that evokes wonder and a little jealousy in me.

Is there a local architect or firm you think is unheralded or deserves more credit?

There are a number of Architects, who do good work, that operate in relative obscurity. Portland seems to be a place that, if you want publicity, you can find it relatively easy. However, it may not be the kind of publicity that you were hoping for....

What would you like to see change about Portland’s built environment in the long term?

A less complex civic process where the different bureaus actually communicate and work together.

Would you rather live in a South Waterfront condo, a craftsman bungalow in Laurelhurst, a warehouse loft in the North Mississippi district or a mid-century ranch in the West Hills?

I love the house we are currently in - a mid century atomic modern in Milwaukie. Original with tastefully updated details, but needing a significant landscape update. I do miss, however, the vibrancy of the inner southeast neighborhood we left.

Who is a famous architect you’d like to see design a building in Portland?

Renzo Piano - something grandiose like a building spanning the freeway along the east-side waterfront addressing the river. That would be something!

Which would you rather be responsible for: an ugly LEED platinum building or a beautiful modernist energy hog?

Neither, I would hope! How 'bout a modernist LEED platinum building that is self-sufficient?

Name something besides architecture (sneakers, furniture, umbrellas) you love the design of.

This is not a politically correct answer, but... it is the automobile. Other than architecture, no single design effects us more on a daily basis. Form, function, engineering and art - beautiful and obscene at the same time.

What are three of your all-time favorite movies?

If I have to pick three - the ones that stick with me most are: Blade Runner, Fargo, Memento.

Coliseum and Rose Parade snapshots

Earlier this morning, I did something I normally never do, especially on a weekend. I set the alarm. In fact, I set it for 7AM. And it was worth it to be there for the Rose Parade as it originated from inside the arena, with Memorial Coliseum's upper curtain open to allow light to pour through.

I normally am not a big parade enthusiast. When I was a kid we went to the Rose Parade, but I'm not sure I've ever seen it as an adult. They're too early for this unrepentant late sleeper. But once there, properly over-caffeinated, I really enjoyed the Americana of it all: the marching bands, the Rosarians in their white suits, the velvet-throated K103 DJs emceeing, the Boss Hog convertibles with the waving grand marshall, and of course the floats. And of course seeing the Coliseum with the curtain open was the best part.

Here are a few snapshots that I took of the parade and the building. Joining me and a few other architects who came to see the building with the curtain open for the city's central civic-cultural public event of the year were a couple of professional photographers, Jeremy Bitterman and Matthew Ginn. Those guys are much more talented shutterbugs, and their photos will be published here down the road.

Oregon's 150th at AIA Center for Architecture

Tonight's First Thursday walk will mark the opening of "150 Years of Oregon Architecture" at the American Institute of Architects/Portland chapter's Center for Architecture in the Pearl District (403 NW 11th Avenue).

The exhibit includes scores of historic and archival photographs documenting the architecture of our state over its century and a half since entering the union with full statehood in 1859.

Below are a few of the pictures included in the exhibit. In order of top to bottom are the former Oregon State Capitol building (completed in 1873 by Justus Krumbein) in Salem, the Ainsworth Bank (1881, Clinton Day) in Portland, Portland High School (1883, William R. Stokes) and Villard Hall at the University of Oregon in Eugene (1885, Warren H. Williams).

Riverdale preservationists offer alternative design that saves Doyle building

Preserve Riverdale, the grassroots group that came together in an effort to save the A.E. Doyle-designed (with later contributions from the great Pietro Belluschi) Riverdale School, lost a potential political solution to their quest last month when the school's board was re-elected. Now, the preservation effort is trying a new tactic: offering up an entirely different design by a new architect.

Path Architecture has created for Preserve Riverdale a scheme that renovates the Doyle building while expanding the campus outward. Their design is the part of a mailer being sent out by Preserve Riverdale to residents of the district.

"Preserve Riverdale provides this mailer," the text goes, "to help our community see an alternative RGS renovation plan that could help unify our community, save a significant amount of money, and preserve the idyllic nature of our school. This is but one idea, and it is not submitted as a conclusive, final proposal. We hope it helps begin a new community conversation."

"This proposal preserves the existing A.E. Doyle school (with significant upgrades), and compliments the historic structure with new buildings and a campus-wide  site improvement." The goals of the design, it goes on to say, are to improve the health and safety of students/faculty, improve the architecture to fully support program and clarity of education, improve access to technology, and protect capital investment."

An important feature of the Path-designed plan is that, unlike the Riverdale demolition and new building about to begin construction, it would not require the student body to be relocated to another school for a year. As it stands now, these kids are about to spend the next school year being bused to another location and back every day. This plan would be built in phases, allowing students to stay on the Riverdale site with just a few temporary trailers. Admittedly those trailers are awful, but they're very very common in K-12 schools, as most of you know. And being on the Riverdale site, they'd be much more convenient and much cheaper.

Path has so far made its name designing small mixed-use projects and single-family houses, but partners Corey Martin and Ben Kaiser's firm is exceptionally talented. Before joining with Kaiser, Corey Martin previously worked at Allied Works, the Portland firm headed by Brad Cloepfil. I previously wrote about their work as part of a Dwell magazine story about the 11xDesign homes tour that their firm co-organized.

Mahlum Architects, designers of the replacement building planned for Riverdale, is a much larger firm, and their Portland office is an offshoot of Mahlum's Seattle headquarters. Overall Mahlum has designed a lot of schools, including Ben Franklin Elementary, which was included in the 2005 American Institute of Architects/Committee on the Environment Top 10 Green Projects list.

Both firms are talented in different ways. Path is more of a boutique firm, while Mahlum offers a broad range of experience and expertise.

In providing me with this mailer, from which the above images are drawn, Corey Martin emphasized how preliminary the design is. They only had about two days to come up with it, apparently. Rather than being considered the actual Riverdale renovation-and-expansion plan (if there was one), this is meant to demonstrate that it could be done in a way that meets the schools needs.

Preserve Riverdale has also worked with another firm, GEN Architects, to produce this video comparing the scale of the original Doyle and the new structure:

Unfortunately, though, the Riverdale board -- while not people I wish to vilify personally -- seems to be hung up on the issue of security. The Mahlum design is for one big multi-story building. Nevermind that it would tower over surrounding homes. Or, of course, that it would destroy the Doyle. Or that its neo-historic style is arguably a trite caricature of the original. 

In conversations with one member of the Riverdale board (who did not wish to comment on record for this post), he continually emphasized to me that they and parents wanted a single building because it was safer.

If the Doyle building gets destroyed, in the end, because of concerns not about education or architecture or programmatic needs but out of security concerns, that would be a tragedy.

Obviously we want our kids in public schools to be safe, and over the years there have been some horrific acts of student-on-student gun violence, both in Oregon and elsewhere in America. But it would be a disservice to students and to the educational experience overall if a culture of fear -- the obsession with the one-in-a-million scenario supplanting everyday needs and concerns like education and design -- drove Riverdale's plans.

Riverdale is on a very tight schedule. I'm told they're looking to start demolition this month. This month! The school has to fit construction into the window of time Riverdale students are temporarily occupying the other school. So unfortunately there is very little, if any, time to convince Riverdale's board to consider this plan. If you're reading this and want to help, I suggest contacting Preserve Riverdale or Riverdale School itself.

Memorial Coliseum curtain to be opened this Saturday for Grand Floral Parade [UPDATED]

For decades, one of the most striking and unique features of Portland's circa-1960 Memorial Coliseum has been hidden away: the ability to flood the arena with natural light by opening the black curtain that encloses the top of the seating bowl.

This Saturday, Portlanders will have a chance to see for themselves just how incredible this indoor-outdoor architectural experience really is. The curtain will be open for the Grand Floral Parade, which originates in the Coliseum.

You can see the effect in the above photo by legendary architectural photographer Julius Shulman. When the Coliseum's curtain is open, this becomes one of the most unique arenas in the entire nation, or even the world. Can you name a single arena or concert hall in the world big enough to hold 10,000 people or more but do so in an interior building illuminated with daylight?

When I spoke with Rich Jarvis of the Rose Festival Foundation, he told me the curtain was actually open for last year's Grand Floral Parade, although no formal announcements were made. I never go to the parade anymore (used to as a child), so I had no idea. I've never heard a single person even mention the curtain being open last year. But I'm not missing this year's opportunity. I'm buying a ticket to the Coliseum for the parade, and entirely so I can see the building itself.

Jarvis also recalled his own experience watching the parade through the open curtain last year. "When you're sitting at the top of the bowl, with that curtain open it actually becomes the best seat in the house," he said. "If you're sitting on the east side, you can look out at the skyline. If you're on the river side, you can actually watch the parade as it continues outside toward downtown."

You can order tickets ($30) to see the parade from inside the Coliseum here. If you are an architect or designer in Portland, or any kind of architecture enthusiast, I strongly recommend taking advantage of this all-too-unique experience. When the Coliseum's curtain is open, this may very well be the ultimate architectural space in the city.

ADDITIONAL NOTE, 6/3/09: Apologies for the short notice, but Portland State University professor Garrett Martin's architecture class has been studying a series of housing options for the Rose Quarter area. Students will be presenting their projects from 5-9PM today at the Leftbank Building, at 240 N. Broadway. I hope to post some of their work in the days ahead.

Design by committee: notes from the latest Willamette River bridge meeting [UPDATED]

Last Thursday the Willamette River Bridge Advisory Committee (WRBAC) had its first meeting since February, and the committee made a recommendation that TriMet go forward with a cable-stay bridge. It was not a unanimous decision, but the committee in recommending the cable-stay has rejected the hybrid form bridge design fashioned by Miguel Rosales.

I was exceptionally disappointed by the decision, but with some qualifications.

In the Rosales hybrid concept, Portland was getting a uniquely tailored bridge that took its formal, geometric cues from the adjacent Ross Island and Marquam bridges while also borrowing some of the St. Johns Bridge's natural elegant curves.

There were two traditional cable-stay options that TriMet and the WRBAC committee were considering, and those would have been a particularly bad choice for the city: oversized, bland, ubiquitous: a cookie cutter bridge plopped into the central city. However, the "refined cable-stay" option that the committee recommended is significantly better. It has more of the hybrid's grace, compactness and elegance - not all of it, but much more than the previous cable-stay options.

So even if the Rosales hybrid concept has lost out, at least its introduction and the support it had in City Hall, the public at large and even on the WRBAC committee has helped TriMet and its designers fashion what I think of as a much better cookie-cutter.

[Note: this paragraph added later.] If you're reading this post and wishing there were more images or renderings of what these two bridge prototypes (the refined cable-stay and hybrid) would look like, so am I. When the WRBAC committee voted last Thursday, they were using the same single image per bridge type that I posted previously ("Willlamette bridge: examing the options"), or at least they were for the hybrid. I think more needed to be done to visualize graphically both these bridges. The committee didn't have enough visually to make their decision, and as a result the focus understandably became more about budget.

As the committee members cast their vote one-by-one, each seemed to say something along the lines of, "I'm no design expert, and I can't tell enough difference between the hybrid and cable-stay to justify the extra cost."

In attendance at the WRBAC meeting was Donald MacDonald, the Bay Area architect who was selected over Rosales's firm. It seemed clear in the meeting and from  talking informally with TriMet representatives that MacDonald was chosen largely because of his firm's experience with the design-build process through which the bridge will be built. I heard the phrase "design-build" and "experience" used a lot in reference to MacDonald.

MacDonald and his firm also seem to have a particular design talent when it comes to the details of bridge design. I don't see MacDonald as a big thinker like Rosales. He wouldn't come up with an all-new type of bridge like Rosales did with the hybrid. But MacDonald will be able to tinker with the refined cable-stay design and its details to make the bridge a little less of a cookie-cutter and something a little more uniquely Portland.

The WRBAC committee is full of decent people with a broad array of public and private interests. The committee is an inclusive wide tent, and in a democratic sense TriMet should be proud of that effort.

But the committee seems to include only one or two people from the design community, and those voices are diluted by the many other interests represented on the committee. There are people from Ross Island Sand & Gravel, for example, as well as construction companies, nonprofits, other businesses. It's in their interest, but not in their expertise or experience, to be deciding about the nuances of design. 

I don't think the WRBAC committee or any other huge committee, however transparent and open to public involvement the TriMet process is, will produce anything close to a great design. There has to be some extra leadership that sees enduring design as more important than staying under budget. Or at least an array of images to make it more apparent to everyone.

This is why a project this big needs a design competition to produce a great design and a great designer. Look at the Portland Aerial Tram. That project had big problems because of the ridiculously low $15 million initial estimate used to sell the idea. But because of the design competition that produced architect Sarah Graham (of AGPS Architecture), the inevitable budget cuts and engineering did not compromise the quality of the finished product. And it's really the product that matters as much as the process, or more.

Also troubling while watching the WRBAC meeting was the information the committee had to make its decision. The refined cable-stay and the hybrid came with two very different estimated price tags: about $89 million for the refined cable-stay and about $112 million for the hybrid. It became clear during the discussion, though, that many of the extra costs piled onto the hybrid may or may not be legitimate, listed as "requirements risk" and "design development risk". The construction costs for the hybrid were also listed at $75 million compared to about $62 million for the cable-stay, even though the materials would be about the same.

"This is a little bit riskier, a bit more innovative," TriMet's Rob Barnard said of the hybrid. That's probably true, but it seems like TriMet, although not trying to deceive anyone, may have loaded up the hybrid's extra risk-based cost. I'm not an engineer or an estimator, of course. This is entirely supposition. But I do know that the cost estimator TriMet used, the National Contractors Group, is really just one retired engineer who works from his home and has ties to TriMet's engineer.

Oh, and while we're talking about budget, note that TriMet's willing to spend somewhere around $135 million. So technically the agency could afford either one.

After the meeting, one WRBAC committee wrote me an email saying, "I'd like to have a Ferrari, but I can't afford it." The hybrid, he implied, was the Ferrari.

I'd venture that the choice here is more like that between a Geo, a Toyota, and a Mercedes. The traditional cable-stay is the Geo: cheap, ugly, bland. The refined cable-stay is the Toyota: not bad looking, and affordable, but not unique or special. The hybrid is the Mercedes: more expensive, but gorgeous and timeless.

Notice that I said a Mercedes, however, and not a Ferrari. I think the committee believes the hybrid is a Ferrari: something too ridiculously expensive and unrealistic to choose. It's too bad, because the Mercedes is really the better metaphor: something Portland would have to stretch a little more to have, but would really love.

Ultimately a great building project, whether it's architecture or a piece of engineering like a bridge, needs a great client and process. I think TriMet and its WRBAC committee are just a Toyota client, and there's nothing wrong with that per se. Maybe it's too naive or idealistic for me to want a Mercedes for Portland and not a Toyota. But if you were keeping your car for a hundred years, and the financing for that Mercedes was absolutely doable--within your allotted budget, in fact--what would you go for?

I know metaphors are merely stand-ins for the real bridges, and you shouldn't have to take my word for it (nor anyone else's) that the hybrid is better than the refined cable-stay. And besides, the two are much closer now, especially since the hybrid has lost a little of its design grace since Rosales left the project - it's now missing the suspension bridge curve.

The WRBAC committee's recommendation of the refined cable-stay does not mean the decision is final. The City Council will hear from TriMet's steering committee tomorrow, and vote, I believe, on June 17.  On June 22 comes a 'request for adoption' from the steering committee. There is also a Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Project Open House on June 11 where you can make your voice heard.

Ultimately I think MacDonald's bridge very well may be pretty good. Perhaps how the rest of you feel about it will depend on how much importance you place on this bridge being better than just pretty good and instead being something great.