Portland Architecture

Gragg on Halprin: "My eyes are all teary"

As many in the design and architecture community have already learned, the legendary landscape architect Lawrence Halprin passed away on Sunday, October 25.

The Harvard-educated Halprin helped revolutionize public and open space design in the 1970s, with his attention to works that functioned well on a human scale and encouraged interaction, very much in the egalitarian tradition of parks and public realms created by Frederick Law Olmsted and his sons. Portland, where the Olmsted brothers designed the North and South Park Blocks, and where Halprin designed two fountains (the Keller Fountain and Lovejoy Fountain), was the common thread. Halprin also worked on the transit mall in downtown Portland, the landmark Sea Ranch project in Northern California, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial in Washington, DC, and much more.

Randy Gragg (pictured at left), the longtime Oregonian architecture critic who now is editor of Portland Monthly and Portland Spaces magazines, is an authority on Halprin and a big fan. Last year he helped bring to fruition "The City Dance of Lawrence and Anna Halprin" with choreographer Linda K. Johnson, and currently Gragg is working on a book about the designer, due in December. Recently I interviewed Gragg by email about his thoughts on Halprin and his passing.

Me: Did you ever get to meet Halprin personally? If so, what was that (or what was he) like?

Randy: I met with Larry on four different occasions over the last few years. The first three times, he was very weak and a bit spacey. During a hospital stay for minor surgery a couple of years before, he had contracted a virus that nearly killed him. Nevertheless he was still working finishing up projects in Yosemite and San Francisco. He was very gracious but his memory of the specifics of he work in Portland was not strong.

The last time I interviewed him, I had done a lot of archive research both at the PDC and at larry’s archive at Penn and I came armed with lots of letters and pictures. As well, I understand he had changed his meds. He was an entirely different person. Still gracious, but full of memories prompted by the artifacts and pleasantly combative about anything he thought I was misinterpreting. It was really fun and I saw the fiber of the man he once was: The very typical successful visionary – part seducer, part iron will, and no doubt.  

You seem to have developed a particular interest in the Halprins even amongst the broad array of people you've covered. What is it about Halprin that looms so large for you?

Boy, I sure did: years of my life and, now a book: "Where the Revolution Began: Lawrence and Anna Halprin and the Reinvention of Public Space". We’re having a big release party December 5.

So I knew the fountains from history and visiting my first few weeks in Portland back in 1990. But it was landscape architect Peter Walker who really alerted me to the profundity of their influence—particularly Lovejoy – on the history of landscape architecture: Nature meets theater in the city. My first major piece on Larry was back in 2003, inspired by developer John Russell’s efforts to prune the trees around Keller Fountain and Pettygrove Park.

My friend, the choreographer Linda K. Johnson, sent me a book on the work of Larry’s wife, Anna Halprin, who is often credited as the inventor of Postmodernism in dance, was developing her most influential work at the time Portland’s plazas were being designed. And suddenly I was hooked on these two characters and what the Portland work really meant: to landscape history, urbanism, and dance. 

On my Loeb Fellowship, I spent a lot more time researching and when I returned I burrowed into the PDC’s archives. And, whoa, there was this incredible story of the reemergence – and battle over – public space in Portland. You don’t get to Waterfront Park or Pioneer Square or Jamison Square or Tanner Creek Park or South Waterfront’s ambition’s to knit habitat to high-density urbanism. Mike Houck will probably disagree, but I really believe the whole idea of “nature in the city” – in a true urban sense -- begins with Halprin. To put it how Houck might: Halprin put a fucking watershed in fucking downtown; sure, it was a fucking metaphor, but it still fucking matters because it planted a seed in people’s fucking brains.

Any memories of being in Halprin-designed space in Portland like the fountain that particularly stand out for you?

Well, last year’s performance, The City Dance of Lawrence and Anna Halprin, is the mother of all memories: about 1000 people watching incredible dances choreographed by Tere Mathern, Cydney Wilkes, Linda Austin and Linda K Johnson all to music by Third Angle Ensemble. I still get chills and tears watching the video – which we’ll screen at the December book event. Linda K, Ron and I – and Third Angle’s board – worked for a solid year on that project and I’ve never had a more fulfilling group experience in my life. It still blows me away that most of those people who came that sunny Sunday afternoon lined up – for like 20 minutes – at the end for the final piece to join hands and circle the little Source Fountain. My eyes are all teary writing this. 

The South Auditorium district overall seems to have a controversial history and mixed success given what was torn down to build this area, etc. How might this area of town be re-imagined in the future in a way that really makes the Halprin fountain an oft-visited centerpiece again?

Well, I don’t get all misty over the neighborhood that was lost. There were a few OK buildings that got torn down and, yes, some people were displaced. But the record shows the PDC did a pretty good job in finding them homes, mostly better homes, according to interviews I read. Keep in mind, Portland’s neighborhood movement was spawned in Lair Hill as activists banded together to fight further expansion of the urban renewal area southward. Healthy cities are self-correcting.

As for the South Auditorium’s mixed successes urbanistically, it really is one of the MOST successful urban renewal districts in the country from that period. For one, it got finished. Two, the apartments always fetched top dollar and eventually sold for a record amount when they were converted to condos. The area is much loved by those who live there. You can’t say that about many mid-century American urban renewal areas.

The offices directly adjacent to the plazas have had a more mixed history, but that’s because the owners have done a shitty job of marketing them. Could the area be improved? Sure. The retail never flourished because the original developers and the architects, Skidmore Owings Merrill, didn’t understand what we know about urban retail today: It needs to be in a retail district. They thought the apartments and the cars going down First Avene would be enough, but the parking and signage is too hidden, the cars going too fast, and there’s not enough residents to support the retail alone. Had the orginal design put the retail over on fourth, it’d be a different story.

Looking ahead, I actually LIKE that these are somewhat hidden spaces. They’re special and don’t need Project for Public Spaces kiosks and flower ladies and crap hanging from the light poles. Would changing some adjacent uses help? Sure. While I personally would love to have an office or even live in the office spaces adjacent to Lovejoy Fountain – they’re the most Miesian spaces in town, absolutely beautiful, particularly on the east side of Lovejoy—they probably could be replaced with more intensive development to put some more eyes on the plaza (as long as the great Hot Pot place is saved!) . And the retail around the little Source Fountain totally needs to be rethought.

But the real jeopardy ahead, to me, is the upcoming Lincoln Street redo for MAX and the Montgomery “green street.” So remember, people, Larry Halprin’s fountain plaza sequence is the FIRST green street, and to go into Houck speak again, DON’T FUCK WITH IT. The designers on these projects need to act respectfully and keep their faddish bioswales and grass clumps well away. It’s OK for a little rainwater to trickle into the pipes through the wonderful drainage system Larry integrated into the concrete scoring (even if most of the time, it’s plugged up, due to poor maintenance). It’s history. It’s metaphor. It changed the city for good and great ways.

Mockbee, Rummer and more

Tonight as part of the AIA Architecture and Design Festival, the Center For Architecture will be screening a documentary about the late, great architect Samuel Mockbee.

Entitled The Rural Studio after Mockbee's project, the film chronicles how, starting in 1993, the Auburn University Professor Samuel Mockbee guided his students in designing and building homes and community spaces in economically depressed Hale County, Alabama. Mockbee's contextual-based learning philosophy transcended race and class and in the process has changed the lives of both students and clients. With tongue firmly placed in cheek, Mockbee often called his Rural Studio "Redneck Taliesin South".

The film screens at 5:30pm at the Center For Architecture, at 403 NW 11th Avenue, and admission is free.

I had the opportunity to interview Mockbee for Salon in 2001, just a few months before his untimely death from cancer. Here is a portion of that Q&A:

Me: How does it feel knowing your profession has been marginalized by the American home building industry?

Mockbee: It's a shame, because houses are the great paramour for architects, from the most successful all the way down to the most struggling. We draw them on the backs of napkins. But too often when I look at what builders and developers are doing, we're not talking about architecture any longer. We're talking about capitalism at its most obscene. The public has bought into the mediocrity and insipid attitude of manufactured and spec houses, and has given up any hope of creating homes with spirit. Real architecture does cost somewhat more. But most homes in America are built with false façades that try to pass themselves as architecture.

You've often said that all great architecture is honest.

It always has been. Architecture addresses truth and beauty and has a moral sense to it. All great art has that, too.

You cite painters like Klee, Goya and Picasso as your primary architectural influences, emphasizing the art of architecture. Yet the Rural Studio is known for advancing the profession's social and practical side.

For me art is a very personal endeavor, a way to reflect on what I'm trying to do as an architect. An architect, on the other hand, has to be an extrovert. You can't get anything built by yourself. You've got to have consultants, suppliers and a client who understands what you're trying to do. The connection is that art is a reflection of the best of who we are. One informs the other, and vice versa.

Which Rural Studio clients have been the most satisfying to design and build for?

What immediately comes to mind is the Hay Bale House we did for Shepherd and Alberta Bryant. Shepherd is about 80 years old, and unable to fish or hunt or do many of his favorite outdoor activities anymore. His wife, Alberta, who had lived with him in an old shack for 40 years, wasn't in the new house six weeks before she had a leg amputated and the other soon after. She says she doesn't know what would have happened to her had we not built that house.

But the most profound result of our efforts has been on their grandson Richard Bryant. This was a kid who didn't have anything, but because of his relations with the students -- we've watched him grow up over the eight years we've been building down there -- he's blossomed into a mature young man who's just graduated from high school, and is going to go to college. He wanted to be like them, and now he's going to be.

Have any clients chafed at the vibrant designs and unconventional materials being used for their homes?

That has happened to us, but not to the extent that it can't be fixed. The students have to learn to listen to the clients, and find out what their needs are. But on another level, as hard as we try to get the clients to be honest and relaxed with us, there is some apprehension that if they don't agree with us somehow we won't build it for them. I'm always trying to explain to the clients that we're going to build the house for them no matter what, and that they need to tell us what they need and want. We don't push our aesthetics onto anybody, nor do we push any values. The students work very hard to win the respect of these clients. They want to make these houses wonderful for them.

A lot of architects talk about trust being the key to a relationship with a client.

Well, sometimes that word means the architect wants the client to indulge his ego. Architects like to have their way; they micromanage too much and they think they have the answer to everything. But we are good problem solvers, and our education serves us well in attacking projects and looking at them creatively. The problem is, we often believe our own propaganda. But there are also two sides to that coin. You don't want a client who misunderstands what design and architecture are really about. Many want this faux architecture, and that drives us nuts.

Do Rural Studio houses reflect your own architectural style?

I don't lift a pen or put one stroke down on those designs. But I have a high bar I expect students to reach. I make them draw and redraw, so in that sense maybe it does reflect my style a bit. At any firm the work takes on the personality of the principals, and I think that's true of the Rural Studio. But really the students do it themselves.

Do you think we should give more large-scale commissions to young architects?

I'll have to be honest about this: I feel just the opposite. Back in the '60s, we said don't trust anybody over 30. Now I say don't trust anyone under 50. If you take a look at the primo architects of the Renaissance, and the ones practicing today, you'll see that they're all over 45 and older when they do their major buildings. Frank Gehry is over 70. It takes years to accumulate the necessary abilities to produce a piece of architecture. You can do small work at a young age, but the technical aspects, the business aspects, the aesthetic aspects -- all of this you're juggling throughout your career, and trying to improve and mature. I tell my students: You may be able to start practicing two or three years after you graduate, but you're not really going to be an architect until you're 45. It's just the nature of the beast. That's probably true in medicine, law and all the professions -- except the oldest one, of course. You've got to invest in the long haul.

Meanwhile, if the Mockbee film doesn't interest you, there are two more events coming up worth noting:

Tonight (October 28) there is a panel discussion  at Froelick Gallery at 7:15pm hosted by OFFICE, the creative office products store formerly located on Alberta Street and now doing a series of special appearances. The talk includes Greg Stobbs, retail director for Nike; Doug Cooke, co-founder of Tinder Design Research; and Greg Mitchell, a project manager at LRS Architects. Froelick Gallery is located at 714 NW Davis and admission is free, as are the cocktails provided by New Deal Vodka.

Next Wednesday (November 4) at 6PM, Rejuvenation (1100 SE Grand Avenue) is hosting a conversation with legendary local midcentury modern home builder Robert Rummer.

The evening is a benefit for Street Of Eames (or more specifically the homeless youth programs the Eames tour benefits) and admission is a $20 suggested donation. You must RSVP by November 1

Builder of 1960s-'70s residences in neighborhoods mostly west of downtown, Rummer's homes have acquired iconic status for their focus on bringing the outdoors inside as well as their dramatic yet elegant mixture of high ceilings, warm wood paneling, and full-length glass walls.

Rummer homes were also directly inspired by the better known Eichler homes of Southern California.

Rummer will be interviewed by Becca Cavell of THA Architecture and will show slides from his personal collection. RSVP is required - you can sign up here.

Reinventing workforce housing

Last week, after Works Partnership’s design for a new workforce housing project won an AIA Design Award (in the Unbuilt category), I sat down with firm principals Bill Neburka and Carrie Schilling and the project’s developers, Randy Rapaport and Steve Van Eck, to talk about the project.

The building, which is officially still unnamed but may (if Rapaport has his way) be called the Mark Rothko Apartments (after the legendary painter who grew up here), has a dynamic program. Situated at Northeast 2nd and Multnomah, between the Rose Quarter and Martin Luther King Boulevard, it’s actually designed like two buildings, with one half cantilevered over the other. In between, on what is called the transfer floor, is a greenspace and community room. 

“It’s interesting as a conceptual idea, a new direction for urban housing,” Neburka says.

“Three nuts got cracked, I think,” Schilling adds. “It’s the idea of doing a core study to find the most efficient plan possible on a quarter block site. Portland has a lot of quarter blocks. Then there is the mandate of [last year’s city-sponsored] courtyard housing competition to draw families back to the urban core. But courtyard housing is actually a fairly low-density solution. We wanted to take that mandate and apply it to higher density development. Then it was the idea of creating two project mixes versus saying we’re going to do one thing. It allows two objectives to be met on the same site.”

The reason for having the equivalent of two different buildings in one was efficiency: It’s a kind of puzzle being able to build affordable housing units cheaply enough to meet budget strictures. Also, the architects and developer were trying to work creatively within a system where affordable housing subsidies are given out in a per-door basis. The two portions of the building allow a layout of the units that better maximizes space and, therefore, allows more of them to fit into the 10,000 square foot floorplate. The plan also seeks to mandate floor area ratio in order to maximize density.

“We didn’t want to say, ‘This is the way everybody does affordable housing.’ You put in the same elevator core and dumb down the finishes with cheap windows,” Neburka explains. “We thought there’s got to be an intrinsic way to get a more efficient solution. We had all these different configurations and took the one most efficient for big units and the most efficient for small units. It’s not re-inventing the wheel. All of the tools I’ve think we’ve all applied are all out there. Nobody looks at what resources are available. Transfer floors have been done all over the world. Then once you have that transfer floor, why not make it an open space?”

“Think of it as the lower neighborhood and the upper neighborhood divided by a park,” Rapaport adds.

Besides the striking form of two differently sized rectangular shapes stacked one onto the other, the design is notable for its façade, a series of concrete panels that resemble mid-century modern Brutalist design but divert from that rigid geometry as the panels gently bend and curve like reeds. This is not just an aesthetic move, but one rooted in the building’s program.

“The typical problem is you’ve got a big box of repetitive windows. In ours, it’s not an office building. It’s a living space,” Neburka explains. “You’ve got regular spaces, quiet spaces, active spaces. Let’s just allow that grid to inflect a little to replicate what’s going on inside. You’ve got bigger windows where there are more public spaces. It’s an idea of where the building quiets down and where it activates.”

The reed-like pattern of the concrete panels also helps activate the building’s façade, acting as a connecting thread between the top and bottom portions to create the visual sense of stretching, almost like a piece of chewing gum or toffee being pulled. “We thought, ‘Why don’t you take this traditional building and pull it apart?’” Neburka says. “What are the qualities that can be gained from that?”

If built, the project is poised to earn participation (and funds) from both Metro and the Portland Development Commission. Their interest comes from the fact that this is a high-density affordable and/or workforce housing development that’s family friendly with lots of three-bedroom units and ideally situated for accessing mass transit (there are 39 transit connections within 1,500 feet). In fact, the building team actually discovered that the site is a PDC-owned vacant lot and approached the agency with a plan to develop it.

Besides this meeting city-desired high-density and affordable housing goals, or bringing desperately needed housing to the Rose Quarter and Lloyd District, the building would also mark a new beginning for the city when it comes to sponsoring high-quality architecture by talented local firms. Too often in the past the Portland Development Commission has produced buildings of disappointing design quality, the result of a process favoring public process for its own sake over one geared to generate design excellence. I mean, have you seen the PDC developed project at Martin Luther King and Fremont, for example? It looks like a fusion of a lighthouse and a prison.

The Mark Rothko Apartments, on the other hand, would be a superlative project for both public and private leaders to get behind.

Chinese architect Yung Ho Chang visits PAM, The Back Room

When I first visited the exceptional China Design Now exhibit that opened this month at the Portland Art Museum, it caused a small epiphany: that for all the nation's hugeness both in terms of population and cultural influence, I could not name a single contemporary Chinese architect of huge international renown - not a single "starchitect".

China's neighbor and rival, Japan, has had a host of them: Tadao Ando, Arata Isozaki, Yoshio Taniguchi. The only exception I could think of with China is I.M. Pei, but he was educated and has lived in the United States since the 1930s.

In the China Design Now exhibit, there is an architectural focus that includes buildings like the National Stadium (a.k.a. "The Bird's Nest") and the CCTV tower. But those buildings were both designed by Europeans: Herzog & DeMeuron and Rem Koolhaas, respectively.

But the answer to this question about renowned modern Chinese architects or starchitects may best be focused on Yung Ho Chang. Who, like Pei, seems to favor circular eyeglass frames.

With design offices in Beijing and a position as head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Department of Architecture (a position the great Portland architect Pietro Belluschi also once occupied), Yung is one of China's contemporary design giants. He designed the China Design Now exhibit when it originated at London's Victoria & Albert Museum, and recent projects include an ambitious urban plan for a "sustainable town" in the Jiading district of Shanghai and the ambitious Shanghai Pavilion at next year's 2010 World Expo (pictured below).

Born in Beijing, Yung studied environmental design and architecture at UC Berkeley and then returned to China to co-found the country’s first independent architecture firm in 1993: Atelier FCJZ (short for Feichang Jianzhu). The name translates to “unusual architecture”. AFCJZ has designed private homes, factories, museums and government buildings, as well as installations, experimental furniture and graphic design.

Yung & company's work is known for combining traditional Chinese forms and materials with contemporary global practice. Besides his current chair position of MIT's architecture department, from 2002-03, Yung held the Kenzo Tange Chair at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design.  He is also at work on a new MIT campus master plan.

Yung will be in Portland for two events this week.

On Thursday (October 29), the architect will speak at the Art Museum as part of China Design Now, for a discussion called "China Architecture Now" and focusing on how the rapid changes in contemporary China’s economy, mobility and consumerism are profoundly affecting architectural practice in the country. The lecture is from 7-8pm in the Fields Ballroom at the Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Avenue. (Tickets, available through the museum box office, are $5 for members and $12 for non-members, not including entry to the exhibition.) 

Friday (October 30) finds Yung at a cozier gathering: The Back Room, the ongoing dinner-and-discussion series overseen by writer/editor Matthew Stadler. The architect will be interviewed by Randy Gragg, editor of Portland Spaces and Portland Monthly (and previously, of course, The Oregonian's architecture critic). The Back Room evening will be held at Saucebox, which is perhaps appropriate given that the downtown Asian-fusion restaurant was designed by Brad Cloepfil. There will also be dinner and drinks by Gregory Gourdet and live music by Lisa Schoenberg (of Explode Into Colors) and Jonathan Sielaff. Seats are $65 each with dinner, drinks and everything included. The evening begins at 6:30pm. You can reserve a seat here. For more information email Matthew Stadler at [email protected].

Street of Eames home tour branches out to offices

The American Institute of Architects' annual Design Awards Gala has come and gone, and in years past that has meant the end of Architecture Week festivities. But this year, its successor, the Portland Architecture & Design Festival, continues through the rest of October with more events.

On Thursday, October 29, AIA is joining forces with the popular Street of Eames home tour to present "Street of Eames Goes to Work", a tour of the city's most innovative new offices spaces.

Featured offices in this self-guided tour (said to include beer and wine at many stops) include:

• The design company Ziba's stunning new headquarters in the Pearl District (pictured at top), designed by Holst Architecture. After more than a decade of condo building, this office may be the most exceptional work of architecture in the entire Pearl. It's already been covered extensively in The Oregonian and Fast Company magazine, and I've got a short feature about the project in next month's Metropolis magazine.

• Offices for the branding/advertising agency North;

• The offices of architecture firm Vallaster Corl, which has designed some very nice mixed-use residential buildings over the last several years, such as The Jefferson in Goose Hollow and another on Hawthorne Boulevard,

• BOORA Architects' offices (pictured above) in the historic A.E. Doyle-designed Morgan Building downtown, which were renovated last year into a LEED Platinum rated space;

• bSIDE6, the building - also on lower East Burnside - that just won the top Honor Award at last Saturday's Design Awards Gala. On view will be the new offices of Works Partnership, the firm behind the building's design;

• Holst Architecture's own offices just off East Burnside. When Holst moved into this nondescript single-story building several years ago, the area was a quiet, mostly industrial zone. But in the ensuing years, Lower Burnside has exploded with energy, restaurants and shops. Meanwhile, Holst's office is a nice little oasis made nicer by a series of crisscrossing wood panels;

• ZGF Architects, which just moved into a stunning multifloor space in 12W, the new mixed-use tower beside Jake's Crawfish. Have you seen the wind turbines atop this space? Wait until you see the two-story entry (pictured above), where the stairways seem to almost float in air;

• Mercy Corps, the landmark new headquarters for the agency that assists in disaster areas and emergency zones all over the world. The headquarters was designed by THA Architecture, headed by the venerable Thomas Hacker - Portland's connecting thread to the legendary Louis Kahn and a local legend for the array of libraries, campus buildings and now condo/apartment towers blanketing the city;

• and the AIA's own Center for Architecture (pictured above) in the Pearl District, another LEED Platinum rated work overseen by Holst Architecture and a team of volunteers.

Tickets to Street of Eames Goes to Work are $30, with proceeds split among after-school homeless youth programs at Chapman Elementary (the annual Eames cause) and the Center for Architecture. You can order tickets online here or visit the Street of Eames website for more information.

Irvington for Africa: Visiting the Tanzamook Townhomes

You've got to love a project willing to call itself Tanzamook. What kind of name is that? It sounds like some sort of antiquated term of insult, like, "If I had a half-penny for every time that tanzamook tried to snatch my tam-o-shanter, I could buy myself a malt at the drugstore."

As it happens, there's a good reason for the name. It's a hybrid between Tillamook, the northeast Portland street in Irvington where this new development was built, and Tanzania, the area that will directly benefit from people buying these units.

For each unit sold in the Tanzamook Townhomes, the idea is to raise enough funds to build one dormitory room for the Ruaha Secondary School in Iringa, Tanzania. Design Department, the Portland firm headed by architect Ben Hufford that designed the Tanzamook, has also drawn up a master plan for the school. A nonprofit organization is administering funds from the Tanzamook's sales to build a dormitory.

 

As we all know given the Great Recession and how it's been fueled by a collapsed housing market, this is not a good time for a developer or architect to be introducing ten new for-sale residences. But the Tanzamook may also represent the kind of development that could make a fair go of it. If you were shopping for a condo or town house, chances are that square footage, location and other practical factors would be the guiding force for what place to purchase. But if you were deciding between the Tanzamook and a roughly equal architectural option, wouldn't the chance to do something extra helpful with your money seem attractive?

Naturally some might also suggest that if they weren't using funds to build a school in Tanzania, the designers/developers could reduce the price of their units. But if the bottom line is all that you care about, maybe you're not the right candidate for the Tanzamook anyway.

 

The design itself endeavors to fit a 10-townhouse complex into the existing neighborhood without seeming out of scale compared to adjacent single-family homes or without adding a lot of private-driveway curb cuts to the neighborhood (which amounts to bad urban design). There are five townhouses on each side, with the middle portion of the development holding a series of garages that double as an open space.

In this way, the Tanzamook's basic form resembles one of my very favorite architectural projects from the last decade, Rick Potestio's Lair Condominiums. The detailing and materials for the Tanzamook aren't quite at that level, for it's a more affordable price point the building targets, and a smaller budget. Even so, I found the Tanzamook compelling and, perhaps more importantly, a well designed place to live.

Although the project has not pursued LEED certification from the US Green Building Council, the Tanzamook has numerous sustainable design and material characteristics, enough to easily earn an Earth Advantage designation. In fact, using that entity's scorecard, a project must earn 200 points cumulatively in a variety of categories (having to do with air quality, energy efficiency, lighting, transit access, and materials) to become Earth Advantage-certified, but the Tanzamook actually earned a whopping 482 points. What's more, these units exceed Oregon energy code stipulations by 15 percent.

 

By virtue of its location at NE 11th and Tillamook, the project also earns a very high "Walk Score" (the ease with which someone can walk to various amenities) of 89 out of a possible 100, putting it in the top 14th percentile of walkable Portland residential addresses. This, of course, makes living in the Tanzamook more sustainable as well.

Design Department was founded in 2008 by Eric Black and Ben Hufford. Hufford came from the architecture firm Yost Grube Hall, which has long been active in Africa and helped the architect make the Tanzania connection. Hufford and Black also believe that design can encompass all kinds of projects, from master plans and buildings to graphic design and even hot-rod building, the latter of which is a passion of Black's. Hufford (pictured below) is also a talented painter.

The Tanzamook, while still under construction, was part of the 11 x Design tour earlier this spring, which was meant to represent a group of architecture firms in Portland that are developing their own projects. So even though Design Department is a little unlucky about the economic timing of their project opening, they are smart to take their firm's future into their own hands by not just pursuing design jobs, but building opportunities.

bSIDE6, Shattuck Hall lead AIA design award winners

The renovation of Shattuck Hall at Portland State University by SRG Partnership and the bSIDE6 mixed-use building by Works Partnership Architecture (pictured at left in a shot by Stephen Miller) walked away with the two Honor Awards (the highest prize given out) at last Saturday's Design Awards Gala honoring the best architectural design of the year.

It's not a surprise that bSIDE6 won. Although it's only the first built project by Works Partnership to be new from the ground up (versus a renovation), the firm has established an incredible track record when it comes to these AIA/Portland design awards, having won an award for 11 of the 12 projects they have submitted in the last five years. (The project team for bSIDE6 was Bill Neburka, Carrie Schilling and Jennifer Dzienis.)

What's more, bSIDE6 is a bold-looking, unabashedly modern building that harkens to the East Burnside vernacular of building arcades that shelter the sidewalks outside while pushing the envelope of how sculptural and three-dimensional a building facade can be.

As Amara Holstein wrote of bSIDE6 in Portland Monthly, the building's "seven stories of work studios and retail space that seem to float above the street in a Tetris-like façade....With ribbons of dark-gray metal playing hide-and-seek with sleek glass, the structure mixes sexy and stern like no other building in the city. Yet Works Partnership’s bold, column-free reinterpretation of the lower East Burnside tradition of covered sidewalks nestles the building like a puzzle piece into the street’s ramshackle collection of bars, vintage retailers, and coffee shops as seamlessly as the new Ziba headquarters does in the far tonier Pearl."

Shattuck (pictured above) is now home to PSU's architecture department, and with SRG's help the circa-1915 red brick former elementary school was transformed into a more dynamic interior environment with an open plan, naturally-lit studios, a rooftop gallery, and an extensive materials lab encompassing model-making, woodworking, metalworking, and casting shop. In addition to the Honor Award, Shattuck's redesign also won the Sustainability Award, which is no small achievement in a city whose architecture community is all about sustainability.

That Shattuck Hall won the top Honor Award was a little surprising, at least to me, but there's no doubt the design work, by a project team that included principal Kent Duffy as well as Skip Stanaway, Louise Foster, Jon Mehlschau, Eric Wilson, Nita Posada, Emily Dawson and Kendall Harris, was first rate.

Besides the two Honor Awards, seven projects received the second-tier Merit Award:

• The Park Box in Portland (pictured at right), a duplex home by PATH Architecture (this project also won the night's only Craftsmanship Award). I previously wrote about the Park Box for Dwell magazine when it was part of the 11xDesign Tour last spring, although at the time it was under construction. Designer Corey Martin of PATH and his family are the residents.

• The Cyan Building, also in Portland, in a joint venture by THA Architecture and GBD Architects. This is a condo project meant to appeal to a more modest income level than the higher-end condos Gerding Edlen (the developer for Cyan) has built in the past. I visited and wrote a blog post about the Cyan a few months ago. Besides its strong sustainability quotient, I was also a fan of the project's undulating facade.

• The Portland Mall Revitalization by ZGF Architects (also pictured at right). Most of us are still getting our feet wet experiencing the new MAX light rail line traversing Fifth and Sixth Avenues downtown, but the jury, headed by acclaimed Phoenix architect Will Bruder (now a visiting professor at Portland State), was very fond of how the new rail extension and its stops interact with the array of buses, cars and pedestrian all around. Besides Bruder, of Will Bruder + Partners in Phoenix, the jury included Mark Cavagnero of Mark Cavagnero Associates in San Francisco and Brigitte Shim of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects in Toronto.)

• The Reserve in Portland by Hennebery Eddy Architects (pictured at right). No, it's not the local golf course of the same name. The Reserve is a renovation of the striking trapezoid-shaped Federal Reserve bank just south of Burnside in downtown Portland, designed by legendary Portland architect Pietro Belluschi and completed in 1949. It's great to see an under-appreciated Belluschi work be given new life. And in going from a security-conscious bank to a mixed use program, the project has brought in lots more natural light.

• The Academic Instructional Center in Bellingham, Washington in a joint venture between Opsis Architecture (the design architect) and NAC Architecture of Seattle. 

• Thurston Elementary School in Springfield, Oregon by Mahlum Architects. Incidentally, the jury for this year's awards did not supply AIA with comments about the awards (tisk tisk, gang), but when this same project was honored by the Southwest Oregon AIA chapter, the jury noted how Thurston's design was "distilled, simple, not overly structured" and "a wonderful plan that keys outdoor spaces with indoor ones." Mahlum has made its name largely with a host of similarly sustainable K-12 schools and college buildings; they've got this down.

• The Tempe Transportation Center in Tempe, Arizona, in a joint venture by Otak and Architekton. This a mixed-use transit center designed to accommodate the region’s increased business needs while integrating with its new multimodal transportation opportunities. The project is expected to earn LEED-Platinum certification.

Citation Awards, the next-tier prize, went to two projects:

• The Nines hotel by SERA Architects, a renovation of the historic Meier & Frank building along the north edge of Pioneer Courthouse Square that was originally designed by the great Portland architect A.E. Doyle.

• Shaver Green by DECA Architecture. DECA also won a design award last year, and it wasn't their first.

There were also both Merit and Citation awards given out to four unbuilt projects:

• A Merit for the TriMet South Terminus by Hennebery Eddy Architects

• A Merit for the Muslim Community Center of Portland, by Architecture Office. I met with Garrett Martin and the rest of this firm a few weeks ago to learn about this project (a separate post is forthcoming soon) and was hugely impressed.

• A Citation for an as-yet unnamed workforce housing project designed by Works Partnership and co-developed by Randy Rapaport, the latter of whom previously worked with Holst Architecture to build the award winning Belmont Street Lofts and Clinton Condominiums. Like the Muslim center, I recently met with the architects to learn more about this project and plan to blog about it soon. This isn't just an impressive design, but outright reinvents affordable housing in Portland and the United States both from a design standpoint as well as an economic one.

• A Citation for TandemDUO, a duplex house by Works Partnership

The People's Choice Award went to the Paradise Visitors Center within Mount Rainier National Park, designed by Fletcher Farr Ayotte.

And the Mayor's Award for Design Excellence, given out since the late 1990s when it was initiated by Mayor Vera Katz as part of her Mayor's Design Initiative (something I'd like to see rekindled), went to the Williams Five Condos by PATH Architecture. I wrote about the Williams Five in a blog post a few months ago. It's an excellent work of infill multifamily housing, one that PATH also co-developed.

So if you're playing along at home, that makes it three total awards this year for Works Partnership, including an Honor Award. Works also won two awards at last year's AIA ceremony. Also picking up three was PATH Architecture, although two awards were for the same project. Not far behind is Hennebery Eddy with two awards.

One other award to announce: Remember the Root Awards that Portland Spaces magazine gave out last November? Well, those aren't happening this year. But Spaces and Portland Monthly editor Randy Gragg did give out at the AIA ceremony on Saturday the same lifetime achievement award that came out of the Root Awards last year. It went to Saul Zaik, one of the city's last great remaining midcentury-modern architects. Some of Zaik's houses, as you can see from a story I wrote earlier this year about the architect for Portland Modern, are sublime. Kudos to Randy and the magazine for recognizing him.

AIA awards jury critique tonight

Apologies for the short notice (although I also mentioned the event in a previous post), but tonight at the Center for Architecture is the annual Jury Critique event featuring the three-member jury for this year's AIA Design Awards jury.  There will be a 5:30 pm reception, followed by a brief presentation of each juror's body of work and then their critique of the projects submitted to this year's design awards program.

The 2009 Design Awards Jury consists of Will Bruder, of Will Bruder + Partners LTD in Phoenix; Mark Cavagnero, of Mark Cavagnero Associates in San Francisco, and Brigitte Shim of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects in Toronto. The Oakland Museum of California, pictured above, was designed by Cavagnero's firm.

The reception begins 5:30pm (including a no-host bar) and the presentations begin at 6:15pm. Cost is $5, or free for students with valid school ID (no tricks you sneaky kids).

Slam dunk: Trail Blazers return to Memorial Coliseum

Last night was a major treat: seeing my/our beloved Portland Trail Blazers return for a game at the arena where they began, the building where the team won the 1977 NBA championship as well as Western Conference titles in 1990 and 1992.

Even if Memorial Coliseum was a piece of junk, a work of architecture without distinction, it would have been fun to see the Blazers play in their old house. But as it happens, the building was a star of the show.

I loved thinking of Blazer fans who are regulars at the Rose Garden now, but were also frequently at Blazer games in the Coliseum before that, coming to the MC now and seeing the differences between the two buildings - not so much the missing video screens or electronic stat boards, but the greater intimacy at the Coliseum, more closeness to the action. My seat for last night's game was only about six or seven rows from the top, but it felt about the same as a seat only halfway up in the Rose Garden.

The team made the slam-dunk decision to leave open the curtain that usually blocks off views from the inside seating bowl through the glass box. I attended countless Blazer games in the 1980s at the MC, but I never have attended an actual NBA game there with the curtain open.

So as the likes of Greg Oden, Brandon Roy and Phoenix's Steve Nash competed on the court, fans were treated not only to the game but a view of Portland at dusk. My seats had their back to the downtown side, so I didn't have as good a view as people on the other side of the court. But I could still see through the glass the glowing twin spires of the Oregon Convention Center. And those sitting across the court were able to look out at the downtown skyline.

Maybe it was just my over-excited imagination, but I could almost swear that the Coliseum was louder than the Rose Garden. Granted the RG can hold 19,000 and the last night's sold out game had 11,700. But perhaps the greater intimacy of the arena meant that the acoustic levels went up. That and the fact that this was an incredibly raucous crowd for a preseason game.

Obviously sitting in the Coliseum watching the game, it was impossible not to think of the recent past with a battle to save the building, or to think of the future and wonder what this building will be renovated into. Although the mayor's Rose Quarter advisory committee is still open to any number of options, I'm very glad to see that the Trail Blazers franchise has moved away from the idea of removing the seating bowl or even a large chunk of it, and if the team retains control of the MC the seating bowl will likely remain intact. If the bowl does get altered, it now seems more likely that the team would merely remove some of the top of the bowl, which personally I see as a much better alternative to removing one side of it.

The Blazers lost the game to the Suns (which is OK because it's preseason), who coincidentally were the Blazers' final opponent in this building before moving to the Rose Garden in the 1990s. Also coincidental is the fact that Phoenix also once had an arena called Veterans Memorial Coliseum, where the Suns played. But Phoenix, a very different city from Portland, did not see fit to retain their old arena. Maybe that's okay, though. After all, their building may have a similar name, but Phoenix never had a glass palace.

Reader emails: Ethics in layoffs, timeless architecture

Recently I received emails from two Portland Architecture readers with ideas that I'd like to pass on.

The first comes from a former Portland-based architect now working in Seattle. Traci asks: What are the ethics of laying off employees? Whom should be the first person an architecture firm lays off, and whom should be the last?

Traci suggests the pecking order for layoffs should be as follows: (1) Last hired, first out. Those with least seniority have less claim to their jobs. (2) Those with low productivity or poor workmanship. Some people are just better at their jobs than others. (3) Those that didn't seem to click with the overall company vibe.

Her real beef, though, comes from the sense that people with small children are over-represented in terms of those who have been laid off. "ALL the architecture workers that were laid off had small children," Traci writes of the medium-sized Portland firm she worked at. "As one of the laid off workers with a small child, I know that this is an unfair guideline to judge my value as an employee.  Yes, I have to leave at 5pm to pick my child up from daycare...so my 'face value' is not present often when the principal scans the room at 7pm to see who is still there. Instead, I work remotely from home in the evening.  He doesn't see this or know about it, so in his mind I'm a slacker."

"If I was a client looking for an architecture firm and I knew there were firms out there that actually added compassion and integrity to this difficult process," she writes, "that would definitely be an element to my decision on who to hire."

Another reader, Laurence, was inspired by a conversation that resulted in the comments section of a previous post I made about Holst Architecture's design for a new Homeless Access Resource Center. I'd called the simple design "timeless" but others argued that it was just modernism by rote, and not necessarily indicating any sense of timelessness.

"At first I thought perhaps the term 'timeless' was really not very definable and defensible," Laurence wrote in an email to me. "Then I came to me senses. Of course their is a valid notion of timelessness in art and architecture. Opinions and interpretations on the subject of timelessness will vary. But, timeless objects are those things that successive generations use, reuse, refine, revive and hold onto. They might be common place everyday objects, or they might be revered icons held in high esteem.

"Timeless objects may fluctuate in their usefulness between consecutive generations," he added, "but they eventually come back into use, or sometimes continue to be used by a smaller percentage of people. The wheel is timeless. The gable roof is timeless. The chair is timeless. The post and lintel is timeless. Everything in nature is timeless. Vernacular buildings are timeless. Simple, economical, building typologies that respond to their climate, and can be made relatively easily by common people with common materials are timeless."

He goes on: "Architectural styles are more subjective in determining whether they are timeless. Timeless architectural styles are those that tend to be referred to and revived through generations. We have seen attempts at inventing new architectural styles or compositions, that fail to continue into the next generation, usually because they are not commonly valued, not responsive to climatic, cultural, or personal needs. And at times, new expressions are embraced and referenced in subsequent generations. And then there are instances in which certain architectural expressions are continued through time by "artificial forces", such as corporations. The McDonald's arches are not timeless, even though they have been repeated as a corporate symbol for half a century."

"I much agree that Grave's Portland Building is not timeless, nor much of the 1970's postmodernism of Graves, Stern, or Moore, although their work and writings were pedagogical in permitting an alternative to the orthodoxy of Modernism, and a revival of various vernacular and Classical traditions. I do believe Classicism is timeless on the whole judging by it tenacity throughout the millennium at being revived again and again. Some strains of the Classical traditions may not be so timeless, such as Baroque, and once again 1970's PM. The Miesian glass and metal pavilion can have a timeless quality. Certain modern expressions can have a Timeless quality in their simplicity and purity of function and form. I think Wright's Guggenheim is timeless, although it is a one of a kind icon. The post, beam and pediment is timeless. The vault, dome and arch are timeless."

"I don't think Gehry, Zaha Hadid, or anything of the Decon era will become timeless, but who knows? Perhaps certain building forms, structural types, parti types, or simple compositions are timeless. Typologies such as the side-yard house, the row house, the courtyard house, the shotgun house, the dogtrot house, the storefront building, the arcaded building front, the loggia, etc. are timeless. Steven Holl many years ago produced a pamphlet book of basic America house typologies, of which several of these were included. The very idea that there is no such thing as timeless objects is simply unrealistic. The Zeitgeist is one of the unfortunate teachings of the early to mid-century Modernists who preached the rejection of history and the reverence of the now and the self. We would be foolish to forget the past as we invent the present and the future. There are too many great lessons to learn from our parents. After all, where would we be without the wheel?"

The trouble with convention centers

Yesterday I went to the Oregon Convention Center for the Wordstock festival to hear an old friend from my 1990s Willamette Week days, Dale Basye, read from his new kids book, Rapacia: Second Circle of Heck. After that, I happened upon another colleague, Oregonian film critic Shawn Levy, talking about his Paul Newman biography. It was a great way to spend a Portland autumn afternoon, except for one thing: I couldn't wait to get out of the building.

This is not a blog post about how the Oregon Convention Center's design (courtesy of ZGF Architecture) is vastly inferior to convention centers in other cities. It's fairly handsome on the outside, particularly its curving portion of the southeast facade and its wall of glass along Martin Luther King Boulevard. I also like how its twin spires on the top of the building frame views of Mt. Saint Helens. And the building was LEED-rated upon its expansion a few years ago.

"The Oregon Convention Center (OCC) is the largest convention center in the Pacific Northwest, making it an ideal venue for conventions, industry trade shows, meetings, and banquets," its website crows. "The center's two grand ballrooms, 50 meeting rooms, 255,000 square feet of exhibit space, full-service catering, and experienced staff can handle events of any size, from 10 to 10,000."

Compared to the other convention centers I've been to in other cities like Chicago, Austin and New York, ours is about the same in terms of the experience. In each case, the public areas are pleasant enough, with massive walls of glass bringing in a bounty of natural light, usually to a voluminous two-story space.

But then when it's time to  venture in to the actual belly of these convention centers, one must abandon all natural light in favor of a windowless room with oppressive fluorescent illumination and antiseptic, lowest-common-denominator interiors: usually temporary carpets over concrete floors.

Convention centers can be a big economic draw for most cities, bringing in a succession of out-of-town groups to meet: Shriners, teachers unions, collectors, you name it. I mean, why would I have gone to Texas if not for the green building conference there a few years ago? The thousands of people coming from out of town to the OCC contribute to our local economy, staying in our hotels and eating in our restaurants. And in terms of design, it's clear that these buildings need to be able to offer a very flexible series of spaces to cater to a variety of needs.

That's especially true of the massive-volumed exhibit hall spaces in every convention center, such as the one I visited on Sunday. They are big enough to hold the exhibitors that often bankroll these conventions. In the case of Wordstock, the stages where authors read were wrapped around the exhibitors, and that was no coincidence.

Still, as I sat in the massive Exhibit Hall A hearing my friends read from their books, all I could think about was wanting to be away from the terrible lighting, the concrete block, the carpets that grandma seemingly picked out, and the high priced and bad tasting concessions. That's not even mentioning the miles one walks in the Oregon Convention Center, constantly up and down stairways and escalators or down quarter-mile hallways, to get to anything.

I tried to think where Wordstock could be held next year and came up with only mixed results. In terms of the readings, any number of downtown spaces could accommodate. If Wordstock were in the Pearl District, for example, events could be held at the Gerding Theater for the big authors, as well as the Wieden + Kennedy and Ziba auditoriums and Powell's Books. If it were downtown, you could anchor things at the Portland Center for Performing Arts with additional readings at the Portland Art Museum's Mark Building auditorium. But in each case, where would you put the exhibitors? This is probably why Wordstock has stayed at the Convention Center despite the oppressive ambiance it offers.

The Oregon Convention Center just went through an expansion a few years ago, and for all intents and purposes it functions well already. And given its configuration, I'm not sure there would be any way to change things in order to bring natural light into the exhibit spaces. What's more, they probably wouldn't even want to do so. Natural light is much harder to control, and these spaces are all about providing flexible interior environments that get changed out on practically a daily basis.

Even so, if Portland wants to brand itself as a sustainability capital, what if we were to re-invent the way convention centers are designed to make them more open to the outside world?

I don't know what the attendance figures were for Wordstock. Most of the two hours I was there, the authors enjoyed fairly sizable crowds for their readings. Even so, attendance had to be affected by the fact that people feel outright robbed of a beautiful fall day when they're in this building. Coming out onto MLK Boulevard at 5:00, even though I'd seen two friends and colleagues read from works I liked very much, I felt physically affected by being inside the OCC, a kind of temporary sick-building syndrome that I had to shake off.

Over the last decade or two there has been a plethora of research demonstrating that human physiology is adversely affected by spaces without natural light. Employees in basement offices take longer breaks than their coworkers with cubicles near windows. The Portland Building, famous for its lack of natural light thanks to tiny windows, comes with increased rates of sick leave for employees working there versus other City office spaces. Studies have shown schoolchildren get higher average test scores in windowed classrooms, and in retail cash registers beneath skylights rack up more sales than other cash registers a few feet away. Why does all this knowledge have to be ignored just because it's an extra big space where people sometimes show slides?

Working with an architect 101 from David Giulietti [updated]

This Saturday as part of the Portland Architecture & Design Festival 2009, award-winning architect David Giulietti of local firm Giulietti/Schouten will be conducting a class at the Center For Architecture  (403 NW 11th Avenue) called "How (and Why) to Hire and Work with an Architect". The class, which goes from 10:00am - noon, will outline practical aspects of working with an architect, including contractual responsibilities, legal issues, and fee obligations.

Giulietti is a longtime fixture in local design, and I first met him more than a decade ago when he was just coming off a term as president of the AIA/Portland chapter. He's an amiable, veteran architect, and I've enjoyed teasingly arguing Yankees-Mets with him over the years. I've also lost track of how many of the houses his firm designed have wound up on the cover of Oregon Home magazine over the years.

Most of Giulietti/Schouten's projects are in the Portland area but there are also gems dotted throughout Oregon such as the Walnut House outside McMinnville, pictured above, or the Bozich House, pictured at right. Giulietti/Schouten is primarily known for single-family homes, but also has experience in mixed use and commercial work as well. Ultimately, though, David Giulietti is ideal for speaking about the architect-client relationship as it exists on its most basic level, between a homeowner and the architect.

Tickets to "How (and Why) to Hire and Work With an Architect"are $15 $25 or a pair for $25 $35 (available through the Center for Architecture), and admission also includes a free pass for the discussion that immediately follows, called "Ask an Architect". I'd have liked to see this admission be free, but if I were looking to build a house in the next few years, the $15 would be money very well spent.

[UPDATE: Amy from the AIA ([email protected]) says, "We will not turn anyone away based on their ability to pay. Feel free to contact us if you would like to attend."]

The latter talk, "Ask An Architect," will  allow audience members to meet one-on-one with local architects to answer questions and give advice on design, energy-efficiency, remodeling, and general architecture-related topics for home projects.

Down by the water: visiting Fort Vancouver, the Confluence Project, and the Columbia riverfront

Although I was born and raised in Oregon and have spent all but about six years of my life here, I can't think of a single past instance when I've visited the banks of the Columbia River on the Vancouver side. Before last Sunday, that is, when I went there as part of an excursion to see the Vancouver Land Bridge that's part of the seven-project Confluence Project overseen by legendary designer Maya Lin of Vietnam Memorial fame.

It turns out that Vancouver has a lovely little strip of pebbled beach there, as well as lovely if frustratingly short tree-lined walking path that extends east from the Interstate 5 bridge. I've been missing a nice place all these years, although I think the built landscape and infrastructure here has something to do with it.

To access the riverfront, I started at Fort Vancouver, walking past an assortment of military barracks and other offices (such as those of Congressman Brian Baird). Some of the buildings date to the early 20th century or earlier.

Without having brought a guidebook, I'd have had difficulty finding which way it was to the Vancouver Land Bridge over State Route 14. Eventually I moved down a curving pathway, past barbed wire-enclosed fencing and a couple of windowless storage structures, passing the log-festooned historic Fort Vancouver structure, and twisting again past a vacant un-landscaped grassy field to the land bridge. It could be a pretty route to the bridge, but it's not at all.

Although the rest of the Confluence project is Lin's, the Vancouver Land Bridge was designed by Seattle architect Johnpaul Jones. On the project's website a quote from Jones reads, "The land bridge is a real link connecting back to the Klickitat Trail, Lewis and Clark, and the development of the Northwest. It completes a circle that's been broken."

The 40-foot-wide pedestrian bridge is lined with indigenous plants and Native basket weavings. There is also to be what's called a 'treaty table' designed by Maya Lin, although I did not see it there yet.

The Confluence Project website also explains:

"European and Native American cultures once converged at this Columbia River site, where the Hudson’s Bay Company stood as the first European trading post in the Pacific Northwest. Lewis and Clark camped here, and Fort Vancouver was built here 20 years later. Today, the site features an earth-covered pedestrian bridge that arcs over State Route 14, reconnecting historic Fort Vancouver with the Columbia River, which helped extend the fort’s influence from Mexico to Alaska and across the Pacific Ocean."

Entering from the south, you can also access the land bridge by walking under the land bridge’s Welcome Gate, designed by Native American artist Lillian Pitt. Two cedar canoe panels, each adorned with a cast-glass sculpture of a Chinook woman’s face, evoke the site’s role as a historic tribal crossroads as well as a point of contact between European and Native people.

It's great that Vancouver has a pedestrian connection between the Fort and the riverfront again. That there is a freeway-like state highway running so close to the water, as well as a train track, makes it difficult for the city to establish a strong tie to the Columbia's edge. When I was on the Land Bridge, a stopped freight train was blocking the river view entirely. That shouldn't be. Vancouver could be so much more enticing and beautiful city if there were people and buildings and life along the water there like there is in downtown Portland along the Willamette (although if you look at our east bank, we still have a long way to go too with the I-5 freeway along the water).

This new pedestrian bridge, especially such an artful and historically-minded one, will be a step toward Vancouver becoming a much more appealing city. And it's worth taking some steps, because there is truly a lovely resource in the riverfront here (the decaying Cisco & Pancho's and Joe's Crab Shack by said banks notwithstanding).

Considering that Jones' Vancouver Land Bridge is the closest of the seven Confluence Project sites, I'd have liked to see either Lin, Jones or both of them be given a site along the river itself, with a pedestrian bridge over SR-14 being built in tandem with the Confluence effort. I mean, at the end of the day, Jones's bridge is a bridge, one that looks out at four lanes of asphalt and a series of freight trains. It's about as picturesque a setting as one of the I-405 bridge crossings downtown, where the smell of carbon monoxide competes for your attention with the Mt. Hood view.

(Incidentally, the couple in the above photo, who I photographed randomly, turned out to be the parents of architect Darin Dougherty, who's SIPs House I just wrote about last week.)

And while the overall Fort Vancouver site, including both the military barracks and the other facilities there, is undoubtedly overall a resource and a treasure for the city, walking around there I couldn't help but feel that this land so close to the river was being under-utilized.

Again, there's no doubt most of the historic buildings there need to be preserved, and no one is trying to kick out the military - they're part of the history of Fort Vancouver. One might even argue that the Army is being kind even allowing public access here without much restriction. 

Even so, when you get a taste of the good parts of there being a beautiful Columbia waterfront, and this thoughtful Confluence project being rooted there, as well as the character of the Fort and barracks buidings, it makes one wonder what it would be like if this were a denser, more pedestrian and public-oriented place along the Vancouver side of the Columbia banks, with housing and retail and parks part of the mix. If the city were to grow dense along the river, Vancouver could some day in a generation or two become a more equal urban sister to Portland.

There has been significant progress nearby this stretch of Vancouver riverfront. To the east there is Columbia Shores with a hotel, waterfront restaurants office buildings, condominiums and apartments. To the west there are 26 acres adjoining downtown from the former Boise Cascade site; this is planned to become a more dense urban waterfront. This adjoins to the regular part of downtown Vancouver where Esther Short Park and several new mixed use projects have given the area more vitality.

Of course when we're talking about Fort Vancouver on the other side of I-5 from downtown, the other major presence in these parts is the historic Pearson air field, from which an occasional small-engine Cessna plane was taking off on the Sunday when I visited. Portland has a functioning airport that includes service for smaller planes, and the proximity of Pearson is seriously compromising the design of the Columbia Crossing. I mean, it's downright absurd to me. But that's another conversation for another time. Right now, I'd be happy to see Vancouver continue moving towards a closer relationship with the riverfront. If nothing else, Johnpaul Jones' bridge is just that.

Allied Works wins design competition for National Music Center in Calgary

Since completing a succession of high profile cultural projects in the last few years, such as the Seattle Art Museum expansion and the Museum of Art & Design in New York, Allied Works has seemed to be looking for its next big project. Years have gone by between the aforementioned works and a choice new commission, and the collapsed economy made the wait longer. But now, Allied Works and its leader, architect Brad Cloepfil, have won a competition against some of the world's most acclaimed architects for the right to design and build a striking new building in Calgary for the Cantos Music Foundation.

Allied Works Architecture will design the new $100 million National Music Centre in Calgary. The new center will include a museum as well as education and outreach facilities and performance space.

Cloepfil's firm crafted a five-story building designed as a series of “resonant vessels” or instruments orchestrated by the collections and programs of the new building. The design takes inspiration from the Western landscape, in particular the canyons and mountains of Alberta. “The concept truly captured the heart and soul of this project”, said Andrew Mosker, executive director of the Cantos Music Foundation, in World Architecture News. “Brad and his team will give us an innovative building that fits with Calgary, Alberta, the West and is symbolic of something that is truly uniquely Canadian”.

As the World Architecture News piece noted, as well as a post by Jeff Jahn on PORT, the design seems influenced by the great Louis Kahn, particularly his masterful National Assembly buiding in Bangladesh (pictured below). If so, that shoes the lineage that goes from Kahn to Cloepfil by just one degree of separation. While studying at the University of Oregon, Cloepfil learned under then-professor Thomas Hacker, who had previously worked in Kahn's Philadelphia office. Cloepfil's first job in Portland was later at Hacker's eponymous firm.

Allied Works, which partnered with Calgary firm BKDI, was chosen over some very impressive competition, such as Diller Scofidio+Renfro of New York (the firm that just renovated Pietro Belluschi's Julliard School in NYC), and Pritzker Prize winning French architect Jean Nouvel.

Designing a grand music facility like this may also help position Allied Works for the inevitable day when the Oregon Symphony and other local arts organizations move toward building a new concert hall in Portland - something that has been talked about for nearly a decade.

Washington High School turns toward "gut and stuff". What about giving it to PICA?

The city Bureau of Parks and Recreation earlier this year convened a citizen advisory committee to determine the fate of Washington High School, the long-empty building that recently played host to the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art's popular Time-Based Art Festival and is set to become some kind of city community center. That committee is moving toward an option (one of three still on the table) that would completely remove everything within the school building but its exterior walls.

The Buckman neighborhood, where the Washington High School (also known in the past as Washington-Monroe) site is located, has a need for some kind of community center. Ultimately, that's what this property is scheduled to be. But on September 22 (as reported by Lee Perlman in the Southeast Examiner), a majority of the advisory committee voted for what has been nicknamed the "gut and stuff" option (officially "Option C"), by a 10-8 vote over Option A, which would have instead built a separate building for the community center and retained the school for another purpose.

According to Perlman's piece, "the old high school biulding, once proposed for housing, would be used for some other purpose or possibly torn down." The committee also eliminated a 3rd possibility, Option B, that would have been the purest preservation measure, putting the community center in half of a renovated school building. 

The Parks bureau is not counting the 10-8 vote as the final verdict because the committee pledged to decide major issues by consensus. So on October 15 at 7PM at Central Catholic High School (2401 SE Stark), the public is being invited to weight in before another vote is held.

If you want to save Washington High School from either demolition (which is a faint possibility under option A) or a renovation that compromises its historic character (by removing everything inside - a much greater possibility), please consider attending this meeting and weighing in. Unfortunately I can't go to the meeting, because it coincides with my mom's retirement party. But if not for supporting mom, I'd go to that meeting and urge the committee to preserve the interior.

And without trying to undermine the process as it's gone forward thus far, with a lot of work from both city staffers and volunteers on the committee, I'd hope some consideration for incorporating an arts organization like PICA with a permanent home in Washington High School, along with the community center that's planned, might still be possible if there was a will for it.

 

Meanwhile, anyone who attended last month's TBA Festival at Washington High was treated to a wonderfully imaginative re-imagination of the former school. In each classroom there was a different art exhibit, many of them very accessible too, such as a room filled with scores of electronic music boxes affixed to the walls. What's more, the center of the school is a double-height auditorium, where on my visit I could hear the rock band Quasi warming up for a show later that night.

Before the Portland Parks committee decides this building's fate, I think this has to be said: Washington High would make an ideal home for the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art. For many years, the Institute has been without a home to exhibit visual art or performing arts. Each year during TBA, PICA exhibits a huge amount of energy and fun and stimulation, only to disappear for most of the other 50 weeks of the year. They have swanky offices in the Wieden + Kennedy building thanks to the generosity of the advertising agency, but PICA would be better off in a home of their own with space for performance and exhibits.

PICA may not need to occupy the entirety of Washington High in the future, but why not make the Institute an anchor tenant in the building with a community center incorporated around them? There would be countless opportunities for PICA artists and staffers to interact with people visiting the community center. What better way, in this age of plummeting arts-education funding, to have the city's most important arts organization in the trenches working with kids and parents on art?

What's more, PICA understands - apparently better than Buckman's own residents on the Parks committee - that Washington High is a treasure precisely because the old school inside is mostly intact. A new building could never match the ambiance of experimental and performance art happening amidst the classroom chalk boards, hallway lockers and literally old-school feel of this wonderful old school.

The wheels are already in motion for Washington High to be leveled by those trying in vain to do the right thing. Lets not only stop the demolition, but move PICA there permanently. And this isn't just my pipe dream. I know PICA loved having TBA at Washington High. It made The Works a much greater portion of the overall festival. It made TBA performances and exhibits more centralized. It was an ideal marriage, it seemed.

It's great that Washington High could become a community center. But let's not take away the wonderful historic feel of the building, and let's add a tenant that clearly belongs there and would make a great addition to any public space we create there. 

Winning them over? Notes from the second Coliseum/Rose Quarter advisory committee meeting

On Tuesday of this week, Mayor Sam Adams convened the second meeting of the Rose Quarter Stakeholder Advisory Committee. After spending the first meeting getting to know each other, the committee this time sat down for what was called "Rose Quarter 101", a series of presentations on the history of the development.

First up was author Bob Dietsche, who wrote the book "Jumptown: The Golden Years of Portland Jazz, 1942-1957". Dietche talked about a parade of clubs that once were located up and down North Williams Avenue as well as the area near what is now the Rose Quarter: The Dude Ranch, Lil' Sandy's, McClendon's Rhythm Room, and The Chicken Coop. Portland's population increased significantly during the World War II years with blue-collar shipyard jobs available, particularly its African American population, and the array of clubs and performers catered to those seeking fanciful escape.

Next up were myself and architect Stuart Emmons. On behalf of the Friends of Memorial Coliseum, we gave a talk on the history of the Coliseum and what makes it great from an architectural and cultural perspective. It was certainly a tall order given that we only were given 10 minutes. But the response from the committee was overwhelmingly positive. "I think you won the day," one told us. "I had no idea," another said.

I'm going to include here some of the slides we used in our PowerPoint presentation, which you can also download in its entirety here.

This first slide reached back to one of the finalists for what to name the building. Along with the Memorial Coliseum name and strange ideas like 'The Vetarena' or 'The Rosarena', it was suggested the building be named 'The Glass Palace' to emphasize that it is virtually the only arena in the nation or the world that is completely transparent.

We also, of course, wanted to emphasize that Memorial Coliseum is an engineering marvel. I happened to notice as we were giving the presentation that the conference room in which the committee was meeting at the Portland Development Commission had about six columns. That means this single conference room, no more than about 500 square feet, had more columns than the Coliseum does, even thought the Coliseum takes up four city blocks.

Next we tried to put Memorial Coliseum's design and construction in a national, cultural context. The building was completed the same year that JFK was elected president, and during the dawn of the space age. It was a time of superlative midcentury modern design and a sense of optimism about a new era.

We endeavored to show the committee some past restorations and expansions of classic architecture that has made the original design a centerpiece, complemented by new programming that enhances but does not compromise what was there.

Even though the Friends of Memorial Coliseum is unequivocally against any renovation that removes the seating bowl from the arena, or changes the building so as to have a different function from a working arena, we wanted to emphasize to the committee that overall we are still very much open to and even embracing of other design changes. There is a lot of room for improvement in the portion of the Coliseum outside the seating bowl but inside the glass box, for example. Memorial Coliseum also desperately needs a better design for accessing its veterans memorial.

And while it would be a mistake to expand either inside the box or attached to the building (a glass palace needs breathing room to see out and to see into), there are bountiful opportunities to expand into under-utilized Rose Quarter space, such as the riverfront (hello-huge opportunity), to the north and south surface parking lots, and into the east plaza. And let's not forget the gargantuan amount of underground space that could be enlivened with a solution like the Louvre's.

You can't say everything in 10 or 15 minutes. There is so much more we would have liked to share with the committee, and hopefully we will do that either face to face or at a future meeting. Even so, when Mayor Adams asked each member of the 32-person committee to share his or her thoughts following the presentation, the response was unequivocal. Member after member of the committee talked about having not fully grasped what a special work of modernist architecture Memorial Coliseum truly is, what a diamond in the rough it has been these past several years, and what fools we have been to keep the best part of the Coliseum hidden most of the time by closing a curtain around the free-standing seating bowl.

The Rose Quarter Stakeholder Advisory Committee is meeting roughly every two weeks, putting the next meeting on Tuesday, October 13. That date, by the way, is one day before the Trail Blazers play an exhibition basketball game at Memorial Coliseum, the glass palace where they won the world championship.