Portland Architecture

Making Portland Plan plans

Image courtesy Portland Bureau of Planning & Sustainability 

Portland is a planning Mecca and it's time to update our Koran: The Portland Plan, a broad, strategic plan with objectives and policy directions. Currently the city is going through what’s called Periodic Review, which was enacted by the state Legislature in 1981. It establishes a "factual basis" in several topic areas per state law such as land supply, development potential, and employment and housing needs.

On January 26 and February 9, the first two in a series of meetings began to review the Portland Plan, and the next meeting is scheduled for March 9. The topic will be nine “action areas”:

• Prosperity, business success & equity
• Education & skill development
• Arts, culture & innovation
• Sustainability and the natural environment
• Human health, food & public safety
• Quality of life & civic engagement
• Design, planning & public spaces
• Neighborhoods & housing
• Transportation, technology & access

There are two main stages to this process: an evaluation of the existing plan and then potential updates made. In September 2009, the city decided on a three-year work plan with three components: (1) Land use inventory and analysis (we are in this stage through fall of this year); (2) Consideration of alternative courses of action; and (3) Selecting preferred alternatives and implementation pf policies, zoning code and map updates (2011-2012).

According to my friend Eric Engstrom of the Bureau of Planning & Sustainability, there are a number of factors here of interest to the design community. “The Portland Plan raises the possibility,” he says, “of further historic preservation work in outer East Portland, where we have never cataloged historic buildings.”

Further, Engstrom says, “It could create a venue to discuss desirability of having some mid-century historic districts in the future, to preserve examples of atomic ranch subdivisions. It creates a venue to discuss relationship of sustainability to retention and re-use of existing structures (embodied energy of existing buildings, recycling buildings, reducing carbon footprint, etc.). It could lead to stronger policies on that issue.”

Image courtesy Portland Bureau of Planning & Sustainability

The plan also creates, Engstrom says, “a place to discuss our overall policy of how we re-use iconic buildings. It won't necessarily prevent battles like Memorial Coliseum in the future, but offers a way to create/refine a policy on how we approach those issues.”

And the Urban Design report “raises the question of how we re-design public spaces,” he adds, “especially the street right of way, to serve more than cars, to make them actual places, rather than ugly space you must pass through to get where you want to go.”

Some population and housing figures are particularly important to the Portland Plan. 

Metro forecasts that 464,438 to 619,628 new households will be located in the greater Portland area by 2035. It’s also forecast that Portland itself will accrue 105,000 to 136,000 new households by 2035 (1.2 to 1.6% annual growth). That means 3,500-4,500 units need to be built each year just to keep up. By comparison, 29,300 units were built between 1997 and 2007.

Metro also forecasts that regional employment would increase from just under one million jobs in 2005 to between 1.36 and 1.85 million by 2035. In Portland proper, the forecast is for 113,000 to 202,000 jobs.

Image courtesy Portland Bureau of Planning & Sustainability 

The Planning Commission will next be meeting about this on March 9th at 1:15pm. Topics will include land supply assumptions and maps, future hearings and recommendations to City Council. Public testimony will be heard at this meeting from 1:15-3pm in the 2500A room of the 1900 SW 4th building.

Want to make your voice heard? Fill out a survey by March 31 to indicate your preferences on a range of issues. The Planning Commission will continue with meetings in March, and then Round 2 Workshops will be held in April and May.

Monday's New Oregon Interview Series talk features Adams, Cloepfil, Gragg

Over the past year the New Oregon Interview Series, an initiative of the nonprofit organization New Oregon Arts & Letters, has held a broad array of discussions ranging from music and film to visual arts, food, fashion and literature. Later, the interviews are set to be published in a printed anthology.

"Portland has bloomed into a top destination for creative culture," the OIS website opines. "Media from the New York Times to MTV tout our city's creativity, sustainability, and livability. Where are we heading now?"

For the latest in the New Oregon Interview series, host Nora Roberts will be talking with Mayor Sam Adams, Portland Monthly editor Randy Gragg and architect Brad Cloepfil to discuss "their work in shaping urban space, new city re-development like the Coliseum, and the meaning of world-class architecture, among other topics."

The talk will be held Monday (February 22) from 7-8:30pm at Urban Grind East (2214 NE Oregon Street). Admission is $5.

Adams has made a point of courting the local arts community, dating back to his time as a regular City Council member and, before that, as Mayor Vera Katz’s chief of staff.

Cloepfil is Portland's most renowned architect of the current generation, responsible not only for local projects like the Wieden + Kennedy building but also major art museums in St. Louis (the Contemporary Art Museum), Seattle (the Seattle Art Museum) and New York (the Museum of Art & Design). His firm, Allied Works, also recently won a major design competition for a music center in Canada.

Gragg, who was The Oregonian’s architecture critic for eighteen years as well as a Harvard Loeb Fellow, is currently Portland Monthly magazine’s editor-in chief.

 “A lot has changed in the past decade,” Robertson says. “The best perspective comes from the artists themselves—and the designers, writers, chefs, and venues who make things happen here.”

There will certainly be a lot to talk about, from the Columbia Crossing to the urban growth boundary, green building and MAX trains to economic recession and ballot measures. The mayor of any city, let alone with as weak a mayoral system, can only do so much. But Adams is ambitious, and has the opportunity to show that he is smart about design. Cloepfil is precisely the kind of local talent we want for Portland's most significant projects. And Gragg, despite Portland Spaces magazine's ceasing to exist as a separate entity form Portland Monthly, remains active not only with the latter magazine but a constant stream of exhibitions, writings, public talks and much more.

Vancouver, Portland's point-tower role model, embraces mid-rise housing for Olympics

Vancouver Olympic Village, photo by Nathan Veldhoen, via Flickr  

Over the last decade, Portland's skyline has been substantially transformed by the addition of several condo towers that were taller and thinner than just about all of the local high-rise buildings that had come before them.

In neighborhoods like South Waterfront and Pearl District--but also in places like Northwest 23rd, downtown and along West Burnside--we saw a succession of these new buildings. Usually they incorporated a two- or three-story base, or podium, where the building extends all the way to the street, and then a thinner portion rises 20 or more stories from there. In most cases, these projects take up entire blocks by themselves.

In the past, Portland's central city was zoned to encourage shorter, squattier buidings built to the street and going straight up from there. But there was a rallying cry in the late 1990s and early 2000s for zoning to be changed to allow buildings to go taller in exchange for being thinner, their upper floors set back from the street to diminish shadows and allow more light on the street. Portland’s model for this type of building—and the type of neighborhood it fosters--was primarily Vancouver, British Columbia, which has become known for a succession of these towers since beginning to incorporate them into their skyline some twenty years ago.

Vancouver Olympic Village, photo by Michael Tedesco, via Flickr 

Yet as Vancouver prepared for the Winter Olympics over the last few years, the city made a conscious decision to move away from point towers when it transformed a former industrial area, just across False Creek from downtown, into the Olympic Village. Although currently housing hundreds of athletes, the Olympic Village will spend the rest of its life as the Millennium Water development composed of mixed-use condos, greenspace and a community center. And the Millennium Water condos are decidedly mid-rise buildings, not tall thin towers.

A few weeks ago, while reporting on the architecture of the Vancouver Olympics for The Architect’s Newspaper, I interviewed Scot Hein of the City of Vancouver about (among other things) the decision to go mid-rise. Here’s some of what he had to say:

"Right now our idea of urbanism or ‘Vancouverism’ has expanded well beyond the tower podium typology. It’s not one size fits all. Every precinct of the city is telling you something different and giving you cues about scale and pattern. Before the Olympics were awarded, we were pursuing a direction based on tower podium. Towers are easy to build and they have a lot of value. But the design professions here rallied around the fact that for this part of the city, the opposite side of False Creek adjacent to industrial buildings, there should not be tower form but a lower scale that was supportive and reinforcing of the kind of fabric that was (originally) in this part of the city. Very prominent architects wrote letters and caused our city council to rethink tower podiums. We ended up redistributing that density to upwards of 13 to 14-story buildings in a courtyard form where things are pushed to the edges."

“In the Olympic Village we have these full block developments broken down in to 4-5 pieces. They might have contiguous floor plates but they don’t read as singular super-blocks. There’s variety within the block. When you add eight of these, it’s got a lot of modulation to it.

“While mid-rise might not be as promising as a singular sculptural statement, there’s much more variety, complexity, and articulation. We love towers too, but they’re usually going to be glass curtain walls. Mid-rises open themselves to whole new markets of materials and facades. We get a lot more color, use of wood, fenestration, architectural shading and screening—layering of things you can put on mid-rise to make them interesting.”

So if Vancouver has eschewed point towers in favor of mid-rise buildings (at least in False Creek), what does that signal for Portland? Obviously during this continuing recession, it’s a relatively moot point because the market is over-built. But someday, there will once again be a shortage of high-density urban condos and apartments, and the housing market will be on an upswing. It may be as soon as 2011 or it might not happen till 2015. But eventually Portland will be building high-density multifamily housing again. And when we do, should point towers be the continued model, or should smaller mid-rise buildings like Vancouver has turned to in False Creek return to the table?

Simply walking north through the Pearl District you can see both highrise and mid-rise residential buildings.

In the southern portion closer to Burnside, the units built in the 1990s are largely mid-rise, particularly the units built by the major developer in the neighborhood, Hoyt Street Properties. Many of these projects are modest, buildings from an architectural standpoint. They don’t call attention to themselves, but they make a pleasant urban environment with their small scale and proximity to the sidewalk.

South Waterfront (L-R: Atwater Place, The John Ross, The Meriwether), photo by Brian Libby 

Then as you head further north in the Pearl, there are taller, thinner condos on podiums, from The Pinnacle (Ankrom Moisan) to The Metropolitan (BOORA and Jeff Lamb) to The Encore (BOORA). There are also such buildings in the Brewery Blocks, such as the Louisa Apartments (GBD Architects).

And of course virtually all the buildings in the South Waterfront are versions of point towers, from The John Ross (TVA Architects) to The Meriwether (Peter Busby & GBD Architects) to Atwater Place (THA Architecture & GBD). Some of these projects I’m quite fond of, at least as sculptural objects. They flesh out the modest Portland skyline and are often beautifully detailed – I’m particularly fond of Atwater Place in that regard. And coupled together, point-tower areas allow more sunlight to reach the street.

But I’m not sure about creating whole neighborhoods out of the point-tower form. South Waterfront feels a little too large of a scale to make an inviting neighborhood at the pedestrian level, even though plenty of attention has gone to pedestrians. Mid-rise buildings are an essential part of the urban mix. Quite honestly, I’d rather live in a mid-rise building and a neighborhood than a forest of point towers. It feels more cozy and, well, like a neighborhood.

But I also spent numerous years in the 2000s arguing for the city to allow point towers, because it seemed like Portland had too many short, squatty buildings. What’s more important, how a building feels to a resident or to the city? Don’t feel like you need to answer that question – I don’t think there is a perfect answer. 

937 Condos, photo by Brian Libby 

What’s more, notice that Scot Hein mentioned their mid-rise buildings are 14-15 stories, while ours are typically smaller. The 937 condo (Holst Architecture) in the Pearl, for example, is 16 stories and considered a high-rise.

Scot Hein also stressed that Vancouver only chose mid-rise for the Olympic Village buildings in False Creek. Even so, it’s still a major course change for the city that made point towers a quintessential building type of the 1990s and 2000s. Does Portland follow Vancouver back to our previous future? Personally, I hope it never becomes an either-or scenario. As always, the best urban environments are ones that have many differently sized and different looking pieces.

Tickets for final Street of Eames modern homes tour on sale Monday [updated]

14 House, photo by Jeff Beck 

Ever since the Street of Eames tour began four years ago, tickets have sold out nearly as soon as they've gone on sale. So it's not for lack of demand that this will mark the final year for the tour.

Street of Eames has raised more than half a million dollars for homeless students in Portland, particularly at Chapman Elementary. But, says Sherri Nee, who co-founded the event with another then-Chapman parent, Caroline Fenn, they are ending Street of Eames because they've reached their goal: a stable funding infrastructure for those efforts.

"We found a social service agency to take over providing the after-school program as well as fundraising for it in the form of grant writing," As Nee told Bridget Otto in The Oregonian, "Friendly House in Northwest Portland has agreed to do both. It started providing the program for homeless Chapman students beginning in September. The Street of Eames folks will continue to fund this Friendly House effort during this transition as it ramps up its grant-writing for these students."

This year's tour is scheduled for Saturday, April 17. Tickets are $50 each, or $40 for students. Tickets go on sale at 9 a.m. Monday, February 22 at streetofeames.org. Advance ticket packages (two $50 tickets plus $150 donation) are on sale now through Sunday.

White House, photograph by Kim Blau 

There has always been a limited number of tickets available: one thousand. I assume that's a way of limiting the amount of foot traffic traipsing through these owners' homes. But this year there will be 200 more tickets made available, for a total of 1,200. 

There are eight houses this year, up from the usual six or seven, and the hours of the tour have been extended.

The tour includes three contemporary homes: the Z-Haus by Ben Waechter (pictured below), the Park Box by Path Architecture, and the 14 House by Seed Architecture Studio. The Z-Haus and Park Box were featured in last year's oft-mentioned 11xDesign tour. Seed was also had a previous house on that tour, but the 14 House is something new. It's just finishing up construction as we speak; I visited the house recently and it's gorgeous.

Storrs House, photo by David Papazian 

Yeon House, photograph by Kim Blau 

There are also five mid-20th century modern homes, including designs by the great Portland architects John Yeon and John Storrs.

Yeon is probably the most acclaimed local residential architect of the 20th Century along with Pietro Belluschi. As Randy Gragg writes in the Oregon Encyclopedia,

"Few architects have influenced the state of Oregon as broadly as John Yeon. A planner, conservationist, historic preservationist, art collector, and urban activist, as well as one of the state's most gifted residential designers, Yeon was one of the founders of the Northwest Regional Style of architecture and one of the earliest visionaries in the realization of the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area."

Storrs is best known for designing Salishan, the Oregon College of Art & Craft, and the World Forestry Center, but his houses are equally exceptional. As Phil Favorite wrote in an Oregonian story last year, "Storrs, who died in 2003, was part of the second generation of architects who established Northwest style: an Asian-influenced architectural form noted for its use of natural wood and stone, ample windows to bring the outdoors in, and its subtle, understated buildings that blend in with the land."

There is also a house by Bob Origndulph, a retired principal with BOORA Architects, a Robert Rummer house in Beaverton, and a house by noted Portland architect Warren Weber House that was renovated by Architecture W.

Rummer House, photo by David Papazian 

Oringdulph House, photo by David Papazian  

In the case of Oringdulph, Otto's Oregonian article also chronicled a visit by the architect to the house he designed in 1958 (for his brother) to meet the current homeowners and see how renovations have changed it:

Just over two years ago, Nicole and Brett Olszewski bought the house Oringdulph designed and his brother built.  "Being a lumberman," Bud says of Fred, who died in 2006, "there's wood everywhere." 

Three-inch-thick cedar decking vaults overhead, while a stunning, unchecked, old-growth cedar beam runs the length of the living room. 

Bud says he was fresh out of the University of Oregon's architecture school when his brother approached him about designing a house where a family could grow. 

The Olszewskis wanted the same for Grace and her older brother, Nathan, 4 1/2. 

"It's a good place for kids," Bud says, walking through the recently remodeled house he hasn't been in for years. 

"You're cloistered into the back," he says of the home, which turns its back on the street but opens to a spacious interior facing a backyard full of mature trees, shrubbery and a pool. 

Oringdulph's name is not as much associated with Portland's midcentury modern houses as perhaps John Yeon, Pietro Belluschi or Van Evera Bailey. But discovering the residential work of these midcentury star architects is one of the joys of the annual Street of Eames tour.

"That's what's fun," says Becca Cavell, who has worked as program director of the tour since its inception five years ago. 

It's disappointing to learn that this will be the last year for Street of Eames. After all, as laudable as fundraising for homeless kids is, didn't the Street of Eames organizers also see some value to the community in the tour itself? Maybe Chapman Elementary's homeless assistance program doesn't need Street of Eames anymore, but the disappearance of the tour will be a substantial loss for Portlanders who appreciate contemporary and midcentury modern architecture.

Z-Haus, photograph by Stephen Miller 

Park Box, photograph by Ty Milford 

 

14 House, photo by Jeff Beck 

More than any other homes tour in Portland, Street of Eames was a wonderful introduction to both the city's impressive collection of mid-20th century homes, and also to some of the top residential architects working today. Isn't that of value in and of itself?

Nee, Fenn, Becca Cavell (of THA Architecture) and others involved with Street of Eames have given thousands of hours of their time, all on a volunteer basis. They deserve a break and a pat on the back. But it would be great to see somebody take the Street of Eames torch and continue on the tradition. One could even make a lot more tickets available and please some of those unable to procure them in the past.

Meanwhile, though, enjoy this year's Street of Eames tour swan song. And if you're not one of the 1,200 able to get a pass, the houses from this year's tour will also be on display in April as part of a Street of Eames exhibit at the AIA Center for Architecture .

Cusack, Steward, Gulick lead BetterBricks Award winners

Photo courtesy BetterBricks 

The 2010 BetterBricks Awards breakfast, held on February 11, honored 12 green building professionals who have, in different ways, championed high-performance buildings in the Pacific Northwest. The awards, presented by BetterBricks, an initiative of the nonprofit Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (and a sponsor of this site), recognize architects, engineers, developers, building owners, building operators, facility managers and other building professionals for their support of high performance, commercial buildings with a special emphasis on energy efficiency in the Northwest. 

Winner in the Architecture category was Dennis Cusack of SRG Partnership. Finalists were Lisa Petterson of SERA Architects and John Breshears of ZGF Architects.

As an SRG principal for almost 30 years and now the firm’s managing partner, Cusack and his partners have achieved 84 percent LEED accreditation of all staff, and 46 LEED equivalent projects.  The firm has committed to the national AIA’s 2030 Challenge. In 2008, Cusack also led SRG’s creation of a graduate research fellowship with the University of Oregon's Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory. This two year program has further deepened SRG’s collaboration with ESBL to focus on research and firm-wide training/education.

Puget Sound Science Center, photo courtesy SRG Partnership 

Among the recent SRG projects to earn significant green credentials are the Da Vinci Arts Middle School for Portland Public Schools (targeted at LEED Platinum); Mt. Angel Abbey’s Annunciation Academic Center, where 95 percent day-lit classrooms and passively cooled ventilation system have become prototypes for many other projects nationally; and the LEED Silver Puget Sound Science Center in Tacoma.

In the Design Engineer category, the winner was Bob Gulick of Mazzetti Nash Lipsey Burch. A finalist was Nick Collins of PAE Consulting Engineers.

The Facility Manager/Building Operations category saw the award go to a team from Fred Meyer stores. The other finalist was the Melvin Mark Companies Operations Team.

In the Advocate category, the winner was Susan Steward, executive director of BOMA (Building Owners and Managers Association International) Portland. You can find BOMA Portland’s list of advocacy projects here. The organization, for example, is a strong proponent of energy efficiency, and that’s probably a large part of why Steward won. (Wow, that’s eerily appropriate: an advocate named Steward.) An additional finalist in the Advocate was Clark Brockman of SERA Architects.

In the Owner/Decision Maker, the winners were Garrin Royer and Danny McGinley, of Redside Development. The photo below is of the 221 Mollala project Redside previously developed.

Photo courtesy Redside Development 

"We got our start in 2002 by focusing on sustainable commercial redevelopment in Oregon and Washington," Redside's website reads. "Today we’re a thriving, fully-integrated commercial real estate company known for successful projects, steady growth and an innovative emphasis on sustainability.

"A lot of people talk the talk when it comes to sustainability. But we actually walk the walk. By integrating construction, property management and facility services into our company, we’re able to apply a green standard to every aspect of a project — from demo and construction all the way to finishes, paint, landscaping and housekeeping."

This year, the BetterBricks Awards introduced a new category honoring a multi-disciplinary team, which is a group of professionals who joined together for a specific high-performance building project. The winning team worked on the Slocum Center for Orthopedics and Sports Medicine: John Bauman; Dr. Thomas Wuest of the Slocum Center; Whitney Churchill of The Neenan Company; Galen Ohmart of Solarc Architecture + Engineering; Brian McCarthy of CMGS Landscape Architects; and Doug McKay and Steve Korth of McKay Investment Company. Finalists were the team behind 12 West, including Gerding Edlen Development; Greg Goodman, the Downtown Development Group, ZGF Architects, Hoffman Construction, Glumac, and KPFF Consulting Engineers.

Winners were selected by a panel of judges comprised of industry professionals and past BetterBricks Awards winners.

To achieve high performance buildings, award winners have used and promoted best practices such as maximizing local climate in the design, employing early design decision-making and energy modeling, supporting building commissioning and implementing better building operations. Their projects have achieved substantial energy savings, reduced building operation and maintenance costs and enhanced productivity of building occupants.

Keeping the Delta House dream alive - as a Living Building

Image courtesy Nye Architecture 

If you're like me, when you hear the phrase "Delta House," you think John Belushi, toga parties and food fights. But the June Key Delta House project is something very different.

As reported in an excellent February 4 Oregonian story by Larry Bingham (which, curiously, the paper also separately lists as an Associated Press story by Thomas Boyd), the  June Key Delta House project in North Portland is a remodeling of an old gas station began in North Portland. The client is a small group of African American women in the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, who first began planning this home and community center two decades ago.

After a  dozen of the sorority sisters donated $100 each to start a fund, the project inched closer to reality when member June Key purchased an old ARCO gas station at the corner of Albina Avenue and Ainsworth Street in 1992, with the understanding the sorority would pay her back. 

"The site across from Peninsula Park had been declared a brownfield -- a property possibly polluted by the gas station's underground tanks -- though an Environmental Protection Agency review found no contamination," Bingham writes. "Because of its status, the property was going cheap."

Budget is a concern not only because of the grassroots effort behind Delta House, but also because the project follows the strictures of the Living Building Challenge, which was created by our own Cascadia chapter of the US Green Building Council and is arguably the most stringent green building standard in the world.

"Like many of the 50 or so current active members, these women endured the same kind of discrimination that led to the founding of their national sorority at Howard University in 1913. They wanted a home to locate their community outreach projects, such as health and education programs, to fulfill the sorority's mission. They wanted to stop schlepping their meetings to whatever union hall or church basement would have them. They had outgrown each other's homes."

The now-defunct Sienna Architecture Company was the original architect for the Delta House project, with Mark Nye as project architect and Greg Acker as principal in charge. When Sienna folded last year, Nye took over the project under his own banner as a sole practitioner (Acker has since left Portland to work in Abu Dhabi). Many younger former Sienna employees assisted Nye in the design. "There was a little bit of tension, of saying, 'Is this a good idea or not?'" Nye told me in a recent phone conversation. "But I find you end up with a much better product that way."

Photo by Thomas Boyd for The Oregonian 

A key partner for Nye was general contractor Colas Construction, who worked with the architect throughout the design process to keep the budget as low as possible. What's more, Nye says, "Colas is an African American owned firm with long and deep roots in the neighborhood. "They were developing properties in the neighborhood in the early '90s with their own money and are really dedicated to their community."

[Incidentally, the family that owns Colas Construction has ties to Haiti and has started a relief fund in partnership with the Oregon Community Foundation. Go here to assist or find out more about this laudable effort.]

Over the years, many local companies have also made helping the sorority sisters move closer to their dream a part of their pro-bono or charitable efforts. For example, Neil Kelly, the construction company with a showroom just a few blocks away from the Delta House site, donated survey work and created a blueprint in 1992. Benson Industries LLC donated $57,000 worth of glass in 2007. Demolition was provided free earlier this year courtesy of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers as a Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday service project. The Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability's Green Investment Fund also provided a grant of more than $119,000 for using boxcar-sized salvaged cargo containers. 

Image courtesy Nye Architecture  

Nye, the architect, was raised just across the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington. After several years on the east coast earning a bachelor's degree at Bennington College, a master's of architecture degree from Columbia University and working in New York for the firm Rogers Marvel, he returned to Portland in 2005.

"I was really impacted by the sort of Kenneth Frampton tectonic ideas," Ny adds, citing the British architect known for advocating regional modernism. "It’s really about using a deep technical understanding to manage design, to sort of design with that understanding. The idea is to try to achieve a higher performance building. The tectonic of sustainability is it’s a much higher game we need to be playing, and the technical aspects need to be bought into line to make the aesthetic work."

Meeting the Living Building Challenge specs means that The June Key Delta House will have to  generate its own renewable energy (via solar panels) and treat its own water. The community center will use rainwater for toilets and divert storm water to bioswales.

Meanwhile, though, even with grants and savings, the Delta House still has $455,000 to raise towards the estimated $755,000 needed for the project going forward. So if you or your company are looking to make a positive community impact, remember that (if I may bastardize The Eurhythmics) these sisters aren't doin' it for themselves - or by themselves.

Why all the fuss? The North House looks great [updated]

photo by Daniel Kaven, courtesy William Kaven Architecture 

When the North House on Vancouver Avenue was featured in last year’s 11xDesign homes tour, the project was just a shell of itself—literally. The tour, which I wrote about for Dwell magazine, had featured houses in various states of completion, meant to introduce a group of architect-developers more than to act as a traditional look at completed luxury homes.

So returning to the completed North House a few weeks ago was long-anticipated treat. Not only is this an exceptional three-unit development in its handsome clean modern lines, warm natural materials, contributions to urban density and the opportunity it gives to introduce the talented William Kaven Architecture. It’s also a victory over a needlessly drawn out and bitter approval process that began with a disgruntled neighbor. Kudos to Kaven and co-developer Rich Anderson for seeing this impressive building through to completion.

Back in the summer of 2007, the North House’s design was approved by the City of Portland, but that decision was appealed by the neighbor who owned two adjacent properties. 

 

photos by Daniel Kaven, courtesy William Kaven Architecture 

"The proposed development is in a residential zone and therefore should be designed to enhance these existing and predominant features," the appeal argued. "The design is not compatible with the existing structures and neighborhood."

According to an Oregonian article by Fred Leeson written at the time of the appeal, the appealing homeowner “and her relatives have lived among the pitched-roof homes along North Vancouver Avenue for 50 years. So she wasn't pleased to learn that an adjoining house would be cleared to build a triplex. Worse yet, the proposed building would have a flat roof and storefront-style windows — nothing like the 1910 houses in the 4000 block on both sides of her street. ‘The design really sticks out,’ the homeowner said. ‘It doesn't blend in with existing houses.’"

A family's half-century legacy of living in a neighborhood is not something to treat flippantly. Longtime residents of a place deserve to be heard and respected.

And true enough, the city's community design standards for infill housing in older neighborhoods recommend pitched roofs of specified angles. But note the word “recommend”. After the design was approved and the initial appeal rejected, she kept on appealing all the way to the Oregon Circuit Court of Appeals, where the case was also rejected. (A call was placed to the homeowner to get her side; so far it has not been returned.)

photo by Daniel Kaven, courtesy William Kaven Architecture 

I can understand concern among single-family-home owners about their neighborhood being dwarfed by condominiums out of scale with their houses. However, Vancouver Avenue is a major thoroughfare with different zoning rules than quiet back residential streets. It's also got nearly as many commercial buildings to provide architectural context as it does old single family homes. Yet even if you stuck to comparing it only to single-family homes, the North House still does not dwarf the properties around it; the Kaven design wound up about the same height as the rest of the surrounding homes.

I'm not saying the North House's composition perfect; I'm not crazy about the small slit of a window in the front of the house. And some have tired of the Dwell type this house fits into. But overall, I think this is a gorgeous contemporary design.

“The manner in which the City of Portland and neighbors can hold your design hostage has really gotten out of control," Daniel Kaven told me back when the house was first appealed. "There needs to be major changes in the 'community design standards' in order to accommodate modern design. Modern housing, which might only slightly deviate from the standards, is slathered in red tape, while awful track housing still gets the green light.”

Trevor Lewis and Daniel Kaven of William Kaven Architecture; photo by Brian Libby

Visiting the North House recently, not only was I impressed by the simple layouts and sumptuous materials (which include concrete countertops, reclaimed timber beams and stairs, and walnut cabinets) and huge amounts of natural light permeating the spaces, but it was contrasted by the decaying, garbage-filled adjacent houses. One of the two houses, the one immediately adjacent to the Kaven project, has a hole in the roof and some boarded up windows.

With respect to issues of compatibility in neighborhoods, I think the appealing homeowner is partially correct that we don't want to allow projects wildly out of scale to be placed next to single-family homes. However, a big factor is the execution. The North House is not out of scale, and it's a particularly exceptional design. There may be projects worth appealing, but this one isn't it.

photos by Daniel Kaven, courtesy William Kaven Architecture 

The form of this triplex takes on a series of floating boxes, with the second floor gently cantilevered over the first and the small third-floor portions set back from the second floor. The effect is like a series of differently-scaled cubes, activated by a succession of negative spaces that foster shadows and plays of light. When standing outside the North House, looking up at the third floor, you can actually see all the way through the façade’s glass, making it a kind of sculptural object. Even so, those tiny third floors are no bigger than an adjacent house’s chimney.

When I originally wrote about William Kaven Architecture and the 11xDesign tour, it was a chance to recognize not only a group of local architecture firms taking initiative by developing their own small projects, but also to celebrate the top young talents of Portland architecture. And William Kaven definitely belongs in that conversation. During the tour itself, more attention probably went to finished projects like Ben Waechter’s Z-Haus. But the North House should announce Kaven loud and clear as a top talent and one to watch.

Talk about a backdraft: Does one firefighter memorial invalidate another?

Photo by Dan Haneckow 

Dan Haneckow framed the issue succinctly on his Cafe Unknown blog a few days ago: "The question is not if Portland's firefighters deserve a larger, more accessible memorial. They most certainly do. But does it have to come at the cost of the first one, with its own intrinsic value in addition to what it represents? Is Portland large enough for two memorials or so small as there can only be one?"

This mini-controversy has been simmering ever since it was announced that a new firefighters memorial will be built along the East Bank Esplanade. The new memorial is a great idea, and was forwarded by the David Campbell Memorial Association to  provide a larger more accessible memorial to Portland's fallen firefighters. But the new memorial may come at the expense of the city's original David Campbell memorial on SW 18th and Burnside, just west of downtown (pictured at left in a shot by Haneckow).

But who was David Campbell? Haneckow explains further:

"On June 26, 1911, Portland's Fire Chief, David Campbell, was directing the response to a massive fire at the Union Oil Company on the southeast corner of Water and Salmon in south east Portland. The fire, fed by abundant fuel, was so large that it attracted crowds to the area estimated by the Oregonian at ten thousand. As the structure weakened, retreat was called. David Campbell entered the building to make sure there were no longer firefighters within. A huge explosion brought the wall down that killed him."

"Portland's fire chief for eighteen years, David Campbell was a beloved local figure whose firefighting career spanned back to the days of the volunteer fire department prior to 1883. As chief, he was an innovator who introduced motorized vehicles and fire boats to the department. His funeral procession, witnessed by 150,000 people, was likely the city's largest outpouring of public grief."

Images from Portland Fire and Rescue by Brian K. Johnson and Don Porth, courtesy Arcadia Publishing  

The memorial to Campbell and other firefighters lost in the line of duty was dedicated by Mayor George Baker on June 27, 1928. It was designed by architect Paul Cret of Philadelphia, whose career would include the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC, the Main Building of the University of Texas at Austin and the Cincinnati Union train terminal. 

So what's the big deal? We've got a potentially wonderful new firefighters' memorial coming to the Esplanade, and a nice small historic memorial across the river. No problem, right? Wrong. 

For the new memorial, plans call for the removal of the current Campbell memorial's bronze plaque and at least one lantern, so that they may be incorporated into the new structure. The new memorial's planners hope for a dedication on June 26 2011, the hundred year anniversary of David Campbell's death.

Why cannibalize and destroy one historic memorial for service to another? The case is being made on the basis of the original Campbell memorial's supposed disrepair. On the Portland Firefighters Memorial website, it says: "Sadly, the 81 year old memorial is crumbling and beyond repair, experts predict that it will not withstand many more winters." In a January 21 Oregonian article, Commissioner Randy Leonard (a key force guiding the new memorial) said, "It's a memorial, unfortunately that time will disintegrate."

But the Campbell memorial has stood tall for 82 years and, despite some natural erosion, seems to look pretty good. Certainly the imported French limestone has not somehow turned to sand? I mean, limestone lasts for many centuries - it's stone, after all. Is this Campbell memorial really set to disintegrate? Are there no means for repairing old limestone memorials?

Photo by Dan Haneckow 

This is not an effort to vilify the new memorial. Kudos should go to the Campbell Memorial Association, Commissioner Leonard, and others working to create a new place with greater scale and prominence for us to honor local firefighters. But what would the Portlanders who honored David Campbell back in the early 20th century think of us just dismantling the edifice they erected?

If you'd like to get involved in saving the original Campbell memorial, there is an online petition here. And the city Landmarks Commission will be holding a hearing on the status of the memorial at their meeting next Monday, February 8, at 1:30PM, at 1900 SW Fourth Avenue, Room 2500A.

Wednesday double header: Architects Without Borders Haiti relief planning, Randy Rapaport at Designs on Portland

image courtesy Architects Without Borders-Oregon 

The Oregon chapter of Architects Without Borders first was established about five years ago, following two back-to-back natural disasters: the tsunami that devastated Southeast Asia and Hurricane Katrina's destruction of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Volunteers wound up designing a school in Sri Lanka a housing prototype for New Orleans, and volunteers also traveled to the Mississippi coast to  provide damage assessment. When flooding damaged much of small-town Vernonia in the Oregon coast range, chapter members also provided free design assistance to residents looking at elevating the foundations of their homes.

AWB isn't solely an organization addressing disaster zones, for they have also designed numerous projects in Africa such as an orphanage in Tanzania (elevation drawings of the project are included above) and a music center in Zambia. Even so, the chapter has a special meeting coming up this Wednesday (February 3) at 5:30PM at the American Institute of Architects' Center for Architecture (403 NW 11th Avenue at Flanders Street) devoted to helping out in Haiti. "We’re hoping to come out with a role we can play or a niche that we can fit into," says Abbey Dacey, an advisory board member.

As it says on their website, "AWB-OR is committed to the contribution of design and construction expertise in support of the people and communities of Haiti in their recovery and reconstruction efforts and projects. We will focus on partnering with other architecture and design organizations and non-profits to find projects, develop an action plan, and raise funds. AWB-OR is also invested in developing a program for coordinating with organizations locally and internationally in times of crises to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of our aid."

I happened to interview two AWB-Oregon members a few days ago, Dacey and board member Malia Kalahele, for an article in Sustainable Industries magazine about design communities working to help Haiti. Abby mentioned then that Portland doesn't have local chapters for some of the other main design-oriented relief agencies, like Architecture For Humanity or the AIA's Communities by Design committee.

Ultimately Dacey says the chapter would like to identify a particular project for its volunteers to collectively design. In the meantime, though, chapter past president and founder Angelo Radich has already been to Haiti on his own accord since the earthquake, "just helping where ever he could: supply runs, looking at how to dismantle buildings safely to get to survivors or bodies inside. He just felt compelled to go immediately. It’s not how AWB would normally be active. We’re not typically first responders. But he was making connections with people."

Perhaps conveniently, Wednesday's Architects Without Borders Haiti meeting is scheduled for 5:30PM, just before the latest Designs On Portland discussion, scheduled for 6:30 at Design Within Reach, which is only about two blocks away from the AIA Center For Architecture at 1200 NW Everett Street.

As host of the bi-monthly Designs on Portland series, I've had the good fortune in the past to talk with guests like architects Thomas Hacker, Rick Potestio, Jeff Kovel of Skylab, Bill Neburka and Carrie Schilling of Works Partnership, as well as urban designer Arun Jain, Pacific Northwest College of Art president Tom Manley, Ziba design founder Sohrab Vossoughi, Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy president Larry Woodin, and Portland Monthly editor Randy Gragg, among others. This Wednesday I'll be talking with local developer Randy Rapaport.

photo by Brian Libby 

Randy is known for having developed two of the best-looking mixed-use condominium projects to be built in Portland over the last decade, both designed by Holst Architecture: the Belmont Street Lofts (in partnership with two other developers) and the Clinton Condominiums. Lately, he's been working with Works Partnership on two designs: a workforce housing project and a 2500-seat music venue, both of which could be located near the Rose Quarter. Both projects have already won unbuilt design awards from the American Institute of Architects, and recently the concert venue also received a national P/A Award from Architect magazine.

Certainly Randy is no architect, but he has a singular passion for great design. Unlike most developers I've encountered, smart and savvy as many of them may be, Randy seems to put architecture with a capital 'A' first. He also likes to live the designs he helps foster: I previously wrote about his unit in the Belmont Lofts for Dwell magazine, and now he's got a swanky new condo in the Clinton. Although in his late 40s, he also has a childlike passion for a wide array of arts and culture, from indie rockers The Flaming Lips to philosopher Eckhart Tolle to the New American Art Union gallery. But our talk will probably stick mostly to architecture.

photo by John Clark for Dwell magazine 

At Designs on Portland, Randy will be talking about past, present and future projects as well as architecture around the world (particularly that of Zaha Hadid and Louis Kahn) that have inspired him. Not bad for a guy who spent the first half of the 1990s as a child psychologist and before the Belmont had never developed a building before.

Building a Zoomtopian society

photo by Aaron Rogosin

Several years ago, an artist named Carole Zoom bought a former Goodwill store building in Eugene and rented it out (at a reduced rate) to local nonprofit arts organizations such as the Eugene Ballet. She then sold the Midtown Art Center, as it was called, to the Eugene Ballet and moved to Portland.

I first spoke with Carole two years ago about her interest in trying a similar project in the Rose City. And as of its opening party last Thursday, Zoomtopia is the completed result. The single-story building on SE Belmont at Eighth Avenue was renovated from a BOORA Architects design to include a variety of artist studios and performance spaces.

There have been numerous art organizations that have come and gone in Portland seeking to occupy a building first and consider financial models second. Disjecta and the Portland Art Center both immediately come to mind in that regard. But Zoomtopia is something different.

photo by Aaron Rogosin 

This isn’t necessarily an exhibit space or a source for cutting-edge contemporary art. Instead, as DK Row of The Oregonian wrote in an excellent profile of Carole last week, “Zoom's vision is simple: Give artists and creative people affordable square footage to lease or buy so they can make their work; and, collectively, foster a community… It's also the latest example of inspiring resolve by Zoom, a 44-year-old with muscular dystrophy who uses a ventilator to breathe.” 

Tenants at Zoomtopia include two dance companies, the avant-garde dance group tEEth as well as another called Wobbly Dance that uses wheelchairs. tEEth occupies the biggest studio, a 2,200-square-foot rehearsal space with wood floors. The group intends to rent the space to the public for rehearsal use.

photo by Ross William Hamilton for The Oregonian 

When I visited Zoomtopia last week, it was endearing to see a succession of contractors and subcontractors swirling in and out but never without a wholehearted stop to say hello to Carole. There was a wonderful vibe in the air; Carole was clearly on top of every detail, specifying light fixtures that needed changing, thermostat switches that needed lowering to wheelchair height. And yet there was a familial relationship evident between her and every construction worker or new tenant.

"I don't want someone in here who doesn't interact with the others," Zoom told Row. "This is a community space. People won't be islands in this building."

At one point in our conversation, she recalled having wrestled with the decision of whether  to include a central hallway connecting all of the studios on the inside; Carole had strongly considered making each space open separately onto the outside, and this hall-free layout would have allowed space for more studios, thereby helping the bottom line. But still, I wondered, given how strong a sense of community there already seemed to be at Zoomtopia, and that the bottom line is not at all Carole’s overriding concern, why would she possibly have considered eliminating the communal hallway space connecting everyone—the very thing that architecturally fosters community here?

 

photos by Aaron Rogosin 

It’s because over the years in her motorized wheelchair, Carole has constantly felt scrunched to one side. Most of the hallways she’s ever experienced are too thin to accommodate disabled people in wheelchairs comfortably. The sense of claustrophobia often overwhelmed the communal feeling of such public spaces for her. Ultimately, the right call at Zoomtopia was just to build a wider hallway, not to do away with it altogether. Even so, it says something about the thought she put into the design. Carole was no passive client.

A renovation of an existing single-story building, Zoomtopia is no architectural wonder of the world so much as a simple, thoughtful multi-use space that is strong on natural light, detail, and TLC. Stop by if you're in the Belmont neighborhood and tell Carole congrats - if you can stop her for long enough.