Portland Architecture

Commercial real estate's looming crisis and Architecture 2030's renovation solution

Washington High School, photo by Brian Libby 

Since America's economy was gravely threatened by the mortgage crisis that caused stock markets to plummet in late 2007, we have come a long way back to stability. But the crisis may not be over yet.

The economic storm of the last two to three years was fueled before largely by home foreclosures. But commercial real estate transactions have dropped a staggering 90 percent since 2007, and because commercial real estate (CRE) loans typically have three to ten-year terms, between now and 2014 approximately $1.4 trillion in real estate property loans will come due and require new financing. Many of these loans were originated in the commercial boom years of 2005-2007 when property values were exceptionally high; since then, commercial property values have fallen more than 40 percent, resulting in higher loan-to-value (LTV) ratios. As a result, building owners will have difficulty refinancing, even if their property is performing well. 

Commercial vacancies also continue to increase. In addition, the construction industry has lost over two million jobs, including 35,000 last month, mostly in the commercial sector.

To restore credit capacity and liquidity in the commercial real estate market and create an estimated 1.3 million construction-related jobs, Architecture 2030 recommends implementing what the nonprofit calls the "CRE Solution", a three-year commercial building tax deduction for meeting the energy reduction targets of the 2030 Challenge.

Architecture 2030 was established in response to the global-warming crisis by architect Edward Mazria in 2002. The nonprofit's mission is to rapidly transform the US and global building industry from the major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions to a central part of the solution to the global-warming crisis.1

Besides creating  1.3 million jobs, the CRE Solution claims it will increase after-tax cash flow and property values, and reduces loan defaults; increase commercial real estate investment value and CRE sales (narrowing the gap between the bid and ask price of CRE property); decrease building energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and operating costs; and generate billions of dollars in federal, state, and local tax revenue.

How will this be accomplished? By focusing on energy efficiency renovations and additions.

Graph/image courtesy Architecture 2030 

"This market tends to be less responsive to economic changes than the new building construction market, which is more volatile, responding to the ups and downs of the economy," the CRE Solution white paper reads. "In contrast to new buildings, the value of commercial renovation has remained fairly constant throughout the recession. Over the past five years, from 2005 through 2009, commercial building renovations and additions have averaged $73.4 billion, totaling $69.1 billion in 2009. This provides a substantial existing and stable market for incentives, since it is much easier to conduct additional renovation work and add new space when construction is underway than it is to initiate new construction work."

As it happens, here in Portland there is already some evidence of a move toward renovation in the commercial real estate market. Nathalie Weinstein reports in Monday's Daily Journal of Commerce on efforts by prominent developers like Art DeMuro of Venerable Properties, Brad Malsin of Beam Development and Mark Edlen of Gerding Edlen all targeting rehabs over new construction. Although that has always been the stock and trade of Malsin and DeMuro, the system could be set in place for more renovations.

Weinstein reports that DeMuro has been trying to restore and transform the former Washington High School in Southeast Portland, built in 1906:

"Mired in budgetary woes, Portland Public Schools, which owns the building, doesn’t have the school’s redevelopment high on its agenda. And possible funding from Portland Parks and Recreation to remake the school into a community center died with a decision by Parks and Recreation to not pursue a bond measure this year. Developers who have tried to turn the school into housing in the past abandoned the efforts once they saw the price tag."

"Still, DeMuro won’t walk away from Washington High. The desire to see the building brought back into the community is too strong, he said. 'After I worked on another renovation at in the neighborhood, I felt this connection to the place where Washington High is located,' DeMuro said. 'I’ve never done a school rehab. The project doesn’t have a high probability of a successful conclusion, yet it could have so much community impact.'”

As I've said before, the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art would seem to be an ideal anchor tenant for Washington High School. The organization already staged most of its internationally renowned and locally popular Time-Based Art Festival in the building last year, and will be doing so again this fall. Why not devote a portion of Washington High to PICA exhibit and performance space and designate the rest for some combination of retail, residential and/or commercial tenants? Wouldn't a lot of creative-industry businesses like to locate themselves next to a highly valued organization like PICA?

Olympic Mills Commerce Center, photo by Brian Libby 

The example of building rehabs as hives for the creative industry already has enjoyed success in Portland, with examples like the Leftbank Project on NW Broadway, Malsin's East Bank Commerce Center and Olympic Mills Commerce Center in the Central Eastside, and the Ford Building in Southeast, all of which are healthfully full of tenants during this "Great Recession" or "Great Reset".

As Architecture 2030 notes in the CRE Solution paper, providing incentives to encourage energy reductions in commercial buildings is already established in legislation. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 provides a well-established mechanism for immediately and effectively implementing expanded incentives and energy reduction targets in the commercial real estate market:

"Currently, the Act provides up to $1.80 per square foot for specific energy reduction targets in new and renovated commercial buildings. However, the Act can be amended to better align with the 2030 Challenge and current federal policy, as established in the American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) passed by the House and the American Clean Energy Leadership Act (S. 1462) passed out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee in 2009, by expanding and increasing the existing energy-efficient commercial building tax deduction provision from $1.80 per sq.ft. to a range of $4.50-$9 per sqare foot for renovations and $3-$7.50 per sqare foot for new buildings (for three years) when meeting the energy reduction targets of H.R. 2454 and S. 1462. This would provide an effective tax benefit for building purchases, renovations, and high-performance new buildings and additions, as well as significant energy savings for businesses and commercial property owners."

Redeveloping the Rose Quarter: can Portland really trust Paul Allen?

Image courtesy ManhattanGathering.wordpresscom 

First of all, I'll be the first to admit that I may be way, way more passionate about Blazers basketball than the average person reading this architecture blog.

But it's a funny coincidence that the front page of today's Oregonian leads with a story by Ryan Frank called "Cultivating the Rose Quarter" on the morning after Blazers owner Paul Allen has inexplicably, ruinously, crazily fired general manager Kevin Pritchard, a veritable folk hero to Blazer fans who also is considered by NBA officials across the league as one of the best.

Consider this opening passage about Allen and the Rose Quarter in Frank's article:

"On a summer day in 1993, Portland Mayor Vera Katz and Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen piloted backhoes to unearth the city's next riverfront district.

Katz and Allen celebrated the team's new $262 million arena. But just as important, executives said, the team planned to dig up nearby parking lots and building restaurants, shops and more.

Seventeen years later, Allen and the Blazers enjoy a successful home court in the Rose Garden. But the surrounding district is still a garden of blacktop."

Clearly the firing of Kevin Pritchard and the ongoing issue of redeveloping the Rose Quarter are two separate stories. But they both have caused a great amount of bad blood amongst Portlanders. The connecting thread? Paul Allen.

It's true that for more than a year, as I and others in the Friends of Memorial Coliseum group have fought to preserve that building, the Trail Blazers franchise ultimately became an ally in the preservation effort. The team initially gave lukewarm approval to Merritt Paulson and Mayor Adams's plan to demolish the Coliseum, but then both parties backed away and the Blazers created a plan to preserve the building. They deserve full credit for that. When the two other finalists in the Stakeholder Advisory Committee process proposed projects that would more or less destroy the interior (MARC) or the interior and exterior (VMAAC), the Blazer plan offered the one sensible redevelopment of the Coliseum as arena.

Image courtesy Flickr.com 

But the Trail Blazers don't have to be the only entity to preserve the Coliseum. And even if they do continue to act as manager of the arena on behalf of the City of Portland (which owns the building), does that mean we should give Paul Allen's company the chance to redevelop the rest of the Rose Quarter?

The hideous and horribly functioning present state of the Rose Quarter would be reason enough not to let Allen's company be the redeveloper or overseer of this redevelopment. When you add to it the fact that they've aligned with the Cordish Company as developer, whose experience is in suburban-style, national-chain-heavy environments, that is at least strike two. But when you add to this toxic brew an owner who is increasingly seen  as an isolated, arrogant, out-of-touch, vicious, insensitive owner, it becomes a very, very difficult case to make that his anti-Midas touch should be allowed to blemish anything else here.

It pains me to write a lot of this, because I actually have a very positive opinion of the other people in the Blazers front office in Portland. In the past year of the Memorial Coliseum preservation campaign, I've had the opportunity to get to know J.E. Isaac, the Trail Blazers senior vice president of business affairs; Sarah Mensah, the team's chief marketing officer; and Bill Evans, the director of corporate communications. All three have struck me as good people who care about the local community and want to do right by our city. Unlike Allen, they live in the Portland area and have invested themselves here. But these poor folks have been wronged by Allen and Vulcan as much as the rest of us. It's too bad they work for a modern-day Howard Hughes.

Again, I know some of you reading this will see only my anger and emotion over the firing yesterday of general manager Kevin Pritchard. But there is indeed a legitimate, sober case to be made that the Pritchard incident is but the latest in a long, nearly two-decade-long string of disappointing management decisions by the organizations Paul Allen leads.

The Rose Quarter lies in the heart of central Portland. It is the largest and most important transit hub on the east side, and it has festered as a vast landscape of concrete and empty restaurants for too long. The district doesn't just need a facelift, but an utter transformation, with a vibrant riverfront scene, a mix of uses (including housing), and capable designers. It needs a planning process tied to the adjoining neighborhoods and city fabric (as Barry Johnson wrote in his excellent recent post on the Rose Quarter.)  And it needs a development team who commands unequivocal faith and possesses the utmost integrity. Does that sound like a job for Paul Allen?

Has Memorial Coliseum been saved?

Memorial Coliseum, photo by Brian Libby 

Nathalie Weinstein reports in Tuesday's Daily Journal of Commerce that the Request for Proposals process for the redevelopment of Memorial Coliseum has been suspended until further notice. The city will now move forward to the next phase of the Rose Quarter Development Project.

The three finalists generated by the city's Stakeholder Advisory Committee - the Blazers/Winterhawks proposal, the Memorial Athletic and Recreation Center and the Veterans Memorial Arts and Athletic Center - were encouraged by Mayor Sam Adams to prepare a joint RFP for renovating the coliseum. But in those meetings, says PDC project manager Kevin Brake in Weinstein's article, the teams and the PDC realized that budgets for two of the proposals - the MARC and VMAAC - would far exceed the $24 million in public money available for the project, and the likelihood of a voter approved general obligation bond, such as recommended by the MARC team, seems challenging in this economic climate.

Upon hearing the news, I was jubilant but inquisitive: Does this mean Memorial Coliseum has been saved, I wondered? Well, yes and no. The city is continuing with the overall Rose Quarter redevelopment process, and an RFP could still be issued down the road for the Coliseum. But based on what I've been told in talking with Brake and others, I think that's unlikely.

Memorial Coliseum, photograph by Julius Schulman, courtesy Taschen 

"When we’ve looked at programmatic elements….we wanted to be sure we’re setting realistic expectations of what can reasonably fit in the Coliseum," Brake told me by phone. "More and more it seems that keeping the bowl is the most supported option both from a preservation and cost standpoint. But we see those programmatic elements could have a place in the Rose Quarter Development."

In other words, the city likes some of the programming ideas that were introduced by two finalists, the MARC and the VMAAC: amateur athletic and arts facilities. But fitting either of those programs into the Coliseum is looking to be too challenging - not to mention too much of a battle with preservationists and the Coliseum's protection under the National Register of Historic Places. Yet if MARC, the VMAAC or both proposers could help find a way to get their proposals to fit elsewhere in the Rose Quarter, be it along the riverfront where a parking lot now sits or on the site of two hideous above-ground parking garages, versions of their plans could still make it into the finished Rose Quarter.

"We’ve got [MARC proponent] Doug Obletz saying he can bring USA swimming to the table to create a regional center for swimming which could mean up to $20M in additional funding," Brake added. "Sandwiching that in the bowl seems challenging given their programmatic requirements. But we want to explore it in a collaborative way. But what are people’s thoughts? Do we want a large athletic recreation facility? And how does that relate to the rest of the city? We need to evaluate the total need for any of these programmatic elements through a thorough market analysis."

One example of how some collaboration could work: The Blazers talked about bring on Nike as a partner for an interactive museum of some sort. Wouldn't that jive really well with the amateur athletic facilities proposed in the MARC plan? Just do it outside the Coliseum and I'd support that marriage in a heartbeat.

So the Rose Quarter development process continues, as it should. This is a huge development in the center of the city that desperately needs to be re-imagined and made more of a thriving district where people live, work and play. There is plenty of room to accommodate a spectrum of programmatic functions in this massive parcel of land. It seems to me the city has figured out that it makes more sense to develop the under-utilized portions of the Rose Quarter than the one irreplaceable gem that was already there: Memorial Coliseum. What's more, the MC and the Rose Garden can function well as complimentary arenas. We just need the right mix of other programmatic functions around them, whether it's an affordable housing tower like local developer Randy Rapaport has proposed, a large hotel like the mayor and others have advocated (tied to the Convention Center), or more entertainment venues.

Memorial Coliseum, photo by Brian Libby  

I would dearly love to say at this point, "It's over! Memorial Coliseum is saved! Let the party begin!" Quite honestly, I'm not yet sure if we've arrived at that point. But it's clear we are closer than ever before to being able to declare total victory in the preservation of this internationally renowned architectural diamond in the rough, a secular cathedral of modernist mastery, and the sacred ground where the Trail Blazers won a championship and the Beatles played.

A fresh look at the Wells Fargo Center and "Boy Wonder" Charles Luckman

Wells Fargo Center, photo by Brian Libby 

"What is that?" Christine Madrid-French asked enthusiastically as she pointed to the Wells Fargo Center.

The director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Modernism + Recent Past program, Madrid-French was in Portland last week for Saturday's daylong panel at the Architectural Heritage Center, "Mid-Century Modern and the Recent Past: Documentation and Preservation", and on Friday I took her for a brief tour of downtown and Memorial Coliseum. She loved a building in town many don't.

Over the last 10 years or so I've been writing about architecture in Portland, the Wells Fargo building has been one of the downtown towers I have heard most derided. In a 2006 Portland Tribune survey of local architects, it was voted the city's most despised building, even beating out the much-maligned Portland Building.

In a 2009 piece from the same paper, architect Paddy Tillett of ZGF said the Wells Fargo Center was "designed as an anti-personnel building. There’s a moat all the way around it and an inoperable drawbridge. “Everything about that tower talks about corporate ego, and it pays no respect whatsoever to its surroundings.”

Located at 1300 Southwest Fifth Avenue between Columbia and Jefferson Streets, the Wells Fargo Center was originally known as the First National Bank Tower when it opened in 1972, and later the First Interstate Bank Tower. At 544 feet tall, it is the tallest building in both the city and the state. As Bart King notes in his Architectural Guidebook to Portland, "this tower's construction provided Portland with the political impetus to change its city zoning laws. So the good news is that height restrictions prevented future downtown behemoths from crashing the party. But unfortunately, this one had already snuck in the door, and it's been clogging up the buffet line ever since."

Wells Fargo Center (left) with Portland Building, Standard Insurance Center. Photo by Brian Libby 

The building is often seen as harsh and unfriendly by the usual local standards of evaluating design. There are no setbacks, so the sidewalk is right up against the building, yet as Tillett notes, there is also a sunken area at the entrance that requires one to pass through a small bridge-like walkway.

Personally, though, I've never felt the same animosity for this building. While one wouldn't want every Portland building to be so big and compromisingly hard-lined in its "Brutalist" forms, I have a fondness for the Wells Fargo as an expression of mid-20th Century modernism and its desire to remake the world.

As Christine Madrid-French and other speakers noted in last Saturday's discussion of mid-century modernism at the Architectural Heritage Center, buildings from the initial boom years after World War II are just reaching the 50-year mark, which is the default measurement for architecture to be considered historic. Besides midcentury modern, this genre sometimes goes by the term "international style", but that can be misleading, because it has become a bit clearer with historical perspective, Madrid-French argues, that modern architecture differs in subtle ways from city to city.

Portland's downtown core happens to have a well-preserved collection of esteemed midcentury modern buildings, most notably the Pietro Belluschi-designed Equitable Building (now known as the Commonwealth) from 1946, credited as the world's first building with a completely sealed aluminum-glass curtain wall and predating better known landmarks of this period such as Lever House by the legendary Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and the United Nations headquarters, both in New York. There is also the earlier Portland Art Museum by Belluschi, his Oregonian headquarters on Broadway, and the recently-renovated federal building from 1949 (now home to Jive software) near Burnside.

But SOM also has a strong legacy in downtown Portland in this period with the Standard Plaza, the Standard Insurance Center, as well as Memorial Coliseum across the river. And in the history of architecture, SOM occupies a rarefied air with the great masters of this era: Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Eero Saarinen, Oscar Niemeyer, Richard Neutra, and Belluschi himself, among others. (Incidentally, many of these names are Europeans who immigrated to America, to the country's huge benefit. Would we let them in today?)

Standard Plaza, photo by Brian Libby

I spoke as part of a panel discussion during the same AHC event on Saturday, along with Bo Sullivan of Rejuvenation, Anthea Hartig, Director of the National Trust’s Western Regional Office, Haley and Steve Lewis of the Midcentury Modern League. Answering a question by Hartig (who moderated) I talked then about how the economic boom years after World War II produced a huge amount of buildings, more than could ever be preserved. What's more, many were made with then experimental materials that haven't aged well, from aluminum to plywood. And because the aesthetic style was one of minimal simplicity, eschewing the ornamentation of the past, sometimes these buildings can be among the ugliest because there is no architectural detail to hide behind.

Yet the more time goes by, the more that these often austere, rigidly clean-lined buildings are being seen as beautiful architecture worth preserving. The formation of the Midcentury Modern League here in Portland in the last two years is a testament to that, for its leaders are (like myself) Generation X members or younger, people who see the wide array of cultural, historical and stylistic touchstones midcentury modern represents. It's pliable enough to represent roadside motels and restaurants, melamine plates, and at the other spectrum mammoth buildings like Boston's city hall or, here in the Rose City, the Wells Fargo.

This particular building, coming in '72, is at the tail end of midcentury modern. By this time, architects had moved to masonry, particularly concrete (giving way to the term "Brutalism") and richer materials (both monetarily and physically speaking) like marble, the latter of which is one of the primary materials covering the exterior of the Wells Fargo and contrasting strikingly with the black-coated metal.

Charles Luckman on Time cover, June 10, 1946 

The architect of the Wells Fargo Building is Charles Luckman & Associates. Charles Luckman himself is a major figure of the 20th century, but not specifically as an architect. Twice pictured on the cover of Time magazine, he first became famous as the "Boy Wonder of American Business" when he was named president of the Pepsodent toothpaste company in 1939 at the age of thirty. Through acquisition, he later became president of Lever Brothers, the firm that commissioned SOM's greatest architectural masterpiece, Lever House in New York. As noted on his Wikipedia page, after Lever House was constructed, he made a bold move away from being the Boy Wonder to become an aging entry-level architect, but with almost equal success:

Reminded of his architectural roots, Luckman resigned the presidency of Lever Brothers, moved to Los Angeles and began practicing architecture with fellow University of Illinois graduate William Pereira. Their partnership led to works such as the CBS Television City in 1952 and master redesign of Los Angeles International Airport in 1960, but the two went separate ways a year before. Luckman's firm went on to design the Prudential Tower in Boston, the new Madison Square Garden in New York City, Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Aon Center in Los Angeles, and the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston.

It's a little funny when you think about it: Considering Luckman's place in both American business and architectural history of the 20th century, the Wells Fargo has as strong a pedigree as the works here by Belluschi, SOM or any other architect. In that way, it's like the Portland building, despite the fact that the latter's postmodern style was a direct reaction against the former's cold modernism: all the name recognition for its architect, and plenty of talent behind it, yet looked at with scorn. But given as that's changing for midcentury modernism, perhaps Christine Madrid-French's appreciation for the Wells Fargo won't always seem locally contrarian.

Wells Fargo Center, photo by Brian Libby 

Growing up in McMinnville, the Wells Fargo building made a strong impression on me, even though I never actually visited. As one approached the city on Interstate 5, its height would make it the first glimpse one caught of downtown. As a kid from a small town who yearned for the thrill of big cities, the Wells Fargo represented for me that dynamism and aspiration. It was the only building in Portland during the 1970s that one could call a skyscraper. Even today, as both the building and I are 38 years old, that's practically still the case. And I, for one, do not find an expression of corporate ego or inhumane design. I see a building with all the bold aspirations of the time that brought us rocket ships and television.

Notes on the end of "starchitecture"

Seattle Central Library, Seattle, Rem Koolhaas/OMA, photo by Brian Libby 

In the latest issue of Newsweek, Cathleen McGuigan declares that "starchitecture", the era of ambitious architectural projects meant to call attention to themselves with wild shapes and futuristic materials, is all but dead.

The era that began in 1997 with architect Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain—one of ambitious, often wildly sculptural buildings that screamed "look at me" but were also held up as kick starters of urban revitalization—came to an end with the economic collapse of 2008, McGuigan argues.

Or, as Rosalie Genevro, director of the Architectural League in New York, says in the Newsweek article, "The spectacle building is kind of a dinosaur."

Part of me was a little skeptical reading this. I thought of how after the September 11, 2001 attacks there was actually an open question of whether the era of tall buildings was over. Which of course seems ridiculous now. I wonder if starchitecture is just another name for the ambitious building designs that are part of any era or society’s economic boom time.

Here in Portland, we never had much of any starchitecture. Commissions for world-renowned architects are all but non-existent here, and when they do come, the commissions usually haven’t led to completed buildings. The likes of Gehry, Richard Meier and Cesar Pelli can attest to that. Portland does have a kind of second-tier starchitect in Brad Cloepfil, but even his firm, Allied Works, has designed exactly one new non-house building in Portland in the last decade: the modest but exquisitely elegant 2281 Glisan buiding.

Some of the landmark architectural works that came in the era of starchitects were wonderful, McGuigan correctly argues. Buildings like Guggenheim Bilbao aren't just empty bombast; legendary architect Philip Johnson was famously brought to tears visiting Gehry's museum for the first time, on a July 2001 "Charlie Rose" episode; he compared the building to the great Chartres Cathedral in France. Personally, I like Gehry's Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. There were also public buildings like Rem Koolhaas's Seattle Central Library and Herzog & DeMeuron's National Stadium (the "Bird's Nest") in Beijing.

Walt Disney Concert Hall (under construction), Los Angeles, Frank Gehry, photo by Brian Libby 

Starchitecture was seemingly only enhanced by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that came a few months after the Rose-Gehry episode; all that patriotism needed big bold expression.

"Yet innovation as mere style is nothing to prize," McGuigan writes. "No one is going to miss the second-rate excesses of the era. Pointlessly pointy architecture is so over. And we can hope that what comes next will be thoughtful design that responsibly reflects the complexities of contemporary life."

Much of the signature architecture of the 2000s was akin to the massive tail-finned automobiles turned out by Detroit in the 1950s. Both came from periods of expansive, sustained economic prosperity and technological advancement. Cars of the "Leave It to Beaver" era celebrated newfound freedom of America's new interstate highway system and advancements in auto technology that made them faster and sleeker than ever before. Buildings in the time of the "Bilbao effect" came alive with the notion first birthed by postmodernism: that architecture can really have any shape on the outside, making it irresistible as multimillion-dollar sculpture. And, both the era of the tail-finned car and the swoopy titanium Gehry buildings of the '90s and '00s gave way to decades seemingly more about social transformation: civil rights in the '60s, sustainability in the '10s, making the old behemoths seem just that.

The signature starchitect building of the 2000s was the art museum. Besides Bilbao, there were projects like Santiago Calatrava's Milwaukee Art Museum with its soaring arches; Herzog & DeMeuron's Tate Modern in London, re-imagining the gargantuan Bankside power station; Richard Meier's Getty Museum in greater Los Angeles, a mountaintop temple to art; Libeskind's Denver Art Museum with the architect's trademark crystalline forms; as well as Zaha Hadid's Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Brad Cloepfil's Museum of Art & Design in New York and countless more.

Yet in Portland we did something very different, and something very much in the same spirit of the more modest art museum projects happening in other cities: we renovated the building next door with typical Portland pragmatism and understatedness.

Portland Art Museum/Mark Building renovation, Ann Beha Architects, photo by Brian Libby 

Ultimately these most famous of world architects turned their attention to housing as well, in the form of high-profile hotel and condominium projects. The high-rise condo, after all, was the principal addition to big-city skylines across America during the 2000s, because the decade's economic boom was driven largely by a dangerously deregulated housing and mortgage market.

This is a trend Portland was much more a part of. If you look at the past decade in terms of how the skyline was transformed, it was almost solely about condos, rising in South Waterfront and the Pearl District.

McGuigan's Newsweek piece argues correctly that in the place of empty-calorie architectural candy is coming a more nutritious brand of design that has over the last decade established itself as the truer transformation in architecture: sustainability. The cost of energy has continues to escalate, not just in monetary terms but human and ecological ones: fighting wars in the unstable Middle East countries, or risking the kind of full-scale disaster now happening with the Gulf of Mexico oil-rig disaster.

But more than that, sustainability is a kind of generational correction. When air conditioning was invented in the early 20th century, two or three generations of building designers stopped paying attention to one of the most fundamental aspects of architecture, one dating back to the beginning of humans building: mindfulness of topography, climate and other natural conditions affecting our homes, schools and offices. You could visit a thousand-year-old Buddhist temple in Japan, a rustic villa in Italy or a mosque in Turkey, and they'd all show an effort to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer by a combination of building orientation, insulation and natural light.

Today, McGuigan says, architecture is becoming more of a collaborative affair than the old stereotypical notion of a primadonna architect who dictates to a builder, engineer and other subcontractors. In order to deliver green buildings that use less energy, water and other resources, there must be an integrated design process involving all building team members. Achieving an ultra green building comes not through one smoking-gun material or product like a solar panel, but instead is the summation of lots of little efficiencies.

But again, it’s funny how Portland was embracing sustainability even as much of the rest of the world was still seeking out swoopy Gehry titanium curves or angular Libeskind crystal forms.

South Waterfront district, Portland, photo by Brian Libby 

One curious aspect of sustainability is that, unlike most architectural movements of past centuries, it's not an expression of a particular style. But in tough economic times such as the past two years, that results-oriented pragmatism is a kind of vitamin shot for a profession sometimes too concerned with empty bombast in the past. "There's a certain healthiness when the profession has to cut back, re-grow, and re-imagine what it is we're all supposed to do," says Rob Rogers, a partner at Rogers Marvel in New York, in the Newsweek story, "which is creative problem solving."

"A viable product comes from place making," Mark Eden  of Gerding Edlen Development told me in a Metropolis Magazine interview in 2008. "How do you create great places that people want to come to live, work, and play in? Then you also have to look ahead. I personally believe we've got a broken national energy policy. I think it's a national security issue. It's about speed and scale, and we don't have a lot of time."

Short films, Chinatown tours, and talking midcentury modern

Suddenly this week is filling up fast with a variety of events, all of which, in their own way, address Portland's historic architecture and infrastructure.

First of all, please excuse the shameless self promotion, but this Thursday I will be screening a new DVD collection of experimental short films called Along the Way. Each of the shorts is about three to six minutes long, and collectively they are travelogue portraits of cities around the world like Kyoto, Beijing, London, Chicago, and Copenhagen. But more often, the subject is Portland itself, as in these two films: Ocean Way, chronicling a trip from our city to the Oregon Coast and back, and Crossings, which overlaps several trips across the Fremont Bridge.

Ocean Way from Brian Libby on Vimeo

Crossings from Brian Libby on Vimeo

"Libby uses high-definition video, deft editing, and image and speed manipulation to create travel movies (ranging from Portland bridges to Asia and Europe) very unlike the boring old trip videos your relatives forced you to watch," Stan Hall wrote in last week's Oregonian. Or, as the paper's Marc Mohan wrote of my 2007 show and DVD, Travelogues, "His short films manage to meld the quotidian and the sublime, or rather perhaps expose the one within the other." Kenneth Turan, film critic for the Los Angeles Times, also called the work "beautiful" and "hypnotic". Some would also inevitably call these films "boring" - it's not for everyone, especially if you like films with dialogue or people.

The show is scheduled for Thursday evening at 7PM at Grand Detour, 215 SE Morrison St., Suite 2020.

Also this week, the Dill Pickle Club, a community organization headed by Marc Moscato that "organizes educational projects that help us understand the place in which we live", is offering this weekend "Sweet Cakes, Long Journey", two behind-the-scenes community tours of Portland’s Chinatown.

The tours, organized in partnership with the Friends of Portland Chinatown, offer a unique opportunity to learn about the neighborhood through its architecture, oral history and little-known cultural heritage. A lecture by visiting scholar Dr. Marie Rose Wong offers a broader sociological and historical view of the area.

Highlighting many of Chinatown’s lesser known landmarks, the walk encompasses Yat Sing Music Club, the New Market Theater, historic Chinese association buildings, as well as the original Chinatown on the south side of Burnside. Along the route, elders will meet the tour to share their memories. The walk will stop at sites more familiar to most, including Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, Portland’s Chinatown gate and Lan Su Chinese Garden. 

A video preview of the "Sweet Cakes" tour can be found here:

Sweet Cakes, Long Journey: A Walking Tour of Portland's Chinatown from dill pickle club

The tours conclude at University of Oregon’s White Stag Building, where Dr. Wong will give a slide lecture based on her research for her authoritative book, Sweet Cakes, Long Journey: The Chinatowns of Portland, Oregon (University of Washington, 2004). Dr. Wong will place the tour in context, detailing how discrimination and public policy have affected Chinatown, from its years as home to the second largest Chinese population in the U.S., to its present-day period of development, economic struggle and changing identity. Dr. Wong is an associate professor specializing in urban design at the Institute of Public Service, Seattle University.

Mary Leong, photo by Benjamin Brink for The Oregonian 

The Oregonian's Ben Brink also has an excellent photo slideshow of Chinatown sights and some of its longtime residents (including Mary Leong, pictured above) here.

And finally, the Architectural Heritage Center has a star-studded program scheduled for this Saturday, called "Mid-Century Modern and the Recent Past: Documentation and Preservation".

"Buildings and residential enclaves from the mid-twentieth century are reaching and surpassing the 50 year mark, making them widely eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places," says the AHC website. "Yet preservationists still face a number of challenges, even when advocating for buildings that can now be recognized as officially historic. Development pressures, the economy, and aging infrastructure—along with widespread misconceptions about the role of modern architecture in the U.S.—put these resources at risk in the Northwest and throughout the country."

Memorial Coliseum, photo by Brian Libby 

"The recent discussion surrounding Memorial Coliseum brought this to our own backyard. We look at this debate as a new opportunity for our community to discuss Portland’s architectural “recent past” and work to identify the significant buildings and landscapes that make that era—and our region—unique and memorable."

The program, which runs from 10AM-4PM this Saturday at the Architectural Heritage Center (701 SE Grand Ave.), will be led by Christine Madrid French, director of the Modernism + Recent Past program with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Anthea Hartig, director of the National Trust’s western regional office in San Francisco. They will be joined by a cadre of local advocates, including myself. Admission is $20.

UO architecture students seek "Experiential Harmony"

Marc Holt, new central library/I-405 cap, image courtesy University of Oregon 

A couple times a year, architecture students at local schools like PSU and U of O give the public the chance to view their enlightened daydreaming, through open studio exhibits like the one I attended last week for Kevin Valk and John Holmes' class, "Experiential Harmony".

What does that term mean? Here's a description from the professors, who both come from Holst Architecture:

"Experiential Harmony is the study of space through experience and perception. Architecture is seen as the manipulation of three dimensional space based on the requirements of a number of factors: budget, program, structure and perhaps most importantly an innate feeling of harmony. The whole being different than the sum of its parts.

The intent behind the studio has been to immerse the student in a direct and visceral 'experience' of architecture, a process by which one is encouraged to engage in the kinesthetic experience of space, light and texture in-order to arrive at beauty and harmony. All criteria for successful design will be measured against the human experience, not theoretical complexity."

What I like best about attending these architecture class studios is the fact that, although these students don't yet have the experience of working in the building profession as architects, they are imagining Portland and other cities with fresh eyes, and seeing possibilities that we've sometimes forgotten.

Student Marc Holt, for example, resurrected an idea first proposed by then-mayor Vera Katz in the 1990s: a cap for Interstate 405, complete with a new central library between Yamhill and Morrison Streets (pictured at the top of this post). Holt chose this site "because of the potential for reconnecting two parts of a city that is very much separated by the interstate transportation corridors," he wrote in his project narrative. "Portland is known for its ability to reclaim land that was occupied by highways, such as what is now Tom McCall Waterfront Park."

Of course Portland already has a wonderful Central Library, a Georgian-styled gem designed by one of the city's top architects in its history, A.E. Doyle. But there's no reason why a student like Holt can't challenge the assumption that Doyle's building will be the only downtown library space we'll ever need.

Mark Schmidt, School for the Industrial Arts, image courtesy University of Oregon 

Another student, Mark Schmidt, designed a School for the Industrial Arts, on Water Avenue in the Central Eastside Industrial District. The school incorporates three main components: The industrial arts school (the foundation for the project); Industrial arts museum (tower element, providing public display and visibility to the project); and lastly the roof sculpture garden (the most public element of the program).

"The district, an eclectic mix of legacy industrial and independent art studios, is the last true artist stronghold in the city of Portland," Schmidt writes. "Affordable rents due to the flexible reuse of industrial space have allowed the district to absorb fleeting refugees from previous gentrified artist communities. The goal and aspiration of the School is to be a beacon for the district that celebrates the qualities and character that the district embodies."

Courtney Nunez, culinary school, image courtesy University of Oregon 

Courtney Nunez also targeted the Central Eastside, but in her case for a culinary school. "The project celebrates the life of food by providing spaces for growing and raising food, curing and preserving food, cooking and eating," she says. "Each of these spaces is given a unique character appropriate for its craft, and interaction is encouraged by way of a path, which acts as a backdrop for the food while connecting the earth to the river and taking the user from the garden to the table."

 
Jason Riffle, Peninsula Center, image courtesy University of Oregon 

Jason Riffle created "The Peninsula Center" in St. Johns (above), a mixed use project offering transitional housing, educational and vocational opportunities to homeless and at-risk youth, and an "urban  living  room" for the North Portland neighborhood. The latter is a public commons set back from the Lombard Street corridor, and reflects the site’s residential exposure to the northeast. 

Chris Iverson designed a Beaverton Performance Theater, seeking to act as a catalyst for downtown Beaverton. "The concept driving the design of the theater revolves around the relationship between the audience and the performers on stage," he writes. " The stage is the life of the theater, where the unfolding events portrayed by the actors are fixated on by the audience."

Chris Iverson, Beaverton Performance Theater, image courtesy University of Oregon 

"In the translation to the building, the wooden auditorium becomes the stage with the audience, the public, focusing on the theater's main auditorium space," Iverson adds. "The glass facade provides a heightened transparency to the project, giving that extra emphasis on the wooden auditorium."

Kelly Wyland created a more souped-up renovation of the circa-1928 Meier & Frank Warehouse in the Pearl District than developer Gerding Edlen and architecture firm GBD have proposed.

"This project set out to tackle the problem of how you preserve but still have a relevant and functional building," she writes. Her design converts the original building into mixed-use and adds a new structure for a residential tower.

Kelly Wyland, mixed-use Meier & Frank warehouse, image courtesy University of Oregon 

"The idea was to preserve the original facade as much as possible," she adds. The design cuts a courtyard into the middle and the new addition grows right through the original building like a sapling out of a tree stump. The new residential tower is constructed of reinforced concrete with a light glass facade.

Congrats to these students on their ingenuity. I hope to be able to post more student projects in the days ahead.

Sign of the times: Clear Channel to replace Portland Storage sign with billboard

Photo courtesy Portland Mercury 

The Portland Mercury is reporting that the Portland Storage sign, which commuters pass every time they cross the Morrison Bridge, has been sold to Clear Channel.

"According to two people who rent space in the building, the sign will be painted over and Clear Channel will use it as a giant billboard," the Mercury's Sarah Mirk reports. "I suppose that it is already a giant billboard right now, but it's a pleasing billboard. It's simple. It references the industrial uses of SE Portland. It's just plain better looking than a Burger King or Pruis ad."

Perhaps it's arguable that if Portland is willing to take extra steps to protect other signs, such as the "Made In Oregon" neon sign atop the University of Oregon's White Stag building, perhaps an effort could be made to save this one too. Granted, it's not neon. And as Mirk notes, it's a rather unremarkable painted sign. But in this case, that's perhaps what makes it special: simple block letters that feel less like an advertisement than a declaration of place (despite the "Storage Co." part of the sign).

What's more, I agree with Mirk that the sign is a de facto symbol of the Central Eastside, one of the unofficial industrial markers of the district. I even included the sign in a short film portraying this neighborhood, Portland Project #1 (you can see it at the 35-second mark):

Portland Project #1 from Brian Libby

Commissioner Randy Leonard was instrumental in pushing through a solution to save the Made In Oregon sign and prevent it from being changed to "University of Oregon". He also worked overtime to get a neon rose placed atop the historic Portland Oregon Visitors Center when it became home to the Rose Festival Foundation. How about one more round on behalf of signage, Commissioner?

It's easy to vilify Clear Channel, a mammoth corporation that makes its money with a host of crass, ginormous billboards and lowest-common-denominator radio stations. But the company isn't doing anything wrong here. It takes the owners of the building to make the original Portland Storage Co sign go away. Clear Channel is merely the enabler here - the provider of the crack to the building's pipe, you might say. It's all simple business. I'll bet the owners of this building aren't rolling in extra cash, and the idea of getting ad revenue for an innocuous advertisement on the side of the building isn't necessarily a sellout. Besides, can we really expect to save every old mural and sign?

After all, one has to give credence to skeptics like one Mercury story commenter who said simply, "A sign is gonna be a different sign? Oh, the humanity!"

But one other commenter put things succinctly: "You have to take a hard line stance on these kind of changes to our city scape. Go to any other large city in the US: they're saturated with marketing. I'd prefer it if our city keeps a low amount of billboards and other signage."

All that said, I hate to see this happen, and I'm quite confident that Sarah Mirk and I are not the only ones. Anybody reading this have any other ideas about how to save the sign?

Leading the competition: 35 years of StastnyBrun Architects

Flight 93 National Memorial, Paul Murdoch Architects, illustration by Aleksander Novak-Zemplinski 

Pioneer Courthouse Square. The new US Embassy in London. The Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The Wayne Morse US Courthouse in Eugene. The Oklahoma City Memorial.

StastnyBrun Architects didn't design these projects, but the Portland firm, now celebrating its 35th anniversary, played a role in all of them. 

“StastnyBrun Architects, Inc: A Retrospective 1975-2010, on display this in June and July at AIA/Portland's Center for Architecture (403 NW 11th Ave), features the collaborative work of StastnyBrun Architects, its project partners and communities in which it has worked during the past 35 years. A celebration will also be held from 6-9 PM this Friday, June 11.

Founded in 1975 as Architects Atelier/Northwest, StastnyBrun's portfolio includes architectural projects such as Portland State University’s Native American Student and Community Center and several other projects for Native American communities such as the Warm Springs Museum, the Klamath Tribes Cultural Learning Center, and the Glacier Bay Longhouse in Alaska.

Sir Winston Churchill Square, Edmonton, StastnyBrun/HIP Architects/Carlyle + Associates 

The firm has also provided urban design and planning for numerous towns and cities in the Western United States and Canada from Portland, Tigard and Tualatin locally to municipal governments in Nevada, Washington, California and Alberta. But the firm is best known for managing a host of high-profile design competitions.

“The Retrospective is really about a history of collaboration and contributions by many people, both inside and outside the firm,” says firm Principal Don Stastny, FAIA. “We’ve had the great honor of collectively solving problems and identifying opportunities in a way that respects everyone’s voices.”

“I learned of Don Stastny’s passion for design excellence in the public realm with his leadership for the design competition of Pioneer Courthouse Square,” said Bob Hastings, FAIA, agency architect for TriMet. “This seminal effort of championing excellence through a public process helped put Portland and Oregon on the international stage. It’s impossible to overstate the ripple effect of this project. It marked a turning point in American architecture and urban design.”

The Museum at Warm Springs, rendering courtesy StastnyBrun 

“He’s an architect and urban designer who seeks out opportunities to bring all people into the design process," Hastings adds. "He’s truly a teacher who strives to bring the best out of his ‘students.’ The mark of his greatness is when his students, clients, colleagues and stakeholders become active participants and leaders for design excellence.” 

The Retrospective also marks an end and a beginning. After 35 years, StastnyBrun is ending as we know it and a new consultancy, led by Stastny, is being formed.

And I know just the project that could desperately use Don Stastny's expertise: the disastrous Columbia Crossing bridge.

Rose festival indeed: a sneak peak at OCAC's expansion

OCAC under construction, photo by Jeff Jahn 

Jeff Jahn at PORT has made two tours of the Oregon College of Art & Craft's under-construction Drawing/Painting and Photography studio building. And the loquacious art critic/curator/artist likes what he sees.

"Though the early drawings didn't excite me," Jahn writes, "after two tours it's now looking like the most exciting new piece of architecture in Portland since the aerial tram. It has what it takes to do a truly superb architecture; a great site, client and an ambitious international designer who's design thoroughly caries outs its concept from the sidewalks to the roof and the elevator shaft."

OCAC under construction, photo by Jeff Jahn 

Designed by Massachusetts-based Charles Rose Architects with an assist from Portland's COLAB Architecture + Urban Design, the two-story, 15,000 square foot DPP is expected to meet LEED Silver specifications. It includes facilities for drawing and painting upstairs in the spaces with most of the natural light, while the lower floor adds studio space for darkrooms, photography studios, a digital photo lab, and expandable classroom spaces.

The buildings are also distinctive for their triangular roof forms, which are a functional effort to divert rainwater into just two collectors, which empty into bioswales for wastewater treatment. The triangular and sloping roof forms recall other Rose projects like the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida or the Currier Center for the Performing Arts in Putney, Vermont.

 Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida, image courtesy Charles Rose Architects 

Putney Center, Putney, Vermont, image courtesy Charles Rose Architects 

"Much more than simply a cool building, it asks the school and Portland in general to live up to even higher ideals of art, design and ecology," Jahn says of Rose's OCAC project. "Great architecture and design challenges us, and Portland as an innovative, high quality human-scaled city deserves to be challenged."

The DPP (which the school managed to raise the funds for amidst the worst of the Great Recession) will also be linked to existing and future buildings by a central spine of stairways and ramps around a series of lush courtyards designed in collaboration with the venerable landscape architecture firm Murase Associates. BOORA Architects of Portland created the 15-year, three-part master plan.

OCAC under construction, Photo by Jeff Jahn 

As Jahn notes, it is rare in Portland for clients - be they private developers or public institutions - to pick architects from outside of Portland. When they have, at least with the famous "starchitect" names, it has ended badly. Richard Meier was originally set to design the Casey Eye Institute at OHSU. Frank Gehry was to design a senior housing project in old town. Cesar Pelli was supposed to design the Liberty Center office tower in the Lloyd District. They all fell through. "Rose is a perfect choice with his eco-focus approach and track record of excellent arts campuses," Jahn argues. "Basically, he specializes in designing creativity conducive environments. "

I haven't yet visited OCAC to see the Rose-design project; I was waiting for the work to be completed before Jeff scooped me. But looking at his photos, it seems that Rose and his firm did a deft job of honoring the original architecture, designed by the great Oregon architect John Storrs (also responsible for the World Forestry Center and Salishan resort), while also being very much of its time and tied to Rose's portfolio.

National Trust partnering with Green Building Services, Cascadia Green Building Council on renovation study

Ecotrust/Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center, Portland, photo by Brian Libby 

For all the progress that's been made over the last decade (and more) advancing green buildings, most of that has focused on new construction. It's the same on the research front: Lots of studies have done analyzing  the merits of constructing new green buildings, yet there’s relatively little data available on the economic and environmental benefits of building reuse.

That will soon change thanks to a new partnership between the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Portland-based Green Building Services and the Cascadia Region Green Building Council. The three groups are partnering on a large, unprecedented study that will quantify the value of building reuse in a number of different situations, such as environmental impacts avoided when homeowners reuse and retrofit an existing house rather than tear one down and construct a new green home in its place.

“We can’t build our way out of the climate change crisis," said Richard Moe, president of the National Trust, in a press release. "We have to conserve our way out, and this study provides us with a unique and crucial opportunity to help people understand the environmental value of building reuse.”

Buildings consume around 40 percent of total energy use in the United States. "So they are a big part of the problem, and, by necessity, they have to be an integral part of the solution," added Ralph DiNola of Green Building Services."The energy and environmental impacts embodied in the building’s structure become a more significant part of the equation.  With this study, we aim to provide real clarity about these impacts.”

Gerding Theater at the Portland Armory, photo by Brian Libby 

The study, funded with a grant from the Summit Foundation, will employ a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) evaluation to look at the differences between energy, carbon, water and other environmental impacts in new construction and building reuse. The LCA study will examine several building types in four regions of the United States. The research, team members say, requires a comprehensive understanding not only of existing buildings, building materials and methods, but also of the numerous development forces at play in shaping the built environment, many of which cannot be easily quantified. 

Jason F. McLennan of the Cascadia Green Building Council said, “Throughout their lifecycle, building materials are responsible for a whole range of adverse environmental impacts ― from destructive resource depletion and energy-intensive manufacturing, to accumulation of toxins after their disposal.  This important study will provide key missing data for the green building industry as we advocate for lower environmental impacts through building and material reuse.”

Green Building Services, a sustainable development consulting firm, has expanded from its Portland office to include outposts in Sacramento, Orlando and Houston. Cascadia is one of three original chapters of the US Green Building Council and, as a chapter of the Canada Green Building Council as well, is the only international chapter in North America. 

The study is expected to be completed in early 2011.

Zaik speaks

Saul Zaik (right) with Corey Martin of PATH Architecture, photo by Brian Libby

This Wednesday, Rejuvenation hosts an interview with esteemed Portland architect by Becca Cavell of THA Architects. Proceeds from the event (which comes with a suggested $20 entry fee) will go to the Street of Eames Fund, which supports two after-school programs for homeless children in Portland. (Though the Street of Eames tour is no more, the fundraising continues.)

Zaik, who I wrote about in a previous post as well as a Portland Modern profile last year, is a kind of local living legend. Still practicing today, the architect first set up shop in 1956 with partner Donald Blair and later established Zaik/Miller with Jim Miller after working for Belluschi/Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the local outpost of SOM that designed Memorial Coliseum and several other local landmarks.

Zidell House by Saul Zaik 

In its early days, Zaik/Miller mostly focused on residential work, earning a place alongside giants of regional midcentury modern design like Pietro Belluschi and John Yeon with projects like the Zidell House, built around a ship's mast and shaped like a futuristic flying saucer or umbrella, or the Feldman House, a seminal work of Oregon midcentury modernism. Zaik/Miller later expanded its portfolio to include public buildings such as financial and educational institutions. I Notable restoration projects include Timberline Lodge, Crater Lake Lodge and Vista House at Crown Point.

Portland Modern (which, in full disclosure, is a sponsor of this site) has an excellent slide show of Zaik's numerous designs and drawings here.

Saul Zaik drawings 

A 1973 portrait of Zaik in Symposia magazine stated, "When one thinks of Oregon architecture one immediately envisions weathered wood structures resembling Willamette Valley farm buildings. The Oregon architect of the current generation most sympathetic and skilled with this vernacular is Saul Zaik of Portland. His residences, condominiums and apartments are to be found throughout Oregon, and like his predecessors Pipes, Brookman, Yeon and Belluschi, a Zaik home is easily identifiable. The shapes of his structures are sometimes complex, but always the roof lines are simple, and the resulting building is an easily understood statement of its use and its site."

The Zaik interview is scheduled for 6PM at Rejuvenation, 1100 SE Grand. The Zaik interview is the continuation of the Conversations With a Modern Architect series that has also included local home design and construction stalwarts as Robert Rummer and Robert Oringdulph. RSVP is suggested.