Portland Architecture

Targeting the Galleria for a smaller urban big-box store

The Galleria (photo by Fred Leeson)

BY FRED LEESON

It would be entirely understandable if Art DeMuro, chairman of the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission, feels like he has a big red target on his chest.  Make that a Target.

The mega-retailing firm based in Minneapolis, best known for its suburban big box stores, hopes to open a smaller, urban outlet in downtown Portland on the second floor of the Galleria Building at 921 SW Morrison. But to achieve that goal, it needs approval for exterior changes to the 101-year old landmark retail building.

DeMuro and other members of the landmarks commission can’t help but feel the pressure on this one. The downtown retail community badly wants Target, presumably for spillover business from shoppers Target might attract. It would be a coup for downtown, where vacant storefronts are common as a result of the poor economy.

And the landmarks commission is perceived by some – rightly or wrongly – as an obstacle to developers hoping to renovate in the urban core. The commission, now approximately 40 years old, is charged with approving exterior changes to designated landmarks and buildings in historic districts. Decisions of the commission can be appealed to the City Council. Earlier in June, Greg Goodman, an outspoken member of the prominent Goodman family of downtown property owners, criticized the commission in DeMuro’s presence at a meeting about the role of historic preservation in the evolving 2035 Central City Plan.

Galleria facade intended for Target loading dock (photo by Fred Leeson)

Goodman declared that developers see the landmarks commission as a costly obstacle in the way of progress. He said some developers won’t take on projects if the commission’s approval is necessary. He suggested, in essence, that the commission was too picky in trying to preserve the fabric of historic buildings, and that public hearings and design changes the commission sometimes recommends comprise unwelcome additional costs.

Then, surprisingly perhaps, Goodman said his own company had never had any problems in dealing with the landmarks commission.

Target representatives and their Portland design team at Fletcher Farr Ayotte accepted a suggestion that they meet with the landmarks commission for an advisory meeting on June 27. The key changes they seek are a new entrance at the west end of the Morrison Street frontage near S.W. 10th Avenue, and the removal of two window bays on the Alder Street frontage to create loading docks.

On the plus side, the design team plans to restore wood windows to some openings that were replaced with louvers over the years, and to recreate a canopy, long since removed, over the central entrance on SW 10th.  The central entrance on 10th would be the main entrance for other tenants in the building, not the primary entrance to Target.

The loading bays appear to be the biggest hurdle. The original loading facilities were on the SW Ninth Avenue side of the full-block building, but modern trucks are too big to negotiate that narrow street. Even on the wider Alder Street,  Target plans to use 28-foot vehicles to serve the proposed store, considerably smaller than the 53 and 60-foot rigs that haul goods to its big-box stores.

Roll-up doors would replace the two big display windows, but the designers said the doors could duplicate the bulkhead and transom dimensions of the adjacent bays. The doors would be opened only to allow entry and egress; they would be lowered while trucks are inside.

The building, completed in 1910 for the pioneer retail firm of Olds Wortman & King, was designed by Charles R. Aldrich, who designed some major commissions in Minneapolis before moving to Seattle in 1905. He worked for an investment firm that erected buildings in Seattle, Spokane, Portland and Los Angeles. The building was the first full-block retail structure built in downtown.  Its steel frame with terra cotta exterior and wide bays is somewhat reminiscent of Louis Sullivan’s famed Carson Pirie Scott store finished in Chicago in 1899, which set the standard for new large-scale retail stores.  (Coincidentally, Target is planning to open a store in the former Carson Pirie Scott building late next year.)  

Although its full-block footprint has been unchanged, the building has been altered many times over the years.  The interior was substantially remodeled in the 1940s, and again in the 1960s when the building bore the Rhodes nameplate.  After Rhodes closed in 1973, the building was purchased by Bill and Sam Naito for $565,000, even then a “fire sale” price for what was considered a terra cotta white elephant. The innovative Naito team reopened the central transom and rebuilt a central stairway, making the first three floors into retail shops and the upper two stories into offices. They converted the basement to parking, with an entry off Alder Street.

The Galleria, as the Naitos renamed it, was a major retail success and helped re-establish downtown Portland as an interesting retail venue. But the opening of Pioneer Place in 1990 pulled the retail core westward, and the Galleria lost its retail charm. The central stairway was pulled out and Brooks Brothers leased approximately half of the first floor in 2007. Private cooking and  medical training schools occupy the upper floors.

DeMuro, the landmarks chairman, is not an architect. But as the principal of Venerable Properties, a firm that concentrates on restoring old buildings, he has vast knowledge of historic building styles and details. It was no surprise, then, that when Target showed up for the advisory hearing DeMuro grilled the design team about details of original doors, windows, canopies and other elements.   He already was aware that the four sides of the building show a “mish-mash” of original and often-changed parts.

“The more restoration of the façade, the better,” he said at one point.  “That helps the case for other changes.”

And that will be the key to matter when Target submits its formal renovation application in coming weeks.  As Judy VanAlstyne, a property manager for The Bill Naito Company said in opening remarks, the Olds building was a retail structure from the start.  It still is a retail building and can continue to be a key retail asset in the future.  It just needs a few accommodations.  DeMuro and other restoration professionals on the commission don’t need to be told that adaptive re-use is the key to most restoration projects.

The commission’s goal will be to restore and preserve as much original fabric as possible, to minimize damage and to encourage sensitive design of new elements.  In the end, that will be the best result for Target, for downtown Portland and for the landmark building.

Fred Leeson is a Portland journalist and president of the Bosco-Milligan Foundation and its Architectrual Heritage Center.

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Making it more: Holst Architecture's Dave Otte, John Holmes and Jeff Stuhr discuss Bud Clark Commons

Bud Clark Commons (photo by Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

When Holst Architecture was designing the Bud Clark Commons, the new homeless day center, shelter and transitional housing facility that opened last week, the firm faced a challenging moment that could have severely curtailed the chance for architectural excellence: the lost of $4 million from the budget. Instead, the architects say, it made for a better building.

“We originally had a whole block site,” recalls Holst’s Dave Otte. “But we came up with the idea to stack it all on a half-block. Instead of doing a five-story and a three-story building abutting each other, we did one eight-story building. We’re maximizing the efficiency of the site, creating a tighter and more urban building. We had to give up about 20 units, and about 15,000 square feet of retail space. But it’s a better building.”

This theme seems to recur when talking about Clark Commons: what could have been a mediocre work of architecture, burdened by a small budget, numerous stakeholder-clients and a complex program instead became an impressive design that acts as a gateway into Old Town and downtown.

So why was this project successful when so many other city and nonprofit-sponsored projects end up achieving something less? Talking with Holst, it seems a point of emphasis was that Bud Clark Commons was a point of emphasis.

“One factor was our sort of fresh take, not having done many public buildings, questioning assumptions and working really hard to find better solutions than the norm,” Otte explains.

Bud Clark Commons (photo by Brian Libby)

But also, explains Holst’s John Homes, the client was ambitious. “The aspirations for the building were pretty high,” he says. “This was kind of a showcase for the Housing Authority of Portland. The aspirations around homelessness and the whole mission for the project: I think it made them take a step back and make sure they hired a strong design team. One of the ways to get around the stickiness of putting more homeless people in this neighborhood was to do a good strong building. I think it helps people get past that. Good design can maybe solve some of those concerns.”

Former city councilor Erik Sten had initially been a champion of the project, which is part of the city’s broader goal of ending homelessness in Portland. “There was a lot of support from city hall. Erik wanted to make sure it was a beautiful building,” Otte says. “We kept hearing that over and over again: ‘We want to give dignity to folks who don’t ordinarily have it.’ There were a lot of practical needs that had to be met, but beauty was a big part of it. When [Commissioner] Nick fish took over, I think he embraced that same ethos.”

"I think if you read a lot of RFPs, it really does come down to the client pushing that agenda," agrees Jeff Stuhr, who co-founded Holst with Holmes. "TPI (Transition Projects, Inc.) and HAP (the Housing Authority of Portland) were interested in that, and behind them was Nick Fish, who was adamant about it. We were going in and presenting designs to him as we went along. He took an active role, down to the point where we had to sell ideas to him. He’s thrilled with the outcome but took a great interest all the way through."

“Without the steadfast political will throughout the course of the project, especially through the crash of ’08,” Otte adds, “it wouldn’t have happened.”

Before embarking on the design, architects from Holst traveled to different American cities such as Austin, Los Angeles and Seattle to see how they address homelessness. “We didn’t find any projects that combined all three of these elements, trying to take a day center, the temporary shelter, and the permanent housing, and condense that onto a half block,” Otte adds.” It took a lot of creative geometry and taking advantage of a sloping site, and let those elements start to inform the architecture.

As described in last week’s post, Bud Clark Commons features a glassy first floor hosting public areas such as the day center. Then above, there are two volumes of light and dark brick, respectively. A key feature attached to the day center is an outdoor courtyard, which not only gives visitors and occupants a chance to enjoy the outdoors, but eliminates the common site in Old Town of people lined up along the sidewalk waiting for a soup kitchen or other services.

Yet it may at first seem counterintuitive to have the day center and courtyard at the north end of the building, away from downtown and up the sloping site toward the Broadway Bridge. The decision was made in part by the desire for natural light to reach the ground floor public areas and the courtyard amidst the changing dynamics of zoning and adjacent parcels. The lot across Irving Street to the north, beside Union Station, has a 75-foot height limit, so there is less risk of a future building shading the Clark Commons courtyard and day center. On the other side, at Hoyt Street, the adjacent parcel is zoned for up to 350 feet, so it’s more likely this side of the site would have eventually been shaded.

Bud Clark Commons (photo by Brian Libby)

The site is sloped enough that the ground-floor entrance on the north side is actually the second floor. Having the day center on this side allowed it to be at ground level and to bury sleeping areas for the temporary shelter underground. “In LA at the shelter we visited, they had this big sleeping room with all these windows blacked out with curtains,” Holmes says. “People’s schedules are such that some people are sleeping during the day. It needs to be a place to sleep at all times. With our site have Irving above and Hoyt below, shoving the sleeping areas underground at that end of the site, that was an obvious thing to do.The other issue was the proximity of the building to the bridge, and the notion that this building has a kind of gateway quality to it. As you come down you have this sense of arrival. That was one of the key ideas we had: How do we give this building a kind of presence?” 

The Bud Clark Commons is admirably sustainable, with a coveted Platinum LEED rating expected from the US Green Building Council, yet it doesn’t wear its green credentials on its sleeve.

“They’re all based on making the building cheaper to operate,” Otte says of the sustainable features. “Everything was based on what is going to have the cheapest payback. We approach sustainability the way we approach everything else: it’s not additive, and it’s not about marketing. For example, this building has a ton of plumbing: 130 apartments, 90 guys living downstairs. It made more sense to do graywater harvesting than rainwater harvesting. We’re going to be the first multifamily project in the state to do that. The stuff we’re doing on Bud Clark will save an estimated $60K a year over a base code building. It pays for two caseworkers. You’re connecting the triple bottom line instead of whiz-bang."

Upper floors of the Bud Clark commons are deisgned with concepts in mind similar to rigid Passivhaus standards, reflecting an overall focus on insulation. Because the upstaira units are  small, there is enough waste heat from refrigerators and lights and people to heat the building up. The heater shouldn’t have to turn on unless it’s 5 degrees Fahrenheit outside. "Rather than fancy systems that need a lot of commissioning and balancing, it’s about adding better skin and windows," Otte adds. "You don’t need the fancy systems if you’ve got a good skin.

Also of note, and perhaps even a symbolic quality of this building, is the multicolored window frames on the upper façade. On another nearby building Holst designed, the 937 condos in the Pearl District, the architects used random-seeming patterning of windows to create a web-like composition. Here, the patterning is more tame but color enlivens what would otherwise be a blank façade. “The big challenge when you’re dealing with 130 units, exactly the same, is how do you get away from the uniformity of that,” explains Holmes. “There were certain constraints. We couldn’t have windows flor to ceiling because people needed to be able to put their furniture there against all four walls. So you’re winding up with a five-foot window punched into the skin. The patterning and the color kind of de-institutionalizes it.”

Bud Clark Commons (photo by Brian Libby)

Despite touches like the multicolored window mullions, ultimately Holst’s buildings are successful compositionally because of the inherent restraint the architects show. “I think one of the things we do really well in this firm, and I’m sort of baffled by in other buildings, is getting the material palette right,” Holmes says. Indeed, the clarity evident in the Clark Commons, from its brick facades to the wood-trimmed glass fronting the ground floor, helps this building transcend the sum of its parts. Ending homelessness in Portland or anywhere is a difficult, perhaps even impossible challenge. But the clarity and dignity of this building’s design, even with a variety of programs and uses inside, helps symbolize the orchestration necessary to lift the lives of the less fortunate.

Situated between the tony Pearl District and gritty Old Town, between public building and private-sector nonprofit project, between being a homeless shelter and a sender of street people to better lives, the Bud Clark Commons nimbly walks a design tightrope. That it is Holst’s first social-services project yet so completely meets its goals is a testament to why overall design excellence, and not just experience or green-design acumen, should be a foundational force in how the city selects architects.

Holst has two other interesting projects in the works. One is the Glisan Commons, a mixed-use project in the Gateway district of outer Northeast that will provide a headquarters for the nonprofit organization Ride Connection (along with housing above). The other is a single-family house in Yamhill County that is set to become the first in North America designed to the Swiss Minergie green building standard - similar to the better known Passivhaus standard, both of which place emphasis on tightly sealed building envelopes.

Meanwhile, the firm can take pride in the fact that they've retained Holst's trademark blend of restrained yet expressive architecture while moving from the realm of high-end condos and hotels to a public building of admirable dignity and simple elegance.

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City rescinds riverfront Fire Station 21 commission, admits flawed selection process [updated]

Portland Fire & Rescue Station 21 site (image courtesy Whelton Architecture)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Last month, the City of Portland announced that Whelton Architecture had been selected to design its newest fire station and one of its most prominent: Station 21 at the east end of the Hawthorn Bridge along the Willamette River. The contract was to include a new 10,000 square foot boathouse for the fire bureau. Whelton Architecture had previously won the commission to design the David Campbell memorial outside the station.

But this week, as reported by Angela Webber in the Daily Journal of Commerce, the city announced it was rescinding that award to re-interview and reconsider the four short-listed candidates. (Ten firms responded to the initial request for proposals issued by the city.)

The decision to retract the commision follows a a letter of protest sent by William Hart, a principal at Carleton Hart Architecture, one of the four shortlisted firms.

David Whelton memorial design rendering (courtesy Whelton Architecture)

In his letter, Hart said the selection process did not follow the one outlined in the city’s request for proposals. Once a short list of four firms was selected (including Hennebery Eddy Architects and Peck Smiley Ettlin Architects along with Whelton and Carleton Hart), the city had stipulated the four firms would “start from zero” at the interview phase. But, as Webber explains, "documents from the selection process showed that proposal-phase scores relating to diversity and cost were carried through to the interview phase and adjusted for some firms, though those issues were not even discussed in Carleton Hart’s interview."

The city acknowledged its mistake by rescinding the award. “We’re going back to where (the process) deviated from the process outlined in the RFP,”  Abby Coppock, management analyst for the city’s Office and Management and Finance, told Webber.

On the surface, this is simply the discovery of a procedural error that may either lead to Carleton Hart winning the job, Whelton being re-commissioned, or perhaps another firm. Yet it's tempting to consider the larger meaning here, or at least the surrounding set of conditions.

First, there is the added importance of and emphasis on public commissions during and beyond the Great Recession. According to the American Institute of Architects' latest Architecture Billings Index, released yesterday, demand for architectural design fell to a new yearly low in May. The Index, which indicates construction volume, decreased slightly to 47.2 last month from 47.6 in April. The benchmark for the index is 50, so any number above that indicates an increase in  billings and anything below a decrease.  April was the first month in 2011 that the index moved below 50. The regional buildings index was at it highest in the Northeast at 51.2, followed by the Midwest at 51.1, the South at 48.3, and the West at 47.7. So the West is experiencing the slowest growth in the nation. And most of the lost revenue and commissions in recent years have come from the private sector. It makes jobs like a city fire station all the more important, especially to small firms like Whelton and Carleton Hart.

Second, one may use this confusion over the Fire Station 21 commission to look at the city's RFP process overall. Does Portland have a system that encourages the city's most talented firms to apply for public commissions? Whelton is a talented firm, and part of the city's criteria or goal ought to be to give young architects with talent opportunity to forward their careers. They also did a great job with the winning Campbell memorial that will be built adjacent to Station 21. But most of Whelton's experience consists of single-famiy home additions and design competition entries, and all from approximately the last five years. Carleton Hart has more experience, with projects dating back to the mid-1990s. Carleton Hart designed the renovations of Fire Stations 8, 19 and 20 for the City of Portland in 2003-2004. Yet its last local AIA design award came in 1998.

This question about RFPs and Fire Station 21 also comes after the city's competition for the David Campbell Memorial was criticized for only allowing Portland State University architecture instructors to compete.

It's entirely possible that either Whelton or Carleton Hart would design a superbly beautiful, sustainable fire station. Yet do this RFP process or the city's RFP and RFQ (request for qualifications) processes overall truly reflect a commitment to hiring Portland's most acclaimed and experienced firms?

Besides the Fire Station 21 commission, it's important to assure that opportunities for city buildings, be they through the Portland Development Commission or various city bureaus, meet a variety of design excellence standards. If Portland is to become the international design capitol it seeks as part of a broader effort to establish itself as a souce of creative-class innovation, we've got to make city projects superlative and beyond reproach.

"It's really an amazing site and an amazing opportunity to craft something for the city,"  Aaron Whelton of Whelton Architecture told the DJC's Webber when his firm's Station 21 commission was announced in May. "It's unique in its context. I don't think there are any other buildings nearly as prominent along the east bank."

CORRECTION NOTE: The original version of this post incorrectly stated that Carleton Hart had not designed a fire station before; apologies for the error.

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Where modern meets arts & crafts: rediscoving the midcentury homes of Ken Birkemeier

A Berkemeier house in Beaumont/Wishire (image courtesy Jack Bookwalter)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

This Saturday, architectural historian Jack Bookwalter will discuss one of Portland’s most distinguished residential architects of the 20th century. “Artistry in Brick: The Distinctive Mid-Century Homes of Ken Birkemeier” is an encore presentation of Bookwalter’s sold-out talk from last year.

Ken Birkemeier’s career spanned the 1930s to the 1970s as part of the post World War II building boom in Portland, which presented many opportunities for architects and builders to express their own interpretation of the “modern” home. Birkemeier, who was both a designer and builder, saw approximately 700 homes and apartment units constructed in Portland over his career. Although he is credited with building colonial, English, and conventional ranch-style homes, it is the “Birkemeier Modern” house that remains his most recognizable house style today. They were largely made of brick, but also possessed elements of avant-garde or whimsical detailing. These “houses of tomorrow,” as Birkeemeier often called them, looked forward to an optimistic future of technological promise. Some of his houses seem quite futuristic even today, or at least they possess a kind of retro-futurism that, born of 20^th Century icons like the New York World’s Fair of 1939 or the space program of the ‘50s and ‘60s, continues to captivate.

A Birkemeier house in Irvington (image courtesy Jack Bookwalter)

Although Birkemeier houses can be found throughout the Portland metro area, the largest concentrations are in inner Northeast neighborhoods like Alameda, Irvington, and Rose City Park. Smaller concentrations can be found in Southeast Portland around Reed College as well as in Northwest Portland.

Although these homes were usually built on vacant infill lots, many Birkemeier houses though were built on challenging hillside land that had been passed over during earlier rounds of neighborhood construction. Birkemeier benefited from advances in construction technology that made such hillside construction possible by the 1950s.

“But the true genius of his hillside houses,” Bookwalter writes, “ies in his artful use of land planning. Each house was tailor-made to the site, often fitting it as smoothly as a hand inside a glove. Carefully designed rock retaining walls were often incorporated into the overall design of the building. Also, a towering hillside site could accent the drama of a Birkemeier futuristic house.”

A Birkemeier house in the West Hills (image courtesy Jack Bookwalter)

Most Birkemeier Modern houses were built (at least partially) of Roman brick, showing the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright’s prairie house designs of the early 20^th. “Birkemeier, together with his head mason Frank Snelling,” Bookwalter adds, “built fanciful designs into the brick walls: decorative ledges, rounded portholes, brick-courses laid in diagonal lines, rock interspersed with brick, and other interesting details. Frank Lloyd Wright’s influence can also be seen in Birkemeier’s open, flowing floor plans, great rooms with high ceilings, and in the meticulous care he took relating each house to its specific site.”

Besides being influenced by Wright and by Portland architect Pietro Belluschi, Birkemeier was additionally influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, with many interior built-ins like those found in Craftsman houses of a generation before. Birkenmeier also rejected the 1950s trend toward painting natural wood. Influenced by Arts-and-Crafts style, he insisted on letting its natural beauty of the grain show through.

“Birkemeier’s post-war houses were modern. Yet he distilled the best elements of the past and incorporated them into his often-daring visions of the future,” Bookwalter adds. “Sadly, most middle-class housing built today provides neither the charm nor the workmanship of the past, nor any inspiring design vision of the future. The Birkemeier houses remain a treasure — a treasure for owners who live in them, and a treasure for Portland’s neighborhoods.”

The lecture begins at 10:00am at the Architectural Heritage Center (701 SE Grand) and there is an optional walking tour immediately afterward. Cost is $13 for AHC members and $18 for the general public.

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Opening day at the Bud Clark Commons

Bud Clark Commons (photo by Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

On this first day it was open to the homeless, the day center of the Bud Clark Commons was filled with people at every table: some awaiting services, some to eat or get a haircut, others there just to read the newspaper and enjoy being off the street.

"Is that TV available to watch," one denizen asked a staff member, referring to a flat-screen monitor on the wall with its power switched off.

"No, that's going to give information about the services that are availalble," the staff member told her.

The $47 million Bud Clark Commons is a residential building for homeless and low-income people, located along NW Broadway in Old Town beside Union Station and the Greyhound bus depot. The shelter opened June 10, the day center today and permanent housing June 21. Clark Commons is a cornerstone of the city’s ambitious 10 Year Plan to End Homelessess. It's a noble endeavor, if difficult to truly achieve. The way the Clark Common provides something more bonafide: a place to regain one's dignity through simple basic addressing of everyday needs like shelter and food, as well as dignity. And that's what transitioning out of homelessness is all about. The Commons is a partnership between the Portland Housing Bureau, the Housing Authority of Portland, Transition Projects Inc., and Multnomah County.

Upper floors of the eight-story building feature 130 studio apartments for the chronically homeless. Transition Projects Inc. will have a 90-bed men's shelter downstairs and operate a day-resource center open to those not living or staying at The Commons.

Bud Clark Commons (photos by Brian Libby)

Just under $30 million for the project comes from the River District Urban Renewal Area. Its borders include most of the Pearl District, which has previously seen construction of countless condominium towers geared toward residents in upper income brackets. At the same time, the River District URA includes much of Old Town and even patches of downtown, all areas of lesser investment and subject to numerous social-service building projects over the past decade from the Union Gospel Mission to Central City Concern's Richard L. Harris Building (formerly 8 NW 8th).

Designed by Holst Architecture, Bud Clark Commons uses wood, glass and bits of color to enliven the simple brick of its upper facade. Walking along Broadway, one meets at ground level a long succession of floor-to-ceiling glass. The corners along Broadway do not serve as entrance; instead one enters the day center in the back of the building, through a courtyard. Here and in other areas at ground level, Holst utilizes a series of patterned screens to not only add privacy but texture.

Bud Clark Commons (photos by Brian Libby)

The building's mass is broken up by using two opposing light and dark shades of brick on the front and back halves. The darker brick portion on the back of the building also is cantilevered slightly, and the architects cut into a portion of the Broadway-side facade to allow a deck. All of which helps again give a sense of lightness to what, in other architects' hands, might have been a utilitarian, plainly institutional looking building.

Clark Commons is anticipating a LEED Platnium rating from the US Green Building Council. Its sustainable features include natural ventilation, solar-powered hot water delivery, a high-performance exterior envelope, bioswales, greywater reccling, energy-efficient lighting, a green roof and low-flow plumbing fixtures. It was also developed from a brownfield site.

Bud Clark Commons (photos by Brian Libby)

Standing on Broadway outside the Clark Commons, one can see this stretch of Broadway transforming. Directly across the street is the massive downtown US Postal Service facility that ultimately will be vacated, bringing a major redevelopment opportunity. Just across the intersection is the historic 511 Broadway building, which belongs to the Pacific Northwest College of Art and will be renovated soon from an Allied Works design. There is also a new streetcar line set to go over the adjacent Broadway Bridge, and just down Broadway is the US Customs House, another historic property being renovated. All told, the Clark Commons is part of a larger shift for this stretch of Broadway that will make this once destitute area part of the true center of the city.

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Matthew Ginn's metro city halls project: Fairview and Wood Village

Wood Village City Hall (photo by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

BY BRIAN LIBBY AND MATTHEW GINN

Our roving photo correspondent, Matthew Ginn, has been at it again, photographing metro area city halls. After first stopping in Vancouver to view its Brutalist home in last month's post, this time Ginn heads to the headquarters of two smaller suburbs: Fairview and Wood Village.

Particularly in Wood Village's case, this is not exactly a landmark public building of Roman columns and marble apointments. Without sounding too much like an elitist city slicker, the City Hall in this little town looks surprisingly like a manufactured home of the 1970s, a place where a child might recline watching Hanna Barberra cartoons or his/her parents put the new Pink Floyd album on their 8-track tape player. But in fairness, the population of this Multnomah County enclave is under 3,000 residents. A modest building probably befits this bucolic burg.

Wood Village was created on 50 acres of farmland around the Arata Estate in 1942 to house workers from the Reynolds Aluminum Factory during World War II.  It was one of the first planned communities in Oregon, complete with single and multi-family housing, streets, stores, a water system, a sewage treatment plant, street lights, and a community building. But decades before the Reynolds plant came, the geographic point from Wood Village arose was markd by the farmhouse of English immigrants George and Hanna Shaw, where the corner of 238th Drive and NE Halsey Street now exists. The shaws came to Oregon to help build the transcontinental railroad through the Columbia Gorge. Their house still stands, serving as the Wood Village Manor Nursing Home.

Wood Village City Hall (photo by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

What is now the City Hall was built as a community center for the Reynolds development. Some sources suggest it was built in 1942, while others say 1944. It became City Hall when Wood Village was incorporated in 1951. The building was renovated in 2009, most notably moving the public entrance to the west side of the building. Steve Winstead was the architect for the renovations.

Fairview's City Hall is a bit more substantial. Designed by Group Mackenzie and completed in 2000, it was designed to provide a strong civic presence for the community and to reinforce the pedestrian scale of development surrounding the 21,400 square foot facility. The building houses the City Council Chambers, the City Manager's office, and the Departments of Engineering, Public Safety, and Police.

Fairview City Hall (photo by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

"In the Northwest tradition of designing civic buildings to look like large houses, deep red brick was selected for the City Hall exterior with a sweeping archway dominating the public side of the building facing Village Lane," a member of Group Mackenzie said of the Fairview project (in a statement of qualifications for building another city hall in Medina, Washington). With just over a decade of hindsight, one can see the design seeking to walk a line between modern architecture and neo-historicism.

Fairview has a long history of settlement. Members of the Multnomah tribe of Chinookan Indians lived here when the Lewis and Clark Expedition visited the area in 1806. By the mid 19th century, it was an agricultural area for hay, grain, and livestock operations. Railroad tracks extended to the area by the 1890s.

Fairview City Hall (photos by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

When it was incorporated in 1908, Fairview’s city hall was near what is now Handy Park (Fairview Ave. (223rd) and Cedar St.). I believe they used this location until 1979, when they moved to another building at Harrison & 3rd (now a community center). That was the city hall until they moved to the current location in 2000. As of 2009, the Fairview population was 9,740. As recently as 1990, however, only 2,300 people called it home. Like many suburbs of the past 30 years, Fairview grew like a weed. In the case of this suburb, through, there is particularly noticeable dichotomy between pedestrian and automobile-oriented development. Fairview has a nicely preserved, human-scaled central business district, but it also is home to a factory outlet mall with a sea of surface parking. Initially Fairview was named for the picturesque site of the Columbia and Mt. Hood, for this is more or less the dividing line where the metro area ends (both its eyesores and its attractions) and the Columbia Gorge scenic area begins.

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Allied Works a design-competition finalist for Swiss cultural district and museum

Model of Pôle Muséal in Lausanne, Switzerland (image courtesy Allied Works)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

For most architecture firms, design competitions are a roll of the dice. They often represent some of the most prestigious commissions, such as art museums and government buildings. But there is always the risk that a firm commits its time and resources to designing a project that will not be chosen.

Ever since architect Brad Cloepfil and his firm Allied Works won a design competition for the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (which was completed in 2003), however, this format has been an effective vehicle for new work. It has delivered high-profile commissions like the re-design of 2 Columbus Circle for the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City (completed in 2008),  the University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor (completed in 2009, and winner of which won a national design award from the American Institute of Architects), and the National Music Centre of Canada in Calgary (currently under construction). Along the way, Allied has been selected over internationally renowned architects and firms like Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas and Herzog & De Meuron.

Pôle Muséal entry (renderings courtesy Allied Works)

Recently Allied Works was named one of eighteen international finalists to create the Pôle Muséal in Lausanne, Switzerland, a multi-tiered project that includes transforming an historic train shed and industrial site into a new cultural district as well as new building designs for the Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts and the Musée de l’Elysée.

The Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts was originally created in 1841 by painter Louis Arlaud and has been housed since 1906 in the Palais de Rumine, a neo-Florentine style building. The MCBA’s collection ranges from the second half of the eighteenth century to post-impressionism, with particular emphasis on Cubism other abstract art, and the institution  regularly presents exhibitions of modern and contemporary Swiss and international art.

With just 125,000 people, Lausanne is not the major metropolis other Swiss cities like Zurich or Basel may be (it's the nation's fourth largest city). Yet, perhaps like Bilbao, Spain, a major arts institution reborn in a great work of architecture could provide a significant injection of culture and attention to the city.

Pôle Muséal entry (renderings courtesy Allied Works)

Allied Works' design entry brings to mind the firm's National Music Centre of Canada project, perhaps indicating a new era for the firm entered in recent years. Cloepfil and his firm have always seemed to come not only from the modernist tradition but specifically the notion of architectural tectonics articulated by author Kenneth Frampton (with local architect John Cava, a former colleague of Cloepfil's and an editor of Frampton's as connecting thread): the focus on architecture as a constructional craft. Frampton writes of "the original Greek sense of poetics as an act of making and revealing." Construction is broken down into two symbiotic halves: that of framework, such as wood or steel framing, and that of using compressive mass to build an enclosure, such as concrete or stone."Framework tends towards the aerial and dematerialization of mass, whereas the mass form is...embedding itself deeper in the earth. One tends toward the light and the other toward dark. These gravitational opposites . . . may be said to symbolize the two cosmological opposites to which they aspire; the sky and the earth." Somehow, even more than past projects like Cloepfil's career-launching Wieden + Kennedy building in Portland or the architect's museums, the Music Centre and the Lausanne submission seem to forge buildings in which light, transparency and circulation are chiseled out of a massive whole: not a kit of parts so much as a working, breathing sculpture revealed by what is taken away.

Consider, in that context, the Lausanne competition as described in Allied Works' recent press release: "The forms and spaces of the new MCBA are both monumental and transparent. The building’s geologic form is fractured by activity, providing glimpses into and through the heart of the building. Ideal gallery proportions establish a rhythm of space and structure along the Arts Walk and rail lines.  Between galleries, structure, circulation and light form fissures of transparency – filtering and diffusing light into the galleries, providing views to the landscape and city while connecting the building vertically."

Model of National Music Centre, Calgary (image courtesy Allied Works)

Critic historian Sandy Isenstadt similarly defines Cloepfil’s work as “aiming to create oases of legibility, spaces that can look out upon the simultaneous contrasts of the modern world to appreciate them from a place no less complex, but one that unfolds over time, with repeated visits, rather than at the speed of a camera shutter, thereby rewarding continued occupation rather than just dazzling the eye.”

Meanwhile, a public exhibition of the 18 finalists' designs (including Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, French architect Bernard Tschumi, and Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura) will be held June 17 – 30 at the Site des Halles CFF aux locomotives, Lausanne. A winner will be chosen later this year.

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A conversation with Thomas Hacker

Phase 3 Science Bldg., U. of Washington, Bothell (rendering courtesy THA Architecture)

BY BRIAN LIBBY & ALEXANDER LUNGERSHAUSEN

In the lastest issue of YAF Connection, a publication of the American Institute of Architects' Young Architects Forum, Alexander Lungershausen of THA Architecture talks with his boss, the local architect legend Thomas Hacker.

The conversation touches upon a variety of topics, including but not limited to architecture. We learn, for example, of Hacker's love of Bach, Haydn and various classical music composers. But given the audience, the interview between Lungershausen and Hacker is foremost about Hacker's advice to a young generation.

It's not just that Thomas Hacker is a veteran whose firm has designed a host of exceptional public buildings in this region and beyond, from Portland libraries to museums and college/university buildings. As an architect who came from academia - Hacker taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Oregon - he can speak to the relationship between education and practice. And given that Hacker also spent six years working in the office of Louis Kahn, his wisdom about architecture, craft and practice stems in part from one of the foremost architects of the 20th century.

Here is a portion of Lungershausen's interview with Hacker; the full text can be found in the May edition of YAF Connection.

Thomas Hacker (image courtesy YAF Connection)

What inspired you to study/practice architecture?

That is a great question. I went to the University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate in the pre-med program. I wanted to become a surgeon. When I was there, I found the course work to be difficult and not very interesting compared to other things that I was studying, in particular the history of art, which I found fascinating. I was taking a survey course in art history, and every time the course was focused on architecture, I found it more fascinating. I was very drawn to architecture.

Sometime during the course, and I actually remember this day very clearly because it was an epiphany for me, we were looking at Boromini’s San Carlo Alle Quattro Fontana, and I was just intensely intrigued by its geometries and spatial orders. I kept thinking this is something I know about and can do. I then realized this is something I want to do. Immediately after that class, which was across the street from the architecture school, I walked into the Dean’s office unannounced and asked the Dean, G. Holmes Perkins, what it would take to become an architect. He helped me enroll in the courses I needed to get into the architecture program.I began performing at a very high level, much better than I did as a pre-med student, and that was the beginning of it. Architecture has been a thrill for me ever since.

Have you ever made a pilgrimage to a specific structure?

After leaving Philadelphia, I went to Europe on what I would describe as a pilgrimage to see works that I had seen only in photographs. I spent time, mostly in France and Italy, looking at an interesting variety of works. My own interest in terms of modern architecture was in le Corbusier’s work, him more than some of the other international style figures. I went to Ronchamp, LaTourette and to the Jaoul Houses outside of Paris.

When I was at Penn, le Corbusier in many ways was even more influential than Kahn.. So there was that pilgrimage to his work in France, and then there was the more historical set of work in both France and in Italy that I was really interested in. For instance, in Italy, there is a Chapel in Bologna that was painted by Giotto, which is one of the great rooms in western art. Because of my art history experience, I had an interest in seeing the art in buildings and not just the buildings themselves.

Fouts Center for Visual Art, Whitman College (photo by Timothy Hursley)

Have you ever experienced a structure that was difficult to leave?

There are two rooms that I have been in that I had a hard time leaving, both by Michelangelo. One of them is the Medici in Florence. I was very lucky to be able to be in that great room with no one but my brother, who was traveling with me at the time. For some reason we got there before the crowds arrived, so we were in that room together for ten or fifteen minutes with no other tourists. It was really powerful, because you can feel the space in a way that is different than when you are jammed into it with other people. More visitors came and there was that horrible feeling of wanting to stay but not wanting to be crowded out. The other room is Michelangelo’s great stair that leads to the Laurentian Library. That room is so sculpturally powerful and so complex you can feel it immediately. It’s a place that I wanted to understand better. I wanted to understand how the proportional overlap of the big stair pieces that splay out as they come down into the large space give a sense of compression as you move up into the library and how it changes the spatial sense of the very linear library at the top. In that case, it was more a feeling that I did not really recognize how this was working as much as I wanted to. It was something I wanted to stay with for a while to understand it better.

You worked in the office of Louis Kahn. How much of an influence did that experience have on your work? How has that influence changed and evolved over time?

It has had a profound influence. There are several levels of influence, and I will describe them as the influence of the work itself and the influence of the man and being personally around the man. I was directly involved with the work, and it appeals to me in a number of ways. Most important is the discipline and rigor of understanding the plan and section as expressions of the program. As Lou would talk about it, a building is the expression of an institution. He liked the formality of the great institutions of human culture: libraries, theatres, museums. This sense was a result of the Beaux Arts education he had at the University of Pennsylvania with Paul Cret, the Beaux Art architect from Paris. Cret was a very strong influence on Kahn, and it took him a long time to get by that to do more modern work. So, if you look at any one of his buildings, the order of the plan and the order of the structure is always an expression of what the building, as he would say, “wants to be” in terms of how it serves its program. It is very rational, and that is something that appeals to me quite a lot. The other obvious influence is the inspired expression of structure and material.

The influence of Kahn as a man is more difficult to put into words. Let’s just say that I have never lost the deep belief in the power of architecture that he instilled in me.

Louis Kahn's national capitol in Bangladesh (photo courtesy intro2arch.arch.hku.hk)

We are interested in hearing about your background as an academic and how that informed your design process once you started your own firm.

That is a good question and also one of the issues in my life. When I was at Penn as a student and as an architect in Lou’s office there was no separation between being a professional architect and being a teacher. It was understood that the best architects were also the best teachers. They were very active professionally, and so it was a given to me that an engaging active architect would also be a teacher. So I taught for two years at Penn after I graduated, both in theory classes as well as a design critic. Then came the worst parts of the anti-Vietnam era, and the country was in turmoil. I, like many thousands of other people of the east coast, decided to migrate to the west, because, for whatever reason, it seemed that the people of the west coast were more open minded and had their acts more together. I ended up in Eugene and was shocked by the lack of any kind of professional community. I was ready to turn around as soon as we got here. I needed a place that was more active in terms of work, and I didn’t really know anything about Portland. Sure enough I ended up staying in Eugene for thirteen years, largely because we had children and it was so easy to raise children there. Another reason, I think, was that I was not prepared to be an architect at that point and I was still learning a lot. The thing most fascinating to me about being in Oregon was the connection to the landscape, which I didn’t have in Philadelphia. So, part of being in Oregon was incredibly instructive to me in terms of how buildings were part of larger landscapes. I also became particularly interested in Japanese architecture. I was still gaining confidence, and by the time I actually left Eugene I was prepared to start an office. Portland was increasingly attractive to me because of the things we all like about it in terms of urban scale, the intensity of its street life and also a very strong architectural tradition.

I was able to make that leap from being a tenured professor to being a young architect trying to start an office in 1983. It was a big leap. Because of my teaching, I had been involved with the critical analysis of students’ work for many years, and I felt very confident that I had a  kind of sense of discipline and rigor in terms of how to  make architecture. At that point, it was a matter of finding clients to allow that to happen. You know, when you are young, you think everybody just gets work because it falls into their laps; but it doesn’t, and part of maturing is recognizing that you have to go and get the work yourself. As you know, getting the work has become a very critical part of our success as a firm.

THA Architecture staff (image courtesy THA Architecture)

What was the hardest part of starting your own firm? What was your most strategic move?

The hardest part of starting was being patient about the expectations of the kind of projects we would get. There was an interesting duality in the early days. We were going after competitions, a classic way for a young office to get some important work, and we were also pursuing getting work with clients who interested us. We were getting jobs like 2000 sf remodels of clinics inside existing buildings with the Oregon Health Sciences University, who were by far our most important early client. We were also going after the home run. At the time we won the Arizona Historical Society Competition we were doing basic service jobs, but we were doing them extremely well.

We were very conscientious about our relationship with clients. The importance is that, shortly after that, a project came our way: the Biomedical Information and Communications Center (BICC). We would never have had a chance to compete for the BICC but for the fact that we had already proven ourselves to them, and we were doing a similar $10 million (1987 dollars) project in Arizona which gave us legitimacy in the eyes of the administration. We also were doing the High Desert Museum in Bend. Don Kerr, the director and founder of the museum, had seen an article in the Oregonian about our winning in Arizona. He called us and was very interested in working with us. We suddenly had several major projects and found ourselves scrambling to put teams together to the work. So the need for patience only lasted for the first three years, from about ‘83 to ’86.

And that brings up the second most difficult thing: how to survive a very successful expansion. This is much more difficult than people may think. We had some very rough times figuring out who the core personnel were and what the responsibilities were. We were a mess financially and organizationally. I was fortunate enough to be introduced by one of our project managers to Jonah Cohen, who I immediately recognized as a genius of organizational strategies. He literally saved the office at that point by making us profitable. We were losing money because we expanded too fast, and we did not have the discipline to really deal with it. We were extremely lucky to have a couple of people come on board at that moment who had the discipline financially and managerially were able to take the design inspiration, which we already had, and turn it into something that could actually survive and be profitable.

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Commitment not brainstorming: Memorial Coliseum on the eve of its restoration

Rendering of Memorial Coliseum, 1958 (courtesy City of Portland archives)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

In Wednesday's Daily Journal of Commerce, Nick Bjork reports that a local company seeks to convert Memorial Coliseum into a media production center.

As Bjork's article details, the plan is led by Tim Laurence founder of Beaverton's Digital Works Productions, and Rob Cornilles, founder of consulting firm Game Face. The Coliseum’s interior would be divided into three soundstages totaling 51,000 square feet with additional theaters and offices, all divided over four stories. “I wasn’t familiar with this building at first, so I just wasn’t sure,” their Tustin, California-based architect, Gary Bastien, told the DJC. “But the more I find out about this one the more it seems like an ideal structure.”

Since the battle in 2009-10 to save Memorial Coliseum from demolition to make way for a minor league baseball stadium, there have been a host of ideas, most of which were floated during a city-led process seeking out contributions from the community about how to best utilize the landmark National Register-protected modernist arena. There was the idea of a water park. There was a peace garden. There was an athletic center. Legitimate, highly funded proposals by prominent developers were made alongside grassroots efforts detailed with magic markers on posterboard.

What Mayor Adams, the Portland Development Commission and a Citizen Advisory Group ultimately concluded (and what the building's preservationists were clamoring all along) is that Memorial Coliseum (or "Veteran's Memorial Coliseum", as it has since been officially renamed), is already economically viable as a multi-purpose arena. In fact, last year the Coliseum actually drew more events than even the much newer, larger Rose Garden Arena next door. It just draws smaller events, which is why the plan emerged to restore the arena with about 8,000 seats rather than the 10,000-12,000 it originally had. So the plan to restore it is rooted in sound financial findings. At the same time, this also must be weighed against cultural, sustainable and historic concerns. Luckily, the green thing to do, and the most mindful of history, was to let Memorial Coliseum be Memorial Coliseum - only with the maintenance it should have received a long time ago. This isn't about preserving history, though, but marrying the past with the future. It's what great cities are all about.

Memorial Coliseum is the only arena with a 360-degree view to the outside, hence its nickname, "The Glass Palace." The building was designed by perhaps the most eminent American architecture firm of the 20th century: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. While some may see today an outdated building in need of deferred maintenance, Memorial Coliseum is a signature work of mid-20th century architecture. It embodies the generation of glassy buildings that followed the end of World War II, a time when architects created futuristic, transparent buildings that spoke to the desire for peace and prosperity. Memorial Coliseum is, as its new name indicates, a veterans memorial: that's true not just for the commemorative placques outside the building listing the name of Portlanders who served in the historic conflict, but in how this one-of-a-kind arena, with its panoramic view outside to the downtown skyline, makes light itself (as opposed to the dark claustrophobia of the war) the star attraction.

Memorial Coliseum, 2009 (photo by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

It's easy for people to mistakenly think that Memorial Coliseum is still up for grabs. For example, last week in a letter to the editor published in The Oregonian, local citizen Alan Willis suggested that Portland should revisit the notion of building a baseball stadium at the Rose Quarter.

Why the vaccuum? The Portland Development Commission and the City Council have been slow in hammering out the details of the restoration plan: where (or from which urban renewal area) the funding will come from, how the Rose Quarter district overall will be developed (with retail, hotels, housing or other uses), how it coincides with the building of a new streetcar lin along the district's northern edge, and whether adjacent properties like the Portland Public Schools facility (also just north of the RQ) might be incorporated into the master plan.

But taking months behind mostly closed doors (the Citizen Advisory Committee not withstanding) isn't the same thing as inaction. The good news is that this summer the mayor, as well as the city's Rose Garden master planner, Michael McCulloch, and even yours truly will be presenting the Coliseum plan at a meeting of the Portland City Club. It will provide the public with a clear sense of why preserving economically viable landmark buildings is in keeping with Portland's quest to become a sustainable capitol, and how a public-private partnership will rejuvenate not only the Coliseum but the entire Rose Quarter development and beyond.

Digital Works, the Beaverton company, is probably right that Memorial Coliseum's remarkably open interior -- a building four city blocks in size resting on just four columns -- would be ideal for adding four floors of studios and offices. The thing is, a building that vast in volume would be able to hold just about anything. In that way, over the past two years the Glass Palace has acted as a kind of blank canvass onto which business hungry developers or circus impressarios can project their most ambitious or wild dreams.

But it's time to end the idea generation stage. It reminds me of an article I wrote for a business magazine in 2007 called "How to Nurture New Ideas". Idea gathering was just the first stage. Next came the need to filter those ideas and, finally, to field test the best one.

Memorial Coliseum was built in 1960 as a multi-purpose arena. It has hosted concerts by The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Luciano Pavarotti and Bob Dylan. Basketball history like the 1965 NCAA Championship and the 1977, 1990 and 1992 NBA Finals has been played inside its glassy confines (a curtain at the top of the seating bowl temporarily blocking the light). The Dalai Lama and Barack Obama have spoken there. More importantly, though, it is home today to myriad events from Winterhawks hockey to the Dew Sports Tour to religious gatherings, school graduations and Veterans' Day celebrations. It's a beautiful, utterly unique work of architecture that remains vital to the community. It represents not just the best of our grandparents' generation, but, in its restoration, the best of Portland today. Whether you come from Beaverton or Belmont Street, whether you're seeking a sound studio or a waterpark, it's time to look somewhere else for a single-use building that could be built anywhere but happens to fit inside a city landmark erroneously open for consideration. It's time to commit to Memorial Coliseum. Luckily the truth, like the building, is transparent: all you have to do is open its curtain to see the light.

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A lean, green studio: talking with James Meyer of Opsis Architecture

Hood River Middle School (image courtesy Opsis Architecture)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Though the Great Recession has not been kind to the architecture and construction industry, Opsis Architecture may serve as proof that the combination of skills - collaboration, innovation, humility, ingenuity - can still propel certain firms to prosperity.

Not among the biggest or smallest firms in town, Opsis remains busy with a host of public and private projects across the region. In particular, the firm - which Meyer formed with Alec Holser and Jim Kalveledge (all were colleagues at Yost Grube Hall) in 1999 - has made its name with several school projects over the years, both K-12 and colleges. Though the firm has yet to design a major building in central Portland, they've long been on the cusp. They were one of three finalists for Portland State University's new building on the Urban Center plaza two years ago, for example, and produced an arguably far more compelling design than the ultimate winner, Yost Grube Hall. But as Meyer notes, the variety of projects, and the future in which they are designed, is what gets him excited.

"We’re doing food service, theaters, basketball courts, media centers, offices. Even as you start thinking about new working environments, we’re intrigued by that conversation related to all of these projects going on."

Pringle Creek development (image courtesy Opsis Architecture)

Among the most recent Opsis projects is the Pringle Creek housing community in Salem. A 32-acre development, Pringle Creek is first mixed-use LEED-rated community in the United States, blending of the residential and commercial communities are developed to enhance livability. The community integrates 130 carbon-neutral/net-zero-energy residences (including single and multi-family houses, cottages, row houses and apartments) with LEED-certified retail, work spaces, parks and community buildings. There is geothermal heating in 70 homes, commercial and mixed-use buildings as well as a porous asphalt street system for managing rainwater; an onsite biodiesel co-op; and community flex car (car-sharing), all while protecting a bounty of native landscape and habitat. At the center is Painters Hall, a circa-1930s barn that has been restored into a net-zero-energy community space with meeting spaces, a community kitchen, conference room, art space, and a café.

"Pringle is such a commitment. If you can do it and stay with it, that’s where the future is. It’s so light on the land, so light on energy, and so heavy on buildng community and respect. It’s humble but it’s a flagship in terms of what it represents."

He also says Painters Hall typifies a kind of sweet spot for Opsis in terms of size and scope of a project. "Painters Hall is 3,400 square feet. We can do a little super hands on building. I can walk around there and point stuff to the contractor. It’s guerilla architecture," he explains. "You work with the contractors and subcontractors to make it happen. But then when you’re doing a net-zero 200,000 square foot building, you’ve got to be smart and think about all those pieces. If you can get things that always do more than one thing, you can really amp up the juice that you get out of a project."

Painters Hall at Pringle Creek (image courtesy Solar Today)

Opsis was also a co-developer of the project, which Meyer says was a good teacher. "You sure really develop a respect for developers and contractors by doing yourself. It’s a different stomach required in the development game. You don’t just sit and tell people what to do. You’ve got to understand repercussions. But that’s helped keep our spirits up in the recession. You make core financial decisions about who you are, what’s your brand."

The firm once made a similar bet on its headquarters, a circa-1910 horse stable building on NW Lovejoy that Opsis retored into a LEED Platinum rated office. "We’re only about 4 or 5 years old when we bought this building. But six years ago, when we finished, it was one of the highest rated LEED buildings on the west coast."

Another recent project is the new Music and Science building at Hood River Middle School, which last year became the Oregon building to be honored by the Energy Trust's Path to Net-Zero program. Designed to earn LEED Platinum certification, it also was a winner of the AIA’s 2030 Challenge Design Award.

Hood River Middle School (image courtesy Opsis Architecture) 

Situated directly adjacent to the historic main school building on the campus, the design of the Music/Science building had two primary objectives: create a public building that truly fuses sustainable design with sustainability curriculum, and carefully integrate the facility into the existing National Historic Landmark site. The new building is home to a new music room, practice rooms, teacher offices, a science lab and a greenhouse.

Insulated concrete formwork walls are augmented with a brick veneer carefully detailed to complement the pattern of the existing building. Triple-glazed windows complete the airtight, well-insulated building envelope with good thermal mass to buffer against Hood River’s seasonal temperature swings. Geothermal heating and cooling is paired with heat exchange with water from an adjacent stream, a radiant slab and heat recovery ventilators using displacement air distribution. A plenum sits under a 35 kilowatt solar panel system, simultaneously preheating air for the building and cooling the panels to make them more efficient. The project is estimated to consume approximately 35,000 kWh, all of which will be supplied by the photovoltaic array on the roof.

Key to the Opsis working method, the architect says, is its studio environment. That and never being satisfied.

"You worry about a certain confidence," he explains. "Have you listened to what the building could be? Can you find the balance where everything has due thought but you’re moving forward and it’s not cavalier? We don’t pull a style out of the drawer. We just apply rigor. I think everyone’s talents are mixed and they’re shifting. What an open studio means to us is the conversation is broad."

Meyer believes that each team member has certain tendencies and talents that can then be meshed into the whole. "I tend to just see things. It’s a gift and curse. You go through five pages and see the detail that's not right. The mission was this. Did we capture the mission? It’s an ability to be reflective and critical. You just have to look at stuff and criticize. You’re not going to get good architecture accidentally. It’s very complex. Everything we do is unique. We are always balancing between the benefit of repetition coupled with seeing everything for the first time. I think Opsis is able to capture the freshness. We’ve been around for along time. But we want the competence to allow us to do highly dynamic work."

Performing arts facility at Reed College (image courtesy Reed College)

Another project underway is a new performing arts facility at Reed College. Due for completion in 2013, the new academic facility will bring the three performing arts departments together in a building carved into the slope above the tennis courts on the west side of campus.

“At every corner, this is a teaching facility,” says Meyer's Opsis partner, Alec Holser. “Whether it’s a stair landing or a lobby space that works for performance, it’s got to be a place where students come together to learn and connect, to do what Reed students do—get together in small groups and discuss.” 

The centerpiece of the three-story building will be a 6,929 square-foot atrium winter garden that frames the view to the west hills. Extending from the west entrance to the second-level east entrance, it has been designed as a place that will accommodate impromptu jam sessions, guerrilla theatre, and spontaneous gatherings. Outside, an informal amphitheatre is created by a series of terraces descending from the Gray Campus Center quad to the entry plaza.

"It started out as a reasonably straightforward response to the broad student experience, which in their view would include the arts: theater, music, dance," Meyer explains. "At Reed there is a desire to have synergy in how different portions of the school can be integrated. What came in a highly collaborative exercise with them is the notion of space as a connection.Also, because of the steepness of the campus you couldn’t really get to Kaul Auditorium next door. We were able to create space in the winter garden atrium that otherwise just doesn’t exist on the campus. You have this ability for informal learning going on all the time, and an attractor related to community. It can’t be all planned. You want somebody going, 'I’m just going to walk in because it’s cool.' The black box, you can open up the wall to what’s going on. You don’t always want all those walls all the time. It can being daylight and activity in and make you feel like you’re on display. You already have an audience. That’s connecting you to an audience in a way."

Meyer says the firm's studio environment helped produce the best possible design for Reed, like all clients. "Alec and Jim and I touch every single project. It just depends on timing and relationship. We don’t have any kind of structure," he explains. " One project might be on a fast tract, so we’ll have a project manager who lives and breathes it. Or it might be about capturing a vision, so we’ve got a young designer creating different renderings and ideas. We’re pretty much a 3D studio now. When we build the teams, typically the people at the beginning go all the way to the end, from groundbreaking to ribbon cutting, so we have that continuity. At the end of the day, I think we still have a real personal investiture in the work and the places associated with it."

 

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Air-tight architecture: Milos Jovanovic on shifting to Passive House principles

Shift House in Hood River (image courtesy Root Design-Build)

BY JULIETTE BEALE

On the second Wednesday of the month, the AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) invites the design community to bring their lunch to the AIA for an informal “greenbag” lecture. The talks are generally themed around green building and planning with past topics focusing on Net Zero Apartments and community energy production. Milos Jovanovic, of Root Design-Build, presented May’s talk on “Passive House Principles.”

Many Americans may find these airtight houses that are powered on the amount of electricity it takes to run a hairdryer to be cutting edge. Yet, the Passivhaus concept and subsequent Passive House Standards were developed more than twenty years ago in Germany.  The homes rely mainly on solar gain for heating and are passively cooled during warmer months. These passive strategies draw roots from vernacular building. Jovanovic showed a slide of a cluster of traditional homes built into an Icelandic hillside.  Like these homes with their heavy sod roofs, Passive Houses use high thermal mass and insulation to regulate indoor temperatures. Both types of dwellings are oriented to capture solar gain from winter sunlight.

There are only three main guidelines for achieving Passive House certification. First, primary energy use from electricity, hot water, and heating/ cooling must be capped to120 kWh.  Basically this requires that there be no mechanical HVAC unit. Instead,  many of these homes have solar hot water heaters and the spaces are heated passively by occupants, equipment, and solar gain. Second, and most controversial, the home must be airtight with no more than 0.6 air changes per hour. To achieve this, all penetrations must be carefully sealed and a Heat Recovery Ventilation unit (HRV) is installed to strictly control air exchanges. Third, space heating and cooling must each not exceed 15 kWh.  The HRV doubles to provide the extra heating and cooling needs.

Unlike LEED and its prescriptive system of credits, there are no rules, strategies or technologies specifically stipulated by the guidelines. To achieve the low energy use standards, however, typically demands the use of super-insulation, high thermal mass, triple paned glazing, insulated doors, an HRV, low energy appliances, and elements that help regulate the exterior climate such as vegetation and reflective surfaces. The Passive House Institute has developed its own energy modeling software where designers input the values from wall systems, windows, and foundations to determine whether the house is meeting the standards and which areas need to be improved.  This is followed up with in-field testing to insure the model’s accuracy.

Shift House in Hood River (image courtesy Root Design-Build)

In these days where climate change, peak oil, and fears of nuclear fall-out are growing concerns, Passive Houses sound like a great panacea to the energy crisis.  The typical Passive House uses a mere 15 kW per year.  When you compare this number to the average US home, which uses 130 kW per year, it quickly becomes apparent why Jovanovic sees this as the next revolution in the field of green building.

The economics of building and operating a passive house are equally intriguing.  A major goal for Jovanovic is to achieve Passive House Standards while on the budget of a typical home.  He is in the midst of doing this with Shift House, a 2,200 square foot Hood River residence with a budget of just $330,000.  The added costs associated with the efficient walls, windows, and doors are made up for by omitting the mechanical system.  Shift House is designed using quality products that last longer and need to be replaced less often to help reduce maintenance costs.  Lastly, the long term energy savings attributed to minimizing heat loss through the envelope help offset the more expensive cost of the wall systems.

Based on these points, I am a little surprised I haven’t seen more Portlanders rushing out to get triple paned windows or demanding architects use structural insulated panels (SIPs).  Yet as a practitioner in an office that has a great deal of respect for traditional details, I can see why we are skeptical of this technology.  Like the members in the audience, I found myself asking, “Where is the dew point in the twelve inch wall? How does the rainscreen get attached?  If the house must be airtight, how do you ventilate the roof? Can you really limit all thermal bridges? Are the windows operable?  Is the bathroom, at least, ventilated?”   

For many folks, the technologies are still a little unsettling.  Most of the products Jovanovic has used in his own projects, from windows to building tape, must be ordered from Europe. The construction practices and materials are new to contractors and require a learning curve. Jovanovic showed an image of a crane hoisting the large roof SIPs into place, a construction technique that appeared costly and cumbersome for a single-family residence.  After so much attention has been focused on Sick Building Syndrome, the concept of an airtight house, even with an HRV, still sounds like an unhealthy environment.  What will it take for us to shift our paradigm and be comfortable with these diagrams and figures?

Jovanovic patiently answered each of the questions from the audience with assured confidence. He described the architectural details and new systems he used in Shift House, that are frequently employed in other Passive Houses, in response to people’s skepticism.

In detailing Shift House, Jovanovic solved the problem of thermal bridges by separating the structural system from the insulation.  An eight-inch-thick structural insulated panel (SIP) forms the basis of the wall system by acting as both insulation and structure.  (SIPs are composed of two OSB panels with rigid insulation sandwiched between them.) A four-inch layer of rigid insulation is attached to the outside of the SIP to limit any thermal bridges at framing joints, openings, and additional structure. The combined layer of rigid and SIP creates, in essence, two cavities which can house mechanical, plumbing, electrical, and other structural elements. Siding and battens, making up the rainscreen, are attached by long screws that tie through the outer layer of rigid insulation and into the OSB panel of the SIP.  The overall wall system is rated at R-40.

The walls are not all that is super-insulated. A great deal of heat loss in the typical home is attributed to exposed foundation walls.  In Shift House, the concrete rat slab is topped with a vapor barrier and then a nine-inch layer of rigid insulation. A final skim coat of concrete forms the finish floor and adds more thermal mass to the structure. For the roof, twelve-inch thick SIPs are positioned into a gable form and a six-inch layer of rigid insulation is added to the outside bringing it to R-72, nearly double what is required by Code. Jovanovic noted that the roof is ventilated by an air gap between the outer layer of rigid and the standing seam metal roof, allowing the interior to remain airtight.

Many audience members expressed concern about the consequences of an airtight envelope. Jovanovic asserted that passive houses like Shift House have as much clean air entering as regular houses.  The only difference is that air is let in at a controlled rate by the HRV. Moreover, the house functions like the average American Home. There may be subtle differences in how the systems operate, but the outcome is the same. The kitchen range hoods must be vented with special systems, but they still vent to the outside. The windows may be triple-paned and thermally broken, but they are operable. In many cases, the materials cost the same as traditional products of the same quality. Jovanovic noted that Shift House’s European windows cost the same as Marvin’s triple paned line.  

While everyone in the green building community can be excited about Passive Houses’ energy efficiency, I can’t help but getting an image of a huge Styrofoam container with a house inside. How much embodied energy does it take to produce these walls in comparison to the energy they save? How many petrochemicals? Passive House Standards force designers to consider the environment and climate in which they are building in order to determine the best passive strategies. They allow for functional homes with beautiful spaces. I agree that in the near future it will be a necessity for homes to operate on the amount of energy Passive Houses use. Yet, it seems like an oxymoron that these homes are often built using materials derived from the same resources the homes are attempting to reduce demand on through their energy efficiency. I applaud Passive House, but hope that it evolves to include a standard that addresses embodied energy.

Juliette Beale is a designer with Portland's Emerick Architects and a member of the American Institute of Architects/Portland Committee on the Environment. COTE Greenbag talks are held the 2nd Wednesday of the month from noon-1pm at the AIA Center for Architecture, 403 NW 11th Ave.  The next talk, scheduled for June 16, is entitled “Urbanize and Insulate: The Development of a Fossil Fuel Exit Strategy ” and presented by Dylan Lamar of Green Hammer Construction.

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