Portland Architecture

Design Calendar: November 1-15

"4001 SW Canyon Road" (photo by Loren Nelson)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Portland Photographers' Forum
An 80-member non-profit group of photographic artists, educators, professionals and enthusiasts, the Portland Photographers' Forum promotes photography as a fine art through exhibitions of member work, public workshops and meetings featuring talks by noted photographers. This show features architectural photography by Ray Bidegain, Loren Nelson and Pete Gomena, among others. Architectural Heritage Center, 701 SE Grand Avenue. Opening reception 6pm Friday, November 1. Free.

PUARL International Conference
A biennial conference hosted by the Portland Urban Architecture Research Laboratory and the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts, this year's theme is "Battle for the Life and Beauty of The Earth." The conference will focus on problems and issues that are faced in urban environments and buildings throughout the world today. University of Oregon, White Stag Block, 70 NW Couch Street. 5pm Friday, November 1. $100-300.

Ginger Krieg Dosier
Pacific Northwest College of Art and the Oregon College of Art & Crafts' joint MFA program in applied craft and design welcomes Ginger Krieg Dosier as part of the 2013-2014 Graduate Visiting Artist Lecture Series. An Assistant Professor of Architecture at the American University of Sharjah College of Architecture, Art and Design, United Arab Emirates, Dosier's research lies in the choreography of materiality with an environmental focus, engaging in co-research forums and cross-disciplinary collaboration while seeking a scientific understanding of the properties of material in relation to architectural performance. In 2012 Dosier founded bioMASON, a unique biotechnology start-up manufacturing company that employs natural microorganisms and chemical processes to manufacture biological cement-based masonry building materials with the aim of revolutionizing the building and construction industry. Bison Building, 421 NE 10th Avenue. 6:30pm Wednesday, November 6. Free.

DeMuro Awards
Restore Oregon's First Annual DeMuro Awards, honoring the late developer and historic preservationist Art Demuro, celebrates Oregon’s best preservation projects and features guest speaker Portland Mayor Charlie Hales. Ecotrust Building, 721 NW Ninth Avenue. 5:30pm Wednesday, November 6. $30-40.

Cohousing: Reinventing Retirement
Members of the Baby Boom generation often reject old retirement models, choosing to instead live in intentional communities of friends, have neighbors who are caring, positive adults; have private residences but shared common spaces; walk to almost everything. Speaker Kathryn McCamant has been responsible for co-launching 50 such communities in North America. "Creating Community: Boomers do it Better" is the title of her presentation. Mississippi Pizza, 4115 N Mississippi Avenue. 7pm Thursday, November 7. Free.

What Is Public Space Now?
As more diverse demands are placed upon public spaces, how should they be designed and created? To explore this question, urbanLAB:PDX, a research collaborative at the PSU School of Architecture, presents a global survey of more than 30 contemporary design projects in the public realm. These projects include post-industrial waterfronts, energized streetscapes, large and small parks and communal rituals. Projects range from New York City’s Highline to Paris’s temporary riverfront beaches to Ballast Point Park on former brownfields in Sidney to the spectacle Waterfire in Providence. How do Portland’s public spaces stack up against these global efforts? The exhibit runs November 7-27. AIA/Portland Center For Architecture, 403 NW 11th Avenue. Opening reception 6pm Thursday, November 7. Free.

Ellen Dunham-Jones
Speaking as part of the Portland State University School of Architecture's "Unclad" lecture series, Dunham-Jones is an award-winning licensed architect and professor teaching contemporary architectural and urban design studios and theory at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her book, Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs (co-authored with June Williamson), received the 2009 PROSE award for architecture and urban planning from the American Association of Publishers and was featured in Time magazine’s March 23, 2009 cover story, “10 Ideas Changing The World Right Now.” Portland State University, Shattuck Hall Annex, 1914 SW Park Avenue. 6pm Thursday, November 7. Free.

Charles Ertz's 8th Church of Christ Scientist (image courtesy AHC)

2030 Momentum: Targets and Barriers
Nine cities and two states have already passed mandatory energy use disclosure requirements. It is only a matter of time before our design community is be faced with disclosing buildings’ energy use. Clark Brockman of SERA Architects and Marc Prune of PAE Consulting Engineers will discuss keeping up with 2030 Challenge energy performance targets and breaking down barriers that hinder performance. AIA/Portland Center For Architecture, 403 NW 11th Avenue. 9am Friday, November 8. $105 ($75 for AIA members).

Charles Ertz: Architect, Builder, Entrepreneur
With a career that began around 1906, Ertz (1887-1979) was responsible for a number of National Register-listed properties including the Jantzen House in Lake Oswego (1935) and the Parkview Apartments in northeast Portland (1940). Ertz worked in a number of architectural styles. A prime English Tudor example is the former Lloyd Golf Club building (1930), now a credit union near Benson High School. Ertz differed from other architects of his time with his entrepreneurial bent, engaging in everything from land speculation and design to building and financing. Architectural Heritage Center, 701 SE Grand Avenue. 10am Saturday, November 9. $18 ($10 for AHC members).

Celebrate Preservation: The Gordon House
Recently bequeathed with a donation from the MJ Murdock Charitable Trust, the Gordon House near Silverton, Oregon's only building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, continues its path to full restoration. This gathering celebrates the Gordon while raising awareness about the Murdock Trust's matching donations. Design Within Reach, 1200 NW Everett. 6pm Tuesday, November 12. Free.

 

Advertisements

Mayor Hales talks design and planning with local architects

Mayor Hales (image courtesy eastpdxnews.com)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Last week Portland mayor Charlie Hales, in his first year on the job after a successful City Council tenure in the 1990s, stopped by AIA/Portland's Center For Architecture to talk about the state of our built environment and his priorities for planning and designing the city.

The mayor began by reflecting on where Portland is today, including its breadth of creative-class workers and industries.

"If you look at Portland’s place in the world, there are strengths that have been with us for some time and may be on the rise at the moment. One is local talent," Hales said." We have a lot of home grown talent in our design and development community. I’ve tried to explain Portland to other cities many times: most developers look out and say, ‘How do I get around city hall and make some money?’ In Portland, it’s, ‘How do I make some money by implementing the city’s plan?’ It’s not quite that bad, but there is a congruity between the local talent and entrepreneurs in our city. It’s also true in tech and in the creative industry."

Hales also said the central city's education system is improved. "We have a great k-12 education system in the central city. That’s not true in most large American cities lately," the mayor said. "We’ve been at some risk for some time since passage of Measure 5 and the anemic property tax system on which it depends. But thanks to the last legislature and voters’ generosity, and great work in the schools themselves, they’re on the rise. Roosevelt looked like the classic school in decline. Attendance, student performance and graduation rates are all up by double digits. They’ve risen to over 1,000 students again."

Placemaking

To his credit, "placemaking" has long been one of Hales' favorite words, and he seemed eager to communicate to the assembled audience of architects that he spoke their language. "In a world where capital and talent are mobile, quality of place is huge, and we have it," he explained. "We have a lot of work to do on it, but it’s real. It’s not hard to get me in a conversation about architecture and design. The questions of how the city grows and the importance of design are crucial to me. We have a great record of deliberate placemaking, all the way back to Lovejoy and Pettygrove after the coin toss, who laid down a city grid with a city green down the middle that reflected their New England roots. The Olmsted plan, we brag about the fact that we’re still working off a 1901 Olmsted plan for the park system. And in the private sector, developers like William Ladd did great work. And the housing stock, from that 1905-45 era, is magnificent. I live in one. The downtown plan is a great accomplishment. The pearl and river district that took an old neighborhood and envisioned it as a neighborhood with streetcar brought it to life in a way that the whole country looks at."

Next the mayor delved into a set of issues that "vex us a little bit and have us looking for ideas."

Taking Success East

One is the challenge of creating complete communities throughout the city. "We have the great old neighborhoods, which are old streetcar streets. The challenge that Susan [Anderson, who heads the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability] and the PDC and others are grappling with today is how do we deliberately transplant that urbanism into places that were developed without it, or half without it. The PDC is trying out the Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative, which tries to create a there there. I’m not sure how that experiment is working yet. But we  a city have to be able to make the promise of living in a great Portland neighborhood true to the areas east of I-205. We’re not there yet in terms of that Portland image and quality of life. That challenge is one that will require money, ideas, partnerships, and perseverance to get anywhere. I’m very interested in your ideas."

Apartment Parking

Hales then moved on to infill development and parking requierments, lately a controversial issue.

"We’ve had quite a bit of controversy on the City Council about apartments on main streets and whether they should have parking or not: whether they’re good neighbors or durable buildings. We also have outbreaks of nimbyism in neighborhoods like mine in Eastmoreland. Achieving one more residential unit pisses off thousands of people. I don’t think that’s defensible," Hales said.

But later, taking a question from architect Dave Otte of Holst Architecture, the mayor added: "I should confess the decision was to some extent an emergency retreat rather than thoughtful planning and policymaking. The tipping point for me was the people on Fremont telling me there was no Sunday bus service. People are going to live a transit lifestyle? Oops."

Bureau of Public Plazas?

Hales also introduced the idea of creating more plaz-like public space in the city, even suggesting a new bureau to make it happen.

"By that I don’t mean parks," the mayor cautioned. "We have precisely two public squares. They’re a block from one other: Pioneer Courthouse Square and Director Park. Places like Jamison Quare are not public squares. And yet go to the street fairs or last Thursday or Old Town on a Saturday night, if you dare, and you will find thousands of people on the street. We have this human hunger for people watching. We don’t have any deliberate program as a city to create that. We don’t have a department of public squares. The planning bureau and the parks bureau, none of them conceive of that as a primary responsibility. I think we need a deliberate effort to create public space in which civic life takes place. And if you don’t fund it, it doesn’t happen."

Livability vs. Liberty

When Hales concluded his remarks to open the floor for questioning, the first query took a conservative tone, asking how "dirt people with pit bulls" could be eschewed from loitering in the central city.

"We have to do more on the services side for people who find themselves on the street. They’re there for all kinds of reasons, and there’s not one kind of homeless people," Hales said. "There are economic refugees. There are people suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction. Then there are people who are wanderers or travelers who have essentially dropped out of society and would rather travel than settle. Some of those people have issues of their own. You can’t characterize it as one type of person."

"What do we do? More services, and pick the services that are really making a difference for those who are ready to get help. We can’t check their residency and send them back to where they came from. Let’s deal with it and help them try to transition back into society. But others are resistant to services. The sit/lie ordinance is not a good deal for anyone, including those who have a right to a peaceful downtown. We need to increase the enforcement of public spaces. At city hall we used the ordinance to say, that’s a high traffic street and you can’t camp there. And we put down tables and chairs and tried the Bryant park experiment….Each of us with a planning and management responsibility needs to be good stewards. We have to do more on the services side and the enforcement side. Commissioner Saltzman is going to bring a budget proposal forth to bring over $1 million to enforcement, which I support."

Improving Budgets

The mayor took this moment to express optimism about budgeting, a drastic change even since last November's election.

"We had a $21 million deficit in January. We had some tough decisions to make in cutting budgets. We’ve bounced out of that hole and now have a 14 million dollar surplus," he explained. "That’s going to go to pay off debt and support housing services."

Appetite for Construction

A member of AIA/Portland's Urban Design Committee, Brian Campbell, asked Hales, "If we come up with great ideas, what’s the political appetite to make some changes in how we look as east Portland as a whole?"

"My sense is the attitude is good," the mayor said. "My sense is no one is dug in to things as they stand. I don’t think political resistance to change on the city council is our blocking force. One effect is always money, but we’re heading into better circumstances. We need to figure out how much PDC has to spend."

From answering that question, Hales went on to cite development opportunities in areas such as the Central Eastside near the new MAX stations. "It's waterfront property with a spectacular new bridge with no freeway along the river, within walking distance of Ladd’s addition," he said. "A lot of Trimet’s staging areas are freed up for redevelopment. There’s Burnside bridgehead: I think it could be a great place, especially since we’ve got great outbreaks of urbanism from there to 12^th."

Further out from the central city, "Lents is in a state of arrested development, but PDC owns 30 pieces of land," he said. "Maybe we’re land rich and idea poor. But we’re looking at proposals for four or five of those right now. I think we need bold ideas."

Abandoned Couplet

Mary Vogel of the Portland Downtown Neighborhood Asssociation asked Mayor Hales about the continuation of Mayor Adams' plan to split Burnside and Couch Street into a couplet, as had been done a few years ago on the east side.

"I’m not inclined to follow through with the couplet," he said. "It’s expensive and seemed to be fixing one problem in exchange for another one."

Rose Quarter and Memorial Coliseum

In his boldest challenge to architects, Hales at first seemed critical of the city's proposed $31 million Memorial Coliseum restoration plan. "We have a plan that leaves me cold: to spend money to put duct tape around that building, because it needs $70 million," he said.

The mayor seemed to be implying that the Coliseum should not be restored, but in private remarks after the talk, Hales cautioned that he is opposed to letting the buiding be demolished. Rather than opposing the MC's restoration, he seems to believe that it doesn't go far enough. He also acknowledged that perhaps the most pressing redevelopment opportunity in the Rose Quarter is not Memorial Coliseum, but transforming the city's two adjacent above-ground parking garages into high-density architecture with parking buried underground. It's "not a low-rise commercial and employment district," the city needs in the Rose Quarter, Mayor Hales explained, "but a higher intensity mostly residential district."

"Homer [Williams] and Al Solheim were right," he added, referring to the two Portland developers most responsible for transforming Portland's Pearl District from an industrial zone and railyard into the city's next high-density neighborhood.

Perhaps more than Mayor Sam Adams and certainly more than Mayor Tom Potter, Charlie Hales has an inherent sense of how the mix of architecture, planning, public space and transit can achieve transformative results. His mayoral tenure began amidst difficult budget realities that may now be improving. What will be his legacy? The close-in East Side may be the place to start.

During his late-90s and early-00s tenure on City Council, Hales was the elected official most associated with developing the Portland Streetcar. Now, as the newest streetcar line winds along the Rose Quarter's northern edge and down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, winding through the Lloyd District and past the Convention Center and continuing to OMSI, the mayor can help affect positive change along that line. The key may be to unify these areas, particularly the Convention Center/Rose Quarter/Lloyd District cluster, into transit-oriented, high-density development. The way to do that is to harness the power of under-utilized land, particularly vacant lots and parking garages such as those at the Rose Quarter, as well as soon to be vacated parcels like the Portland Public Schools lot fronting NE Broadway. Hales must also harness the existing architecture there, especially National Register-protected landmarks like the Coliseum, and take advantage of the opportunity the Rose Quarter and Convention Center areas present for creating new public space.

Indeed, Hales is all about placemaking, and now is his chance to show that he supports not only transit-oriented development, but also the broader balance with economic development and historic preservation. More than a decade ago Hales first showed he's a man with vision, helping to set in motion the streetcar and other key parts of Portland's renaissance. Now is his chance to prove it.

 

Advertisements

Allied Works, ZGF lead AIA Design Award winners

UO Hatfield-Dowlin Complex (photo by Wolfram Burner)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Last Friday's annual AIA/Portland Design Awards saw two projects in the Willamette Valley win the evening's top prize, the Honor Award: Allied Works Architecture's Sokol Blosser Winery Tasting Room near Dayton in rural Yamhill County, and ZGF's Hatfield-Dowlin Complex for the University of Oregon, outside Autzen Stadium in Eugene.

These are two firms very familiar with AIA/Portland Design Awards, including the Honor Award. Familiar too are some of the night's other winning firms, such as Skylab Architecture, THA Architecture, Hennebery Eddy, Lever Architecture, and Opsis Architecture. There are many excellent firms in this city, some of which don't have a closet ful of awards. But the consistency with which these firms win year after year is no coincidence.

Honor Awards

Allied's 5,000 square foot Sokol Blosser Winery Tasting Room opened this summer, and it represents the growth of Oregon's wine industry. Sokol Blosser, one of the region's pioneering wineries, had relied on the same basic tasting room since the early 1970s, and visitors would often drive up, see it was already overflowing, and turn around. Allied's task was to create a bigger space, yet not to tower over the beautiful rolling hills with some faux-Mediterranean monstrosity, like many big wineries do. “We wanted to make it look like it just grew up out of the earth,” Alison Sokol-Blosser told Portland Monthly's Sam Coggeshall earlier this year.

The design is comprised of numerous cedar-clad interior spaces carved into the hillside. “It’s this crazy labyrinth,” Cloepfil told Coggeshall. “It’s the valley’s first piece of contemporary architecture that really responds to where it is—to landscape, earth, and light.” Along the way, Sokol Blosser gives Cloepfil an addition to his portfolio of Oregon projects. Allied first gained acclaim with the Wieden + Kennedy building in the Pearl District in 2000, quickly followed by the 2281 Glisan Building. But since then much of the firm's work has been out of town. Paired with Allied's under-construction rehabilitation of the historic 511 Broadway building for PNCA (as well as a collection of houses and work for Catlin Gable school), Sokol Blosser helps give the top Portland architect of his generation more of a local footing.

Sokol Blosser Winery Tasting Room (photos by Jeff Jahn, PORT)

Although Sokol Blosser may not be Allied's most prominent project given its portfolio includes major art museums in Seattle, New York and Dallas, there may not be another building that better represents Cloepfil's signature talent for envisioning buildings situated seamlessly within the Oregon landscape, poised to receive a bounty of light.

ZGF's Honor Award for the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex at UO is another confirmation of the architectural partnership between the university, Nike, and a design team led by Gene Sandoval (with interiors by Firm 151). This architect-client combination already had been responsible for the magnificent Jacqua Center at the University of Oregon, which previously won an AIA/Portland Honor Award. Sitting beside Autzen Stadium, Hatfield-Dowlin feels like Rotterdam on the Willamette: a series of crisp interlocking rectangular volumes that poetically blend metal, glass and black granite. Nike and co-founder Phil Knight's multi-million-dollar benefaction meant that this project had an uncommonly high budget, but budgets alone do not make first-rate architecture. From the elegance of the materials to the way light moves in and out of the space to an exceptionally clever array of graphics, art and multimedia, Hatfield-Dowlin is greater than the sum of its meticulous parts.

Merit Awards

The next tier of awards, known as the Merit Award, went to two projects: the Colonel Nesmith Readiness Center in Dallas, Oregon by THA Architecture, and the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services' Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant Engineering Building, by Skylab Architecture in collaboration with Solarc.

The Colonel James Nesmith Readiness Center provides training facilities, recruiting, administrative and family support spaces for the Oregon Army National Guard. THA's design, targeted for LEED Gold and also received a Design-Build Institute of America national design award, is situated around its main assembly hall, which filters daylight from skylights through a wood framework reminiscent of the wooden barns common to this rural area, yet with a more highly ordered geometry. This is the latest in a long line of restrained yet elegant THA public building projects, a firm specialty. The firm previously known as Thomas Hacker Architects is showing that, even as its namesake founder increasingly hands the reigns to a new generation, the quality remains just as high.

Top: Naismith Readiness Center (image courtesy DBIA), bottom: CBWTP (via AIA)

The CBWTP Engineering Building provides offices and support spaces for Bureau of Environmental Services staff. "Oriented radially along the path of the sun, the building will feature a rooftop that folds up and down," says Architizer. "As the seven separate folds of the roof tilt, in sawtooth rhythm, clerestory windows fill the void created by the upward fold, responding to the movement of natural light and airflow. The downward fold drains the landscaped roof runoff into a berm on the south facade and bioswales return the stormwater to the Columbia Slough. The folded roof combined with a north-oriented, louvered and operable glass facade, will allow daylight and natural ventilation to fill the interior during working hours and make possible night flush cooling. The building's hydronic system will connect to the plant water flow, efficiently heating and cooling. The entrance to the plant will be modified to provide a native and adaptive environment, creating a public space in front of the building with views to an existing pond. A newly landscaped commons area will be accessible to the plant staff as well as for educational tours of plant operations for the public. A circular open space in the center will feature landscaping and interpretive features demonstrating water treatment strategies."

Citation Awards

The next tier of award went to two built and two unbuilt projects. In the unbuilt category, Lever Architecture won for ArtHouse, the new dormitory for the Pacific Northwest College of Art located on the North Park Blocks. With natural light filtering into its deepest interiors and a bold undulating metal facade, ArtHouse helps mark Lever's arrival as one of the city's most talented firms. The firm previously won an AIA Honor Award for its work in Southern California for some major Hollywood studios, but ArtHouse, arriving within months of the Union Way project (which also was honored this year by the AIA), showed that Lever founder Thomas Robinson's talents reflect his time at two of the world's best firms: Allied Works and Herzog & DeMeuron.

Top: ArtHouse (photo by Brian Libby), bottom: Cascades Academy (courtesy AIA)

The other built Citation Award went to the Cascades Academy of Central Oregon in Bend by Hennebery Eddy. Besides winning a slough of past design awards, the firm has made highly sustainable college and university projects its bread and butter, be it the net-zero Portland Community College facility in Newberg, Oregon or this new project. Hennebery Eddy's architecture also feels somehow quintessentially Northwest, teeming with wood and light.

Hennebery Eddy also won a Citation Award this year for the unbuilt Fire Station 76 in Gresham, a series of simple rectangular and triangular volumes that alternate transparency and solidity while showing off the firm's experience with fire stations. Every time I drive down Sandy Boulevard in Portland, I smile at the firm's design for Fire Station 28, which combined a historic existing building with an entirely modern wing next door - the two buildings are surprisingly congruent, an exercise in interweaving old and new architecture.

Top: Fire Station 76, bottom: Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (images courtesy AIA)

THA Architecture's design for the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship  of Central Oregon made the firm a repeat winner on Friday night with its unbuilt Citation Award. Although the building's form is boxy, its glass curtain wall makes for not only a compelling display of visual kinetics but also is a nod to traditional eclesiastical stained glass. Corey Martin, formerly of PATH Architecture, led this design, reflecting his imprint on the firm.

Other Awards

This year the Bend area was well represented in the AIA Design Awards, including a Craftsmanship Award for the Central Oregon Community College Science Building by YGH Architecture and Bend firm Pinnacle Architecture.

The Sustainability Award went to another THA project, the Bayview Branch Library in San Francisco, which the firm designed in partnership with SF firm Karin Payson Architecture + Design.

Top to bottom: Bayview Library, Galleria, Reed College PAB (images courtesy AIA)

A Special Award for Adaptive Reuse went to the Galleria building rehabilitation into a City Target, by Portland's FFA Architecture and Interiors in tandem with Alameda, California's MBH Architects. The design completely eradicated any last semblance of the old Galleria building interior, which is disappointing to those of us who grew up going to the building's atrium of small shops, but it's an urbanistic triumph, maintaining the integrity of the historic Galleria exterior while exemplifying a new model of urban Target stores.

Two projects won the People's Choice Award. First place went to Opsis Architecture's design of the Reed College Performing Arts Building, which expertly balances contemporary lines with consideration of the school's early 20th century campus buildings. Second place went to Union Way, the Lever Architecture-designed shopping alley in Portland's West End.

If there's one project I think got shortchanged from the AIA jury, it's this one. It may only have created a series of storefronts fronting a new urban alley, but both the program and the execution are exemplary.

Union Way (photo by Jeremy Bitterman)

Luckily, Union Way also won the Mayor's Award for Design Excellence. "The team for that project took two nondescript buildings that most of us have never noticed and, by cutting an alley through them, transformed them into a place of interest and delight," Mayor Charlie Hales commented. "Like the sculptor that sees a statue inside a block of stone, the Union Way team saw a great place just waiting to be uncovered. They have created something that is beautiful to look at.  They have created something that is a delight to experience. And they have created something that can help all of look at our urban fabric in a different way. That is truly great design."

 

Advertisements

Design Calendar: October 16-31

Kai-Uwe Bergmann of Bjarke Ingels Group (image courtesy Revistazelo)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Kochuu: Japanese Architecture, Influence and Origin
Screening as part of the continuing Portland Design Festival, Jesper Wachtmeister's 52-minute documentary offers a sublime and informative study of modern Japanese architecture, its roots in Japanese tradition and its impact on European architecture, particularly in the Nordic nations. Center for Architecture, 403 NW 11th Avenue. 7pm Wednesday, October 16. $5 suggested.

Portland’s Architecture Heritage in a National Context
Portland has a wealth of late-19th through early-20th century buildings, but the shape, style, and architectural details on these buildings were not created in a vacuum. Indeed, the most common architectural styles found in the Rose City reflect the popular styles of their time as well as the education, experience, and personal history of the city’s architects and property developers. John Doyle shares his insight on the influences behind Portland architecture, tracing the roots of our local architecture back to the 16th century work of Andrea Palladio in Italy and the 17th and 18th century work of England’s Sir Christopher Wren. Architectural Heritage Center, 701 SE Grand Avenue. 7pm Thursday, October 17. $18 ($10 for AHC members).

An Evening With the Jury
In this longtime Portland Design Festival Event, a trio of out-of-town architects serving as jurors for the following day's AIA/Portland Design Awards provide insight into their work and approach to design, as well as commentary on the state of architecture in the city based on viewing scores of design submissions. This year's jury includes Lisa Chun of Seattle's Zeroplus, Yo-ichiro Hakomori of Los Angeles firm wHY Design, and Kai-Uwe Bergmann of Bjarke Ingels Group's New York office. Center for Architecture, 403 NW 11th Avenue. 5:30pm Thursday, October 17. Free.

AIA/Portland Design Awards
Honoring the best in architecture either built in Oregon or designed by Oregon-based firms, followed by the Portland Design Festival's closing night party. Leftbank Annex, 101 N Weidler Street. 7pm Friday, October 18. $50.

Albina Walking Tour
Once an incorporated city, separated from Portland, Albina has a lengthy and diverse history. This Architectural Heritage Center tour explores both commercial and residential Albina neighborhoods, with stories of Albina’s early proprietors and the area’s development from a railroad town to its transformation into the heart of Portland’s African-American community. Meeting location provided to ticket purchasers. 4pm Sunday, October 20. $18 ($15 for AHC members).

Inaki Alday and partner Magarita Jover (image courtesy vilagrasa.com)

Unclad Lecture Series: Iñaki Alday
Speaking as part of Portland State University school of architecture's Unclad lecture Series, Alday is founder and principal with Margarita Jover of aldayjover arquitectura y paisaje, a multidisciplinary practice based in Barcelona dedicated to the creation of public spaces, landscapes, and buildings, and focused on the integration of scales, non-traditional programs, and social and environmental ethics. Recipient of several international prizes and much recognition, Alday is Elwood R. Quesada Professor of Architecture and Chair of the Department of Architecture at the University of Virginia. Shattuck Hall Annex, 1914 SW Park Avenue. 6pm Thursday, October 24. Free.

Mayor Charlie Hales
In a talk at AIA/Portland called "Design and Development: Portland's Challenges and Opportunities," our city's mayor -- who previously gained notoriety in the late 1990s as a Portland City Council member promoting the creation of the city's streetcar network, but before that also represented Washington County home builders -- will weigh in on a variety of projects across the city. Center for Architecture, 403 NW 11th Avenue. 5:30pm Thursday, October 24. Free. 

Atomic Age Interiors
In the two decades following World War II, an upheaval in home interior design and décor trends focused on America's Space Age future. This panel discussion brings together a great group of mid-century experts and enthusiasts, intended to help current or potential owners of Atomic Age homes better understand the design philosophy of the time as well as successful modern-day approaches. Panelists include Bo Sullivan of Arcalus Period Design, Atomic Ranch magazine publisher Jim Brown, real estate broker Marisa Swenson of M Realty, and midcentury-modern homeowner David Wolski. Architectural Heritage Center, 701 SE Grand Avenue. 10am Saturday, October 26. $18 ($10 for AHC members).

 

Advertisements

Temple of football: visiting UO's Hatfield-Dowlin Complex

Hatfield-Dowlin Complex (photo by Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Since opening six weeks ago, the University of Oregon's Hatfield-Dowlin football complex outside Autzen Stadium has received both reverential praise and, for its role in the college sports arms race, a bit of hand-wringing. 

The design by ZGF Architects and Eugene Sandoval (with an assist from Firm 151 on interiors), which I checked out recently, is exceptionally impressive. Rooted in stone and steel but brought alive with glass, wide volumes and fun graphics by some the region's top architects, Hatfield-Dowlin gives Oregon football the chance to express in its home the combination of matchless quality and innovative thinking the team aspires to on the gridiron. This is a proper home for a team that dreams big dreams. 

Indeed, Hatfield-Dowlin is expensive. Media have quoted a figure of $68 million but the university has said the figure is simply a minimum - it may be more. The building, which comes at no cost to the university, is more luxurious than, say, a concrete block freshman dormitory. But must the University of Oregon's architecture be judged based on a its degree of egalitarianism? While I'm not an apologist for every move that Nike and Phil Knight make, be it in Eugene or elsewhere, I look at Knight's benefaction across the board and see far more than sports facilities, be it hundreds of millions given to Oregon Health & Science University or many non-sports buildings at UO from a law library on down. And even the richest schools have this kind of up-and-down architectural quality, even ones without much interest in sports. You should have seen my decaying, century-old freshman dorm at New York University and how it unfavorably compared to the school’s stately Philip Johnson-designed library.

Besides, whether is a football fan or not, or whether one prefers Ducks, Beavers, Timbers or even Huskies, the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex represents something else: the opportunity to see one of our region's very best architects work with a big budget to create architecture without compromise. Sandoval has emerged over the past decade as one of Portland’s most talented practitioners. This is a new cornerstone in an already exceptional portfolio.

Perhaps Sandoval also put the Hatfield-Dowlin's budget issue best in a recent Oregon Quarterly interview. To create a building based purely around function without delight and ambition "is not architecture," the architect told interviewer Ann Wiens. "It's a warehouse. It's Costco. World-class universities have 200-year-old buildings. They don't last that long because they're purely functional; they last because they find emotion and affinity that will change over time. They're well built, well designed. They have a soul."

Hatfield-Dowlin practice field and west facade (photo by Brian Libby)

All that said, I was a little apprehensive about seeing Hatfield-Dowlin.  I worried that with all that dark glass and black granite it would seem too imposing or try too hard to seem intimidating, with the building being about barriers more than openness. After all, as wonderfully transparent as the ZGF-designed Jacqua Center at UO is, Nike itself seems to build more fortress-like architecture, at an arm’s length from the surrounding urban or neighborhood context.

Yet as I approached the Hatfield-Dowlin on an ideally sunny early autumn afternoon, the building didn't look standoffish. It looked grand. In its facade I saw  a reflection of trees and water. A new grove of trees was reflecting first onto the pool of water abutting the Hatfield-Dowlin, and then onto its glass facade. 

ZGF begins by breaking down the 145,000-square-foot facility into a series of interlocking rectangular volumes, not unlike shoeboxes (perhaps appropriately) with one sitting atop and straddling the other two. Part of the complex sits atop a partially-underground parking garage, raising the platform the building sits on.

Past the massive basalt-block wall lining the pracice field along the street, one enters from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard along what's called the Players Walk, a corridor that recalls Maya Lin's Vietnam veterans' memorial in Washington, only with former football players' names etched into steel. Of course war heroes and college football players are very different things, yet as one who idolized athletes since childhood, I can't tell you they're not heroes to a lot of people too.

Players Walk at Hatfield-Dowlin (photos by Brian Libby)

The Players Walk is situated beneath the upper floors of the building's west wing, which cantilevers dramatically towards MLK Boulevard and connects to the adjacent east wing of the buiding by a skybridge. At the base of this the complex's main entrance, where one is greeted by a gargantuan 64-screen video display and a massive glass case holding the football team's most prized trophies form the Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl and other triumphs. There is also a small, dark, almost closet-like "ring room," in which bowl-game championship rings are displayed and spotlit under glass while Autzen crowd noise plays from speakers.

As Sandoval showed me this entrance sequence, head coach Mark Helfrich strode by, unaccompanied, but paused to give the architect a thank-you hug. At at time when Oregon is trying to convince recruits its post-Chip-Kelly future will still be bright, the place has got to help.

We next moved back outside to view two outdoor practice fields, which come right up to within inches of the building, as if the architecture insists on a front-row seat. The building looks out to the west at these fields from a transparent glass facade shielded by a second skin of dark glass. This is a functional move, to control unwanted greenhouse-effect heat gain. But one of Sandoval's most singular talents has always been as a pattern maker with facades. So the building viewed from these practice fields (which can also be seen from the street quite easily) was key.

Hatfield-Dowlin and practice fields (photos by Brian Libby)

One can think back to Portland projects from the Eliot condominiums in the early 2000s to the more recent Port of Portland building and the Emery Apartments in South Waterfront to see examples. In Hatfield-Dowlin's case, the pattern of the shaded glass pieces (some of the largest that subcontractor Benson Glass has ever produced) took its visual and metaphorical inspiration from samurai armor, comprised of many interlocking pieces.

The tour then moved into the interior, starting with the 60,000-square-foot weight and fitness training room. Here, amidst one massive double-height volume, weightlifting machines sit atop foam pads shaped in the Oregon 'O' logo as well as an immaculate walnut floor. Walnut is a signature material throughout the space, be it as flooring or as the doors, floors and walls of the coaches' offices upstairs, just above the weight room.

But more than walnut, steel or stone, the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex interiors are about being bathed in natural light. Because of how ZGF's design breaks the 145,000 total square footage into a series of long, relatively thin volumes, one is never without natural illumination. At the same time, the shading on its glass creates some curious moments of transparency and partition. For example, showers in the players' locker rooms are placed along a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass that overlooks Autzen and one of its main entrances. If the glass were just a little more transparent, the view inside would be more revealing than fans might expect.

Hatfield-Dowlin weight room and locker room (photos by Brian Libby)

The effect of elegant materials and wide, naturally lit volumes would be dramatic enough on its own, but what really makes Hatfield-Dowlin sing is the array of interior accoutrements, be it graphics, technology or artwork.

In a massive hallway outside the coaches' offices, for example, there is not only a room for recruits and their families to watch games on several TVs from cushy leather sofas, but also an art display featuring scores of gold and silver ducks in flight, each representing an Oregon player who reached the National Football League. In the 200-seat cafeteria are not only the world's biggest steaks (which Sandoval and I watched being grilled), but neon signs cheekily encouraging players to eat their enemies. In the parking garage are portraits of former Oregon coaches such as Mike Bellotti and Chip Kelly done in a graffiti style.

Hatfield-Dowling plaza from a coach's office (photo by Brian Libby)

What one notices here isn't simply a building with a big budget, but the result of a design team leaving no stone unturned. Anywhere there was an opportunity to enliven a space, be it with materials, graphics or technology, that opportunity was embraced.

Yet this doesn't feel like architecture crammed with doodads. Because the building itself is wide-open and elegant, there is plenty of room to have fun with signage, graphics and the high-tech without seeming like a packrat who won the lottery.

Even so, at the end of the tour, my favorite space in the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex wasn't one with TV screens or graffiti. It was the theater-like meeting room for the whole team. Much of the team's personnel are broken down into positions and their corresponding coaches. There's a meeting room for running backs, one for linemen, and so on. Yet as gametime approaches, there's got to be somewhere the whole team can go, to receive the coach's game plan, hash out responsibilities, and come together as one unit. This space indeed is clad in walnut and the aforementioned seats by an Italian leather company that also supplies Ferrari luxury sportscars. Yet it was again the volume and transparency that compelled. The room, with stadium seating rising behind the podium, is big enough to hold 100 players, and it looks out through a massive wall of glass at Autzen.

Inside the Ring Room at Hatfield-Dowlin (photo by Brian Libby)

As Sandoval and I stood in this meeting room and theater, I thought not just of the 2013 Ducks under Mark Helfrich, but also of the many Duck squads that came before. These teams always fought uphill battles against college football's traditional powers, not because Oregon lacked good athletes and coaches, but because college football is not a level playing field. When I started attending games at Autzen in the early 1980s, Oregon's football budget was smaller than what powerhouse Ohio State budgeted just for its marching band.

Now, the tables have turned and no one receives more big-ticketed toys than the Ducks. Yet in sports as in life, we've all been taught time and time again that money doesn't buy as much as we think it does. It can enable great work to be done, but still relies on the talents of individuals working in tandem. Remember that Houston Rockets team with Olojuwan, Drexler, Barkley and Pippen? They stunk. There are countless more examples of teams heavy in expensive free-agent signings that under-achieved. The Hatfield-Dowlin may have a big budget, but that alone would not have guaranteed great architecture. That ZGF, 151 and the other team members delivered means not just that they had size, but that they knew what to do with it. Perhaps you could call Sandoval the Phil Jackson in this scenario: able to channel the big budget and big egos into something that is, like the 200-year-old university buildings Sandoval described, more soulful. 

If you frown on the multimillion-dollar arms race college sports have become, I don't blame you. But when I look at the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex, I don't see luxury. I see architecture that expresses, as Humphrey Bogart once said of the Maltese falcon in a movie of the same name: "the stuff dreams are made of."

 

Advertisements

The Witherspoon: redemption through preservation

Witherspoon Building (photo by John Chilson)

BY JOHN CHILSON

In downtown Portland on SW Fourth Avenue between Washington and Stark sits the Witherspoon building. Built in 1890, it's almost camouflaged these days with what looks like a two dollar paintjob done with black spray paint. But changes, as they say, are afoot. 

The building, which has a colorful past as a saloon, a dancehall and a brothel, is in the midst of a major retrofit by local creative agency Parliament. Once completed, the agency will occupy the top floor, and the two other floors will be open to, as Parliament's website explains, "a creative collective, a sidewalk-facing creative flex space and a below-ground workshop. We are actively seeking designers, writers, programmers, technologists, small start-ups, and other modern makers to help us build something great."

It's an ambitious project and isn't some quick remodel job. The agency's founder and creative director, Chris Erickson, has a clear vision of what he wants the building to be. He purchased the 15,000-square-foot space almost four years ago and is working closely with architect and friend Casey Wyckoff of LSW Architects. There were false starts and things stalled: they went through the complete design cycle, all the way through permitting, two Decembers ago. But the project came back 50 percent over budget. After starting from scratch, the project is now running at full steam, with noticeable construction in the front exterior and intensive structural work on the interior to get it functional. 

"A lot of the challenges have come from the building's structure," said Erickson. "It's suffered from 123 years of bad remodels and bad decisions. We're trying to do it right." 

Since the building is so old and has seen lots of bad remodels in its 123-year life, each move the team makes can trigger more expense. Many of the support beams are fastened to flooring, for example. At some point, someone added a faux mezzanine and in the process compromised the structural integrity. 

In other spots, flooring doesn't actually tie into anything for support. Beams terminate into other beams with nothing to hold them. And in the back on the first floor, what was once an alley and the building's envelope, was bricked it into the neighboring building for support by previous owners. There are many seismic upgrades and the team has been working with the city for ADA compliance, which has been challenging. 

The biggest part of the retrofit, so far, has been in the basement. Seventy-five percent of the work has occurred there as the space gets completely redone. Contractors have been counterbalancing years of neglect, digging holes and filling them in with concrete and steel to make the building structurally sound.  

Structural and seismic retrofits aside, the building's interiors won't be recognizable when finished. 

123-year-old studs will intersect with new glass and white walls, balancing modern thin lines with original artifacts like the wonderful, red velvet wallpaper uncovered during demolition. "The interiors will be modernist from the sense of heavy geometry and clean lines. A lot of the interior bones we won't touch," said Erickson.

Original wallpaper (photo by John Chilson)

Historically, the Witherspoon's past will live on and its personality will survive. On the third floor, original materials will be incorporated into the current design, mixing with glass and wood.

The brothel on the third floor, evidenced by different wallpapers where separate rooms once filled up with “customers,” is where part of Parliament's office will sit. A mixture of exposed brick, modern plaster and original stucco will respect the past. 

The new design will be LEED-rated, have a completely new energy-efficient HVAC system, and will take advantage of natural light. 

"We want the natural light from existing windows to leak out into the rest of the office. The goal is that someone arriving on the third floor will be able to see straight out to existing windows and get a view of the layout of the space. Not an open space, just a glimpse of it," said Erickson. 

Near the front of the building, contractors have collected items found during construction, including old bricks, skeletal remains of various rodents, original parts from the 1890 boiler, and a 1902 pure gold coin in perfect condition that was tucked under a brick. A gaping hole (to be filled) in the brick wall on the street-level floor was once where coal was delivered by horse and carriage to the basement boiler. One can imagine the workers unloading coal on a cold, drizzly Portland day and stopping in for a snort of whiskey in the saloon. And there's an intriguing, mystery tunnel that goes under the street - now filled in. 

Though the building has an interesting past, it's not one of Portland's well-known structures. That could change. Erickson is no stranger to cool office spaces. Parliament's previous digs in the Olympic Mills Commerce Center were featured as one of Inc. magazine's World's Coolest Offices. Erickson, an industrial designer by education, has also gutted three homes and rebuilt them. 

The space is due to open in January 2014 and could potentially have an impact on the immediate neighborhood. It’s far enough from the Pearl to be unique, but close to downtown’s hub of public transport, bikes, and food cart pods. The space will fit right in with some of the older, well-kept buildings in the area.  

"I'm a conflicted modernist, but at the same time I have a lot of respect for the structure itself. The facade in the front is hopefully going to look similar to how it should look. Passers-by will think it's a nice, kept-up building from the 1890s," said Erikson. 

Get a sneak peak of the Witherspoon during Design Week Portland on October 10. 

John Chilson writes about Oregon (but mostly Portland) history on his blog, lostoregon.org. 

 

Advertisement

Rypkema champions the "remarkable economics of preservation"

Donovan Rypkema (image courtesy Architectural Heritage Center)

BY ERIC WHEELER

Nationally known historic preservation advocate Donovan Rypkema, returned to Portland for a presentation on “The Remarkable Economics of Preservation” on Wednesday, September 18 in the historic St. James Lutheran Church located in the South Park Blocks. Rypkema's talk was the first of the fall season of programs sponsored by the Architectural Heritage Center. This is the most recent of a series of Rypkema's visits to Portland; he last appeared here in May of 2008. 

An unabashed partisan for historic preservation, Rypkema has been preaching his gospel of “protect, preserve and reuse” historic buildings for over thirty years. A trained economist and real estate consultant, Rypkema framed his argument for historic preservation on a variety of economic analyses. His fast paced and data laden power point presentation hammered home four main points that link preservation with economic vitality:

1)  Jobs – more jobs and higher paychecks when old buildings are rehabbed as opposed to tearing down and building new.

2) Property Values – neighborhoods with historic designation, especially at the local and most restrictive level, show higher rates of appreciation than comparable historic neighborhoods that are not designated.

3) Heritage Tourism – a rather new economic driver for many cities, this initiative brings in money from out of state, encourages new businesses and adds to state and local tax bases.

4) Environmental – the “greenest” buildings are ones that already exist; it takes 10 to 80 years for energy efficient new construction to offset the “embedded energy loss” of razing an old building.

These core themes are familiar to those who have previously known of Rypkema's decades-long crusade for historic preservation. Without a doubt, Donovan was preaching to the choir at St. James Lutheran Church the other night. Perhaps that is why he felt emboldened to admit that the most important reasons for historic preservation are “cultural, community and spiritual values” and that “economics is the least important”.  He knew that he was speaking to a mostly graying crowd of preservation partisans and not realtors, builders and developers. Needless to say, his candor was well received.

In addition, Rypkema waded into the topic of LEED certification, an issue that has gotten him a mixed response from architects and others in the sustainable growth community. He has strongly criticized the concept of replacing existing pre-World War II buildings with LEED certified new construction as an excuse for the destruction of historic properties. He gored another sacred cow of the New Urbanism, high density, by stating that the vigorous pursuit of high density residential construction by city governments often ignores historic preservation and may not make for a truly livable neighborhood. Rypkema declared that “density at a human scale is the REAL sustainable policy.” He also bemoaned the fact that too often historic preservation is given short shrift by urban planners, declaring that “Smart Growth without historic preservation is stupid growth.”

Rypkema noted with approval that real estate listings in many cities now identify a “walkability rating” indicating a cultural shift away from sprawl and back to higher density urban living. Noting another economic paradigm shift in employment opportunities, he stated that often “jobs follow people” to a less automobile-dependent and more culturally dynamic city, implying the attraction of a mostly intact historic architectural fabric. Another memorable quote of Rypkema’s was that one “cannot build new and rent cheap,” suggesting economic as well as community considerations for preservation. Too often, he stated, new construction drives out existing businesses and residents from historic and newly “gentrified” areas. He also emphasized the importance of designation of National Register districts and not just individual properties, thereby creating some level of recognition/protection for the entire neighborhood and not just isolated buildings.

Perhaps one of the most telling moments of the evening came with a question raised by a beleaguered city landmark commissioner from a neighboring city who wondered why all of the powerful economic arguments developed by Rypkema were not more persuasive in the debate over historic preservation. To frame Rypkema’s response, I am going to reference a comment he made last November in Spokane at the National Historic Preservation Conference and was recognized for his career-long efforts for historic preservation. He noted that the award was for his lifetime “contribution,” not his lifetime “achievement!” An important distinction, indeed, in which Rypkema recognizes the continuing challenges to the historic preservation movement. He declared that historic preservation is a long, tough fight and there are victories and defeats.

In my opinion, there are strong, imbedded and continuing economic forces, summed up in real estate economic terms as “highest and best use,” that work in opposition to historic preservation. Many times, private property rights are given more weight than community rights in conflicts over the preservation of historic buildings. Also, short-term financial considerations often trump the intrinsic “cultural, community and spiritual values” that Rypkema mentioned at the beginning of his talk, when he declared that “truthfully, economics is the least important” value in historic preservation. Recognizing that many government and private interests do not agree with that assertion, I applaud Donovan Rypkema for his candor and his many years in the trenches, fighting the good fight for our historic built environment. I only wished that Rypkema would have offered more examples of preservation successes in Portland during his talk, but his message was well received by the attentive and supportive audience.

 

Advertisements