Portland Architecture

Design calendar: March 1-15

Rocky Butte Park (Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Margarita Jover: Hybrid Infrastructures
As part of the University of Oregon's Department of Architecture Winter Lecture Series, Jover, a professor at the University of Virginia's School of Architecture and co-founder the Barcelona firm Alday Jover Arquitectos with expertise as both architect and landscape designer, will deliver a talk called "Hybrid Infrastructures, Architecture and Landscape." Jover argues that transportation networks and other types of  projects "created by our industrialized, capitalist culture are challenged in their form and design by the nature of our contemporary eco-digital culture. The public awareness provided by digital networks is pressing against the stability of our existing class structure with the privileged chosen by birth or fortune; aatural and manmade dynamics are beginning to make their way into our life and their influences are forcing our culture to be re-imagined. Crises are excellent moments to revisit our common beliefs and provide the starting point of design innovation." University of Oregon, White Stag Block, 70 NW Couch Street. 5PM Tuesday, March 1. Free.

Rachel Hill: Food Urbanism - Everyone's Got To Eat
Landscape designer Rachel Hill of Portland's Anderson Krygier will speak about what she calls food urbanism as part of the CPID Talks series from Portland State University's Center for Public Interest Design. Throughout history and across cultures, all people must eat. But the processes of planning, growing, processing and marketing food systems are as unique as the land and people that make them. Cities, which often are shaped by this universal need, are equally as complex and distinctive. Hill will examine “food urbanism” projects in Arizona, Croatia, Switzerland and the US where efforts are emerging to re-integrate food systems back into the places where people live. Portland State University, Shattuck Hall, Room 217, Broadway and Hall Streets. 12PM Friday, March 4. Free.

The New Deal's Local Legacy: Pioneering Historic Preservation And A Landscape Aesthetic
Oregonians know the story of Timberline Lodge as Oregon's best known Great Depression-era public works project. But the New Deal’s long list of agencies produces impressive evidence of a legacy in our midst. The roots of historic preservation in our region started with the Historic American Buildings Survey, while Works Progress Administration construction projects not only helped provide jobs to the unemployed but cemented the concept of a regional landscape aesthetic such as that found in the Rocky Butte Scenic Drive and the amenities of Overlook Park. Considering the contributions of famous architects, such as Ellis F. Lawrence and Jamieson Parker, and lesser-known local artisans, retired University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee geography and urban studies professor Judith Kenny will in this Architectural Heritage Center lecture explore the New Deal projects in the Portland area that contributed to the preservation of our pioneer architectural heritage and the development of a regional landscape style. Architectural Heritage Center, 701 SE Grand Avenue. 10AM Saturday, March 5. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Gil Kelly: Learning From San Francisco
As part of the ongoing Bright Lights discussion series from the University of Oregon's John Yeon Center and Portland Monthly magazine, host Randy Gragg will talk with Gil Kelly, former planning director for the City of Portland and now in a similar role in San Francisco. Both cities are undergoing dramatic change with similar underlying economic drivers, from a tech boom to a housing crisis. "San Francisco rarely contemplates what kind of city it wants to be when it grows up," says Kelley. "It's too busy just making that future in the moment, development project by development project." At the same time, he says, in everything from transportation to affordable housing, San Francisco can serve as laboratory from which Portland can learn. A Harvard Loeb Fellow, Kelley  during his time in Portland played key roles in shaping the Pearl District, West End and South Waterfront. Jimmy Mak's, 221 NW 10th Avenue. 6PM Monday, March 7. $10.

Parking in the NW Portland: public hearing
On-street parking can be hard to find in the Northwest district, especially near the popular high streets of NW 21st and 23rd Avenues. To help address the problem, the City of Portland adopted the Northwest Parking Management Plan in 2013 to manage and improve access, including the installation of parking meters. The Northwest Parking Update Project is proposing two zoning code amendments to help improve and contribute to the long-term supply of parking options: establishing minimum parking requirements for residential development with more than 30 units, and expanding opportunities for accessory parking lots to rent out excess off-hour spaces. The public is invited to provide testimony on this proposal in person at a Planning and Sustainability Commission Public Hearing. City of Portland, 1900 SW 4th Avenue, Suite 2500A. 12:30PM Tuesday, March 8. Free.

Mid-Century Architects and Builders of Portland
Like many western US cities, Portland experienced a tremendous amount of new development in the two plus decades after the end of World War II. While the seeds of Modern and Northwest Regional architecture had been planted by the 1930s and the work of A.E. Doyle, John Yeon, and Pietro Belluschi, after World War II a new breed of architects and builders left their mark on Portland’s built environment. In this Architectural Heritage Center lecture, education manager Val Ballestrem shares images and stories of some of the more prolific and interesting architects and builders from this era, such as architects John Storrs, Warren Weber, Ken Birkemeier as well as builders like Ted Asbahr. Architectural Heritage Center, 701 SE Grand Avenue. 10AM Saturday, March 12. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

  

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Mayoral candidates address housing, density, preservation at Restore Oregon forum

Sarah Iannarone, Ted Wheeler and Jules Bailey (Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Last night's mayoral debate at First Congregational Church, hosted by Restore Oregon, was dramatic even before it began.

Just as moderator Peggy Moretti was starting her opening remarks, a protestor came onto the stage and insisted that in addition to the invited trio of candidates - Ted Wheeler, Sarah Iannarone and Jules Bailey - two others, David Schor (assistant attorney general at the Oregon Department of Justice) and Sean Davis (a writing teacher at Mt. Hood Community College and an Iraq War veteran), be allowed to join in. That particular protester didn't stay to hear most of the quintet's remarks, but a group of activists carrying signs advocating housing-reform measures such as rent control remained active throughout, and the three-person debate became a quintet.

The announced topic of the conversation was "Keeping Portland PORTLAND" by preserving character and livability while embracing growth and density. Whether it was because of the activists or just a reflection of what is this campaign's hot-button issue, the conversation turned more toward density and housing affordability than it did toward historic preservation.

The answers to Moretti's first question, in which she asked the candidates to name their favorite old building or place in Portland, told me that perhaps none of them - or maybe only Iannarone - have a real appreciation for historic architectural landmarks and their value in our city. 

Iannarone said that while renovations of landmarks like the Ladd Carriage House and the Portland Armory were impressive, she preferred the June Key Delta House, which involved a successful grassroots campaign to turn a former abandoned Arco gas station into an ultra-sustainable meeting house that meets Living Building Challenge standards. But outside of that, no one could come up with a significant individual historic landmark to mention. Wheeler cited the Central Eastside Industrial District overall, which certainly includes lots of renovated old buildings (and where Wheeler has his campaign headquarters), but its mention seemed less like an appreciation of historic buildings than a segue into talking about challenges there such as homelessness and traffic. Bailey mentioned the stretch of Southeast Belmont, near where he grew up, that includes the conversion of a former dairy into a Zupan's market and the cluster of retail there. Davis mentioned an old Quonset hut he helped renovate into an American Legion post. Schor mentioned the waterfront itself.

Moretti then asked the candidates what they envision downtown and the central city looking like in 20 years. Will it be nothing but tall skyscrapers and no old buildings? This turned out to be a reflection of how the candidates feel about Portland's increasing densification. Bailey, for example, said that while local downtown landmarks like the probably soon-to-be-demolished Ancient Order United Workmen Temple should have greater protection, there's nothing wrong with adding density in places like the downtown core where it's appropriate. Wheeler addressed how Oregon "has among the weakest standards in the nation when it comes to preserving historic architecture," he said. "When you build up, the risk [of demolishing historic properties] increases dramatically. Focus density on the transit corridors and town centers. But the conversation here is what will we do to strengthen our laws and increase incentives to protect our historic architecture. The Workmen Temple is an example with everything that’s wrong with historic preservation today."

"I want to focus on what makes downtown livable now: trees, parks, getting cars increasingly out of the urban core," Iannarone said. "Oslo just committed to a car free central business district by 2019." She also argued that old buildings in the downtown core have economic value, and that the diversity of architecture and people and income levels is all part of the mix. People go to Paris and Milan and Barcelona because there’s historic architecture and diversity," she added.

Moretti and the protest-dictated quintet of mayoral candidates (Brian Libby)

Schor then brought the question back around to the hot-button topic of affordability: "If we focus solely on density and not on affordability and the uses we need to maintain, downtown will lose its vitality," he said. "We’re going to have to also think about how we can keep people downtown as the cost of living begins to rise. How do we keep housing affordable in the urban core?"

Moretti then asked, "If we all agree we want to keep the significant historic buildings, should there be incentives? What kinds?"

"We need a more robust level of protection, but that needs to happen at the state level," Schor added. To this, Moretti mentioned Oregon being the only US state that requires owner consent for a property being declared historic. Given that we also lack the historic-preservation tax credits almost every other state has, it creates a double-whammy of impetus for demolition.

"We don’t have enough carrots or sticks in our local tool box," Iannarone said. She also mentioned some local laws that could be changed or even just enforced. As became evident with the Workmen Temple, for example, the City of Portland needs to remove the loophole that allows owners to remove historic properties from the city's Historic Building Inventory, thus avoiding a 120-day waiting period before demolition. And we haven’t updated our Historic Building Inventory since the 1980s," she added.

That means, as Wheeler pointed out, that the newest buildings on the inventory are from the 1930s; nothing built afterward is listed.

"We need more incentives," Wheeler said of historic preservation. "We have owner consent [for declaring properties historic], and it’s derived from the state constitution, so we’re unlikely to be able to change that any time soon. If we can’t change that we need strong incentives. We’re one of the only states in the country that does not have robust incentives." He mentioned a failed bill from the last Oregon Legislature session, Senate Bill 565, which would have provided those historic tax credits, but didn’t pass.

Moretti asked, "How do we add density? Where do we put it?"

"Growth and density can go hand in hand with historic preservation," Bailey said. "I grew up in inner Southeast Portland. Take a random walk and you’ll see a lot of duplexes, triplexes, garden home apartments. And they’re very much part of the neighborhood. But they’re not allowed by zoning today. We can go back to that. We need a supply side response: we need more housing."

Wheeler then echoed the need to change zoning to allow the so-called missing-middle housing, and he also mentioned the importance of small housing options in existing single-family neighborhoods such as accessory dwelling units.

"We need more, more, more and more housing," Iannarone said. "There are many ways to do affordable infill in neighborhoods. And not just in my neighborhood [Lents] with $150,000 homes. I think we can also create incentives by letting people adapt them inside. We can create a lot more small units."

Moretti then said to the candidates, "It would be unrealistic to stop all demolition. But many would like to see it curbed. How do we do that? And where they do come down, how do we make sure what replaces it is better?"

Davis mentioned having recently testified before City Council about the recently adopted plan to require houses being taken down to be deconstructed to preserve their materials. "Not only does that benefit the environment, but it creates jobs," he said. All five candidates said they supported the new deconstruction rule.

"There will be demolitions," Wheeler said. "The question is how do we limit them? A bad policy outcome is if a historic cottage is demolished and what’s built is a much larger house that houses the same number of people. We have to have standards. If you’re going to demolish, we should capture the tax increment value as it’s assessed and make that a pool for affordable or workforce hosing. And we need standards to make sure the new houses have the same scale and mass as what they’re replacing."

"We don’t have a lot of tools," Iannarone answered. "We need to incentivize the outcomes we want and disincentivize what we don’t. We need to protect those trees. We need to make sure we’re looking at energy. We need to charge carbon impact fees. A 1,600-square-foot house uses the same energy as a LEED Platinum-rated 2900-square foot house."

Ancient Order of United Workmen Temple (Cafe Unknown)

"What concerns me is big developers coming in and buying up older homes and putting up cookie-cutter houses," Bailey said. "Real estate transfer taxes are unconstitutional. But we can set standards with zoning. We also need to make it easier to get homes on the historic registry and harder for an owner to take it off. What if we said you have to have a home that goes up with a better energy performance, or better density?"

Moretti asked the candidates, "How do we achieve this affordability we all want to see?"

To this question Schor had a compelling idea. "I propose to create a dedicated revenue source for affordable housing," he said. To fund it?  "Tax the top one percent of income owners."

"We need more supply," Bailey answered. "Affordability is a function of cost, supply and demand, and income. We need more middle-wage jobs. We need to address cost. One reason you see lotline-to-lotline homes is it would cost that much to recoup permitting and fees. I propose a fast track for market rate housing. Third, we do need more kinds of housing. And fourth, we need more housing options."

"Talk to the people," Davis said. "Have that tenant-landlord agreement saying, 'We’ll not raise your rent without notice for 90 days.' Inclusionary zoning failed in committee. I like that idea 20 percent of units in any new development will be affordable."

"Start with the city’s own policies and the cost it takes to bring affordable housing online," Wheeler said. "The design review process is broken as it relates to affordability. Most of us strongly support inclusionary zoning. But it still doesn’t allow Portland to craft its own policies. The bill has been watered down."

Moretti then asked an audience-submitted question: "What thoughts do the candidates have for encouraging better designed buildings?" This question sounded hopelessly vague, but most of the candidates took it to mean a question not about architectural style but scale.

"You don’t want me as your architect," Wheeler said, explaining that he has little sense of architectural aesthetics or taste. "But new construction is out of scale."

Iannarone then made an important distinction. "This can be coded language when you talk about character," she said. "We have to make sure historic neighborhoods don’t just become enclaves for privileged people. There’s no accounting for good taste. What can we talk about? Scale."

Davis also made an important point here about being realistic. "You can’t put it all on the mayor," he said. "You have to go to the neighborhood meetings and make your voice heard."

"Design review is broken," Bailey said. "There’s not a lot of predictability. Some buildings sail through and some don’t. And some change on the back end. We need consistency, and that’s only fair. And that will reduce cost. And on the residential side, one tool might be the city has had competitions on infill design. Having that pre-set design might be a way."

This is the point where I started to grow a little concerned by the responses as they relate to maintaining architectural quality in our city. Both Wheeler and Bailey were adamant that the city's Design Review process is flawed. That's true to a degree, in that the Design Commission is all voluntary and unpaid, and since so much is under construction they've become overwhelmed by the volume. But Wheeler and especially Bailey seemed to be going a step further by questioning the validity of the Design Commission's purpose: to maintain a level of pedestrian friendliness at the street level and architectural quality overall. And while Iannarone's point about the idea of maintaining the architectural character of neighborhoods can be construed a code word for restricting certain peoples from a neighborhood, it would be a shame if she came out against having historic districts, which are one of a city's most important historic preservation tools and why certain areas of town like the Alphabet District and Irvington have retained so much great historic architecture.

Another audience question asked, "What will you do to prevent real estate speculation, and what tools will you use to force developers to build affordable housing?"

"You can’t stop real estate speculation but you can mitigate the consequences," Wheeler said. "Housing is not like any other commodity. That’s why I have supported tenants’ rights."

"I propose community managed, community owned public housing," Schor said. "You need tenant rights and just-cause eviction reform and rent control, but also investing in appropriate public housing managed by tenants that will be affordable forever."

At this point there were still lots of audience questions to get to, but your faithful scribe's tank was on empty. If there were questions during the ensuing overtime period that addressed historic landmarks under threat other than the United Workmen Temple, such as Centennial Mills or Memorial Coliseum, I didn't hear them. There's no arguing that today we're facing a crisis of homelessness and affordable housing as Portland's cost of living, home prices and median rents all skyrocket, and so it's hard to take issue with this forming the core of the conversation, or with much of the talk going to questions of density. I just hope that if one of these five candidates becomes mayor, he or she will remember that cities are defined not just by economic conditions, but the great places we build and maintain. Just about any political candidate's platform is a reflection of the concerns being voiced by constituents, and housing is the topic of the day, both as it relates to affordability as well as to the physical makeup of our neighborhoods. Yet finding the right balance between density, affordability and home demolitions will not be enough to keep Portland Portland. It is also our shared landmarks that help define us, and that make others want to visit and migrate to our city. Some of that is the waterfront and parks that certain candidates mention, but it's also our major and most historic works of architecture.

 

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Architect George Crandall and artist Carye Bye on Big Pink

US Bancorp Tower (Carye Bye)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

At a time when more buildings of twenty-plus stories are being built in Portland than perhaps ever before, and when new height limits are poised to allow more buildings to go tall, artist Carye Bye's "Big Pink Love Show," a portfolio of more than a decade's worth of photographs of the circa-1983 US Bancorp Tower (of course more commonly known as Big Pink), give us reason to consider a major part of the city's skyline built more than three decades ago.

"It just stood out," Bye recalled when I asked her how her love for the building came about. "I think it was the moment I found out it had a nickname. Over time I started to realize Portland doesn’t really have a centerpiece like the Eiffel Tower or the Space Needle. Big Pink kind of became one for me because of its standing alone [on the skyline]. I started to notice and take pictures of it. As time went on, I personified it: 'It’s my friend Big Pink.' I’d be biking and think, 'There it is.'"

Big Pink is the second-tallest building in the city, its 536 feet just eight feet shorter than the Wells Fargo Center (but with two more floors). More than the Wells Fargo, though, Big Pink enjoys a more prominent place on the skyline because it sits to the north of the other comparably sized buildings. It forms a kind of bookend for the downtown along Burnside. The '80s wasn't a great time for architecture, including office towers. Much of the elegant transparency of these buildings was lost when energy codes tightened, which called for either more reflective glass or less glass overall. But Big Pink, which arrived just a year before the Portland Building, in many ways its opposite, has a simple elegance thanks to its pink granite facade material and the added visual pizzazz of its trapezoidal shape, which makes the building look different depending on one's vantage point.

Crandall and Bye (Brian Libby)

"It looks different all the time. I didn't notice at first, but at some point, I was like, 'That building is not square.' It seems like it would be obvious from the beginning," added Bye, who also has created a series of guidebooks and zines about Portland and also runs the popular Hidden Portland For The Curious page on Facebook - but unfortunately is leaving the city for San Antonio. "But I never studied architecture and never looked that closely. I realized it looked really different from different viewpoints, and depending on the way the light hits it. It’s an architectural marvel to me."

One of the more enthusiastic visitors to Bye's show was architect George Crandall of Crandall Arambula, the award-winning urban design and planning firm, which has provided central-city planning for cities and towns all over the United States. Before Crandall co-led his own firm, and before he was an urban designer, he worked for more than a decade and a half at the Portland office of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, which designed Big Pink along with other local landmarks like Memorial Coliseum, the Standard Insurance Center (my favorite downtown office building), and Autzen Stadium in Eugene (not to mention landmarks around the world from the Sears Tower in Chicago to the new World Trade Center). In fact, Crandall was a lead designer of Big Pink.

"I thought it was just great," Crandall said of the photo show as the three of us gathered to talk about the building.

Big Pink and an admirer (Carye Bye)

Crandall was raised in Canada and educated at the University of Arizona, but he sought out a job in SOM's Portland office both for the city itself and for the firm. "I wanted to work for the biggest, baddest firm in the country," he said. "I wanted a liberal environment and Portland had that." After being hired in 1967, Crandall remembers US Bank approaching the firm in the early 1970s. "They wanted to do a big building and SOM knew more about big buildings than anyone in town."

The great Pietro Belluschi was also a design consultant for Big Pink, which brought the legendary architect full circle. When Belluschi had left Portland in 1951 to become dean of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's school of architecture (where he remained until 1965), SOM bought his firm and retained most of its staff. 

The tradition inside the firm was to have an in-house competition inside the firm, and Crandall led one team, which competed against one led by associate principal Thomas Houha. 

The US Bancorp Tower comprised of two parts, an operations center of just a few stories on the south side facing Oak Street and then the tower along Burnside. "The issue was how to do it," Crandall said. "I also knew that the bank wanted their front door on Oak. Burnside was kind of a bad street at the time. As usual, in design competitions, you scratch around and look at a number of schemes. It became obvious to me that Ankeny [which bisects the site about two-thirds to the north] was establishing a seam. I thought if I put the building here and create a galleria through it, and connect to the second phase." But perhaps his biggest epiphany was how a parallelogram shape could open up some of the edges of the site and give the building a more uncommon, angular form. One thing that also occurred to me in doing this scheme was that if the tower was back to the south it would be buried, but if it was up against Burnside it would be prominent forever. You would look down Burnside whichever way you go and it’s this narrow needle."

Drawing of Big Pink's site and shape (George Crandall)

"The other scheme the other guys were working on was traditional: not very imaginative, very clean and simple," Crandall added. "The issue was could we build a parallelogram and not spend a lot of money. Usually with a parallelogram you spend a lot of money. But I had some steel contractors look at it. There was no penalty. So in-house the decision was to go with the scheme I developed. Then the issue was to get the bank to buy in to having the tower on this end [Burnside]. I built a model, eight feet long, of this galleria. They could see that Oak could be their front door. The idea then was to pull the building back and create a little forecourt. That was how it started."

Regarding the role of Belluschi as a consultant, "They wanted an experienced architect who could advise them on what was the best thing to do," Crandall explained. "Pietro came into the office and looked at the scheme. I knew Pietro, being Italian, would know about gallerias. He looked at it and he said, “George, that is the right thing to do. I will talk to the bank about that.”

But Belluschi did more than provide shuttle diplomacy between architect and client. Big Pink might not have been pink without it. "We were looking for a stone. Petro said he’d come across this Spanish pink granite," Crandall remembered. "It was warm and we had a lot of cold buildings. The Spanish pink became the stone and away we went."

This was all still in the 1970s. The seven-story operations center was completed first, in 1975, and there would be a nearly an eight-year gap between that and completion of the 42-story tower.

A woodcut image of the building (Carye Bye)

"I knew it would be different," Crandall said. "The difference between it and most buildings is that the others never change. This one changes constantly because of the fact that it’s not right angles, and because of the way the light hits it. Sometimes it appears to be wide, sometimes not. It's that subtlety, then, and really the form itself, the location, and the color, that makes it unique in the city. It’s changing all the time."

"Going to Union Station up Fifth [Avenue], it looks almost like a triangle, or like a flat building," Bye added.

Despite Big Pink becoming a kind of mini-icon for the city, as well as SOM's local and national legacy, its Portland office closed just seven years after the building's 1983 completion. "We had a downturn in the economy. SOM was highly specialized in two things: office buildings and hospitals. That market just dried up," Crandall explained. "They weren’t diverse enough to survive here."

The architect also said that Big Pink came at a time when Portland was first starting to look more closely at and regulate how large downtown buildings interfaced with the street, and how that impacted his decision to put windows all along the ground floor, something not always common at the time. "The New York Times critic Ada Louise Huxtable had talked about our Portland bunker buildings, and how we were becoming an example of how to destroy a downtown," Crandall said. "It’s all about how a building relates to the street, to the ground. It’s not about what happens in the air, much as architects like to think. An example would be Nordstrom. It was a wonderful thing to bring downtown, especially in those days: a new department store. But as an urban design solution it’s a failure: blank walls all around it. It doesn’t open up to the street. The change came when we said we needed urban design guidelines. In 1983 we had our first guidelines. I realized what was going on when I did the lower building. We needed glass frontage all around the building. So you see that along these edges. We needed openness. Then you started to see changes around town."

Big Pink and Union Station (Brian Libby)

Big Pink arrived around the same time that the Portland Building was under construction; it too tried to be pedestrian-friendly, but its covered loggias weren't as inviting as planned. They seem less like arcades and more like caves. "Graves didn’t understand what he was doing," Crandall said. "I had dinner with him and he said to me [of the Portland Building], 'It’s going to be the most humane building in the United States.' And of course it’s a jail."

Crandall also recalled a crisis of conscious he felt early in his time at SOM in the late '60s, about a project that thankfully did not come to fruition: the Mt. Hood Freeway. Not only would it have cleared away scores if not hundreds of Southeast Portland neighborhood blocks, but Portland wound up using the funds instead to begin building the MAX light rail network.

"SOM when I came had just done the environmental impact statement for the freeway. The city already had the money in the bank for it. I had a civil engineering degree as well as architecture. They said, 'Could you help out on the project?' I spent half my time upstairs in the design studio, and half my time downstairs on the impact statement. I started to learn the complexities of the urban environment: acoustics, history, all of that stuff. That was an education. I was force-fed in a hell of a hurry. But you could see this freeway would cut a huge path through Portland. We realized how terrible a mistake it would be and we had to remain objective. Thankfully I was then the project manager for a range of alternatives."

 

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The Architect's Questionnaire: David Keltner

David Keltner (Hacker Architects)

BY LUKE AREHART

The latest installment in our continuing series of conversations with local architects about their careers and inspirations brings us to David Keltner, a principal with Hacker Architects who has become an important firm leader and part of a new generation leading the way. He's an architect with substantial talent, but also one with remarkable humility and thoughtfulness.

Portland Architecture: When did you first become interested in architecture as a possible career?

When I was 15 I took a drafting class in my freshman year of high school. I remember a competition where all of the students designed a house. In addition, my parents had built houses and built each house that we had lived in so I was familiar with understanding plans and construction. Architecture resonated with me at that time and I knew that it was what I wanted to do. It was a long time ago so I don’t really remember a time when it wasn’t about architecture for me. It’s been a single track from the time I was young. I was able to work in an office when I was 17 as only my second job. I delivered newspapers prior to that.

I had a romantic vision of architecture when I started. I always felt fortunate, on the one hand, to know what I was and what I was going to do. But it has also been scary because it’s hard to ask yourself, “Is this the right thing to do?” I never had any other possibility for myself aside from architecture. I’ve seen a lot of people around me, especially after going through the recession, who were bailing out of the profession and thinking about what else they might do. I’ve always admired people who have that ability to see themselves doing different things. I’ve just never had that; architecture is what I am going to do.

Where did you study architecture and how would you rate the experience?

I went to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. At the time, all of the professors were pure modernists. One of the heroes that we had at that time was Tadao Ando and the villain was Peter Eisenman. In school, I was instilled with a reverence for architecture. We had one class where we would sit and ponder: “What is wall?” Which seems like a pretty simple thing to answer. The experience felt religious as we considered architecture with a capital ‘A’. This went along with the way everyone talked about architecture and the pressure that was present to make what you were doing significant enough to be a part of something larger than making buildings.

At that time at the university there were some younger professors who went on to start one of my favorite firms in the United States, Vince James Associates in Minneapolis. Vince James and Julie Snow were previously partners in a firm called James/Snow Architects; they also co-taught a studio together. I’ll never forget the time being out in the courtyard of our 1960s modernist school. They had all of us out there with 2x4s and string making human sculptures to understand what structural forces were. They were figuring out how to take the modernism that we were being steeped in and push it toward what we could do with it and make it new.

A sketch by the architect (David Keltner)

Right after school, I went to work for Tom Meyer, who was one of my professors. Interestingly, Tom’s firm, MSR Design, was selected to do the Centennial Mills renovation here in Portland. Now, at Hacker, we find ourselves competing against Tom’s firm for different types of projects.

This education left a lasting impression on me. I left there with questions that I still feel are core to my personal take on the work. I’m sometimes surprised that my thesis question is still relevant, which has to do with presence. You can make a building that works well, like a machine, but what is the poetry that it achieves? For me, it’s about the way that architecture can somehow elevate your awareness of something true about the place or yourself. Similar to the way that standing in the forest can be its own experience, but when you accompany that with poetry, it’s about the forest as a place that can elevate your awareness of certain aspects of it and your appreciation of it. I’m interested in architecture being a form of poetry that can raise your awareness of who you are and where you are.

That is why I’m not happy with any of the work. I feel like it is all striving toward that, but we’ve never made anything that has been all of that. As a result, my constant sense of being in the architecture profession is of constant striving, reaching, and pushing. This isn’t to say that I haven’t been very happy with the work when it’s done. But the overall sense of career, place, and what I hope for the office is about pushing things further and asking the next questions.

What is your favorite building project that you’ve worked on?

As I mentioned, I never feel like the work is good enough. There have been aspects of each project that I have really enjoyed. To be totally honest, for our firm, my favorite project is the recently completed Recreation Center at Black Butte Ranch. Corey Martin designed this project – I have so much respect for Corey and the work that he does and I’m interested in distilling that into the work that I am directing. In particular, I’m interested in the connection to the landscape and having things that are conceptually derived from the site. I think everybody talks about these ideas, but not many are doing them in a powerful and direct way. It ends up being a lot of intellectualism and talk around the concepts. I think that we viscerally feel that connection with the Black Butte project. I also think that is very inspiring and something I’d like to see in other work as well. For me, it’s great, I was one of the strongest advocates for bringing Corey to the office because I felt that is where the firm needed to go. To see him come here and do his work by bringing himself in the way that he has while not getting transformed by this place, but elevating it to who he is, has been beautiful to watch.

Black Butte Ranch Recreation Center (Jeremy Bitterman)

Who has been an important mentor among your colleagues?

I think Corey is the most talented architect in our region. I don’t know another architect that has what he has in terms of a pure intuitive sense about how to make things that resonate with their place and people.

Another mentor is Rick Potestio. I worked for him for three years. I learned things from him that, for some crazy reason, you don’t really learn in school, which is how to make things beautiful. You don’t hear architects talk about this much. I’m not talking about aesthetic beauty in terms of proportion and scale, which he actually did take a lot of time to teach to us. He taught us in a way other than just watching him do it; he actually told us why things were the way they were and what was functioning behind proportional systems and how parts relate in elevation. He also taught us about iteration, making a lot, and how critical it was to discovery. It was from him that I took those two understandings of continuous pursuit and tons and tons and tons of making and iteration to find something.

The biggest mentor for me, who has had the biggest influence overall, has been Thomas Hacker, which is why I am here. His influence has been a kind of leadership, decisiveness and acknowledgement that you are trying to achieve something that is greater than yourself, the building, reputation and business. It’s the idea that we are serving something larger. By that I mean that we are helping people find their place in the world and giving it a meaningful form in relationship to the world through architecture. An institution for example, a school or an organization; whoever they are, it’s about helping them get a voice for who they are so they can look at something and have a concrete way of expressing something that is otherwise very abstract and ephemeral in their minds. Having this be something that they can experience instills them with a sense of life and being. It’s about finding a way to get architecture to make that sense of life be present for them and for other people to help understand who they are. The most powerful thing that architecture can do is instill that type of meaning for people.

What part of the job do you like best, and as an architect what do you think you most excel at?

For me, it’s understanding the big idea that is going to make a whole building, with all of the parts relating to each other, toward a singular big vision of what the building is going to do. For me, the big vision is never a form or material. It has to do with the identity, connection to the place, and awareness of the institution and people that it is serving.

With our buildings, it is like having a child; you put so much care, love, concern and craft into helping it have its place and know who it is and give it the right values to exhibit out in the world. It goes out and you see it develop into its own character. A part of this involves people going to live in and be with the buildings. It can be the most rewarding thing to see what they are achieving. It can also lead to angst and surprise to see the building transform in a way you haven’t thought of. I like seeing the building go out there and live for a couple of years. I have a deep personal connection to the buildings. When I go to see them, I feel like I am going to visit a member of my family.

Viscerally, the part of the job I like best is drawing and making. When I make, I make thousands of sketches around the building. The sketches can be horrible and ugly, but it is about making and searching. I love that search. Because of the flashes of discovery, it’s often terrifying because you have to get everything to develop into a complete whole. You end up finding good things you can do while you are striving toward an aspirational goal. I’m just getting into the part of my career where I am developing the confidence to know that we are going to get there and things are going to work out. Earlier in my career, it was terrifying because I didn’t always know if we could get there. Until you can do it many times, you just don’t know.

What are some Portland buildings (either new or historic) that you most admire?

This question was fun for me to think about. I know I am going to leave some out because there is some really interesting work going on right now in the city. The city has changed dramatically since I came here in 1996. We have a whole lot more talent here now. I think there is also a greater awareness of design in the world, which has elevated the Portland discussion as well.

One of my favorite buildings is the Bank of California building. I feel like it is so completely figured out and understood. All the way from how the exterior detail works and fits into the whole system down to the ceiling detail. There is not a corner in that building that isn’t a result of the whole idea. I have a huge amount of respect for that. You can go inside and it feels simple but it’s very complex in the way that all of the forms are proportionally gathered together. The material palette is perfectly executed and figured out. In addition, the scale component is carefully thought about and understood. I’m incredibly impressed with that building.

Watzek House (Brian Libby)

On the other end of the scale, another building I admire is the Watzek House; I’m sure that you have heard this response from other architects as well. The building is so sensitive; it was designed by John Yeon when he was in his youth as his first big project. John clearly cared deeply for every aspect of the project, which resonates with me. As far as Oregon goes and our spirit as a society, this project is very humble and recognizes the power of landscape in a way that doesn’t try to make architecture of the same significance and scale as the landscape. The beautiful thing about that is how it elevates your awareness. One of my favorite moments in the house is the dining room that has a whole glass wall at the end, which frames a view of a Japanese maple tree. They are not considered ornamental plants, but because of the honoring of them as the room opens up to them, you see the beauty. That to me is the idea of presence; elevating your awareness to beauty in the world that you may not have understood.

In the more contemporary realm, I think the Wieden + Kennedy building by Allied Works is brilliant for so many reasons.

I also love the Lair Condominiums by Rick Potestio (and built by Don Tankersley). It’s one of the few buildings that Rick has done that is in the city that I can go by and see. The building is very complex, brilliant and simple feeling. It embodies a kind of care and sensitivity to crafting the proportions. I am reminded of all of the things I learned from Rick when I go by this project.

What is your favorite building outside of Portland and besides any you’ve worked on?

This experience will go down for me as one of the most important moments in my career, which is both inspiring and demoralizing at the same time. The experience elevated me to a revelation of, “This is it!” And it left me wondering, “How will I ever achieve that?” I am referring to my visit to Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute.

Scripps Institute, UC San Diego (Bruce Damonte)

I toured it with Thom Hacker on a day that was over 100 degrees. We were down there because we were doing the building for the Scripps Institute at UC San Diego. The visit for Thom was a great book-end for his career because he did some work on the Salk Institute while working under Kahn and then got to design a building just down the street from it. I have to say, there are things that I didn’t understand about this building from pictures. I was expecting to go there and bring some reality to it. I wasn’t expecting what I got when I arrived there, which was a really spiritual sense. I’m not a religious person, but I keep finding myself up against ways to verbalize what it is we’re doing and what motivates us, because it is about feeling the bigger thing that we are serving. This spiritual idea is constantly filtering in to the background of our language. There have been few moments in my experience with architecture where the hair stands up on my arms and you get an electric/tingling feeling in your spine – a sense of awe while experiencing something sublime. I got this feeling at the Salk Institute.

Before you arrive to the big courtyard that everyone takes pictures of, you wander through a small grove of short trees on a winding gravel path. From the photos, the Salk seems like it would be at the end of a big formal garden or arrival sequence and it’s not. It’s incredibly humble and beautiful. When you arrive into the courtyard, I don’t know how he does it, but all you are seeing when you look out is the color of the ocean beyond and the proportion between the buildings on the sides. There is also the zero line of the plaza. I don’t know what that proportion is, but it resonates to make the whole thing hum. It’s a beautiful gradation of sky to ocean, which makes the horizon line disappear. It’s an amazing awareness of place that these elements generate in this moment in such a simple way. You get the sense of the building itself positioned to look out to this view as well with the way all of the offices are turned.

As an anecdote to this beautiful experience for me, while we were walking around the outside of the building, Thom stopped me and asked, “Did you notice something?” I was thinking, “Tell me Thom: what should I notice?” I was thinking about the architecture and he said, “We’re not sweating anymore.” Since it was so hot, we had been sweating through our shirts while waiting in the parking lot. He was right: We were outside, but totally cool. The building itself was making us comfortable with its massing and the way the shading was working. On this level, the building was connected to the environment and understood what it had to do. Every part of this project is important, there isn’t any little corner or detail that isn’t contributing to the whole experience in a profound way.

Salk Institute (ArchDaily)

I have a hard time understanding and communicating the difference between being so focused on making the bigger thing for someone and serving something larger than myself, while separating and understanding, feeling selfish about my personal drive to make a great thing. That experience at the Salk and wanting to achieve that connection for people feels very personal; and by serving others, I am serving the deepest part of myself.

There are some other amazing buildings near the Salk Institute at UC San Diego. They have a building by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, among others, and all have done amazing buildings on this campus. These are people that I really admire. But touring the campus after experiencing the Salk made the buildings and environment feel trite, like they were trying too hard toward the wrong thing. It just didn’t have any power to connect with you as the buildings seemed to be looking for attention. The Salk did not feel this way at all; it was there to tell you about who are in the world. To me, that is what it is all about.

Is there a local architect or firm you think is unheralded or deserves more credit?

Yes, Rick Potestio. He is one of the few people right now that I feel is bringing actual urban ideas. He published an article recently that needs way more attention. We are really great about our intentions in this city. I don’t think Rick has ever done a project that hasn’t been really considered, cared for, thought about and beautiful. It doesn’t matter what the scale is, all of his projects are cared for. I think he deserves more attention. He is also one of the most gifted people in the city, as an artist and designer. I admire his understanding of history and his ability to present that in a way that is connected and meaningful.

Lair Condominiums (Brian Libby)

How would you rate the performance of local government like the Portland Development Commission, or the development and planning bureaus?

We live in a city that has fantastic intentions. We also have really smart people that work for our government. They aren’t bureaucrats and they all want to do the right thing. I think the problem is that what we think of as the right thing isn’t grounded in any kind of really strong idea. All of our intentions end up beating around, being do-gooders, and the latest buzz that people talk about in terms of urban design, for example. But there is no deep vision about who we are, what this place is and what this region is. How do we make a city in this region that is meaningful, powerful and connected? There are scores of five and six hundred year old examples of this. As a modern and contemporary city, I think Rick Potestio, as I mentioned, is the only one that I’ve heard that is bringing ideas that feel powerful enough to actually do something, organize us and direct us.

On another note, I’m enraged by the quality of some of the work that has been built here in Portland over the last five years. All I can hope is that there is a sustainable way that we’re able to tear these projects down once we finally figure out that we are worth building quality places. There are projects where I live in Southeast Portland that are a product of every great potential site getting snapped up and built on in the last five years with the most horrendous, unthoughtful, place-less, cheap, careless work I’ve ever seen. We had an experience in the 1970s with financial situations, which created a burst of crappy architecture that went up fast to make a buck. We were not sure what we were going to do with it. The current stuff that is happening now is bigger; some of it is five stories and it’s awful.

I just finished serving five years on the design commission. This was a really great experience. I think this particular institution is going to have to look at how it is structured to be able to handle the amount of construction that we can anticipate going forward. The group may be struggling right now; I believe they had to double the dates they were meeting for example. It’s a huge encumbrance on the people that are serving. I couldn’t do it anymore and feel like I was giving it justice.

Who is a famous architect you’d like to see design a building in Portland?

The architect whose work most resonates with me is Peter Zumthor. However, I think we have a considerable amount of talent right here in Portland - so much so that I’ve not seen an out-of-town architect come in and do anything I think we couldn’t do locally. It says a lot about the talents we have here in Portland.

Name something besides architecture (sneakers, furniture, umbrellas) you love the design of.

I've always been impressed with thoughtful shop-window displays. I ride by Nordstrom and Mario's everyday on my bikeride home and what they've done has turned my head more than once. I also love the design of high-Alpine tents.

"Gerry" (Filmsprung)

What are three of your all-time favorite movies?

My top three movies are all survival stories. They are the only movies I've ever bought hard copies of (except the third one)

1) "Gerry" by Gus Van Sant;
2) "The Endurance," a documentary of Ernest Shackelton's ill-fated arctic expedition;
3) A two-minute YouTube voiceover about honey badgers that went viral, not a movie, but a film I draw strength from on a regular basis.

 

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Design calendar: February 16-29

Elman Peace & Human Rights Center, Mogadishu, Somalia (Architects Without Borders)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Adnan Morshed
The University of Oregon's Department of Architecture Lecture Series features this talk by Adnan Morshed, Ph.D., an associate professor of architecture at the Catholic University of America's School of Architecture + Planning. Morshed's talk, "Muzharul Islam’s Architectural Modernism and Bengali Nationalism," looks at the work of University of Oregon graduate and pioneering Bengali architect Muzharul Islam, who returned home to postcolonial Pakistan and designed the acclaimed Institute of Fine Arts (1953), in Dhaka, generally considered the harbinger of a Bengali modernism—a sort of local Villa Savoye. The lecture chronicles Muzharul Islam’s crucial contribution to the architectural development of Bangladesh and the secular humanist ethos of Bengal that framed it. University of Oregon, White Stag Block, 70 NW Couch Street. 5PM Tuesday, February 16. Free.

AIA Historic Resources Committee
Architects from Waterleaf Architecture will be on hand to unveil a new project, the Seven Corners Community Collaborative, a four-story office building with ground floor retail, and seek design advice. AIA/Portland Center For Architecture, 403 NW 11th Avenue. 12PM Wednesday, February 17. Free.

Isaac Williams
A principal with Fielding Nair International and director of the Baltimore/Washington Studio, Isaac Williams has led the design of schools in 11 countries on four continents. His design work has won several awards, including in 2015 the Association for Learning Environments MacConnell Award, the most prestigious award within the school design industry for the impact design has on learning. As part of the Portland State University Department of Architecture's Fridays@4 lecture series, Williams' talk, titled "Learning Places," uses examples of his recent work in Singapore, Saskatchewan, San Antonio, and Brussels to explore and discuss the ways in which design of the physical environment can support learning, and place itself can be a source of learning. Portland State University, Shattuck Hall Annex, SW Broadway and Hall Streets. 4PM Friday, February 19. Free.

Isaac Williams (Portland State University)

Denny Zane - Move LA
As part of the University of Oregon's Department of Architecture Lecture Series comes this lecture by the school's 2016 SCI Expert-in-Residence, Denny Zane. Zane has an extensive political background within California, serving as a city council member for 12 years in addition to his term as mayor of Santa Monica. He is currently the Executive Director of Move LA, an organization working to unite labor, business, community and students in the effort to provide adequate funding sources to develop a clean, efficient, and robust transit system for Los Angeles County. The organization facilitated the campaign for the Measure R 1/2, a sales tax for transportation, on the 2008 ballot and ensured its success. Zane's presentation will focus on communicating effectively to the general public on the need for efficient, accessible, and equitable transit opportunities.  University of Oregon, White Stag Block, 70 NW Couch Street, Floor 3R. 5PM Wednesday, February 17. Free.

Aaron Forrest and Yasmin Vobis - Ultramoderne
Yasmin Vobis and Aaron Forrest of the award-winning Providence, Rhode Island architecture studio Ultramoderne will share four recent projects that explore a rethinking of systems of material, structure, and space into alternative frameworks for everyday life. Ultramoderne is committed to creating architecture and public spaces that are at once modern, playful, and generous. The principals are driven by an experimental approach that leads to conceptually rigorous and well-executed designs. The office has experience working at a wide variety of scales, from single-family residences to urban-scale planning. Clients include the Van Alen Institute, National Parks Service, Chicago Parks District, MoMA PS1, and the Boston Society of Architects. University of Oregon, White Stag Block, 70 NW Couch Street. 5PM Tuesday, February 23. Free.

CC2035 Plan Discussion Draft
The Central City 2035 Plan Discussion Draft is the culmination of more than five years of planning that involved more than 8,000 Portlanders. At this open house and discussion session, this will the first draft of a new plan for a vibrant and sustainable urban core built upon the visionary work of Portlanders before us. Development Services Center, 1900 SW Fourth Avenue. 4PM Wednesday, February 24. Free.

DoCoMoMo Modern Mixer
The Oregon chapter of DoCoMoMo (Documentation and Conservation of the Modern Movement) invites the public to spend an evening with DoCo members, design professionals and modernist enthusiasts  while discussing ideas and trivia around modern architecture, art and design. Hotel Eastlund/Altabira City Tavern, 1021 Northeast Grand Avenue. 5PM Wednesday, February 24. $5.

Architects Without Borders: Elman Peace & Human Rights Center
This month's Architects Without Borders meeting will examine a campus master plan and schematic building designs for the Elman Peace & Human Rights Center, the chapter's latest volunteer project, and lead a discussion about the project and the team organization and management of such a large volunteer effort. This ambitious plan brings together EPHRC programs currently dispersed throughout the war-damaged city of Mogadishu, Somalia. The center includes a vocational school, offices, volunteer housing, children's rehabilitation center, women's crisis center, health clinic, prayer hall, and non-formal school. GBD Architects, 1120 NW Couch Street, Suite 300. 6PM Wednesday, February 24. Free.

  

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Four interviews with six designers

A residence by Andee Hess and Osmose Design (Wallpaper)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Last March, I began hosting a bi-monthly interview series in partnership with one of Portland Architecture's sponsors, Ceilume, called Designer Spotlight. As we prepare for the fifth installment in the series tonight, featuring interior designer Garrison Hullinger (whom The Oregonian's Janet Eastman interviewed recently for her "5 Things" series), I'd like to share some video recaps of interviews past.

Originally the series was called PDX Interior Designer Spotlight, and the idea was to focus primarily on interviewing interior designers, simply because I knew fewer in that profession than I know architects. I write about interior designers' work all the time for various home magazines, but usually they're in other cities.

To begin our Designer Spotlight series, therefore, I sent out an invitation to my favorite interior designer in town: Andee Hess of Osmose Design. Whether it's for residential work or for commercial and retail/restaurant clients like Salt & Straw or Ava Gene's, Andee has a brilliant eye for color and texture, and she's also a superb curator and collaborator when it comes to incorporating the work of local artists and artisans. Andee not only made a great first Designer Spotlight interview, but she also designed our first set. We'd wanted to put the stage near Ceilume's storefront windows, but Andee knew it was better to reverse it, so late walk-ins wouldn't become the cameos of our production. We'd planned to put a screen behind us for images, but Andee convinced us to make the conversation the attraction, not the Powerpoint.  

 

Our second installment, held in May of last year, featured interior designer Jim Staicoff of Staicoff Design Company. Jim has been working in Portland since 1992 (after relocating from St. Louis), first as interior design director for Soderstrom Architects and since then with two companies, Corso Staicoff and now his eponymous firm.

I got interested in talking with Jim not only because I'd been a fan of his work for well over a decade, but especially because of his firm's focus on hospitality, be it hotels or restaurants. Most recently, his projects have included renovations of Seattle's Hotel Roosevelt as well as Portland's Hotel Westin and Hotel Lucia. Previously his work has been seen locally at Hotel Modera, in Seattle at Hotel Max, and in a range of projects from Denver to Tacoma to India.  

Next up was a trio of designers leading Fieldwork Design & Architecture who represent cross-disciplinary collaboration in multiple ways: interior designer Tonia Hein and architects Cornell Anderson and Timothy Fouch.

Not only do interior designers and architects work closely at Fieldwork, on projects ranging from a tractor shed to high-end residences to retail and food & drink outlets for the likes of  Tender Loving Empire and Upper Left Roasters, but they also combine design and fabrication in a way that seems to represent a new kind of firm. When I visit Fieldwork's offices, I always enjoy talking with Tonia, Tim and Cornell, but it's all too easy to move from their offices to their workshop, where the smell of fresh-cut wood is in the air and the firm is always at work on the physical manifestations of their ideas. And particularly since the recession, I think Fieldwork's experience speaks to a lot of architects who faced adversity as the commissions at big firms dried up but then used that as an opportunity to make their own way.  

Our fourth Designer Spotlight interview was with Jean-Pierre Veillet is a Portland-based artist, designer, and developer who founded the local design-build firm Siteworks. I first encountered Veillet several years ago when he was remodeling Genoa restaurant, and we crossed paths again when he was building the EcoFlats on North Williams Avenue.

Veillet has a background in site-specific art, and somewhere along the way he began to realize that design and construction was not that unlike an art installation: a creative challenge mixed with construction know-how. Over the years Siteworks has now developed and built a number of compelling projects around town from the Hopworks brewpub to the upcoming Pine Street Market. 

Tonight's installment, featuring Garrison Hullinger, is both a story of great design and a successful business, but also of following one's passion. Hullinger may be one of Portland's most coveted interior designers today, but it wasn't his first career. It took a near-death experience to show Hullinger that life was too short not to do what you love. Doors open at Ceilume (1225 SE Grand) at 5PM and the talk begins at 6.

 

 

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Kengo Kuma's PAM talk details Japanese Garden and Olympic stadium designs

Botond Bognar and Kengo Kuma with Randy Gragg (Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Japanese architect Kengo Kuma was on hand at the Portland Art Museum for a lecture and interview that also included University of Illinois architecture professor Botond Bognar (considered a foremost expert on Kuma and post-World War II Japanese architecture) and was moderated by the University of Oregon/John Yeon Center's Randy Gragg.

First Bognar began with a presentation on the work of Kuma, whom Japanese Garden president Stephen Bloom (who introduced the talk) called "the Frank Lloyd Wright of Japan."

"It is safe to say that Kuma is one of the most prolific and versatile architects today," Bognar said. "About that diversity he wrote, ‘I want to produce architecture freely without being constrained by techniques and methods. I want to arrive at an arch that realizes everything.’ What ties his architecture together? I think the most common feature is the ability to connect to both people and the world around them: sophisticated simplicity, rich minimalism, a disciplined understatement of his architectural expression, and a disengagement of his architect’s personality."

Bognar discussed how Kuma has evolved over his career to foster a kind of humility that is very Japanese. "What he in fact wanted to avoid is to create object as architecture," Bognar explained. "He developed a theory and practice trying to avoid designing these large monumental buildings as objects that stand apart in their environment. He began experimenting with strategies to lighten or offset this notion of a negative impact on the environment." Bognar then went on to show slides of numerous Kuma projects that experimented with glass walls and exterior screening made of a variety of materials from wood to steel to plants.

The professor also noted that while modernism was initially about rejecting historical influences, Kuma "nurtures a particularly intimate connection to Japanese architecture, and seems to foster a transformative continuum."

Kuma's Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center, 2012 (Takeshi Yamagishi)

Nagoya City Hall, 2012 (Mitsumasa Fujitsuka)

Then it was time for the man himself to speak. When Kengo Kuma began, he did not speak about Portland or Japan or Japanese Gardens, but instead about a source of inspiration: a wood box that Kuma's father bought when he was a child. It had been designed by Bruno Taut, a German architect and designer who fled Nazi persecution in the 1930s and settled for a few years in Japan (before it too succumbed to fascism).

"Frank Lloyd Wright and Bruno Taut are the two important masters for me," Kuma said. It started from this box. My father bought it in Ginza in probably 1975. He loved that box very much. Whenever he was happy he showed me that book. He said, 'Kengo, this was designed by a very famous designer.' The box was very simple, made of Japanese wood. I thought it was amazingly beautiful. It was my first encounter with good design."

Kuma then went on to explain the connection between Taut and the Portland Japanese Garden. "Bruno Taut had come to Japan in 1933," he said. "After he came to Japan, the first day he visited Katsura Villa, which is my favorite Japanese garden. Kyoto artists wanted to show it to Taut. That day was May 4, his birthday. When he visited the gate of the Katsura Villa, he began to cry. People were so surprised. Later he explained the reason. In Japan, at the villa, he finally could find what was the goal of his design." Taut went on to write a definitive book about the villa, it is "still considered a bible," Kuma added. "Taut could find the essence of the Katsura Villa."

Katsura Imperial Villa, Kyoto (Phaidon)

"I got many hints for the Portland Japanese Garden from Katsura Villa," Kuma explained. "It’s a kind of village and each building is very humble: basically one story. But the relationship between gardens and the buildings is amazing. Always there’s a connection. It’s very well connected. And that is the point of Katsura’s beauty." Kuma added that the same year Taut visited the Katsura Imperial Villa, Le Corbusier had just designed the modernist icon Villa Savoye (which opened in 1931). Taut made the connection between the restraint of historic Japanese design and modernist architecture of the time. Yet there were key differences. "European modernism is the desire for shape. But Katsura Villa, its whole form is very humble, yet the relationship is rich. That is the very important point in Taut's book. He felt Katsura was the best example of the future of design. The experience at Katsura Villa is very similar to the Portland Japanese Garden. When Portland’s was designed [by Takuma Tono], he got many hints from this garden. It’s very simple but very well proportioned, and also very humble. Humility is very important for this design."

Speaking more specifically about the Portland Japanese Garden, Kuma noted that the site is on a hillside. "The interesting thing is the usual Japanese garden has no deep forest like that.  In Kyoto, to find the deep forest is not easy. But in Portland it’s a big advantage. The Portland Japanese Garden has deep forest behind the garden. The idea is to create a village in the forest.  Each building is not a big building, one or two stories, and light, natural materials and transparent screens are important. We don’t want to create heaviness. The forest itself is beautiful, and the buildings should merge into the forest."

Rendering of the Portland Japanese Garden expansion (Kengo Kuma & Associates)

The architect made note of how not every part of his design for the Portland Japanese Garden was strictly authentic, but the design looked to the Japanese vernacular in broader ways. Of the green roofs that will be part of the Portland campus, for example, Kuma said, "A green roof cannot be found in the Katsura or the other villa. But on the traditional farmhouse in Japan, people would plant flowers on the thatched roof. So we introduced that tradition to this roof. And it is very helpful to save energy." Kuma also addressed roofing in relation to the new cultural buildings and their zigzag pattern, which in Japan is often referred to as flying geese. "It’s not straight. That creates many interesting corners. And at each corner people can get a great view: 360 degrees," he explained.

Kuma then turned his attention briefly to discussing his commission to design Tokyo's new National Stadium for the 2020 Summer Olympics, and how an ongoing conversation between modern and traditional architecture played out then and will so in his own design. Kumar talked about a major inspiration, the Yoyogi National Gymnasium for the 1964 Olympics, designed by Kenzo Tange for the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. "At that time I was 10 years old," the architect recalled. "My father brought me to this stadium. I was surprised to see this beautiful building. The curvature of the roof Tange got from the Japanese temple. Also the interior was amazing: natural light washing the beautiful curve. He carefully designs that kind of effect. On that day I decided to become an architect. Before I’d wanted to become a veterinarian, because I love dogs and I love cats. But after I encountered this building, I changed my mind."

Yoyogi National Gymnasium, Tokyo (Kanegen)

With Tange's building, "the roof is very important for him," Kuma added. "People saw this as a late-modern building, but he tried to create roof shadow, and he got that from many Japanese temples. I wanted to create that kind of roof and shadow again. Shadows are very important for me, and vegetation. The location of this stadium is in Meiji Jingu Gaien Park. It’s part of the biggest shrine in Tokyo. This park is very much related with Shinto culture. I think for Shinto culture, the roof and the shadows are very important. They use the roof to create beautiful shadow."

"Our design inside the stadium, we are using wood for the structure of the roof," Kuma continued. "My idea is if the people get inside the stadium, there is the smell of wood. It has no air conditioning system, but we carefully designed a section of the soffit for controlling natural wind. Each louver has a different pitch. The distance between the louvers varies for each section. Some parts are strong, some parts are weak, by changing the pitch of louvers. But you can feel some similarity between those villas and the Japanese garden and the stadium."

National Stadium rendering (Japan Sport Council via AP)

After Kuma's remarks, he was interviewed by Randy Gragg, who began by asking what, given the array of projects in different countries and at different scales he has worked, constitutes the the beginning of a building design. 

"To visit the site is always the beginning of design," Kuma said. "Sometimes the client sends me images of the site, sometimes movies of the site, with a letter — 'Please start the design as soon as possible' — especially Chinese clients. 'You don’t necessarily need to come to the site,' they say. But I need to go to the site. It’s where I can get inspiration. In movies and pictures, I can’t find any hint. It’s very strange. Many images they are sending, but no inspiration. But if I walk on the ground, the ground gives me some hint. Architecture at its essence is standing on the ground, and the natural light, and the wind, are belonging to the place."

"After that, we as a team sit down," the architect added. "I begin to show images and talk with them. The next step is to make the model of the site. That is also a unique method: making the site and its neighbors. The neighborhood is also very important. That model gives us many hints for the place. The 3D rendering is not giving that hint. But the models, that kind of reality, a three-dimensional reality, is very necessary for studying the project."

Gragg then asked an excellent question, or at least to me as a Japanese film buff. He noted how Kuma has previously cited filmmakers like Akira Kurosawa and Yasujirō Ozu as influences, yet Kuma's work as an architect has been described as anti-photographic, or at least against the notion of architecture as photo-op first. How does cinema influence Kuma's work?

Yazujiru Ozu's "Late Spring" (Omar Ahmed)

"Cinema gave me many hints," the architect explained. "The hint from the cinema is coming from the philosophy of directors: Kurosawa’s philosophy and Ozu’s. Ozu taught me many things. Ozu’s movies, he used many sliding doors. He used doors and their sliding element to create depths for space, and relations between people. I’m using the same method: the sliding door is defining the space. That lesson I learned from Ozu. But for each project, I adapted those ideas to the place, to the land. Then it’s not so cinematic, I think."

Bognar also noted a relationship between cinema and Japanese architecture, the latter of which reveals "scenery after scenery," he explained. "Japanese architecture is an interactive cinema. You can move through space and create the story according to your inclination. You can add up different kinds of perceptions."

Kumar then related that essential type of experience to his memory of the Katsura Imperial Garden. "I remember when I first visited Katsura I said, 'This is a huge garden.' Then I looked at the map. It was incredibly small. But every turn revealed something new. Even if you look at the same thing it can seem new. That’s particularly true in the case of Japanese architecture."

Gragg then asked Kuma about his first impressions of the Portland Japanese Garden, and how it compared to gardens in his home country. "My first visit was 2008," the architect said. "I was so surprised to see the richness of the gardens. They treated nature very carefully and with heart. It’s amazingly beautifully maintained. The result is a harmony with the environment. There's a deep forest with big trees, and the garden merging. I haven’t seen that kind of relationship between forest and gardens in Japanese gardens. The other two Kyoto gardens are beautiful gardens, but it’s not so much related to the neighbors. I was surprised. Another interesting point was the sections of the gardens had ups and downs. That kind of relationship: it’s not a big garden, but because of the up and down it’s a very rich experience. Out of Japan, it’s a kind of miracle to have that kind of garden".

If forests and hillsides are uncommon for Japanese gardens in Japan, Portland's still occupies a topographical position that's important in Japanese culture, Kuma explained. "In Japan the position of the garden between the mountain and the town is an important position. The shrine always is sitting in that kind of position, between mountain and flat ground. The shrine sends a strong message from the mountain. People believe the gods are living on the mountain, and the shrine’s message to the people is to respect the mountain: 'Please use the mountain carefully. Use the natural resources carefully.' That is the message of the shrine. Portland’s is sitting in a similar position. I love the location very much."

Kumar and Bognar also discussed how the Portland project might set an example for Japanese architecture in Japan.

Kuma's slide of the Bruno Taut box that first inspired him (Archinect)

"I have to go back to Kuma’s reference to Bruno Taut and Frank Lloyd Wright," Bognar said. "Typically after a major era opening to the west, the past was relegated to something not useful. It had to be Frank Lloyd Wright, Taut, and so many who came to Japan and discovered something about the Japanese past or the Japanese. Taut was instrumental in making Katsura a preserved and protected entity. Something parallel is happening. Kengo has referred to a stagnation in landscape or garden design in Japan. When something of this nature happens in the US, in this case, providing a prominent example, I really think it can set a precedent. Cultural crossings work both ways, not only coming out here but out to Japan.

"Portland is becoming very popular for Japanese," Kuma explained. "Many are interested in Portland. There are many books about Portland published in Japan, and there are many tours to japan. People believe Portland is a model of a compact 21st-century city. The Japanese Garden in Portland is considered a model of a garden for the people. They’re using it as a part of their daily life. It’s very well connected to Portland. This is a good example for the Japanese. In Japan, these gardens are beautiful, but totally separated from our daily life. It’s a pity. But here in Portland, your daily life and the gardens are very connected. When culture and nature and daily life can be tied closely, for the Japanese that’s a strong message. Japan used to have that kind of integration, but we forgot."

 

 

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The Architect's Questionnaire: Michelle LaFoe

Michelle LaFoe (Dina Avila)

BY JENNIFER WRIGHT

Next in our continuing series is architect Michelle LaFoe, principal at OFFICE 52 Architecture. Along with firm partner Isaac Campbell, their collaboration has established itself as one of the city’s most creative and innovative. Whether its local urban infill projects such as House C and its sculpturally designed Light Space or their national competition-winning design for Scott Hall, the soon to be completed Nano-Bio-Energy Technologies Institute building at Carnegie Mellon University, OFFICE 52 exhibits an exceptional ability to create transformational spaces with light, color and materials. In this interview, Michelle shares the remarkable trajectory of her global experiences and the events that have given shape to her process driven design.

Portland Architecture: When did you first become interested in architecture as a possible career?

Michelle LaFoe: I love to draw and travel and always have. I first became interested in the art of architecture when I was quite young, probably around seven years old, and visited my grandparents annually in Tulsa, Oklahoma during the summers. During part of the day my grandfather was a draftsperson and designer with Bethlehem Steel, and with the remainder of his time he was an artist who produced the most incredible lithographs, drawings and paintings in all media. I was the eldest grandchild, and he would take me on his sketching excursions to various interesting rural, city and industrial sites such as train yards. I still have the yellow canvas folding stools and his portable paint boxes and continue to use them. I would sketch and paint with my grandfather in Oklahoma (and in Houston and the Texas Ship Channel when he visited us), and my grandmother taught me about the importance of simplicity of form in life with her uncanny ability to make all things in a straightforward and enduring manner. In essence, they both taught me how to see. It was invaluable. My grandfather and I drew grain elevators, silos, industrial buildings, trains, train yards, ships, barns, water, trees, iris, and the landscape. He showed me that the space in between the forms was just as important as the forms themselves. My grandparents and I would talk about who designed these structures and how they were created and built, something about which my grandfather knew extensively from his work at Bethlehem Steel and my grandmother from her time growing up on a German farm in Kansas. I know that is why I have a passion for the simplicity of form, line, use of natural light, space, texture and color, due to these excursions into the urban and rural landscape.

Where did you study architecture and how would you rate the experience?

I studied in five places that had different approaches due to my focus at each one, and I learned important things from each of them. They include Rice University, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an 18 month Fulbright Grant, The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Yale University.

I started my undergraduate studies at Rice University in the School of Architecture in 1985 and completed my professional architecture degree in 1991. One of the reasons that I chose Rice is that they were a globally-oriented university that encouraged a strong liberal arts education in conjunction with the focused bachelor-of-architecture professional degree, thus I had the opportunity to take additional courses in other disciplines related to architecture, such as physics and sculpture, and eventually double major in fine art/studio arts. Our first year at the Rice School of Architecture was all drawing, sculpture, and abstract problem solving, which I thought was a fantastic approach, with one of my first professors being Anderson Todd. In one exercise, we had to draw a series of objects, such as a detail of a tree with leaves or a detail from a car, without lifting the pencil and using pressure to create light and dark lines on an 18” x 24” piece of paper. It was a challenging yet relevant project that taught many of the important aspects of architecture. You really had to look and think about composition from an aesthetic point of view in order to do this while in a public setting. If you lifted your pencil, you had to start over. It was not as easy as it sounds, took more time than anticipated, and thus taught one the importance of schedule under a deadline. It also taught that it is essential to an architect to know how to see in such a way that the vision is not overpowered by rational analysis. I still have those drawings.

I also had the opportunity to work with three other amazing professors who were very perceptive and progressive teachers while I was at Rice: John Casbarian and Danny Samuels in architecture, and Chester (Chet) Boterf in painting, each of whom introduced me to very important aspects of design, such as simplicity of the basic concept or parti, the building of physical models to test creative ideas, the potential of working with daylight as an architectural element, and the freedom to express architectural ideas in painted form. This rich experience continues to influence my work to this day. 

Model of a warming-hut structure for an international design competition (OFFICE 52)

After Rice I worked for a structural engineer and then was accepted for graduate work in drawing, painting and sculpture in 1992 in the post-baccalaureate program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which was an equally valuable but very different experience in that it exposed me to the world of working in ‘series’ versus a program-based approach as one does in architecture. I continue to work in both ways with my firm. Being at SAIC was phenomenal in that I was exposed to all variations of the art world in multiple artistic disciplines. The exhibition, film and lecture series were incredible and included people from all over the world. As a student, you had free access to the Chicago Art Institute and of course the city of Chicago at your fingertips.

At SAIC, I had the opportunity to work with Barbara Rossi and Susan Kraut as my painting studio advisors, and I taught in the architecture department with Linda Nelson-Keane. All three taught me to follow my creative instincts and intuition and encouraged my painting, sculpture and architectural installation series not as tangential expressions to the architecture but as a body of work that can stand on its own in both worlds. It was at this time that I became at ease with work in both art and architecture, and I easily cross boundaries amongst disciplines in this regard to this day. I also did work in the foundry department and had first-hand experience with bronze and copper pours, the physics of the materials at different temperature states, and the importance of the clay and wax mockup of one’s sculptural idea, all prevalent concepts when considering materials for architectural application as well.

After SAIC, I worked with Bill Grover, Mark Simon and Jeff Riley at Centerbrook Architects & Planners while attending at-large Italian classes at Yale University and independent painting study with Mary Barnes, an incredibly insightful and talented artist. After several years in Connecticut, I applied for and won the prestigious Fulbright-Hayes Scholarship in Architecture and Fine Arts to pursue my own work and teach in Perugia and Rome, Italy for 18 months. While there I was able to prove one of my predominant theories through archived sources and visual observation: that the 13th-14th century Umbrian towns had a network of streets and public spaces that were planned in three dimensions with regard to the relationship between architectural, painted and sculptural forms. I also travelled extensively throughout Italy, Greece, Switzerland and France and would advocate travel as one of the best forms of education for anyone. 

”Stainless Steel Cups and Dice” charcoal drawing by Michelle LaFoe (Dan Kvitka)

After returning to the United States and completing the exams for my architecture license, I worked for Cesar Pelli & Associates (now Pelli Clarke Pelli) before deciding to return to graduate school for a second advanced degree. In 1996, I was awarded a Distinguished University Fellowship for Advanced Architectural Research at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, where I also earned a Master of Architecture degree in Architectural and Urban History and Theory while I then worked towards a Ph.D. I chose UIUC over MIT and Yale (I was accepted at both) in order to work with the esteemed Dr. Richard Betts, who taught me the importance of asking key questions such as “what, how and why.” In other words, what are you doing, how is it being done, and why is it necessary in regards to thinking, looking, designing and writing about architecture. He and I had more conversations than I can count in reference to how architectural design is not just about the physical context but about the culture and physical materials of a place and its people and how to transform those things into a meaningful, intelligent and intuitively passionate architectural design. After Illinois, I received grant funding to again return to New Haven, and Yale University to complete a year of post-graduate research in materials and fabrication technology as it related to the making of art, architecture and building design. My time there was equally valuable with creative debate, an excellent lecture series, and access to one of the best libraries in the country.

The educational experience at Rice, SAIC, UIUC, the Fulbright, and Yale were all quite different yet were rich, vibrant, rewarding, and all important to my development as an artist-architect who continually crosses disciplinary boundaries with my research and creative work in architecture.

What is your favorite building project that you’ve worked on?

In the last few years I have had the opportunity to do my own architectural design work, yet the designs on which I previously worked in other studios are still quite influential. When I think of important design projects where I was working for someone else, the National Museum of Art in Osaka, Japan on which I worked while at Cesar Pelli & Associates is certainly a favorite of mine. During schematic design, the design team for this project changed locations in the studio, and the result was that my desk area was on the entry path that Cesar took each morning. Since I was one of two people working on the design of the stainless steel entry pavilion and was building these fantastically intricate styrene and brass models quite late into the night, Cesar would stop for an impromptu critique on his way in each morning, at least until we had the design to the aesthetic and functional result desired. It was the most sculpturally oriented architectural project on which I had worked and was great fun.

Scott Hall at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh (OFFICE 52)

In terms of my own work with my partner, Isaac Campbell, as OFFICE 52 Architecture, the new nano-bio-energy technologies building known as Scott Hall at Carnegie Mellon University is a favorite of mine because it synthesizes all my interests in one design project: architectural design, science, innovation, art, research, materials technology and collaboration with a multi-disciplinary approach. At 110,000 square feet, it is our first large-scale built commission, which we won by unanimous vote of the selection committee in an invited national design competition. The competition originally included 17 firms, and after initial submissions, the final list for presentation of concepts included only four. The site is a tight one on an urban campus, and the design solution that we proposed was different than all others. Our design was transformative and innovative with the placement of programmatic elements on the site with a visionary, coherent design that utilized adjacent spaces in a simple, more logical manner. At 110,000 square feet, this project is like eight projects in one: Scott Hall with Biomedical Engineering, the Institute for Complex Engineered Systems, the Energy Institute, the Collaboratory and Cafe, the Ruge Atrium, the Bertucci Nanotechnology Laboratory, the Porter Entry Sequence, and the green roof, which is the continuation of the Hornbostel Mall Sequence. Construction will soon be complete and the building will be opening this spring.

Who has been an important mentor among your colleagues?

When I lived in New Haven, Connecticut, I had the opportunity to work with both Mary Barnes, an amazingly perceptive painter from New York City and now in Maine, and Cesar Pelli, the well-known designer and architect, both of whom would ask hard questions about the aesthetics of a work with directness yet in an affable and respectful manner. Individually and on separate occasions, they would each say, “Why not?” about this painting or that project design, meaning why not push the aesthetic direction of an idea or a multitude of ideas as far as you can. Sure, it will take more work, but the result will be even more incredible. Cesar emphasized the importance of looking at one’s design concepts in quickly built physical models with a multitude of viable options in order to test the idea. It was really an incredible experience being in his studio, as was my partner at O52, Isaac Campbell. It was like a design workshop. Soon thereafter I had the opportunity to work with the esteemed Dr. Richard Betts, one of the most brilliant people I have ever met and still as sharp as ever. He emphasized integrity, straightforwardness, endurance, intellectual intent and artistic aesthetics in works of architecture and art. He was always up for a cup of coffee and intense conversation about any topic related to design and wanted to know your opinion as well. As it turns out, Betts had attended Rice back in the day when Anderson Todd was a young new professor in the schools of art and architecture. This is the same professor I had in 1985 for my freshman year. It is a small world indeed.

Left/middle: National Museum of Art, Osaka (Esto); right: study model by Michelle Lafoe

What part of the job do you like best, and as an architect what do you think you most excel at?

One of my favorite parts of the project is the beginning, when you have the opportunity to express and test the multitude of ideas you have and think about what is possible. You visit the site several times and have the opportunity of turning any project and site constraints into positive design features. This part of the project is intense and moves rather quickly, with a great deal of sketching and quick model building, and the intuitive ideas you initially have on site are typically the best. I find that I have so many ideas that one lifetime is not enough to do all of them.

I also love working with materials, materials research and technology, and having knowledge about traditional and innovative fabrication techniques in a variety of materials such as concrete, wood, stone, glass, metal, and fabric, to name a few. I enjoy the fabrication process when you work with various craftspeople and contractors who believe in making something worthwhile and whose input is crucial to the process itself. To me, it is important to maintain the overall vision of the basic design as the studio moves forward with a project yet also be flexible enough to work with the knowledge of fabricators to figure out the best way to make something as we think about the design of the details, materials used, and their fabrication. It is like you are considering the beginning and the end of the project at the same time and thinking about all the parts needed. Just going to the fabrication house in Oregon to watch the water-jet cutter for that aluminum screen piece for one of our projects is enthralling.

Triptych of lighting details at House C (OFFICE 52)

What are some Portland buildings (either new or historic) that you most admire?

I knew of the designers Pietro Belluschi and Lawrence Halprin long before moving to Portland, so I find myself returning to look at their work. One of the supporters of the GB Nolli Conference that I co-organized in 2004 in Rome was an alumnus of Portsmouth Abbey School in Rhode Island, designed by Belluschi. During the conference, we and others had vibrant conversations on the terrace of the Hotel Minerva about Belluschi, Portsmouth’s design, and Belluschi’s architectural affinity to Italy. I admire Belluschi’s diagrammatic clarity, disciplined logic, inherent understanding of natural and indirect light, and simplicity in material with brick, travertine and wood in his many local projects such as the Portland Art Museum, the Zion Lutheran Church and St. Philip Neri Catholic Church.

The Lawrence Halprin Sequence, known as the Portland Progression, is well known outside of Portland yet receives little attention here, with the exception of the Where the Revolution Began (featuring essays by Randy Gragg, John Beardsley and Janice Ross). Since Halprin had professional connections to Charles Moore, who started Centerbrook Architects in Essex, Connecticut, I knew of Halprin from my work at Centerbrook in the early 1990s. As with Belluschi, Halprin was influenced by his time in Italy, and he produced a wonderfully sculptural solution here for the Portland Progression, which acts as a series of outdoor rooms and is part of a choreographed sequence of open spaces. Halprin could really draw, with colorful, fluid sketches, and his sketchbooks are a lasting compendium that illustrates his thoughts.

When I first moved to Portland, it was reminiscent of the Italian cities in which I had lived, with the fabric of the city that works with the hills, the river, strong neighborhoods and mass transit. You could actually exist without a car and walk, which I love and had done previously when I worked in Europe and on the East Coast. It is really the best way to see a city, the details and textures of a place. The nearby wine country also reminds me of the Umbrian landscape.

What is your favorite building outside of Portland and besides any you’ve worked on?

I don’t have one favorite building but several. It’s like trying to have one favorite painting. Each is with a different perceptual experience. Luis Barragan’s House in Tacubaya, Mexico, his Casa Gilardi, and the San Cristobal Stables in Mexico City are works I strongly favor. Barragan understands the use of line, plane, color, and the serene yet dramatic interplay of light and geometric forms. His work includes a diagrammatic clarity with the graceful use of materials and natural elements such as water and the brilliant opening up of views and spaces that emphasize an indoor and outdoor relationship between the person and nature. There’s a wonderfully poetic book by the photographer Rene Burri that includes his photographs of Barragan’s work and relevant quotes from Barragan, such as, “Don’t ask me about this building or that one. Don’t look at what I do. See what I saw.”

Luis Barragan’s House in Tacubaya, Mexico (ArchDaily Brasil)

I also distinctly remember the first time I visited the Le Corbusier’s Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp in 1994, and since then it has been one of my favorite buildings and experiences. It was a sunny day, and there was a crispness in the air. The light was exquisite. Only five other people visited. The design of the chapel incorporated everything that I considered important and still do: creative use of natural light, sculptural use of materials, sectional ingenuity, incorporation of painting and color in the design. The building design is not precious and is bold and is very moving in its sense of natural beauty and timelessness when you are in the space and watch the light.

In Helsinki, Finland, the Experimental House, which was Alvar Aalto’s house and studio, is also a favorite of mine. It became a demonstration project of his studio’s ability with creative experimentation in materials, light, and the relationship of interior and exterior spaces. In addition, I am partial to the Museum Brandhorst by Sauerbruch Hutton, the British Art Center by Louis Kahn (this is where many times I would take my lunch break while working at Cesar Pelli’s office), Eero Saarinen’s MIT Chapel with the incredible Bertoia installation, the circular structure of the 5th century Tempio di Sant’Angelo in Perugia, Tadao Ando’s work, Carlo Scarpa’s work, the tranquil Cullen Sculpture Garden by Isamu Noguchi and the Menil Collection by Renzo Piano, both of which are in Houston, Texas.

Is there a local architect or firm you think is unheralded or deserves more credit?

Until recently, all of our firm’s work was outside of Portland, so my partner and I have not been here much. When I am here, I tend to hang out with artists. Since we now have several residential projects in the city and have been attending more local design events, I am more knowledgeable about the local architecture scene. There are a number of studios that are making their mark in Portland in an exciting way, and I look forward to more high quality work as the city grows. In my estimate, female designers in Portland should be more fully recognized for their excellent work with innovative and creative ideas, both here and elsewhere.

What would you like to see change about Portland’s built environment in the long term?

Even though I have lived outside of Houston, Texas since 1989, I grew up there and return each year to visit family. I can say that the physical urban environment of Portland as a livable city is the opposite of what you find in most of Houston, which is changing in a positive way in the downtown and medical center area. Many of the elements that make Portland a great place are similar to the ones I found in the city statutes of Perugia, Italy when I worked there as a Fulbright Scholar: fostering neighborhood vitality, zoning laws, strategic plans, partnership models, a vibrant city center, protection of public spaces and places, creation of urban parks and mass-transit development. I think Portland’s planning and design community has done a great job of creating a vibrant city fabric. Yet I believe that Portland is ready for new approaches and structures that represent a cultural transformation in respect to how regulatory processes and specifics of the zoning and building codes work so that they foster innovation in design and construction with even more attention to environmental issues. This is beginning to happen with current work in Portland and hopefully will continue with others who think outside the box in a thoughtful, meaningful way.

How would you rate the performance of local government like the Portland Development Commission, or the development and planning bureaus?

I look forward to working with and developing relationships with the PDC, people in the development and planning bureaus on future projects of ours in the city.

Who is a famous architect you’d like to see design a building in Portland?

I would like to see a building in Portland by the following people: Sauerbruch + Hutton, Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid, Williams Tsien, and SANAA/Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima. They would all do great buildings and add to the architectural language of this city by creating something completely new with the physical parameters they find here. I would also like to see an Ann Hamilton installation in Portland. I’m delighted about the addition of the Kengo Kuma design to the Japanese Garden, which will be fantastic for Portland. Everyone should read the book about his previous work, Material Immaterial, by Botond Bognar.

Name something besides architecture (sneakers, furniture, umbrellas) you love the design of.

I love tools and maps and have a collection of both, half of which I inherited from my grandfather, including his slide rule and solid geometry book collection. One of my favorite objects is this gorgeous, hand-made walnut container with a lid that my uncle made for me in the early 1970’s. I love the design of furniture, my incredible MOMA umbrella, and Irma Boom graphics and beautifully designed books. I admire the way that Lella and Massimo Vignelli and Ray and Charles Eames would look at design as all-encompassing and work in a variety of medium across disciplines.

What are three of your favorite movies?

"Tema Hima: The Art of Living in Tohoku," Hayao Miyazaki’s movies, such as "Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind," and Federico Fellini’s movies. 

 

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Design calendar: February 1-15

Keller Fountain (Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Carl Alviani
A designer, writer, editor and researcher, Alviani will share his story as part of an ongoing lecture series from the Applied Craft + Design MFA program from the Pacific Northwest College of Art and the Oregon College of Art & Craft. Educated in industrial design at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute and structural engineering at UC San Diego, Alviani has contributed to designs for products ranging outdoor equipment and remote controls to toys and metal detectors, while he has written for a variety of creative agencies such as Ziba as well as for corporate clients like Microsoft and Intel. Bison Building, 421 NE 10th Avenue. 6:30PM Wednesday, February 3. Free.

Tsunago: Connecting to the Architecture of Kengo Kuma
AIA/Portland's Center For Architecture celebrates First Thursday with the opening of what is first-ever U.S. exhibition devoted world-renowned architect Kengo Kuma. "Tsunagu: Connecting to the Architecture of Kengo Kuma" focuses on Kuma’s design for the Portland Japanese Garden’s Cultural Crossing project, his first public commission in North America. Visitors to this free exhibition will be able to interact with blue Oregon-sourced granite, sudare screens, tatami mats, and curls of Port Orford cedar. Balazs Bognar, Chief Manager at Kengo Kuma & Associates, is the exhibit’s curator. He says, “Kengo Kuma is known for connective spaces, often putting nature and the human experience first. His emphasis on light as well as locally sourced materials makes the Portland Japanese Garden’s expansion project the perfect lens through which people can see and understand the guiding ideas of Kuma-san’s work.” Center For Architecture, 401 NW 11th Avenue. 5PM Thursday, February 4. Free.

Kengo Kuma's Architecture of Relationships
Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, making news of late as the architect of Tokyo's new Olympic stadium, will be on hand for this combination of lecture and discussion focusing Kuma’s first public project in the United States: the Cultural Crossing project now under construction at the Portland Japanese Garden. First, University of Illinois professor Botond Bognar will provide an overview by examining the way in which Kuma’s buildings acquire authenticity by weaving intensive yet intimate relationships with both the environment and humans, thereby gaining identity by weakening it. Following this, Kengo Kuma will adds his personal insight into the inspiration behind the Cultural Crossing design. Journalist and advocate Randy Gragg will moderate the subsequent discussion between the speakers and the community. Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Avenue. 2PM Saturday, February 6. (The event is sold out, but one can email [email protected] to be put on the waiting list.)

Missa Aloisi: Architecture Without Ego
As part of the University of Oregon's Department of Architecture Lecture Series, Burlington, Vermont architect and UO alumnus Missa Aliosi will discuss the challenges and opportunities inherent to starting one's own practice. Aliosi will discuss creative endeavors such as her firm's its innovative $1-per-minute services for homeowners and the establishment a collaborative coworking space. During this lecture she will also share her philosophy of how architectural practices can break down the barriers that make design services seemingly inaccessible to so many. University of Oregon, White Stag Block, 70 NW Couch Street. 5PM Tuesday, February 9. Free.

Designer Spotlight: Garrison Hullinger
Next in the continuing Designer Spotlight interview series from Ceilume and yours truly will feature Garrison Hullinger, of Garrison Hullinger Interior Design. Hullinger and his firm have exploded onto the Pacific Northwest (and national) design scene with award-winning projects in residential, commercial, hospitality and custom home segments, and a unique "purpose-driven" design philosophy. The firm's combination of sophisticated design and business sense has landed it on the Portland Business Journal's 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies in both 2014 and 2015; won two Best of HOUZZ Awards in 2015 and 2016; and People's Choice, Realtor's Choice and Professional's Choice awards in the 2015 Street of Dreams. Ceilume, 1225 SE Grand Avenue. 6PM Thursday, February 11. Free.

Delivering Passive House at Market Rate
Adam Cohen, one of the  first Certified Passive House Consultants in the nation and a former vice chairman of the Passive House Institute US's Technical Committee, will lead this seminar on how this means of construction can be accomplished without the commonly believed 10 to 25 percent markup. All types of commercial buildings, from dental clinics to college dormitories, can be built at market rate while achieving Passive House standards. Integrated project management will be discussed as will details, equipment, controls and areas for capturing money typically left on the table in conventional design-bid-build project delivery situations. Xico, 3715 SE Division Street. 6:30PM Thursday, February 11. $35 ($25 for American Institute of Architects members.)

Lawrence and Anna Halprin and the Transformation of Portland Public Space
Lovejoy Fountain, Pettygrove Park, and Keller Fountain are arguably Portland's most influential works of architecture and urban design, both for the world and for our own downtown. Built between 1966 and 1970, their development was an integral part of the South Auditorium Urban Renewal Area. The parks and the pedestrian malls that connect them comprise the Halprin Open Space Sequence Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013. A pending application may eventually lead to their listing as a National Historic Landmark. This lecture by journalist and advocate Randy Gragg will explore how Lawrence Halprin and his choreographer wife Anna Halprin reinvented public space and triggered a revolution that would change downtown Portland forever. Architectural Heritage Center, 701 SE Grand Avenue. 10AM Saturday, February 13. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Architectural Wooden Model Exhibit
The Architectural Foundation of Oregon and the World Forestry Center have joined together to create exhibit of architectural models made of wood. Featured in this exhibit are models by local architects and designers such as Jeni Nguyen and Office 52, as well as a model called the Portland River Story by students in Carol Kekez and Mauricio Villarreal’s ARCH 480 studio at Portland State University this year. World Forestry Center, 4033 SW Canyon Road. 9AM-3PM Monday-Friday, through February 26. Free.

 

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