Portland Architecture

AFO's Architects in Schools program: educating the community, but in need of more help

Sina Meier (left) with a Metropolitan Learning Center class (Opsis Architecture)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Every architect has a story about when he or she first learned about the profession, or became inspired to design buildings for a living. Maybe it was a family friend or relative who was an architect. Maybe it was watching Mike Brady on The Brady Bunch. Or maybe it was learning to build a treehouse as a kid.

Today, we need architectural education more than ever. And for decades now, the Architecture Foundation of Oregon's Architects in Schools program has been providing just that. But they need help.

Inspired by the first Earth Day in 1970, the Architects in Schools program began that same year, the brainchild of Portland architect Marjorie Wintermute, who created the program with the goal of developing awareness and understanding of the designed and built environment. Administered by the AFO since 2003 (taking over from the Regional Arts & Culture Council), the program has grown from annually serving 800 to more than 3,800 students in the Portland metropolitan area, Central Oregon, Salem, Eugene, Medford and Ashland.

Architects in Schools relies on an army of architect volunteers, who pair up with teachers of third, fourth and fifth graders to put on a six-week course.

For the past few years, Architects In Schools has been growing steadily, with about 100 more students added each year, and volunteer numbers stretching to meet the demand. This year, however, demand has soured. The AFO has received requests to serve over 1,400 more students than last year.

MLC students working on a project (Anna Sapienza)

In hopes of helping to inspire more architects to volunteer with the AFO, recently I talked with Sina Meier, an architect with Opsis Architecture who  recently completed her third year as a volunteer.

Meier first got inspired a few years ago after seeing an exhibit of student-designed projects for Architects in Schools in Opsis's lobby; four other architects from the firm had volunteered their time, prompting the firm to host exhibits. After signing up, she was paired with a third grade at the Metropolitan Learning Center in Northwest Portland, where Meier has continued to volunteer each year. "I've had a really good experience," she said.

The volunteer process begins with a training workshop and getting a copy of the manual Architecture As A Basic Curriculum Builder, which includes a simple drawing technique that quickly improves students’ abilities and their confidence; a pictorial survey of architectural periods and styles that coincide with studies of Native Americans, Pioneers, Victorians, and several distinct periods in the 20th century; lessons for measuring and designing floor plans; structured activities around questions, like: “What makes structures stand up?”, “What will cities look like 25 years from now?” and “What is Green Building?” Another lesson is called “A Special Structure for a Special Client” and asks students to program and design homes for clients.

Architectural model project from Meier's MLC class (Sina Meier)

"There is a guidebook with lessons and ideas for projects, but you can do your own thing. That’s what we did," Meier explains. "You usually go in once a week for an hour or two. It’s really up to you and the teacher how to structure the lesson. I started out usually with a slideshow. For about 20 minutes: that’s how long they can focus. We usually then had something more active. We went outside for a neighborhood walk and sketched things, or we measured parts of the school, or we had show and tell. We talk about making connections in our work: with light, with nature. And the kids come into the office too. For the last three lessons, that was all production: working towards that final project that’s then part of the exhibit in May."

Meier and Sapienza always begin with a discussion called "What is architecture?" "I talk about what I do. We have a show and tell where I’ll bring in drawings or materials from the materials library. I also like to have kids talk about what their ideas of architecture are. It helps you as a design professional talk to kids in a way they understand. That’s a big part of the program: making architecture accessible to kids. Things like scale and proportion they often already know about. It’s about getting rid of that esoteric language we have, and showing that architecture is all around us."

Her first year, Meier and MLC teacher Anna Sapienza created a unique curriculum. "That year Minecraft was very popular, so we used that to teach them about scale and proportion and modularity," Meier recalls. "It was also the 100th birthday of their school. It’s a brick building. We decided to make a model of the school. Every kid worked on his or her own section. We used building blocks we’d colored in different colors. We just built one elevation at scale and added trees and playgrounds and what the school could be. That was exhibited along with photographs and drawings we’d produced along the way."

 

Increased requests for Architects in Schools curriculum (AFO)

In other cases, Meier says, students' final projects "are not necessarily polished models but show what their process was like. Last year there was a series of models that had been crushed under weight. They’d tested different methods of structure and studied what happens when you apply pressure. They had photographs and writing that explained what they had studied."

"It’s that back and forth between learning something and hands-on making something," Meier adds. "That’s what attracts me to the program as a design professional. I’m inside all day. AIS is a way to get outside the office, to get out and make another kind of connection. And I think for kids it’s popular because it’s so hands-on."

Being an architect can often require some long hours, especially when you're young. It would be hypocritical of me to suggest all architects have a responsibility to volunteer for programs like Architects in Schools, because if you set aside my Memorial Coliseum advocacy I hardly volunteer for charitable causes at all. But particularly as someone who grew up in a small town, I know it's possible to get all the way to college without ever truly getting a chance to study and learn about architecture. That means a lot of potentially very talented architects never enter the profession. If we can reach kids at a younger age, and show them that careers like this are possible, where you can combine a steadier paycheck than mosts artistically-inclined people get with the chance to truly impact where we live, work and play and what comprises those spaces, then the entire built environment will be better off, and thus so will we. 

 

 

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Boston-based Portland Architecture Awards jury applauds local design culture

Juror Elizabeth Whittaker (Merge Architects)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Each year on the eve of the Portland Architecture Awards, the trio of jury members selecting the awards gather with an audience at the AIA's Center For Architecture to discuss their own work and, more importantly, what the awards submittals lead them to think about Portland's architecture and architects overall.

This year's Boston-based jury of Tim Love, Elizabeth Whittaker and Mariana Ibanez has between them some remarkable resumes. Each has taught or currently teaches architecture at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. Whtitaker's firm, Merge Architects, combines design and craft in an innovative, meaningful way. Ibanez's work explores new possibilities for integrating architecture and technology. Love's firm has a lengthy history with public buildings, housing and master planning.

The jurors, only one of whom (Love) had been to Portland before, began by noting "a lot of commonalities between the interesting work being done in the Boston metro area and Portland," as Tim Love put it. "One reason might be because of land values and the rising cost of real estate and those pressures. It’s forced our cultures to get smart about using inexpensive materials. The use of HardiePanel or metal panel, that family of stuff is similar. And the building types are similar; the single family small lot stuff that’s very much like neighborhoods in south Boston and Somerville: cottages on small lots. You’ve got the small developer stuff off like 12 to 30 units, and the big macho developer stuff. That whole food chain is familiar to us. It was like we were shopping for moves."

"I really appreciated the level of detail," Whittaker added. "It’s uncanny how you’re pulling that off out here. Some of these projects are so well crafted. I think it wasn’t necessarily a fancier or more expensive material. It’s as if the people putting them together care more, maybe more than I find in Boston with the crews we work with. I don’t know what the building culture in Portland is like. Maybe there’s something going on out here. Maybe there are less of them and they’re less of a dime a dozen."

Juror Tim Love (Utile Architecture & Planning)

"The Boston market is so overheated now it’s hard to get contractors and the quality is dropping off," Love agreed. "I think the difference is…for the most part the projects that we liked, there’s a little bit more sense on the architects’ side about what the capacity of the contractors are. Some firms in Boston I think over-reach what the crafts can deliver."

Love and Whittaker also identified a couple of quirks relating to how different parts of buildings are put together.

"Portland is very good at realizing that he ground floor is different from the upper floors," Love said. "You do good podiums here, and not always in the same way."

"Which is interesting, because there aren’t as many tall buildings," Whittaker added. "You don’t need to rely on the podium."

"I think the ground floor and upper floor uses are also about choreographing sequences," Love explained. "On the ground floor it can be tunnel-like with competing retail things. We had discussions about the quality of coming into the lobby and what the effect of surprise was when you went to the upper floor: that difference is undervalued, I think. Some very modest projects had a very interesting handle on that."

The jury then returned to the notion of how Portland architects handle materials and form, not just in a sense of craftsmanship but also "a smart economy of materials, where a lot of the projects have one or two," Whittaker explained. "Very simple, super pure forms."

As they talked, the jury showed what was supposed to be a random group of images from projects submitted, but the work of Waechter Architecture seemed to keep coming onscreen, and some of the jury's comments seemed, at least in my mind, to refer to Waechter's sense of material economy as an emblem for the greater Portland architecture community.

"If you can’t use luxurious materials to do your thing and you’re left with HardiePanel or metal panel, you need to really use that material more to clad a volume," Love said. "You can’t objectify it. It’s a wrapper. And then what you’re left with as you have fewer and fewer moves is to just subtract voids and proportions. It almost becomes like a version of stucco contemporary architecture in Vienna. But it’s not stucco. It’s HardiePanel or metal panel. That’s very interesting to us. You’re forced to think about composition with the basics. I think American architecture is more one of assembly. I think there’s an interesting theoretical 'aha.' Maybe we’re just trying too hard. Pick a nice gray HardiePanel and embrace the thing. That’s weird because it changes the strategies a little bit."

When the jury offered to take questions, I asked what some of their initial impressions of Portland had been.

"It’s a pretty great city, and probably a great city to be in as an architect," Love said. "The only downside is it may be more isolated as an economy than a city like Boston is. But I think the scale of the city has an influence on the scale of the work. I think that sense of appropriate scale, almost miniaturized. It’s almost like a four-fifths scale. I like four-fifth cities. Houston is like a six-fifths city. Everything seems all pumped up there."

Juror Mariana Ibanez (NPR)

Another member of the audience asked if the jurors had any advice for Portland architects. Whittaker seemed to want more formal daring.

"I think you’re doing so much so well, in terms of how you’re detailing, and the care shows in the finished product: the way it’s built. That’s what stands out the most," she said. "I think there is a formal sensibility that seems very specific to Portland, and I see a few projects that are breaking out of that. I’d like to come back in eight years and see even more ambitious geometries that are also bringing along this level of craft. It’s easy to do something that’s formally loud but not to do it well."

"I’d like to see some public architecture that isn’t schools," Love added. "I’d like to see an excellent civic building where people can argue about what’s coming to their neighborhood. Most of the excellent work is private, right? Maybe some advocacy can be done for that."

Love also offered some praise based on the local set of conditions. "Small firms in Portland have to be more entrepreneurial. In Boston they’re all connected with the universities."

But Whittaker confirmed that the world has taken notice of our city. "There is a buzz about Portland, and there has been for a while," she said. "And it’s about livability."

Ibanez added that a lot of her students at Harvard do thesis projects on Portland even though they’re not from here.

Ultimately the jury process is always an imperfect one. It makes sense for objectivity's sake for out-of-town professionals to act a jurors, but they almost always have to decide the winners based on photos instead of site visits, and in most cases they have no familiarity with the city at all. Yet these annual awards have shown a continuity across the years and across juries in terms of what they like: projects that blend craftsmanship and an eye for the little details with a reverence for local natural material and, increasingly, a little bit of formal daring.

  

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WPA, Beebe Skidmore, Waechter lead Portland Architecture Awards winners

Beebe Skidmore's Swift headquarters (Swift)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Beebe Skidmore Architects and Works Progress Architecture (formerly Works Partnership Architecture) took home the top-level Honor Award on Thursday night at the annual Portland Architecture Awards, given out by the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Mentioned together, the names of two winning projects sound like guesses for a four-letter word puzzle beginning with 'S' on Wheel of Fortune: Swift and Slate. But instead of winning a Buick (as my college roommate once did on the show - winning word "judge"), these firms take home a certificate and the validation of being in the company of many superb past projects honored in the awards' history.

Swift, by Beebe Skidmore, is a renovation and transformation of a cluster of attached warehouses in Slabtown near NW 17th & Overton into a light-filled and wide open home for the Swift advertising agency. Both alumni of Portland's most acclaimed firm, Allied Works, Doug Skidmore and Heidi Beebe deserved this Honor Award in my mind.

The project retains much of the original concrete-block warehouse in a visible way even as it adds contemporary architecture. They retained the original sawtooth skylights, for example, and then used that triangular form as inspiration for a mezzanine addition. Inside there is a hive of activity, with light pouring in and a generous amount of space devoted to common areas. And there is a broader sense of surprise that happens there in terms of proportion. When the architects punched new window openings into the old concrete walls, for example, they placed them not symmetrically in the middle but according to where the concrete was strongest. As a result, it feels highly detailed yet a step ahead of expectation, somehow. The whole composition feels like a piece of music to me.

Slate (Works Progress Architecture)

Slate has, during its construction, maintained a relatively low profile given how its next-door neighbor, Yard (also being built more or less at the same time), has been so controversial and garnered so much press. The two buildings are not dissimilar in some ways, each with some pretty dark facades. Yet Slate is going to be seen as the more successful. It continues WPA's exceptional ability with facade patterning, with a series of white apertures contrasting the darker facade material.

And Slate contributes to what is now a really noteworthy portfolio of buildings in one extended area: the Central Eastside and lower Burnside. And while this is the first big award for Beebe Skidmore, WPA is a regular at the Portland Architecture Awards. I wouldn't be surprised if they're the most winning firm of the past decade; if not they've got to be in the top handful. And it's well deserved.

There were lots of other awards given out last night, many of them equally significant.

WPA's Framework (Brian Libby)

Works Progress Architecture also won the Craftsmanship Award, for its Framework project, also in this Lower Burnside area. It's part of a new generation of timber-framed buildings, along with work by firms like Lever Architecture and PATH Architecture, which I wrote about in a recent Portland Tribune column called "Framing The Future." And it's gorgeous, with a similar facade pattern language to Slate only smaller and perhaps a little more transparent.

After the Honor Award, the sort of silver medal of the night is the Merit Award, which went to five projects. Two Merit Awards were designated for small projects, and both of those were won by Waechter Architecture: Oakley House (which I wrote about last year for Dwell magazine) and Pavilion House. The aforementioned Framework by WPA also won a Merit Award, as did Holst Architecture for the Open School East and Hacker for the Lakeside at Black Butte Ranch.

Oakley House (Waechter Architecture)

The next award tier is the Citation Award, which went to six projects. Waechter Architecture won for the Red House, a renovation of an existing early 20th century farmhouse in Southeast Portland; I wrote about it last year for Oregon Home magazine and was impressed by how Ben Waechter was able to apply his gift for simplifying the feel of its space by economizing its materials and detailing to an old house instead of a ground-up building. As if these awards weren't enough, Waechter also won for the Sawtooth multifamily housing project. I could be mistaken, but I think everything the firm entered won an award. Oh, and Waechter took home one of the two Honor Awards last year, in addition to a few in the past. Quite a roll.

Another of my favorite firms to emerge in recent years, Lever Architecture, won a Citation for its Albina Yard project, which is also exceptionally innovative for its wood construction. I visited the building a few weeks ago and came away very impressed, not just with the crispness of the composition but also its warmth. Even the wood stairway is beautiful.

Stairway at Albina Yard (Brian Libby)

Hacker, which has done excellent work for decades now, be it under the influential Thomas Hacker or today with a new generation at the helm, also won a Citation for its attractive Basecamp Townhouse in Bend, which shares a developer with the Honor Award-winning Swift: Project. Bora also won a Citation Award for the Cosmopolitan Condominiums, which I blogged about earlier this summer and generally quite like too.

The final Citation Award went to another frequent award-winning firm, Holst Architecture, for its Karuna at One North. Visiting this building extensively last year for a New York Times article, I came away hugely impressed, so much so that I'm a bit surprised to see Karuna not win an Honor Award. It could hardly be more energy efficient, as a commercial building with much of the same approaches as the earlier Holst-designed Karuna House outside Newberg that a couple years ago became the first in the world to earn LEED, Passive House and the Swiss Minergie rating. What's more, I think this Karuna building that received a Citation Award is particularly beautiful with its curvy facade openings.

Karuna at One North (Brian Libby)

Despite not getting the gold medal from this year's three-person jury panel, all Boston-based, Karuna at One North did win one of the top non-juried prizes, the Mayor's Award, selected for a final time this year by Mayor Charlie Hales. Also winning a Mayor's Award were the Kerns Micro House by Fieldwork Design and Architecture, Slate by WPA, and Park Avenue West by TVA Architects. The mayor reserved two awards for small projects and two for large urban projects, and between the tiny Kerns project and the tall Park Avenue West tower downtown, he certainly covered the size spectrum.

Another special prize, the 2030 Award for innovative sustainable design, went to ZGF Architects for the Rocky Mountain Institute. ZGF in recent years has managed to combine leading-edge green strategies and a deep sense of how to make elegant civic buildings, reflected its listing this year atop the Architect 50 list as the nation's top firm.

Two other projects won the Significant Design Contribution Award, which is nominated by the architect. General contractor Hoffman Construction won for TVA's Park Avenue West project, and Reworks was honored as owner/contractor for Lever Architecture's Albina Yard.

At the annual Jury Critique on Wednesday night, the eve of the awards, this year's Boston-based jurors (Elizabeth Whitaker of Merge Architects, Tim Love of Utile and Mariana Ibanez of Ibanez Kim) were very complimentary of Portland architecture in general, especially the level of craft and elegant simplicity that seemed to span projects.

Congratulations to all the winning firms, as well as to the nominees who did good work but for whatever reason didn't make the awards list.

 

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Design calendar: November 16-30

Garden House (Waechter Architecture)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

We are settling in for a long, dark, cold winter. And you know I'm not talking about the weather. Amidst our national crisis, maybe a few lectures and walking tours might seem trite or pointless. But we in the design and arts communities, and we as Portlanders, must stick together now all the more. We must inspire ourselves and then work to inspire others: to educate those who clearly need it, and to show our fellow citizens there is a more enlightened way to live. And with our annual architecture awards ceremony coming up this week, there's no better time to celebrate the best of our architecture and our creative selves.

Jury Critique Night - Portland Architecture Awards
Each year on the eve of the American Institute of Architects' annual Portland Architecture Awards, the three-member awards jury panel (always consisting of architects from outside Portland) offers a presentation of their own work as well as a critique of Portland's architecture as seen through the judging experience. This year's Boston-based jury includes Mariana Ibañez, co-founder of Ibañez Kim Studio and an associate professor at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design; Tim Love, founding principal at Utile Architecture & Planning Design and an associate professor at Northeastern University School of Architecture; and Elizabeth Whittaker, founder of Merge Architects. AIA Center For Architecture, 403 NW 11th Avenue. 5:30PM Wednesday, November 16. Free.

UNITE: How Portland Does Play
As part of its ongoing quarterly UNITE panel discussion series, Design Museum Portland hosts a multidisciplinary panel to discuss the importance of play and playscape design. Panelists including Christina Frank of MIG, Cody Goldberg of Harper’s Playground, Katie Shook of Midland and Michael Laris from Playworld will delve into how play is related to design, psychology, parenting, architecture, and development, and the ways in which we can design a more playful future. Pacific Northwest College of Art, 511 NW Broadway. 6:30PM Thursday, November 17. $15 ($10 in advance, free for Design Museum Portland members).

Portland Architecture Awards
Each year the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects honors the best in local architecture, with a group of prizes on offer including the Honor Award for the year's top designs. Last year, the Honor Award went to two projects: the Pacific Northwest College of Art's Schnitzer Center by Allied Works Architecture and the Garden House by Waechter Architecture.  Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark Street. 7:30PM Thursday, November 17 (reception begins 5:30PM). $85 for awards + reception ($50 for awards program only, $35 for awards program only for AIA associate members, $20 for awards program only for students). 

Peg Bowden on Human Migration and the Border
CPID Talks, an ongoing lecture series from Portland State University's Center for Public Interest Design in the School of Architecture, welcomes Peg Bowden, RN, MS, a retired public health nurse living in Arizona near the border with Mexico. Bowden lives in a rammed-earth home and volunteers at a migrant shelter in Mexico attempting to understand why thousands of people are willing to risk their lives crossing the Sonoran Desert into the US, where they are despised by so many ignorant, angry Trump voters. Her book, A Land of Hard Edges,  reflects on these attendant complexities of human migration. Portland State University, Shattuck Hall, 1914 SW Park Avenue, Room 217. 10AM Friday, November 18. Free.

Open House: School of Architecture Graduate Programs
Portland State University's School of Architecture offers two options for graduate study in architecture, together with a graduate certificate in public interest design, and a pre-professional undergraduate degree in architecture. At this open house, potential students will have an opportunity to learn about graduate programs in architecture, meet  teaching faculty and program directors, talk with current students, learn about the curriculum and our teaching philosophy, tour  studios and lab facilities, and find out more about the application process for the Master of Architecture, Graduate Certificate in Public Interest Design, as well as a BA or BS in Architecture. Portland State University, Shattuck Hall, 1914 SW Park Avenue. 1PM Friday, November 18. Free.

Daniel Vasini
The Portland State University School of Architecture is honored to welcome Daniel Vasini, creative director of the international award-winning urban planning and landscape architecture firm West 8. At the firm, he leads the creative thinking in the conceptualization of projects that advance design research, rigorous aesthetic, philosophical and operational standards of the design process. He lectures and serves as Design Critic in Landscape Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, including serving as panelist and juror at other universities, fellowship programs, and conferences around world. Vasini was educated at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in Los Angeles by way of the Fulbright Fellowship. He worked for Skidmore Owings & Merrill in Chicago and London before joining West 8 in 2008. Shattuck Hall Annex, SW Broadway & Hall Street. 4PM Friday, November 18. Free.

 

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Escaping apocalypse at Nordia House

Nordia House (DiLoreto Architecture)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

In a recent column for the Portland Tribune, I wrote about my first visit to Nordia House, a home for the Scandinavian Heritage Foundation that opened last summer.

Designed by DiLoreto Architecture with architect Brian Melton leading the way, the 10,000-square-foot building, located off busy Oleson Road near the Portland-Tigard border, looks out at a protected wetland and, despite its otherwise suburban setting, felt to me like an oasis — for reasons related to its architecture and site but also because of the national nightmare that may soon come true.

More than a century ago my Norwegian ancestors, the Dahl family, made the pilgrimage across the Atlantic and ultimately across North America to reach Oregon. So too my did ancestors from England, Switzerland and Germany come to America with the hope of a better future.

All these years later, though, I find myself yearning to reverse the course taken by my European ancestors. I'm so deeply, profoundly and irrevocably ashamed of my country these days and nearly half the populace's embrace of fascism that I can't help but dream of moving to Europe. It's not to say that they don't have problems over there too, for many European countries have made disconcerting lurches to the right amidst the world's largest mass migration since the end of World War II (that will happen when you destroy the places where people live). But if Donald Trump should become the American president, I want out of this spoiled land of ignorance, bigotry and twisted evangelism.

From the moment I arrived at Nordia House, I could feel the weeks of growing tension ease. Even just stepping up to its entrance on a tour with Melton, I had to pause to take in the beautifully carved door, designed by the late great Roy Setziol before his passing in 2005. I also had to stop and admire the water feature in the front of the building, which makes artful use of the rainwater captured on the roof.

I also stopped to enjoy the composition of the building, clad in a combination of cedar and board-formed concrete with a gentle slope upward at the sides. The entire experience is one of layers, causing one to pause and slow down while passing through them (the entry doors, the facade, the landscape) in gentle succession.

Nordia House's main hall (DiLoreto Architecture) 

The building is centered around a cavernous glass-walled and Douglas fir-festooned main hall, and Nordia House also includes an attendant gallery as well as administrative offices and an outpost of the popular Nordic-themed Portland restaurant Broder. It has space for everything from concerts and movie screenings to classes and dances to church services (a Lutheran congregation holds Sunday services there), as well as the Midsummer festival each June and a popular Christmas market in December.

On the sunny day I visited, there wasn't any rain to activate the waterfall in the front of the building, but the way late-morning sunlight permeated the glass through its patterned exterior screening felt like a modernist evocation of the dappled light coming through the trees. And as the light hit those Douglas fir ceiling beams, they almost seemed to glow.

DiLoreto Architects traditionally keeps a fairly low profile, but the firm has carved out a niche (amidst the other academic, industrial and residential work in its portfolio) designing ecclesiastical spaces. The St. Edward Church in Keizer, for example, has won awards both from religious organizations and for its wood construction. It's an inspiring blend of traditional and modern forms, teeming with natural light and providing a sense of awe in its exposed wood Gothic arches.

St. Edwards Church, Keizer (DiLoreto Architecture)

Even though Nordia House is not really a church (the Lutheran service happening there not withstanding), there is a kind of secular spiritual feel one has visiting the building and its site. It's a spirit born not of fire and brimstone, or self-righteous moralizing, but of community togetherness in a beautiful natural setting. It reminds me of the oft-quoted Frank Lloyd Wright answer about religion in a 1957 interview with Mike Wallace: "my church I put a capital N on Nature and go there."

In times of crisis we all look for salvation. Some of us go to church and that's largely a good thing, finding camaraderie and consolation. Some of us head for the beach or the mountains, humbled by their majesty. And some of us look to great or soothing urban places and spaces, be they a park or perhaps a building.

Broder inside Nordia House (DiLoreto Architecture)

I think back fondly on my visit to Nordia House in part for its celebration of the Scandinavian cultures that comprise part of my ancestry; part for its role as a beautiful work of architecture in an otherwise uninspiring suburban setting within a stone's throw of Washington Square mall and a sea of surrounding strip malls and pedestrian-unfriendly thoroughfares; and partly as a moment of tranquility amidst the biggest national crisis of my lifetime.

Hopefully next week enough people can listen to what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature," but if not, inspiring places like Nordia house will only become more valuable, as some of us look for solace anywhere we can find it as we maybe even turn toward packing our bags and writing off the country we thought we knew.

  

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Design calendar: November 1-15

An apartment building on SE Hawthorne Boulevard (Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Hu Jie
The Institute for Sustainable Solutions at Portland State University will host a lunchtime presentation by Professor Hu Jie, director of the Tsinghua Urban Planning & Design Institute (THUDPI) in Beijing. Hu and his team at THUDPI have designed many award-winning parks and other projects across China on sites from a few acres up to many square miles in size. Before returning to China he worked at Sasaki & Associates in Boston. Hu led the team that designed the American Society of Landscape Architects award-winning Olympic Forest Park, the 1,680 acre park north of the 2008 Beijing Olympics venues. His team designed the 1,557 acre Tangshan Nanhu Eco-city Central Park, on the site of collapsed coal mines, a dump and former contaminated factory sites. The Quarry Garden in the Shanghai Botanical Garden won a 2012 ASLA honor award. According to the ASLA website, his "design approach integrates Western principles of science and engineering with traditional Chinese philosophies of art, literature and garden design. His work exemplifies interdisciplinary collaboration, integrating function, art, science and culture with sustainable strategies for resource conservation." Portland State University, College of Urban and Public Affairs, 506 SW Mill Street, Parsons Gallery. 12PM Tuesday, November 1. Free. (A second lecture will be held at Smith Memorial Student Union, 1825 SW Broadway, Room 338, at 7PM.)

Northwest Shake, Rattle and Roll: The Science of Great Cascadia Earthquakes
Recent research has shown that Oregon and Portland will undergo a massive Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake in the future, possibly topping 9 on the Richter Scale. Nationally recognized geophysicist Chris Goldfinger has studied a 10,000-year historical record of these earthquakes in marine sediments. His analysis leads him to predict that the northern Oregon coast and Portland faces a 15-20 percent chance of suffering a similar quake in the next 50 years. He has published more than 70 peer-reviewed scientific articles, and his work was featured in "The Really Big One" New Yorker article. In this City Club of Portland lecture, Goldfinger will talk about the science of these great earthquakes and discuss the odds that one will hit Portland in our lifetimes. Kells Irish Restaurant & Pub, 112 Southwest Second Avenue. 5PM Tuesday, November 1. Free.

THESIS: Architectures of Cultural Transformation
Throughout October and into the first week of November, a selection of design thesis books and projects from all six graduating classes of Portland State University's Master of Architecture program between 2011 and this year have been featured in this AIA Center For Architecture exhibition. Through a combination of rigorous research and creative exploration of a polemical issue framed as a question,  thesis students discover their passion for the contribution architecture can make to the transformation of culture. The exhibit's opening-night party has been rescheduled for this next-to-last day of the show. AIA Center for Architecture, 403 Northwest 11th Avenue. 5:30PM Thursday, November 3. Free.

Shawhin Roudbari on Cultures of Ethical Community Engagement
Shawhin Roudbari is an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Program in Environmental Design. He is interested in better understanding activism and political engagement in the design professions, domestically and transnationally. In his dissertation, for example, he studied ways Iranian architects connected with foreign professional institutions to shape political power at home. Shawhin is working on two projects: the first is an extension of his dissertation to study ways activism is absorbed from the fringe into the mainstream of design professions. The second project, and the subject of his discussion with CPID, is a study of cultures of ethical community engagement in university programs that send architecture and engineering students to work in developing communities. This second project was recently awarded a National Science Foundation grant toward a three-year study of mechanisms of culture formation in “engineering for development” programs. Portland State University, Shattuck Hall, 1914 SW Park Avenue. 11AM Friday, November 4. Free.

The Apartment Building In Portland, 1900-1930: An Introductory Survey
In 1904, the category "apartment houses" first appeared in the Portland City Directory. While only four buildings were listed, the new term signified the emergence of a new building type, one that differed from the boarding houses, hotels, and other multi-dwelling units of the time. Within a few years, Portland's explosive growth pushed this new form of housing to be an integral part of the city's urban landscape. By 1930 there were 750 apartment buildings. In this Architectural Heritage Center lecture, Ed Teague, who heads the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts's library, will provide an introduction to the history of Portland's apartment buildings from the early 20th century to the Depression Era. Architectural Heritage Center, 701 SE Grand Avenue. 11:30AM Saturday, November 5. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Bright Lights: Fixing Portland Design Review
The biggest building boom in Portland history has produced a lot of new buildings that everybody has opinions about. But the only opinions that matter (beyond the architects and developers who build them) are those of the six members of Portland’s Design Review Commission and the city staff who review buildings. Architects, developers, and the public all have opinions about how well design review is working. Seldom are they favorable. The commission is too picky. The process takes too long. The buildings are still ugly. The list goes on. Meantime, the commissioners themselves—all citizen volunteers—and the city's staff are swamped by the boom. In this Brite Lights talk, host Randy Gragg of the University of Oregon's John Yeon Center will speak with the City's consultant, Mark Hinshaw, a Seattle-based urban designer and writer, who will compare Portland to the best practices in places like Austin, Denver, and Seattle. Henshaw and Gragg will be joined by former Design Review Commission chairman Mike McCulloch for an evening discussion about the good, bad, and ugly of current Portland architecture and what the role of government should be in making it better. Jimmy Mak’s Jazz Club, 221 NW 10th Avenue. 6PM Monday, November 7. Free.

The Green Champion Summit
Will our buildings provide safe harbor from the impacts of climate change and natural disasters? Global climate change brings an increasing number of mega storms, drought, landslides, fires, and temperature extremes to the Northwest. The Pacific Northwest is also vulnerable to unexpected earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. Whether buildings can stand through these events is of great concern, but we should be asking if they can continue to provide shelter and basic necessities after the storm as well. Local design professionals including Mark Tobin of KPFF, Carmen Merlo of the City of Portland's Bureau of Emergency Services and Kyle Andersen of GBD Architects will share how they have incorporated both sustainability and resiliency into the designs of local buildings. AIA Center for Architecture, 403 Northwest 11th Avenue. 5:30PM Wednesday, November 9. $35 ($25 for AIA members, $15 for associate AIA members, $10 for students).

Speed Education: Featured Product Day
Learn about numerous products in condensed presentations from up to eight vendors, including Portland Millwork, the Oregon Concrete & Aggregate Producers Association, Cascade Coil, Durolast, Pacific Window Tinting, ASSA ABLOY, and Versatile Wood Products. AIA Center for Architecture, 403 Northwest 11th Avenue. 3:30PM Thursday, November 10. $5.

Restoration Celebration
Restore Oregon's annual Restoration Celebration is a festive evening celebrating Oregon's most valuable spaces. Architects, craftsmen, concerned-citizens, developers, designers, and historic property owners come together to recognize and toast exemplary preservation and reuse projects with the DeMuro Awards, as well as the unveiling of the Oregon's Most Endangered Places list and a keynote talk by Emilie Evans, co-founder of Detroit's Brick + Beam Detroit and director of Place Economics' Rightsizing Cities Initiative. Sentinel Hotel, 614 SW 11th Avenue. 5:30PM Friday, November 11. $125 ($100 for Restore Oregon members).

The 1905 Lewis & Clark Exposition
Portland put itself on the map in 1905 when it staged the first world's fair on the West Coast. The Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition transformed the stagnant waters of Guilds Lake with dozens of exhibit buildings and amusement arcades. The Forestry Building was the world's largest "log cabin" and the US government pavilion was a cross between a railroad station and a Mexican cathedral. Hundreds of thousands of visitors arrived in the city, crowding the streets and hotels and launching Portland into the twentieth century. In this Architectural Heritage Center Lecture, author and Portland State University emeritus professor of urban studies Carl Abbott will discuss the Expo and its impact on Portland. Architectural Heritage Center, 701 SE Grand Avenue. 10AM Saturday, November 12. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

 

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