Portland Architecture

Design calendar: September 1-15

Gustav Freiwald house, Portland (Wikimedia Commons)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Historic Irvington walking tour
Irvington started out as a streetcar suburb in the 1890s and by the 1920s had become one of the most prestigious residential neighborhoods in Portland. The Irvington National Register District includes over 2500 houses, most of them are considered contributing to the historic character of the district. On this Positively Portland Walking Tour, attendees will see only a rather small portion of the neighborhood, but included in the tour are some of the finest examples of Colonial Revival and high style Arts and Crafts residences in the city. Tour begins at Peet's Coffe and Tea 1414 NE Broadway. 10AM Friday, September 1. $15.

Historic Linnton walking tour
Like many communities situated on the Willamette or Columbia River in the mid-1800s, the founders of Linnton had visions of grandeur, hoping to be the next San Francisco of the Northwest. By the 1890s, Linnton was a lumber-era industrial site with a growing Main Street featuring a typical mix of service and retail businesses. Annexed into Portland in 1915, little remains of historic downtown Linnton because of highway widening in the 1960s. However, there remains a small hamlet of residences and a few buildings dating from the early 20th century. This Positively Portland walking tour will include a short (but steep) walk up to look at some of the homes and enjoy a good view or two of the Willamette river to the east. Tour begins at Decoy restaurant, 10710 NW Saint Helens Road. 6PM Friday, September 1. $10.

The Houses Of Eastmoreland tour
The Eastmoreland neighborhood is known throughout Portland for its undulating pattern of dense, tree-lined streets and landscaped yards. Once farmland, the housing in Eastmoreland was largely constructed between 1925 and 1940. Along this Architectural Heritage Center walking tour, attendees will see not only fantastic architect-designed houses in period revival styles, but also their popular, non-architect-designed counterparts. Tour meetup location to be announced. 10AM Saturday, September 2. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Historic Kenton walking tour
Located just south of the Columbia River in North Portland, Kenton was a remote farming community until the streetcar and the meat-packing industry transformed this rural hamlet into a classic early 20th century company town. For several decades, Kenton was the Pacific Northwest headquarters of the Swift Meat Packing company with an enormous stockyard and adjacent packing plants. As attendees on this Positively Portland walking tour will see, the residential and commercial buildings still reflect the stratification of a working class neighborhood. We'll start our walk at the iconic Paul Bunyan statue, the best remaining evidence of the 1959 Oregon Centennial celebration. The tour includes a look inside the fully restored and very active Kenton Masonic Lodge. Tour begins at Paul Bunyan statue, North Denver and North Interstate Avenue. 11AM Saturday, September 2. $15.

Hunter Noack – In a Landscape
Pianist Hunter Noack will performs live on a Steinway concert grand at The Shire, a private 75-acre waterfront site in the heart of the Columbia River Gorge, directly across from Multnomah Falls. The event is part of the In A Landscape series, comprised of 13 live concerts in some of the most spectacular landscapes across Oregon and Southern Washington, from Astoria Column to the Alvord Desert, Crater Lake to Baker City and Pendleton. Noack will be joined by violinist Nicholas Crosa, cellist Pansy Chang, singer Katie Harman Ebner (Miss America 2002), Pink Martini band leader Thomas M. Lauderdale, and members of Portland Chamber Orchestra, Rogue Valley Symphony, Eugene Symphony, Sunriver Music Fetival Young Artists Program, and Hood River String Quartet. The Shire was designed by Portland architect John Yeon. The Shire, Washington State Route 14 near Washougal. 6:30PM Saturday, September 2. $50.

Beaux Arts Portland tour
This downtown Architectural Heritage Center tour explores the influence of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris on Portland architecture of the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Attendees will learn how American architects, including some from Portland, attended the school and started a trend in the U.S. emphasizing classical Greek and Roman designs, elaborate ornament, and heavy masonry – all used in a very formal manner. Stops on this tour include several of Portland’s most recognizable historic buildings and preservation success stories. Tour begins at SW Park and Madison. 10AM Tuesday, September 5. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Connect With a Leader: Karina Ruiz, DOWA-IBI Group
As part of the Connect With a Leader series from the American Institute of Architects' Portland chapter's Fellows Committee and the Forum for Women in Architecture and Design (ForWARD), an opportunity to meet with leaders in the architectural and related design industries, comes this talk by Karina Ruiz, a senior principal at the combined Dull Olson Weekes-IBI Group Architects. Ruiz leads the combined firms' global practice, IBI Learning+. She has over 20 years of experience in the planning, design and construction of educational facilities and believes fervently in the importance of this work to shape the future of this world.With several LEED registered and certified projects to her credit, Ruiz also brings a deep knowledge of sustainable design that goes well beyond environmental consciousness to include issues of social justice and community building. She has managed over $800M of public, educational architectural projects that have earned numerous local, regional and national design awards, including two James D. MacConnell Awards. DOWA-IBI Group, 907 SW Stark Street. 12PM Thursday, September 7. $19.98 ($16.82 for AIA members and students).

Learning & Libations: Connected BIM for Construction
In this Construction Specifications Institute event, Joseph Whitney of the survey and construction supply company PPI Group will answer questions on how to continue leveraging BIM (Building Information Modeling) from design phase into the construction phase. BIM is not a piece of software but rather workflows and concepts put into practice so that the most complete up to date information is present in the model. It’s more than the idea of 3D geometry but the data behind that geometry. Whitney will explore the tools and functionality that BIM can provide before, during, and after construction. One can leverage data-rich models during preconstruction, execution, and handover for valuable insights, fabrication and installation, clash detection, through facilities management. The discussion will explore  current Autodesk tools for extending BIM beyond design as well as peek into what the future of these tools will mean for connected BIM. Walsh Construction, 2905 SW First Avenue. 5:30PM Thursday, September 7. $10 ($5 for students).

NCIDQ Roundtable & Practice Test
NCIDQ (National Council for Interior Design Qualification) certification is the interior design profession’s recognized indicator of proficiency in interior design principles and a designer’s commitment to the profession. But the NCIDQ exam has changed. The IDPX portion of the exam is now digital. This event hosted by IIDA Oregon will double as an informative presentation about all sections of the exam and will give attendees the opportunity to take a practice test of the new digital portion of the exam, PRACTICUM 2.0. Lite snacks and beverages will be provided. GBD Architects, 1120 NW Couch Street, Suite 300. 5:30PM Thursday, September 7. $22.09 (free for IIDA members, $16.82 for student non-members).

America's Last Great Highway
In this Architectural Heritage Center lecture, historian Robert W. Hadlow, Ph.D. will discuss the construction of the Columbia Gorge Scenic Highway, the first scenic highway in the United States. Hadlow will chronicle the highway's construction from 1913 to 1922 and its decline, in the 1950s and 1960s, when the nearby Interstate 84 opened, and its rebirth since the late 1990s. Known as the “King of Roads,” the highway was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 and a National Historic Landmark in 2000. Hadlow will also discuss current work on the highway including the rehabilitation of abandoned road segments in Hood River County, which are to become parts of the Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail. Architectural Heritage Center, 701 SE Grand Avenue. 10AM Saturday, September 9. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Walking tour: Portland Vernacular - The Buckman Neighborhood
Buckman is one of the city’s oldest Eastside neighborhoods with a variety of vernacular housing types beginning with late 19th century cottages through the building boom years of the early 20th century when the bungalow and four-square were popular citywide. You’ll even see some early duplex and triplex houses that give Buckman a unique character as well as post-World War II multi-unit housing. Tour begins at SE 14th Avenue and Alder Street, behind Washington High School. 10AM Saturday, September 9. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

The Portland Building: Renovating a Landmark
The Portland Public Services Building, designed by Michael Graves and completed in 1982 as administrative offices for the City of Portland, was the first major building in the United States in a postmodern style. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011, 21 years before reaching the 50-year mark, the standard for being considered historic, it currently faces problems with its structure, exterior, and operational systems. To protect and preserve this major public investment, the City of Portland has initiated a $195 million project to reconstruct the Portland Building by the end of 2020. Designed by DLR Group, the renovated building is intended to last 50-100 years, providing a productive work environment for employees and a welcoming space for community members. In this talk hosted by the Construction Specifications Institute, members of the Portland Building project team will present a design update on the project with a special focus on the complexity of the exterior enclosure design. The team will discuss how the exterior design solution responds to the building’s status as an important Landmark while solving the technical deficiencies that have plagued the building since its construction. Elephant's on Corbett, 5221 SW Corbett Avenue. 5:30PM Tuesday, September 12. $50 ($40 if tickets purchased by September 8, $30 for CSI members if purchased by September 8, $40 for CSI members if purchased September 8 or afterward, $10 for students).

 

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Witnessing the tragic United Workmen Temple demolition

Ancient Order of United Workmen Temple demolition (Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

When doctors take the Hippocratic oath, they pledge to "first, do no harm," or as it literally translates from Latin, noxamvero et maleficium propulsabo: "I will utterly reject harm and mischief."

Apparently property developers undergo no such oath.

That notion of rejecting harmful acts came to mind yesterday morning as I paid what will likely be my final respects to the Ancient Order of United Workmen Temple, the Richardsonian Romanesque-style historic building that has stood downtown at 914 SW Second Avenue since 1892. A few days ago, demolition crews began their job of tearing apart the building as it reaches its 125th anniversary.

The demolition is being spearheaded by Onder Development and Arthur Mutal, in order to make way for an office building. These developers are also demolishing the historic Hotel Albion (best known as home of the Lotus Cafe) on the same block to make way for a 20-story hotel. Both buildings would be designed by Ankrom Moisan Architects and built by Turner Construction. And the new buildings actually look pretty decent in the renderings, I must say. Too bad they'll arguably be tainted by what they trampled.

Despite my frustration and despite feeling appalled, I don't think it would be helpful to vilify the developers or anyone else. Arthur Mutal, for example, is involved in some historic rehabilitation projects around town such as the Cornelius Hotel. When I interviewed Arthur Mutal's Jeff Arthur and architects from Ankrom Moisan in December 2015, they both expressed reluctance to be part of the demolition and had valid reasons why their hands were tied.

"With the reality of the block size," Ankrom's Carolyn Forsyth said, referring to the possibility of a rehab into office space that they explored, "once you get a core in there that has all the stuff a highrise core needs to have, the plate left over is not something a modern office tenant would be fit to use."

"I’m a native Portlander and have been doing a lot of adaptive reuse and some historical reuse for about 10 years," Arthur said. "Whenever possible I like to keep older buildings intact and bring out their character. When we looked at that block, that was the goal and intent." 

"We haven’t made any final decision about anything. We’re still exploring options," Arthur told me that December day. "As we’ve gone through this we’ve realized the challenges are greater than we thought."

The fact that Portland is also now anticipating a major earthquake is also part of the story. To properly stabilize seismically an unreinforced building this size is not cheap.

What's more, Portland's and Oregon's surprisingly lacking historic preservation laws and incentives figure in here too. If there were state, county and city-level historic tax credits for renovations, it might have helped the developers get closer to feeling such an approach would "pencil out," as the saying goes.

The scene of the crime (Brian Libby)

Having considered all those mitigating factors—the size of the floor plates on a half-block building, the cost of seismic retrofitting, the lack of sufficient incentives—am I in a mood to accept or forgive the developers for what they're doing?

Not. At. All.

As far as I'm concerned, Onder and Arthur Mutal's actions amount to a kind of one-block Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake. It's not a natural disaster, but make no mistake: it's a disaster. Restore Oregon has called this the most historically-significant demolition to happen in Portland in decades, and they're not wrong.

I've always found "pencil out" to be a conveniently vague phrase. After all, any building owner or developer could come up with a different answer to the question of what point the cost of a building's construction or renovation outweighs the potential profit they stand to make.

In the case of the office building that will be located on the United Workmen Temple site, maybe it's true that with seismic stabilization the leftover space on each floor would be smaller than what's sought for the most lucrative-to-lease Class A office space. At the same time, a quick glance at the many old warehouses in the Central Eastside and to a lesser extent Slabtown being renovated for creative companies would seem to indicate that many potential renters or buyers of office space are precisely looking for old buildings, with the brick walls and wood beams that speak to the continuity of the generations and give off an authentic ambiance and texture that is very rarely found in new construction.

I think of projects like the Brewery Blocks in the Pearl District, which 15 years ago replaced the former Blitz-Weinhard brewery with mixed-use, LEED-rated office and condo buildings, as well as renovating what became the Wieden + Kennedy building. I'm sure it wasn't cheap to preserve the old brewhouse and its smokestack like developer Gerding Edlen did. But you know what? I feel pretty confident those guys have made a lot of dough without losing sleep at night. I can think of any number of similar cases around town: the Ford Building, the Leftbank Building, the US Custom House, the Olympic Mills Commerce Center. Even if one were to argue those renovations were cheaper than the United Workmen Temple renovation and seismic upgrade would have been, those developers all added something positive to the city's fabric. They not only did no harm, but they actively did something good. And they still each made a profit.

As I saw first-hand this morning as well as in a stream of social media posts from those documenting the Temple's demolition, it is unequivocally too late to save this building. So where do we go from here?

For starters, we absolutely have to find a way to change the math and change the system. It is preposterous that we haven't updated the city's historic building inventory since the 1980s. It's a slap in the face to our citizenry and our shared history that building owners can de-list their historic properties. We need both more carrots and more sticks: more financial incentives to do the right thing, and more penalties for not doing the right thing—for the Onders of the world.

We must also not forget. For all I know both developers will go on from here to do good things. I mentioned Arthur Mutal's involvement in other historic renovations, for example, and that's laudable. At the same time, I wonder if a kind of unofficial Scarlet Letter is in order here. Anyone have a sewing kit?

This isn't character assassination. I'm inclined to believe these developers are upstanding Portlanders trying to make an honest living and, aside from this demo, are decent people. But they did perpetrate one of the most unfortunate demolitions the city has seen in decades. There will be no penalty for that. They will presumably find constructing an office and hotel on this site in booming downtown Portland to be quite lucrative, enough to laugh off some hotheaded writer or the historic-preservation nonprofits calling foul. And no one is really trying to stop that. But we do have the power to do some small but important things: to remember, to remind others of what was done here and who did it, and to try harder to build consensus big enough to overcome those who would oppose proper incentives for historic preservation at the city, county, state or federal level.

The long, yellow arm of the profit motive (Brian Libby)

It may get worse before it gets better.  Our knuckle-dragger-in-chief occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue could easily do away with federal historic tax credits altogether despite their bipartisan support, perhaps to cut taxes for KKK members, to fund the rounding up of immigrants and journalists, or to literally go nuclear when some country won't build a Trump hotel on the site of a children's hospital. But whether it's the Ancient Order of United Workmen Temple or our ongoing national crisis, I'm trying to remind myself of the need to, as Jesse Jackson once implored, "keep hope alive." And to keep fighting.

Every city is continuously a work in progress, with construction cranes and demolition wrecking balls never out of service. And for the most part, that's the natural way of things. One era or generation or century's architecture is not always suitable for the needs of the next. Most buildings, moreover, are not so remarkable and historically significant that they must always be preserved in perpetuity.

Yet great cities preserve and protect their most significant architectural contributions through the decades, and cities are, of course, always made up of people like you and me who collectively determine, block by block and building by building, what will stay and what will go. Of course those decisions usually get made not just in terms of what is best for the city, but what might serve current needs, be they the need for profit or to serve the public. And sometimes we get car crashes like the Workmen Temple demolition, where that historic architecture is decayed and in need of some expensive TLC, with not enough incentives to take the dangerously sharp edge off the profit motive. There will always be casualties—buildings demolished that should be. But there will always be you and me and our neighbors, the people without dollar signs as our guiding light and without our integrity potentially eclipsed by said cash. Jesse's right that we have to keep hope alive. But we also have to do something beyond just motivation: we have to keep fighting. That's the only way a tragic day for local architecture like today will not have been without an eventual bright side.

 

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Inspiration in brick and glass: visiting the modernized Franklin High School

Franklin High School on the eve of grand re-opening (Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Nelson Mandela once wrote that education is the "most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Visiting the newly remodeled and expanded Franklin High School a few days ago, I certainly felt inspired to believe—even as events in Charlottesville and its aftermath took a turn towards the repugnant and toward an even more divided nation. Maybe schools are the most important institutions we have right now.

Walking the new Franklin's halls, where new and old architecture have been woven together in a design by Dull Olson Weekes, IBI Group Architects and SERA Architects, felt encouraging and inspiring.

In November 2012, Portland voters approved an eight-year, $482 million school building improvement bond by a two-thirds majority. Based on a citizen-developed and prioritized plan, the bond will fully modernize three high schools, including Franklin (as well as Roosevelt and Grant), and replace one K-8 school. It will also replace roofs, and improve seismic safety, access, and grade 6th-8th science classrooms at up to 63 other schools. Franklin is the latest result.

New science classrooms and an auditorium (Portland Public Schools)

The architects here had a head start because Franklin, designed in a distinctive Colonial Revival style and completed in 1915, is perhaps Portland's most architecturally beautiful high school. The original structure is comprised of two story brick-faced and concrete buildings featuring a balanced and largely symmetrical fenestration, embellished porticos and entryways, staggered quoins on building corners, modillion cornices, jack arches with keystones over all windows, elaborate terra cotta panels, elegantly curving Venetian windows, and a centrally-placed, highly detailed clock tower with glazed cupola.

But I also was impressed with the unions of old and new architecture. Inside the main entrance, for example, a low-ceilinged entry was transformed in order to create a light-filled double-height space with a pair of staircases wide enough for students to stop and talk. Moving into the renovated old building, many of the offices and classrooms are walled with glass, creating transparency and extending that natural light. I loved seeing how the old auditorium had been converted to a library, with mezzanines surrounding another double-height, light-filled space. And in the northwest corner of the campus is an entirely new building that includes a gymnasium and culinary arts facilities.

Inside the new entry lobby (Brian Libby)

As much as I enjoyed the architecture itself, what perhaps impressed me the most was all the facilities provided for different kinds of career training. The culinary arts facilities seemed like a large commercial restaurant kitchen. The science labs seemed more like university laboratories than what I knew in my 1980s McMinnville high school. In addition to traditional wood and metal shops, there are even so-called "maker" spaces, where students can pursue their ideas about design. The performing arts area on the southeast corner of the property included an auditorium that could not only serve Franklin students but the entire community.

Seeing high schools able to transition into not just college-prepatory institutions but in some ways vocational schools seems like a way to address the ever-widening gap in our society between haves and have-nots: between the increasingly rich and the poor, between those able to pursue a college education and a job in the knowledge-based economy and those who find vocational work of other kinds.

Although the overwhelming majority of this project is being bankrolled by us, Portland's taxpayers, there was also a private-sector component. The Franklin Alumni Association raised money so the new building on the northwest edge of the campus could be clad in brick to match the rest of the school. Nike also provided funds to pay for the new track and athletic field.

Franklin's new building and inside its new library, formerly the auditorium (Brian Libby)

In reality the opening of a renovated and expanded Franklin has nothing to do with the white-supremacist protests in Charlottesville or the defense and justification of those swastika-stamped marchers by our president and a the nation's right-leaning citizenry. Yet schools are symbols as much as they are brick, mortar, steel and glass. In that way, it's precisely Franklin's union of old brick and mortar with new steel and glass that gives me hope. Public schools are vital as a glue of American society. The more the rich send their kids to separate private schools, and the more the poor must self-segregate themselves into crumbling, sub-standard public schools, the more the nation becomes severed. The more each side vilifies the other, either in the misguided rage of right-wing protesters against civil rights and equality, or in the potential for left-leaning protesters to look down on their opponents without an honest dialogue, the more we will see horrific conflicts like the one that led to Heather Heyer's murder and an ensuing lack of sympathy from the right, who have actually continued to vilify Heyer even in her martyrdom.

This is not the end of the Portland Public Schools modernization effort. Grant, Lincoln, Benson and Madison High Schools are being modernized too, as well as middle schools and elementary schools. It doesn't come cheap. No one likes to pay more taxes. But Mandela is right: we need to double down on education. We must keep assuring our public schools are state-of-the-art technologically while ridding them of lead, radon, asbestos while minimizing the risk fire and seismic collapse. We must make them full of light and encouraging of students to come together and linger. We must let teachers teach, and we must also find ways to teach each other: about literature and biology, history and psychology, chemistry and mathematics, but also about the arts and humanities, as well as how to approach being a citizen with empathy and openness to dialogue.

At the same time, I'd like to see schools like Franklin or any other do more. Why not activate these buildings more when school is out? I think these modernized schools play a role as community centers, where members of the neighborhood or other city residents can find continuing education or entertainment and cultural programming, or that can serve as emergency shelters during a natural disaster. Why not work with a local theater company to stage productions in the Franklin auditorium? Why not invite nonprofits to hold meetings and open houses during the evenings in the empty classrooms? It's precisely because the Franklin modernization and the broader PPS modernization is so welcome that one can't help but wonder if these schools could become cultural and community crossroads even more than they already are.

 

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Design calendar: August 16-31

Architect George Nelson (Vitra)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

IIDA Oregon August forum
Adam Call, director of the Herman Miller Collection at Herman Miller will be sharing a journey and celebration of American architect George Nelson. This lecture, entitled “George Nelson: Architect of American Design,” explores his leadership and vast contribution to mid-century modern design and shares the breadth of his talents across teaching, writing, architecture, and a myriad of disciplines. It features pre-recorded conversations with Nelson and celebrates his legacy of modern, humane design. Workplace Resource of Oregon, 825 Northeast Multnomah Street, Suite 270. 5:30PM Thursday, August 17. $10 plus service charge (free for IIDA members, $5 plus service charge for non-IIDA-member students).

Mt. Tabor walking tour
This Architectural Heritage Center tour rambles through a stunning neighborhood on the west side of Mt. Tabor Park. From the former Baseline Road, now Stark Street, attendees will meander past numerous fine residences, as well as a school, church, and hospital. This area retains much of the freshness and beautiful views today that made it a popular place to build beginning in the 1880s and continuing well into the 20th century. Tour meetup location to be announced. 6PM Thursday, August 17. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Walking tour: Urban Renewal in the South Auditorium district
Urban Renewal in the US in the 1960s resulted in the destruction of many of the older supposedly "blighted" neighborhoods and commercial districts in cities from coast to coast. The commercial and residential center of the immigrant neighborhood in South Portland was one of those districts. Over 40 years ago the South Auditorium District in Southwest Portland was re-built with high-rise buildings, parks, fountains, sculptures and pedestrian walkways. Nationally recognized landscape architect Lawrence Halprin designed many of the places and spaces that define the feel of this neighborhood. This Positively Portland walking tour will explore this often overlooked district in downtown Portland and experience for ourselves the success or failure of this mid-20th century initiative in city planning. This is an easy, short walk with a gentle rise and descent on this 12 block stroll. Optional social time with dining and conversation after the tour. Tour begins at Ira Keller Fountain, SW Third Avenue and Clay Street. 6PM Friday, August 18. $10.

Design Museum Mornings: Deconstructing Design
Effective design means functionality, and functionality means use—and lots of it! Paradoxically, for many objects repeated use also means the gradual deterioration of functionality. With each instance of use, the aspects of design that enable the object to fulfill its purpose are progressively worn down and used up, until eventually it becomes useless altogether . No longer able to perform its intended function, the object is thrown away and promptly forgotten. Heidi Schwegler, award-winning artist and chair of the Oregon College of Art and Craft and Pacific Northwest College of Art's joint MFA program in Applied Craft and Design, presents these discarded, post-functional objects—normally so commonplace they are virtually invisible— as brilliantly crafted works of art, challenging her audience to consider the typically overlooked product design. By creating representations that not only exclude but emphasize the absence of these objects’ most essential functional elements, Schwegler deconstructs the usual fusion of identity and function. Her work calls attention to the design of functionality and presents the viewer a unique opportunity to contemplate a mode of design that often goes unseen. Bullseye Projects, 300 NW 13th Avenue. 8:30AM Friday, August 18. $10 (free for Design Museum Portland members).

Westmoreland walking tour
Westmoreland was the first of four subdivisions carved out of the Ladd Estate Company’s Crystal Springs Stock Farm in 1909. In contrast to adjacent Sellwood, Westmoreland was promoted as a modern residential tract. On this Architectural Heritage Center tour, attendees can expect bungalows, four-squares and modest mid-century homes. Surprises include houses built by the Fred Meyer Company and one built with union pension funds. The tour will begin with a stroll through part of the recently redesigned Westmoreland Park. Tour meetup location to be announced. 10AM Saturday, August 19. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Historic Produce Row Walking Tour
For well over a hundred years the Central Eastside Industrial District was a hub for wholesale food distribution throughout the Pacific Northwest. In recent years, as this Positively Portland walking tour will demonstrate, this area of abandoned warehouses and crumbling brick structures has been transformed into a magnet for forward-looking entrepreneurs and an important job generating center. Still maintaining its image as Produce Row, a variety of diversified businesses have moved into the area including coffee roasters, restaurants, delis, breweries and a mix of trendy retailers. This avant-garde ambiance was enhanced by the conversion of several warehouses into affordable commercial space and artist's lofts. Now development pressure from the north and south ends of the district brings more change to this neighborhood. Join us for a view of Portland's past meeting its future in the Central Eastside Industrial District. Sheridan's Market, 409 SE Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard. 10AM Saturday, August 19. $15.

Miller Family Free Day: Exploring Architecture/Build Community
Inspired by John Yeon and his innovative vision for Northwest architecture, landscape, and art, a retrospective of which is being held at the Portland Art Museum, this day of free admission and programs encourages visitors to reflect on Portland’s built environment and some of the ways transitional/affordable shelter is being addressed by architects and housing advocates in our community. Join a tour of the wide-ranging Quest for Beauty exhibition, learn about the tiny house village movement in Portland with members from the Village Coalition, watch a sleeping pod take shape and learn more about the POD (Partners on Dwelling) Initiative of the Center for Public Interest Design at PSU, and as an special treat experience the joy and beauty of traditional Indian dance. Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Avenue. 10AM Sunday, August 20. Free with $19.99 adult or $16.99 student/senior Portland Art Museum admission.

2017 International Radiance Workshop
The University of Oregon's Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory is pleased to host the 2017 International Radiance Workshop. (Radiance is a suite of programs for the analysis and visualization of lighting in design.) The event will kick things off with a viewing of the 2017 solar eclipse on the morning of August 21st with the traditional three-day Radiance workshop to follow from August 22nd through the 24th. An optional radiance training will also be offered on August 25th for those interested in learning more about running daylighting simulation using Radiance. University of Oregon, White Stag Block, 70 NW Couch Street. 9AM Tuesday, August 22. $500 for three-day workshop ($400 for presenters, $300 for students.

Modernism and Beyond tour: the Architecture Of Downtown (south)
Downtown Portland contains an abundance of post-World War II architecture by Pietro Belluschi, Michael Graves, and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. This Architectural Heritage Center tour explores the southern portion of the central business district. You’ll learn about the controversial as well as the award winners, the architects and firms that designed them, and the issues of the times that led to such dramatic changes to our built environment and skyline. Tour begins at Salmon Springs Fountain, SW Naito Parkway and Salmon Street. 10AM Tuesday, August 22. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

2017 Portland Chapter CSI Golf Tournament
A fundraiser and golf tournament for the Portland chapter of the Construction Specifications Institute and its scholarship programs. Lewis River Golf Course, 3209 Old Lewis River Road, Woodland, Washington. $400 for a team of four, $100 single.

Pearl District tour - Preservation In the Midst of Change
Over the last 20 years, the Pearl District has been transformed from industrial enclave and rail yards into one of Portland’s most popular residential, cultural and retail districts. A century ago, the area went through a similar transformation, from a working class housing area at the edge of a marsh to the city’s biggest industrial and warehousing area. Many of Portland’s best known architects of the period designed buildings for important local and national companies. Most of these buildings remain, with their exteriors intact, and new uses inside. But as the pending demolition of the Pacific Northwest College of Art's Feldman Building (a renovated old warehouse) reminds us, the current wave of development could threaten more historic buildings. Tour meets at southeast corner of NW 10th Avenue and Johnson Street. 6PM Thursday, August 24. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

King's Hill tour
Many of Portland’s most notable late 19th and early 20th century architects designed homes in the hilly King's Hill, a National Register Historic District, featured on this Architectural Heritage Center tour. The neighborhood is also known for its wonderful landscape architecture, serving as a gateway to Washington Park. Tour meets  at the staircase near the entrance to Washington Park on SW Park Place. Tour meetup location to be announced. 10AM Saturday, August 26. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Japanese Garden Notes: Seeing Through a Designer’s Eye
The New York Times has called Marc Peter Keane "the undisputed American master of Japanese garden scholars. Keane is a landscape architect and renowned author of multiple books on Japanese garden design and history, including the newly-published Japanese Garden Notes: A Visual Guide to Elements and Design (Stone Bridge Press). As the first foreigner to obtain a work permit in Japan for landscape architecture, Keane lived and worked in Kyoto, Japan for 18 years, designing gardens for private individuals, companies and temples. His garden design work includes private residences, company grounds, and temple gardens, as well as a park in Tokushima and a historic district in Nagano. He continues his design work now from his studio in Ithaca, New York. This talk is coordinated in partnership with the Japanese Garden Training Center, is a new educational initiative of the Portland Japanese Garden that seeks to provide a place in North America for learning the skills and techniques for creating and stewarding Japanese gardens while acquainting students with the cultural heart and soul of Japanese garden arts. Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Avenue, Fields Ballroom. 3:30PM Saturday, August 26. $15 ($10 for Portland Art Museum/Asian Art Council members).

Rosé and Rummer house tour
Join the local DoCoMoMo for a summer evening to tour a classic Robert Rummer built residence with rosé wine and hors d'oeuvres provided. Additionally, there will be an interview with builder Robert Rummer about his homes and career. The location is a classic midcentury-modern house built in 1966 by Robert Rummer located in Southwest Portland. It has amazing light, interior atrium and outdoor spaces. Robert Rummer was a real estate developer during the post-war period. Drawing strongly from the Eichler homes of California, he built several mid-century modern homes in the Oregon metro area during the 1960s and 1970s. The notable Oak Hills Historic District in Beaverton includes several of his builds. SW Cecilia Terrace. 4:30PM Sunday, August 27. $20 plus service charge ($10 plus service charge for DoCoMoMo members).

Montavilla neighborhood tour
A former monastery, 19th century farmhouses, Arts & Crafts Bungalows, and a vibrant streetcar era commercial district with a restored Streamline Moderne theater? It’s all in Montavilla. On this Architectural Heritage Center tour, one can take a walk through this historic streetcar neighborhood nestled below the east slope of Mt. Tabor while learning about its development and some of the one-time residents and architects behind the  buildings. Tour meetup location to be announced. 10AM Tuesday, August 29. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Merchants And Markets: Touring Portland’s Historic Yamhill District
Exploring the heart of Portland’s late-nineteenth century commercial district, this Architectural Heritage Center tour visits the Yamhill Historic District and nearby historic buildings of SW Second and Third Avenues. The route is packed with the names of prominent city pioneers who made their mark as merchants, developers and architects as well as providing some of the city’s finest examples of cast iron, Richardsonian Romanesque and Classical buildings. The tour also will visit the Willamette’s first bridge, the first public market, and the city's first Chinatown as we discuss how the district spearheaded the first preservation efforts for Portland’s downtown. Tour begins outside the World Trade Center, SW First Avenue and Salmon Street. 10AM Tuesday, August 16 and 6PM Wednesday, August 31. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

 

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20 years in Portland (part four): houses of the east side

Z-Haus in North Portland (Stephen Miller)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

When I moved to downtown Portland 20 years ago, the east side seemed like a vast ocean that I knew little about, save for a few trips to the Baghdad Theater or, as a kid or teen growing up in McMinnville, to Lloyd Center or Memorial Coliseum. But eventually the Southeast, North and Northeast districts became in their way more of the true Portland to me than the central city. While it's the Pearl District and South Waterfront where the most development has happened—transitioning from industrial to mixed-use residential and commercial—it's really in Portland's neighborhoods where one arguably gets the truest sense of the city's soul.

Over my 20 years in Portland, it is the burgeoning of neighborhoods and their corresponding commercial high streets that has been as big a story as any. Look to North Mississippi Avenue or Alberta Street, Hawthorne Boulevard or Belmont Street, Williams Avenue or Division Street, and you'll find strips of restaurants and shops wholly different from what was there two decades ago. And surrounding those neighborhood high streets are a sprinkling of great houses: some new contemporary residences, others renovations of historic properties.

One can't talk about houses in our historic neighborhoods without discussing gentrification and the rapid eradication of old homes. Both are a very troubling phenomenon because they are causing displacement of our most vulnerable citizens and destruction of our historic fabric. But my focus in this post is going to be the architecture of 14 of the houses I've had the privilege to tour and write about over the last 20 years: the designs that stood out as my favorites.

North Portland

In 2009, a group of architects who had developed their own projects got together to put on what was called the 11xDesign Tour, which I wrote about for Dwell. A handful of my favorite east-side house projects from this tour became my favorites of the past 20 years, led by Waechter Architecture's Z-Haus. This was the first house in what has since become a very impressive career centered around single-family homes, and it's still the most unique. The architect arranged rooms around a central stairway at half-story intervals, allowing people on different floors to make eye contact and converse. It’s such a simple move, and yet it deftly reinvents how a multistory house works.

Model of Z-Haus (Waechter Architecture)

"From any room one can simultaneously view the next level up and the level below, vertically unifying all living spaces," the architect told ArchDaily in 2010. "With one room per level, hallways are obsolete and useable square footage is maximized. Sliding wall panels are used instead of conventional doors to maintain the free flow of space, provide privacy when needed and allow for changing family needs and size. This organization creates a zigzagging pattern in section view, hence the name Z-Haus."

I suppose the contrarian viewpoint here would be that the alternating half-levels may sound like a cool idea but don't work so well in practice. Even though you can look up or down a few feet to communicate, none of the rooms are actually on the same floor, and it needn't have been that way. Maybe the unique plan is most successful as an idea, providing a design that seems fresh. But as we would learn in the years after the completion of Z-Haus, Waechter's true talent is not uncommon configurations of space but how interiors and exteriors are constructed with a breathtakingly elegant economy. More on that in a bit.

Another memorable North Portland house I visited, this time for Oregon Home magazine in 2010, was the Interchange residence by William Kaven Architecture. Kaven had also been part of the 11xDesign Tour, with the three-unit North House on Williams Avenue. But this house, in the Overlook neighborhood west of Interstate Avenue, was even more impressive. The U-shaped residence has a simple floor plan that wraps around a courtyard on three sides in the back of the house. Floor-to-ceiling glass give the living room, kitchen, study and master bedroom a bounty of natural light, while large sliding glass doors also help break down barriers between inside and outside. The understated interiors also make a nice backdrop for the client's extensive collection of art and artifacts from around the world.

Top: Interchange residence (Brian Libby); bottom: Rahman residence (Dwell)

I'm also a fan of architect Scott Pitek's Rahman residence in North Portland, which William Lamb wrote about for Dwell in 2014 and which was also part of the Portland Modern Home Tour earlier this year. This is an excellent example of compatible yet contemporary urban infill. The owner, Betty Rahman, maintained an existing circa-1919 bungalow with a large yard on a corner lot, but on the corner built a new house to occupy. "Pitek says Rahman told him she wanted a modern house, but one that would fit in unobtrusively among the structures that define her neighborhood, most of which appear to have been built between the 1890s and the 1930s," Lamb wrote. Indeed, the architecture echoes the vocabulary of older homes nearby, particularly with its pitched roof. And yet there is a crispness and simple elegance to the design that makes it identifiably of today.

The Skidmore Passivhaus by Jeff Stern's In Situ Architecture was another favorite when I wrote about it for this blog in 2014. It demonstrates exemplary energy efficiency with its robust insulation and high-performance as well as an interesting fusion of spaces. Stern created two separate architectural boxes, a single-story one that serves as studios for the architect and his wife, artist Karen Thurman, and then a two-story, one-bedroom main house. The two adjacent boxes are free-standing from one another yet connected with a translucent awning and a continuation of the back yard's elegant mahogany-decking facade material.

Skidmore Passivhaus (Jeremy Bittermann)

Northeast

Not all my favorite houses to write about were new construction. I still think sometimes when I'm biking through Irvington about the Stuart House, which I covered in a 2009 article for Renovation Style magazine. 

The home, constructed in 1913, is said to originally have been built for a member of Scottish royalty who moved to Portland. The interior is thoroughly ensconced in wood, most notably the Greco-Roman columns marking the entryway, but also the array of bannisters, mantels and moldings. "It has a wonderful classicism, but you can feel the trees that put it together," the homeowner told me.

 

Stuart House (Renovation Style)

 

Also in 2009 was the Stump House near Alberta Street by Brian White of Architecture W, which I wrote about for Dwell magazine. A hybrid of old and new, the house renovated and expanded a single-story 1940s ranch house, adding a second story. Many of the original materials used in the reconstruction.

 

The boxy, contemporary lines of the wood-clad house also provided a stark contrast to the faux-Victorian homes across the street, which were actually built around the same time. Yet the house’s scale and texture integrated well into the broader neighborhood of historic Craftsman bungalows. The design also packs a green punch. A well-sealed building envelope containing insulation made from recycled blue jeans means interior temperatures stay mild year-round. It also has a solar heating system that provides hot water and warms the radiant floor.

 

Bogli and Oakley residences (Dwell)

I've always been interested in projects that involve architects designing for fellow designers, as was the case with the Oakley House by Waechter Architecture, which I wrote about in 2016 for Dwell. The house is owned by Nick Oakley, who at the time was an industrial designer for Intel and previously had worked with the acclaimed Bay Area firm Ideo. "Ben’s work has a humility about it: a sense of purity and functionality, and a simple architectural gesture that made it stick in my head," Oakley said of Waechter Architecture founder Ben Waechter.

Like the Bogli residence by Architecture W, the Oakley House is a transformation of an existing home. At 1,200 square feet, he found the original house to be too small for himself and his 11-year-old daughter. Waechter’s plan used the structure’s existing 28-by-28-foot foundation and some of its walls, while the design opened up the ground floor and added 800 square feet in the form of a second story that cantilevers over both the front and rear elevations. When I talk with non-architect friends about the house, it's this windowless (to the street) second floor that is often the most divisive. We expect there to be glass on street-facing facades, so it's rather jarring to see such a large windowless space. Yet because the ground floor is entirely glass, I think it works.

What's more, the house shows Waechter's talent for mining elegance from simple materials. For example, the architect wrapped the upper floor of Oakley’s house in inexpensive black corrugated steel. By rounding the corners, Waechter avoided unsightly trim at the edges. Inside, the ground floor's combined living-dining-kitchen is festooned with maple, which creates a uniformity going from simple walls, for instance, to hidden closets. "We wanted some natural materiality in the house," Waechter explained. "But, for budgetary reasons, we couldn’t do it everywhere." So he deployed the maple in the main living space and used less-expensive drywall elsewhere. He adds, "The material palette creates a hierarchy of spaces."

2408 NE 28th Avenue (22pages)

Another favorite was the home at 2408 NE 28th Avenue, designed by Walker Templeton with Jon DeLeonardo and completed in 2013. Although it's not officially designed to Passive House standards, it is intended to be a 100-year home, with insulation and windows that go far beyond what code requires. As with Pitek's Rahman Residence, I liked how this contemporary home borrowed just a little bit from the geometry and pitched-roof forms of traditional nearby houses in its design. But I also enjoyed the materiality of the interior, particularly the use of reclaimed Douglas fir, which was used for most all of the floor, stair treads, shelving and other trim. All of it came from an 80-year-old warehouse. "The beams are all 20 feet long," Templeton said, pointing to the floor, as we talked for a Portland Architecture post, "so there’s no seams." But he's just as proud of things like interior closet shelving. "I hate walking through million-dollar homes and seeing particle board shelving. All this will be slabs of wood. Everything in this house is made to last for 100 years."

Southeast

As I mentioned in the context of Architecture W's Stump House, I've always enjoyed designs that fuse new and old. But the Fivesquare house by Lever Architecture, which I wrote about for The New York Times in 2015, is an even bolder example. The owners bought the 1910 foursquare-style house in the Richmond neighborhood near Division Street with the intent to do what they called a "light remodel," most likely by extending the rear of the house. Instead, they expanded above. And unlike most construction in the city’s historic neighborhoods, which apes traditional styles in an effort to blend in, this house doesn’t try to hide its addition. The cube that Thomas Robinson and Lever designed to expand the unused attic space perches on top of the house, at a 45-degree angle, like a modern treehouse, offering panoramic views of the neighborhood.

Fivesquare (Jeremy Bittermann)

“When we came up with this idea in the studio, everyone liked it,” Mr. Robinson said. “I was thinking, ‘Their neighbors are going to hate them — and the historic people are going to think we’ve desecrated this little iconic house.’ But it was intriguing.”

One of my favorite house projects to write about was a renovation of what had originally been a small branch library in Sellwood dating to 1915, although it had been built in a Craftsman style that blended in with the neighborhood. The Library House, as it's known, had also been used as an evangelical church after it was a library. By the time I wrote about it for a 2013 New York Times article, the building had already been converted to a house. But this renovation, by Jessica Helgerson Interior Design, really brought it alive.

The 1,500-square-foot structure was basically one large volume with no kitchen or bedrooms — although there was a bathroom and a basement with a dirt floor. The main space is now a great room with built-in shelving and library-style rolling ladders. They also extended the western facade, adding two small bedrooms, and expanded the basement to accommodate a recording studio (the clients were voice-over artists).

Library House (Lincoln Barbour)

But when you write for home magazines and newspaper home sections, it's a story of the interior materials furniture as much as the architecture. Here the holes in the Douglas fir floors made by the church for microphone stands were patched, and the floors refinished. A large dining table was built with reclaimed wood from a pipe organ. Helgerson also balance the home’s boxy form with curvy, modern pieces like the Fireorb wood-burning fireplace suspended from the living-room ceiling and a Tom Dixon chandelier in the dining area.

PATH Architecture's Butler residence from 2009 is another favorite. The design was led by Corey Martin, now with Hacker Architects, and during this period the firm produced a number of good-looking houses. Here the cedar-clad second and third floors seem to cantilever slightly over the mostly-glass ground floor, giving the form a sense of lightness as well as providing covered entry and patio areas. Inside, a fireplace (which doubles as a column) extends all the way up the space while the public areas are largely double-height, which, along with the back patio door that folds away, blur the borders between inside and out.

Butler House (Contemporist)

The Wilson Residence, which architect Webster Wilson designed for himself and his family and which I wrote about for Sunset in 2010, also has stuck with me. The house, which was also included in 2009’s 11 x Design homes tour, is four levels, the bottom level reserved for an additional apartment that Wilson’s family rents out.

One enters at the second level into the kitchen and dining area. At 2,600 square feet, it is tall, thin, and full of light. I particularly liked the house’s two-story vertical window wall for capturing the view, as well as the design’s floating wood loft and stair. Also a big part of the exterior look of the project, at least on its back side with the east-looking view, is a wood and metal stairway attached to the building and giving it extra structural support.

Wilson residence (Webster Wilson Architect)

The smallest of the single-family homes I will cover here is the Harpoon house by Design For Occupancy, architect Matt Kirkpatrick's firm. Kirkpatrick lives in this 700-square-foot home, which Amara Holstein wrote about for Dwell in 2011, with wife Katherine Bovee.

Despite its diminutive square footage, they managed to squeeze in not only a living/dining/kitchen area and a bedroom but a basement, a root cellar, an outdoor deck, and a vegetable and herb garden. It's a far cry from the average modern American house, which was 2,349 square feet in 2004, although the Harpoon House is not too dissimilar in size to the average in 1950 for a single-family house: 983 square feet.

Tall and thin like a small wood-ensconced tower at 16 feet long, 28 feet wide and 28 feet tall, the Harpoon House was built on a 50-by-50-foot lot that previously was the side yard of the house next door.

Harpoon House (John Clark)

It's a series of stacked spaces; one walks up a half-flight of stairs to the combined living-dining area with windows wrapping around a wall of built-in shelving. Upstairs just one doorless bedroom space in which the double bed sits at eye level above an open closet.

Half of the upstairs was reserved for an outdoor deck, which is partially enclosed by lattice-like wood that drapes its perimeter and completes the rectangular shape of the tower. Recalling minimalist sculptor Donald Judd, the rigidry of the open-box geometry guides the eye not just to its outer shape, but the volumes inside.

One of my favorites of the lot is the very smallest I'm including on this list, although the third by architect Ben Waechter and his Waechter Architecture: the Garden House, which Zahid Sardar covered in The New York Times.

Garden House (Sally Schoolmaster)

"The cottage’s silhouette looks crisply modern: an upward-pointing arrow in a garden setting," Sardar wrote. "The arrow shaft has open-plan living spaces; horizontal windows are the only breaks on its south side; and wide floor-to-ceiling doors and windows open to outdoor living space on the east and west sides." The arrow is a compelling form, but it's really about practicality: using more square footage than your small footprint allows. Which is perfect for an ADU.

What do these homes have in common, or at least the new ones? When I scroll through the images above, I see verticality: stacked boxes, be they a new floor growing out of an old home or simply, like Harpoon House, going up when you have little room to grow outward. In some cases, I see nods to traditional style, but mostly it's a series of flat roofs, which used to be uncommon and considered a bad idea because of our rainy climate. I guess roofers are better than they used to be at preventing leaks.

In many cases I also see a certain asymmetry, either as an intentional departure from the balancing that goes on in traditional, classically-inspired home styles, or because many architects seemed to turn to the idea of one long, tall window in certain spots instead of something wider - like a vertical cell phone video's proportions instead of a letterboxed cinema screen. And of course we are more likely to go with a natural stain with our wood facades then perhaps we were in previous generations.

Today we are seeing more old homes than ever being demolished, usually in the name of much larger square footage. But we are also seeing a new generation of accessory dwelling units and tiny homes in people's backyards and even clustered together sometimes.

 

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Street of one dream: visiting Kengo Kuma's Suteki House

Suteki House (Justin Krug Photography)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

When the new Cultural Crossing complex of buildings at the Portland Japanese Garden was unveiled this spring, it not only transformed a beloved destinations, but also gave the city something it otherwise lacks: a design by one of the world's great architects.

Though perhaps not quite as much of a worldwide household name as Frank Gehry, Renzo Piano, Norman Foster or Rem Koolhaas, Kengo Kuma is gaining on them quickly, both as a result of new projects like the New National Stadium in Tokyo, host site for the 2020 Olympics, but also through a long evolution that has seen Kuma refine his craft over time through a series of museums, commercial buildings and, occasionally, houses.

It was 10 years ago this fall that I happened to visit my first Kuma project, the Bamboo House near the Great Wall of China: part of a group of luxury homes by world-renowned architects and easily the star of the bunch: fusing the transparency of glass with the beautiful materiality and patterning capabilities of bamboo. That house was all about light and shadow, like so much of Kuma's work.

If you'd have told me that Portland would someday represent the architect's foray into the United States, I'd have been surprised. Ours is not a city that employs many out-of-town architects, especially not those in line for the Pritzker Prize, world architecture's Nobel.

Kengo Kuma at Suteki House (Brian Libby)

Yet yesterday, of all places at the Street of Dreams — the annual suburban subdivision opening that attracts tens of thousands with its tricked-out luxury builder homes, teeming with space and gadgets but skimping on authentic architectural style—there was one of Kuma's few houses in the United States.

It was like coming across a Ferrari or a Rolls Royce in a parking lot full of Ford and Chevy's biggest SUVs.

Suteki House deck, entrance and bedrooms (Justin Krug Photography)

Why the Street of Dreams? The company behind the project, Tokyo-based Suteki and parent company Nice Corporation, longtime importers of Oregon timber to Japan, are starting a new homebuilding venture in America, and this Kuma-designed house is the kickoff. And the company's CEO, Junichiro Hirata, is reportedly a fan of the Street of Dreams. I can understand that, because in Japan space is at a premium like few places in the world. Viewing these homes with bedroom after bedroom, home theaters, gargantuan great rooms and sentimental neb-historic style: it must come across like a fantasy world.

To his credit, Hirata and his company hired Kuma not to design another tricked out behemoth in a Disneyland style, but instead to show the thousands of Street of Dreams attendees that the best homes, like all architecture, are greater than the sum of their parts. They may or may not have exercise rooms and ninth bedrooms, but whatever collection of spaces there are, they flow into one another. They're sustainably built and teeming with natural light. They combine indoor and outdoor spaces to create an oasis. In other words, they do what the Suteki House does.

The L-shaped house, its design process led by Balazs Bognar for Kengo Kuma & Associates, is situated on a triangular lot with one big advantage: a creek running along the long side of the triangle with mature foliage and trees. Once you walk inside, every space faces the creek through walls of glass, be it the double-height kitchen and dining area to the left, or bedrooms to the right. The landscape design was performed by Sadafumi Uchiyama, curator of the Japanese Garden, and emphasizes the indoor-outdoor nature of the house: something very Japanese, but also very Pacific Northwest.

Great room and bedroom area at Suteki House (Justin Krug Photography)

The house also includes large overhangs and a generously sized deck cantilevering over the slope down to the creek. Walking the house with Kuma, he talked about being inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's legendary Fallingwater house, which also cantilevers over Bull Run, a tributary of the Youghiogheny River in Pennsylvania. Kuma cited Wright's coming to Japan in the 1920s for the Imperial Hotel project, and the ensuing influence on Japanese architects.

But in turn the house is also very Japanese, not only in its razor-sharp precision but in its interplay of light and shadow. Moving in either direction from the center, hallways face the glass so nothing prevents the light from penetrating as deep as possible. Yet along the bedroom hallway, portions of the exterior and even underneath a skylight, the architect takes advantage of wood lovers to filter the light and create a kinetic sense of shadows changing throughout the day.

The shadows also demonstrate a larger idea about the house: its wonderfully subtle yet very highly detailed geometry. To a large degree, this is an L-shaped glass box. But along with the vertical louvers inside and out adding shadows, the pitched roof plane has the gentlest of slopes, which the architect highlights inside with recessed pockets of electric lighting along the lines of the triangular sloping ceiling. And wherever there is a horizontal plane, be it the roofline or the deck or even the kitchen countertops, it couldn't be thinner and sharper. I don't want to trot out Japanese cultural cliche here, but it's easy to tell an architect like Kuma comes from a country that values precision knife skills enough to raise carving fish to the highest of artforms.

Although the house is teeming like glass, so much so that it recalls the midcentury Case Study Houses in Los Angeles or Phillip Johnson's Glass House in Connecticut, one gets an equal sense of its materiality, namely wood, in the form of both Japanese and Alaskan cedar as well as white oak. It's a reminder of why Japan and the Pacific Northwest make such good partners for architectural exchange. We are both largely rainy, temperate climates (this week's horrific heat wave not withstanding) full of forests and a long tradition of building with wood.

Indoor/outdoor at Suteki House (Justin Krug Photography)

I'll be curious to see what Street of Dreams visitors think of the house. By comparison to the other homes, it's lacking in terms of amenities and overall spaciousness. Will people who are fans enough of past Street of Dreams homes to drive to Happy Valley this year buy into the idea that a sustainable house that's very spacious by Japanese standards but relatively modest in scale by upper-class American suburban homes is worth trading in some of the square footage and gingerbread-house style? I suspect they're different demographics.

Even so, it's a good dialogue to have. In an Oregonian story about the house unveiling, reporter Janet Eastman described the client's intent being to attract suburban buyers and not just "fawning design writers." Indeed, I have no problem admitting that I fawn over Kuma and Japanese architecture in general, or confessing that I cringe looking at the biggest McMansions. But Janet is right: the house will be much more than a nice house, even a Kengo Kuma-designed house, if it can win hearts and minds to the notion of reigning in size and doubling down on architecture and construction quality is worth reconsidering.

Kuma-san (Brian Libby)

As it happens, this isn't a one-off for Kuma. While it's no surprise that Suteki plans to build more homes in Oregon, I wasn't necessarily expecting yesterday's ending announcement: that Kuma will be designing another home for next year's Street of Dreams, in Hillsboro. Because of the large tech presence in Washington County more so than Happy Valley in Clackamas County, I can more easily imagine a feeding frenzy of interest from the local community.

But then again, that creekside setting was pretty nice. Yesterday's unveiling took place in 100-degree heat. In what seemed like an act of unconscionable insanity at the time, the organizers eschewed the home's air conditioning and instead slid open the glass doors of the creekside-facing facade. (Like Wright's Fallingwater, doing so made whole corners disappear.) Yet admittedly there was more of a cooling breeze coming from beside the creek than I ever felt in any other part of the subdivision. And it's pretty amazing to see those glass walls just disappear.

 

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Design calendar: August 1-15

Fremont Bridge from NW Portland (Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

The Pearl District: Preservation in the Midst Of Change
Over the last 20 years, the Pearl has been transformed from an  industrial area into one of Portland’s premier residential and retail districts. A century ago, the area went through a similar transformation—from a working class housing area at the edge of a marsh, to the city’s premier industrial and warehousing area. As this Architectural Heritage Center walking tour will demonstrate, many of Portland’s best known architects of the period designed buildings for important local and national companies. Most of these buildings remain, with their exteriors intact and new uses inside. Tour meeting location to be announced. 10AM Tuesday, August 1. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

InProcess with Office 52 Architecture and PLACE
The Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architects' quarterly lecture series features local architecture firm Office 52 and landscape architecture firm PLACE. Founded by Michelle LaFoe and Isaac Campbell, Office 52's portfolio includes Scott Hall, the new $81.5 million Nano-Bio-Energy Technologies Building for theCollege of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and the upcoming Tykeson Hall, an academic center for the  College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oregon in Eugene. LaFoe earned a bachelor's and master's degrees in architecture from Rice University as well as a post-baccalaureate graduate degree in drawing and painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, while Campbell earned bachelor of architecture and a bachelor of arts degrees from Rice University after study at the School of Liberal Arts at Alfred University in New York. He previously worked for acclaimed architect Cesar Pelli. PLACE's speaker at this event has not been announced, but the firm has been responsible for a variety of high-profile projects in Oregon including Tanner Springs Park in Portland, the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex at the University of Oregon in Eugene, and an expansion of the Nike campus in Beaverton. AIA Center For Architecture, 403 NW 11th Avenue. 6PM Tuesday, August 1. Free.

Best of Downtown Walking Tour
Downtown Portland has an excellent array of visually diverse skyscrapers, residential towers and government buildings dating from the early 20th century to early 21st century. This Positively Portland Walking Tours event is comprised of a downtown stroll highlighting some of the best examples of over 100 years of modern and contemporary architectural and urban design. Tour begins at AIA Center For Architecture, 403 NW 11th Avenue. 10AM Thursday, August 3. $15.

Mock Bid
Hosted by ForWARD (the AIA Portland chapter's Forum for Women in Architecture & Related Design) Mock Bid and presented as part of its Reality of Construction Series, this class will help participants identify the different components that make up a subcontractor bid; describe the experience of being a general contractor on bid day; compare how different project delivery methods affect how a bid is prepared, and how the project will be managed; and clarify the role the general contractor plays in preparing the bid and preparing for construction after the bid is won. AIA Center For Architecture, 403 NW 11th Avenue. 5:30PM Thursday, August 3. Free.

Classical Downtown Portland Tour
Downtown Portland contains an extensive collection of classically influenced buildings, many of which are clad with glazed terra cotta, a building material that was at its height of popularity in the early 20th century. Visitors on this Architectural Heritage Center tour will see the city’s first “skyscraper,” a bank that could have been a Greek temple and learn about several architects from this period who left an indelible impression on Portland including A.E. Doyle, the firm of Whidden and Lewis, and the Reid Brothers from San Francisco. Tour begins on SW Broadway at Pioneer Courthouse Square, above the fountain. 6PM Thursday, August 3. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Ladd's Addition Tour
Enjoy a stroll through this leafy enclave of early 20th century homes, churches, and businesses, not to mention yours truly for the past 18 years. This National Register Historic District is Oregon’s oldest planned community and in 2009 the American Planning Association honored it as one of America’s Great Places. Easily identifiable on any map, the neighborhood, once comprising the property owned by former Portland mayor William Ladd, eschews a traditional street grid for a series of circles dotted with rose gardens. As attendees on this Architectural Heritage Center will see, Ladd's Addition also boasts one of the largest tree canopies in the city, making it ideal for a spring or summer walk. Tour meetup location to be announced. 10AM Saturday, August 5. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Old Town Historic District Walking Tour
The commercial district near the historic Skidmore Fountain and the oldest standing buildings in downtown comprise this  tour of Portland’s only National Historic District. Attendees on this Architectural Heritage Center tour will see the work of Portland’s earliest architects, learning how cast iron played a central role in their designs and how the city developed so close to the river, and along the way learning about some beautiful but long-lost buildings while also seeing great examples of historic preservation. Tour meetup location to be announced. 10AM Tuesday, August 8. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Portland Heights and Vista Avenue Tour
This Architectural Heritage Center tour explores Portland Heights,  a mostly residential Southwest Portland neighborhood with Vista Avenue running through its center. It was once a very difficult area to build in, or even get to, before it became a popular residential district, as transportation options increased in Portland during the late 19th century. Today the mixture of homes, ranging in style from Colonial Revival to Art Deco, is a veritable “who’s who” of Portland architects and their masterworks. Attendees will see homes designed by the likes of A.E. Doyle, Emil Schacht, Edgar Lazarus, and Morris Whitehouse. Tour meetup location to be announced. 6PM Thursday, August 10. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

East Portland/Grand Avenue Historic District Tour
Along Grand Avenue, once the main commercial spine in the original and separate city of East Portland, lies an amazing mix of architecture from Italianate to Art Deco. Among the many buildings, including a few hidden gems, this Architectural Heritage Center walking tour will revealthe well-known Barber Block, a one-time mortuary, and West’s Block, the oldest building on Grand Avenue and home of the AHC itself. Tour begins at Architectural Heritage Center, 701 SE Grand Avenue. 10AM Saturday, August 12. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

COTE Tour: BUILT Lab
The AIA Portland chapter's Committee on the Environment hosts this tour of the BUILT (Building Science Lab to Advance Teaching) Lab, a building science research lab geared towards undergraduate students located in Portland State University's School of Architecture. The facility promotes early development of building science research skills in higher education by exposing students to hands on, collaborative building science research activities. Tour begins at Shattuck Hall, 1914 SW Park Avenue. $37.92 ($27.37 for AIA members, $16.82 for Associate AIA members, $6.27 for students or those not seeking AIA Continuing Education credits).

Walking Tour: Kenton Neighborhood
In the early 20th century, before it was known best for its Paul Bunyan statue, Kenton was the heart of Portland’s meat-packing industry and home to the largest livestock exchange on the West Coast. Swift & Company, through various subsidiaries, platted, developed, and heavily influenced the industrial, commercial and residential growth of Kenton. This Architectural Heritage Center tour shows how a dominant employer influenced the housing stock of management and labor in a neighborhood that possessed many elements of a company town. Tour meets at Paul Bunyan statue, at North Denver Avenue and North Interstate Avenue. 10AM Tuesday, August 15. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

 

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