Tim Eddy (Hennebery Eddy Architects)
BY BRIAN LIBBY
In the year 1992, a lot of things happened. Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush (and Ross Perot) to end 12 consecutive years of Republican occupancy of the White House. Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia, touching off a long, bloody civil war, while South Africa finally ended apartheid, and the Rodney King riots erupted in Los Angeles and other cities. The Mall of America opened in Minneapolis and the first McDonald's opened in Beijing. Prince Charles and Princess Diana separated, and serial killer Jeffrey Dammer went to prison. Grunge acts like Nirvana and Pearl Jam ended the reign of rock's spandex-clad headbangers, while Aladdin and Basic Instinct ruled the multiplex box office — although (at least to college film geeks like I was in those days) an unknown director named Quentin Tarantino seemed to inspire the most debate.
Here in Portland, 1992 not only saw our beloved Trail Blazers make it to the NBA Finals (succumbing to Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls in six games - sigh), but it also brought a new architecture firm — Hennebery Eddy Architects — which has since gone on to win a succession of design awards and, through the frequent involvement of its principals in local governmental bodies like the Design Commission and the Landmarks Commission, has had a big influence on the city even beyond its own architecture. Hennebery Eddy has designed leading-edge sustainable buildings, award-winning renovations of historic architecture, and engaged in thoughtful urban planning. They're not a one-trick-pony of a tiny studio, but they're also not a big service firm churning out a high volume of mediocrity.
The first time I heard the name Hennebery Eddy Architects, it was because of a tragedy. In 1998, just as I was starting to pay attention to local architecture, co-founder Stephen Hennebery suddenly passed away. But Hennebery's partner, Tim Eddy, has guided the ship quite ably in Hennebery's absence. And while there are a number of talented architects I've met at Hennebery Eddy over the years, I think the firm's personality reflects Eddy's. This is a firm with a high level of design acumen, but there's also a strain of humble problem solving. Hennebery Eddy routinely wins AIA design awards and has done for a long time, but you never get the sense that their work is taking cues or borrowing ideas from what's published in design journals or architecture websites. Their work is not bold so much as timeless.
Stephen Hennebery and Tim Eddy in 1993 (Hennebery Eddy)
Recently I sat down with Tim Eddy at the firm's downtown office to discuss the past and, as he prefers, the present and future.
Portland Architecture: what does the firm's 25th anniversary mean to you? Is it a significant milestone or just another multiple of five?
Tim Eddy: This whole 25-year deal, figuring out what to do with it, whether to recognize it, how to talk about it, was an interesting discussion here. For me personally, I really looked at it and said, ‘Another retrospective thing?’ It’s great but I really want to look forward. We’ve tried to really wrap this whole thing of being 25 years old around the idea of our people, the people who helped us get there and make it happen; around our values, which we have worked on and edited and talked about and spent a lot of time thinking about; and around what we might be doing in the future.
I know you'd rather look forward than back, but could you talk a little bit about the origins of the firm?
I grew up in Montana, in a farming-ranching community west of Great Falls, went to architecture school at Montana State University in Bozeman and graduated in 1981. I had interned in Portland before then and wanted to come back. But in ’81 Portland was in a state of economic wreckage. It was a much less economically robust city. So I ended up accepting a job at RTKL in Baltimore. I did big mixed-use urban projects, resort hotels, retail projects, for a few years. Then I went to Ayers Saint Gross, also in Baltimore. At this point they’re largely a campus planning and higher education firm. When I was there, there were maybe 15 people. I did urban work there, a little bit of higher-ed work.
In 1988 I decided it was time to try Portland again. My friend Tom Cole had been a principal at SERA Architects. The economy was picking up. He said, 'If you’re interested, come see me.' I visited all the firms with initials, and went to work with Tom and Bing Sheldon at SERA. Stephen Hennebery had started there about a year before I did and came from New York. He had been an associate at Gensler and worked at Gwathmey Siegel. We got to be friends.
Ash + Ash residence (Josh Partee)
The economy in Portland in ’92 was pretty abysmal again. At SERA after I got there we’d grown to about 60 people and then shrunk down to about 30. My heart wasn’t in it anymore there. Tom Cole had passed away after a brief bout with cancer. So Steve and I decided we would start our own office.
We didn’t have a lot of work. We had almost no work. Our contacts in Portland were principally people we’d met working here over the past three, four years. Poor economy, not a lot of traction. So it was not a great time to start a business. The first few years were extremely lean. We both really owed a huge debt of gratitude to our wives and families. We ended up needing to rely on them a great deal.
How did you two compliment each other, as architects or in terms of running the firm?
We both to a large extent had been in design roles at the firms we’d worked at before. That was something we had in common. I’d done a bit more project management and business coordination, but not a ton. What was complimentary was Steve’s focus in New York had been largely on corporate interiors. He’d worked on some big building projects as well. But architects in New York do a lot of corporate interiors. My background had been in more large-scale concept design for larger mixed-use projects. Those things are really complimentary. When we started out, tenant improvement and interiors work were an area where we could keep ourselves busy.
By the time you got to 1998, I know the firm had gained some traction. But then you were blindsided with tragedy. How were you able to keep going?
We were seven years in. We had developed a body of work, and a handful of public and private clients. Our workload was growing. The firm was getting much stronger. We had seven or eight people. And then Steve unexpectedly died. At that point, it was an enormous blow to the firm, and it changed the firm a great deal. It meant that in order to address our expanding workload, other people over a number of years needed to come on board into leadership roles.
Loyola Jesuit Center, Portland (Pete Eckert)
I'd like to ask what some projects might be that represent turning points or projects that might be extra meaningful to you in some way.
Actually I think one of the biggest projects here has been the firm itself: having the opportunity to make a place where our current staff, our principals and associates can thrive, and then help our younger designers find success. We have a lot of refugees from other firms on our staff. That’s probably no mistake. And I’m a firm believer that everyone you meet, everything you do, leads to something else.
In terms of the work, there were those firsts: our first real public project, our first new construction. I think we expected those things to be turning points more than they were. We did the Loyola Jesuit Center on the east side. It was so rewarding to work on. It’s such a beautiful place even today. I do think Loyola was kind of a turning point for us, as a multi-building campus project. It helped to lead us in to larger higher-ed work. But I think at the time we thought, 'There should be more great things that result from this,' and things aren’t always as direct as you expect them to be sometimes.
Cascades Academy of Central Oregon (Josh Partee)
I love the Loyola Jesuit Center. It's my favorite of the firm's older projects, and the one that really made me take notice. And what about the Newberg Center you did for Portland Community College? That was your first project to be listed on the AIA Committee on the Environment's Top Ten list, which is a pretty big deal.
I think the PCC Newberg Center from a sustainable design standpoint and a higher-ed standpoint was a super-important project for us. And it was our first net-zero project. The Montana State University College of Business was a big one. The Strand Agricultural Hall project at OSU, a big historic renovation. Cascades Academy of Central Oregon: we just finished the second phase of that project. Favorite project, favorite client: it’s definitely on that list.
PCC Newberg Center (Nick Lehoux)
And then there's some of Hennebery Eddy's historic renovations and expansions, like the work at First Presbyterian Church, creating a garden over an underground parking garage or taking on Pietro Belluschi's Federal Reserve building (now known as The Reserve). There's also your urban design work, like the south terminus facility for MAX light rail.
Projects like The Reserve are very important to us. I love that project. The First Presbyterian Church project was a unique challenge because of its relationship to downtown with the garden. We’re a little unusual because the scope of what we do and the projects that we take on is quite broad.
And I imagine because the firm isn't too silo'd those projects and project types can influence each other in terms of your collective knowledge base and thinking.
I think so. We find that the higher-ed projects inform the independent school projects, which inform the corporate projects in a certain way. Everything kind of relates. Economically it also gives us a very broad base. While we suffered like a lot of firms during the downturn in 2008 and 2009, we didn’t suffer as badly as some, I think due to our flexibility in the market. It’s as much how we do our work and the relationships we have. We’re not specifically a housing firm, for example. Firms with one or two levels of expertise are far more vulnerable.
What about the time you, David Wark and others have spent volunteering for entities like the Design Commission? Why devote so many hundreds of hours that you could devote to the firm?
We totaled up the hours at one point. I was on the Design Commission for about eight years. David has been on it for even longer than that. I think he was chair for about three years. Carin Carlson’s been on the Historic Landmarks Commission for many years. I know not everybody sees it this way, but we feel we have a certain civic responsibility, and that we’re helping both applicants and their architects work their way through these processes, and do projects that really contribute to the city, in stronger ways than they might otherwise have. David is coming off the Design Commission, and this is going to be the first time in 16 years that we have not had somebody on one of the commissions. But you're right: it’s a pretty big commitment. You need to think hard about doing it before you do it.
The Reserve, Portland (Hennebery Eddy)
You've talked about preferring to look forward versus looking back. So let's talk about Hennebery Eddy and the work you're collectively doing today.
It’s a different sort of thing now. The firm and our projects have grown. Where things used to happen in two to three years, we now have projects that last eight or ten. Some of the things I’m looking forward to that we’re working on now include seeing the concourse expansion at Portland International Airport completed. It’s a fantastic project and it’s been a lot of fun working on it. It’s really going to change how the airport feels. The Yellowstone National Park Youth Campus: that’s a real long-term proposition. We started that project in 2014, as an invited design competition. We were selected in early 2015. We’ve just now completed the construction documents. But it could be a year or more before it’s under construction. It could be several years before it’s realized. But it’s 10 buildings: a new youth campus. It’s a commitment from the National Park Service to go Living Building Challenge for the whole project. It will be remarkable.
Other things that have great potential? There's our continued work with OSU and U of O. We’ve got the Chapman Hall Honors College we’re working on right now. Our historic resources group and the potential they’ve got with more projects of that sort: great potential there. And we have a really nice other work with a range of public and private development clients. I think we have a lot to be excited about.
Rendering of proposed Albina Vision (Hennebery Eddy)
Earlier this month, the new Albina Vision was also released, offering a new urban design plan for the long-empty Rose Quarter. I'm biased, because I'm involved in the Friends of Memorial Coliseum, and I love that your plan retains the building. But I also love how you've fixed the Rose Quarter, at least on paper, by doing what has always been needed: creating better connections to both the riverfront, to Broadway, which it borders, and to the neighborhoods north of the property. It's a chance to create something the broader east side also needs: civic open space. How would you describe the Albina Vision, or the experience of putting it together with a broad consortium of voices from the public and private sector?
It’s one of the most exciting projects for me right now, the potential for that project as a foundation: as a vision for place for people of all economic situations to live and thrive, the ability to honor the community that was there before I-5 and the Coliseum, and the ability to stitch that area of the city back into Northeast Portland. Our proposal to cap a large section of I-5 is very important to that and is very time-sensitive right now. But it’s more than just the unique urban form. It’s the last tangible opportunity to establish public open space on the east side of the central city. There’s no other piece of land that has that potential. To make the first civic gathering space on that side of the city, and to bring the Coliseum and the Moda Center together around that, and to build a complete community stitched back into the city is a big deal. For me and the firm, it’s a huge thing.
Advertisements
Great interview, Brian. And I don't think you could have picked a better adjective than "timeless" to describe Hennebery Eddy's work -- one could never tire of the Loyola Jesuit Center or the Cascades Academy. I loved sharing a floor in the Pittock Block with Tim and his firm 10 years ago when I was at the DJC. They're terrific designers and people, and we're lucky to have them here in Portland.
Posted by: Justin Stranzl | October 04, 2017 at 04:42 PM