Doug Skidmore and Heidi Beebe (Jessica Hill)
BY JENNIFER WRIGHT
Ticket sales for this year’s 2017 AIA Portland Architecture Awards are underway, so it seems fitting that the Architect’s Questionnaire feature one of last year’s big winners: Beebe Skidmore Architecture. The group won top-honors for their renovation of a cluster of Northwest Portland warehouses into headquarters for the Swift advertising agency.
Seemingly an overnight success, the firm has actually been hard at work for over 10 years. Led by Heidi Beebe and Doug Skidmore, alums of Portland firm Allied Works, their contemporary residential and commercial work is defined by unexpected solutions articulated with precise detailing.
In an unprecedented move, this post features both architects answering the Questionnaire individually. Achieving a balance of skills and talents between partners is sometimes a challenging objective, but it’s clear that what makes Beebe Skidmore’s work so compelling is the unique vision each professional brings. From Heidi’s affection for an elegant floor plan to Doug’s detail oriented focus, the expertise of these two designers combine to create truly refined and thoughtful spaces.
Portland Architecture: When did you become interested in architecture as a possible career?
Beebe:I cooked up architecture as something to study after college that wasn’t a desk job and wouldn’t require me to commit to any specific career. I saw architecture as a field in which I could change my mind at any point and go in a different direction — become a professor or a writer, historian, builder, developer, or artist. When I was teaching at the University of Michigan, I often reminded my students that they didn’t have to be an architect just because they were studying architecture. There are so many cool things to do in and around the field other than just being someone who designs or draws the buildings.
Skidmore: A great high school teacher in Corvallis, Ron Notto, suggested Le Corbusier as a subject for a year-end report. I remember the impact of seeing Corb’s design for the first time in Le Modulor and other monographs and realizing the depth of influence. That insight was an introduction to architecture as a discipline, and I remember thinking about the notion of a body of work like you were aware of pop musicians having multiple albums, and the idea that great architecture is the product of individual vision, like art.
Cabinet #3, Skidmore's temporary installation at Cranbrook (Doug Skidmore)
Where did you study architecture and how would you rate the experience?
Beebe: I got my master’s degree in architecture from Princeton University after graduating from Williams College with a liberal arts degree in east Asian studies and English literature. When I graduated from architecture school, I believed buildings were arguments — and that architecture, was not so much a profession, but a form of cultural critique. Most of my professors at Princeton were either 100 percent academics or split their time between teaching and practice. I always assumed that I would do the same and that academic pursuits intellectually fueled the best architects, but it hasn’t worked out that way for me. Although I’ve dabbled in teaching all along, and I greatly admire architectural thinkers, I’m repeatedly pulled towards building buildings.
Skidmore: I received a bachelor of architecture at Oregon. My studio track was oriented around planning buildings, and basically classical, in the sense that design revolved around schemes that could be drawn in pencil or ink. At the time, this was really good training for getting work in good firms. Later, after working on many projects, I attended Cranbrook Academy of Art for an master’s of architecture. I sought out Cranbrook for creative reasons, in order to shake up the tendencies and biases I had to-date. At Cranbrook, architecture is mashed up with nine other art and design fields. The architecture department borrows the perspectives and studio practices of all these fields, and the work is not tied to conventional building; it is more like invention and testing of formal ideas and physical prototypes. I gained a massive new perspective on making things and my own creative process.
New Old Bungalow (Caitlin Murray), Trout Lily Vineyard (Beebe Skidmore)
What is your favorite building project that you’ve worked on?
Beebe: An invasive reorganization of a pretty normal southeast Portland craftsman that we just finished. There are windows in unexpected places, floor level changes, and cozy pockets with low ceilings and colorful cabinets. The clients didn’t have a fixed picture of what the house would look like. They wanted to make it feel and function differently, and had the temperament to entertain architectural moves that are effective but unnecessary. The project is a mix of old and new, with attention to color and materials — modern, but not precious. I also really like a screen porch we designed for Trout Lily Vineyard. It feels like pure architecture. No sheetrock. No mechanical systems. No cabinets. Just an irregularly shaped object with one room inside.
Skidmore: Heidi and I completed Swift in 2016. It is a top to bottom project - exterior to furniture. On Swift we had the support of both the developer client to make spatial and structural interventions, and of the tenant client to maximize the sense of open, shared, day-lit space, and to create a holistic identity. Also, it was rewarding to carve a new life out of a 1960’s CMU warehouse in Slabtown. I have a close second favorite project: a small dock on Blue Lake for Dan Wieden’s Camp Caldera. I sketched this project out in a few hours based on watching how the currents were hitting the shore. It is just float blocks, decking, and a few carpentry details. I still like to try this quick sketch approach so things don’t get too complicated or overworked, and I think some of the simplicity comes through on Swift.
Swift (Beebe Skidmore), Camp Caldera dock (Lisa Eisenberg)
Who has been an important mentor among your colleagues?
Beebe: I have learned pretty much everything from the people I’ve worked with and for. I’ve also learned a lot from classmates, professors, builders and clients. Standout colleagues would include David Martin, who I met at Thompson and Rose Architects in Cambridge. He is only a few years older than me, but he patiently and neatly redlined all my drawings. Charlie Rose, my boss there, also had great style. He assigned everyone in the office a project to do on your own even if you were fresh out of school like me. He’d bring you into his office once a week, close the door, goof around and make jokes for a while, and then write out a detailed to-do list and send you away. If you couldn’t make the deadline on your own or didn’t know how to do something, he’d call someone in and tell them to work on your project with you for a few days. Alan Lewis, who hired me to work at Machado-Silvetti, organized the project team on a large housing project so that I was drawing the wall sections and brick details of the exact components that I had worked on in schematic design — I drew brick and window patterns — along with all of the technical consequences — for a whole year. At Allied Works, I got to go to a lot of client meetings and project interviews with Brad Cloepfil. That was terrifying, fun, and invaluable.
Skidmore: Uh, Brad Cloepfil. I doubt I’m the only one to say that. I worked closely with Brad on Caldera Arts Center, the Seattle Art Museum, PDX Contemporary Art and several residences over a period of ten years. When working for Brad you learn rigorous idea testing, relentless information gathering, personal activism and willpower - and how to manage these currents creatively (at AWA usually under a high-stakes deadline). These attributes are more important to me than the great design that flows from AWA. It is really important that AWA is actually getting risky architecture realized. Design is about 10 percent of that..
What part of the job do you like best and as an architect what do you think you most excel at?
Beebe: I like to draw plans. One of my favorites is attached - drawn while a resident at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology. I’m probably best at articulating the design consequences of any issues on the table at any given moment — to anyone, whether they’re a visual person or not — and asking questions of our clients that help us figure out what they’re really after.
Sitka Plan drawing (Beebe Skidmore)
Skidmore: The part of the job I like best is the moment of insight about organizing the approach to a problem. Usually, but not always, this means sketching a diagram that captures the forces that need to be resolved — and provides a roadmap for the entire project — that the client “gets.” To me this is not quite the same as a formal diagram or parti diagram: not what it is supposed to look like or even the organization, but instead more of a mentality or attitude. Once, it was a picture of an outrigger canoe we found in a copy of National Geographic. I think the part of the job I most excel at is probably detailing and wall sections, and making it possible for various trades to line up behind a construction objective that doesn’t wreck the aforementioned mentality, or sometimes, enhances it or pushes it to an unexpected result.
What are some Portland buildings (either new or historic) that you most admire?
Beebe: The pavilion by Charles W. Moore at Lovejoy Fountain. It has an unnamable shape. It is raw, a little weird and mostly forgotten. I like the idea that one of the leading thinker/practitioners of the Post Modern Movement was making experimental and unexpected objects and spaces. It’s also cool that it was done in collaboration with the fountain by Larry Halprin, who was coincidentally my grandfather’s golfing buddy at The Sea Ranch..
Skidmore: Currently I like the grain elevator at the east end of the Steel Bridge. Does it make architectural space? Not really. But the structure has this crazy mix of essential parts and is somehow evocative of another place and city scale. There is a weirdly extruded cottage, balanced on top of a monolithic row of gigantic concrete tubes, and space frames going in every direction. To quote R. Crumb, “You can’t make this shit up.” I also like the idea that Portland stays characterized by tough industrial and transportation infrastructure..
Lovejoy Fountain pavilion (Peter Meijer), Louis-Dreyfus Commodities grain elevator (Doug Skidmore)
What is your favorite building outside of Portland and besides any that you’ve worked on?
Beebe: There are so many great buildings out there. Two places that stick in my head are the Sea Ranch, which I knew about before going to architecture school because my grandfather lived there when I was growing up, and the Picasso Museum in Paris, which I visited in the ’90’s not long after graduating from architecture school. The Picasso Museum has since undergone a major renovation, so it’s probably not the same anymore. What struck me when I saw it, was that I couldn’t always tell whether the architectural elements were from the original hotel particulier or new. This is not because the new was copying the old. It was because the old stuff had a severity and simplicity that felt modern. If a wall in a room wasn’t parallel to the others, you weren’t sure if it was original or modified. The only clearly modern elements were visually recessive, tactile and beautifully detailed. It took time to notice them and their qualities. I like that feeling of uncertainty. A building where it takes time to reveal its organization and qualities. I’ve never been able to confirm this, but somehow got it in my head that the modern elements were by Alvaro Siza. The Sea Ranch stands out for providing a model of how land and building can be treated equally and truly blend into one another. I also love the fact that it is really a series of rules designed by a collective of experts, and that the rules can be applied in an infinite number of ways
Skidmore: I had to think about this one. Here are three “runners up”: Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain (way more rational than it appears), I.M. Pei's Louvre concourse (radical re-organization and preservation in one), and SANAA’s Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art (subversion of structural support). My current favorite is in Miami: Herzog & de Meuron's mixed-use parking structure at 1111 Lincoln Road. This project checks a bunch of boxes: it embraces the type with gusto; it is resourceful and un-reliant on luxurious or sentimental treatment; it is beautifully proportioned; and it is ironic: the building manages to be a good citizen, but at the same time it is an above-ground parking garage (usually derided), and of all things it is located immediately adjacent to a pedestrian promenade. I think architects will be looking at it for a long time for the way it balances these needs. Plus, even though it has a certain style, you just have to go walk (or drive!) through it to get it.
Sea Ranch (Estate of Lawrence Halprin), Lincoln Street parking garage (El Croquis)
Is there a local architect or firm that you think is unheralded or deserves more attention?
Beebe: Our two employees are pretty awesome: Pooja Dalal and Nong Vinitchaikul Rath. They work hard and are nimble, working on multiple projects all at once. I’m sure there are many more good architects out there making things happen. What about Thea von Geldern and Chelsea Grassinger who’ve both been at Allied Works for a super long time?
Skidmore: Jeff Stern at In Situ Architecture. Jeff is honing an expertise in high performance envelopes, details, new materials and project delivery, not to mention a really good eye for planning, site planning, and detail. His projects are getting more and more refined without willful composition. His Instagram feed (with Karen Thurman) is great.
What would you like to see change about Portland’s built environment in the long term?
Beebe: No cars, which would lead to less noise and cleaner air. I think it would be cool if someone could rearrange everyone’s lives so no one really needs to drive a car. It would be like going back in time and turning Portland into a series of villages where you have your job and a place to live and everything else you need for daily life in close proximity. Driving across town, could become an excursion or an adventure.
Skidmore: More formal and material experimentation, more plasticity, less design dictated by maximizing FAR (floor area ratio) and building envelope, a 500-plus-foot height limit downtown, municipal parking based on districts instead of structured parking on a building-by-building basis, curbside design that’s ready for self-parking cars to drop off commuters, a total refresh of the Park Blocks, new programmed spaces and structures along both sides of the Willamette downtown (including shipping and commerce, not just recreation), a ban on one-way surface streets, and while we are at it, a reboot of MAX as an express regional system with more streetcar and small electric buses to handle local circulation. Also, we need a little more humor and a lot more bronze otters and beavers.
How would you rate the performance of the local government like the Portland Development Commission (now Prosper Portland) or the development and planning bureaus?
Beebe: Even though it can be a little painful and usually hard to wrap your head around the logic of design guidelines, I think our projects actually get more focused, and better, not worse, after going through the city Design Review process.
Skidmore: 1) I’ll take this opportunity say "thumbs up" to the DOZA (Design Overlay Zone Amendments) recommendations to update the Design Review process. 2) In general, it seems there is a growing cohort of professionals doing planning and design review for Portland who are increasingly supportive of contemporary architecture and believe that congruency in design doesn’t mandate the assertion of a particular style or ethos, and this is good for diversity and progressive architecture in the city fabric. 3) The more I work with the City of Portland the more I think about the role of self-government philosophically. I was just reading that BDS processes almost 1,500 permits per month. I am impressed by the reality that for every architect and/or professional that approaches the city to get something done, there is a local who might be a brand-new immigrant, who can’t speak English and who may want simply to convert a garage. So, I try to keep in mind the diversity of people, interests, and scales of intervention the city is working to manage: i.e., the bureaus are not just there for architects and developers.
Is there a famous architect you would like to see do work here in Portland?
Beebe: Portland is already sophisticated at appreciating thoughtfulness, practicality and technological innovation in architecture. I think it would be good to have a building that was thoughtful in a different way: a building that is impractical, risky, upsets expectations, a little crazy, and makes people laugh. Terunobu Fujimori could do that.
Skidmore: I would ask Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA, Toyo Ito, or Norman Foster to design the Portland Art Museum's Rothko Pavilion expansion: someone who really understands glass.
Fujimori's Treehouse (Dezeen), SANAA's New Museum (Encyclopaedia Brittanica)
Name something besides architecture (sneakers, furniture, umbrellas) you love the design of.
Beebe: I like wallpaper and fabric patterns. And, I like messed up clothes. I have a pair of pants where one leg is longer than the other. I also really like plants, their structure and color variation. My best ideas come to me while walking in places with lots of plants.
Skidmore: I started collecting culinary knives and folding knives several years ago, and have made a few from scratch at workshops around the country. Knife making is a trip: there is only the blade and the handle in a beautifully concentrated design problem. Because there is usually both machine tooling and manual shaping involved, the process of fabrication is unavoidably part and parcel of the design. If you look at old knives you can find functional complex curves, facets and bevels, transition details, finishing techniques - almost always dealing with mixed materials - that can be a total inspiration to architectural detailing.
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