Jupiter NEXT (Brian Libby)
BY BRIAN LIBBY
In a recent Portland Tribune column, I had the opportunity to write about and review the Jupiter NEXT project (an expansion of the existing Jupiter Hotel next door) by Works Progress Architecture. I called the building a "rough gem" because of how its angular jewel-like form, featuring a series of differently-sized window openings, is contrasted by a matte-black facade that makes use of a familiar material in an unfamiliar way: shingles.
The project has evolved significantly since it first went before the Design Commission for Design Advice Review (a non-binding precursor to Design Review) in 2015. Back then, its exterior featured a series of individual apertures framing different windows at different depths, so that each window appeared to be part of a distinct form within the overall form. In this way, the building looked like a continuation of the architectural vocabulary of some previous WPA projects within a few blocks of Jupiter NEXT, such as 811 Stark, Slate and Framework. It gave each building's facade a sense of depth, shadow and kinetics. Though arresting, it was somewhat similar to facade/window patterning used in a host of international projects by other firms. But it gave Works buildings a distinct identity in Portland and comprised some of the firm's best-looking work.
The Design Commission challenged Works to do something different for Jupiter NEXT, and the firm did just that — ironically, after overcoming the Design Commission's disapproval. The project today features not a series of protruding window apertures, but instead seems to push and pull its boxy form to become more angular, with window bays of differing sizes, depths and angles. Covering the exterior are black asphalt shingles, which the Design Commission rejected in Design Review but Works and the Jupiter successfully appealed to City Council. My understanding is that the Design Commission was not concerned with how the shingles would look on this building so much as the precedent it might set and, therefore, the possibility of lesser architects using this material in a cheap, unattractive way. City Council, led by Commissioner Nick Fish, resolved that this project's ingenuity should not be punished for what others might do with the material. And quite rightly. The Design Commission has a tough job, and I think they get it right an overwhelming majority of the time. But I'd have sided with Commissioner Fish.
A 2015 version of the hotel's design (Works Progress Architecture)
Lately there has been an uptick both locally and internationally of buildings with dark or even black facades. Here in Portland, the reception has been mixed at best. People generally seem to feel that given our often-gray and cloudy climate, they're just too dark. But I don't necessarily think that's true, or at the very least I think it's too much of a generalization when the answer can only be made on a case-by-case basis. In the case of Jupiter NEXT, it seems like the blackness and the utter lack of reflection in the asphalt shingles only makes the windows stand out and appear to glisten. The glass on the second floor, a public gallery area connected to the ground-floor lobby by an open staircase, seems more reflective, mirroring the sky and giving off a jewel-like sensation against the black facade, while the glass on the upper floors seems more transparent, becoming an opportunity for the occupants inside to become visible.
Of course this stretch of lower Burnside is notable for its arcaded buildings. As I understand it, most of the buildings (dating to the early 20th century) weren't originally constructed that way but, after widening the street and adding car lanes left no room for sidewalks, space for them was carved into the ground floors of these buildings. Jupiter NEXT gives a nod to this tradition by partially extending its facade over the sidewalk, not as a visible awning so much as a slightly angled extension of its facade. I would have liked to see a bolder or more extensively covered walkway here, but by no means does it seem like a fatal flaw.
Since its completion in 2004, which renovated an old motor lodge and added the Skylab Architecture-designed Doug Fir Lounge, the Jupiter Hotel has been a bit of a local icon, its music venue encouraging a late-night party atmosphere that some have called a hipster outpost. The 67-room Jupiter NEXT is meant to be still chic but a bit quieter: perhaps attracting the 30-somethings who as 20-somethings a decade ago partied in and outside their Jupiter rooms most of the night but now wouldn't mind turning in a bit earlier. Yet it retains a raw, youthful feel and it's focused on communal spaces, be it the two-story lobby and gallery (which also includes the bar/restaurant Hey Love), a back garden or a small outdoor area carved into the fifth-floor corner of Burnside and Ninth Avenue at the front of the building.
A guest room at Jupiter Next (Marc James)
Thinking back on my tour of the hotel a few weeks ago, my lingering memory is of concrete. In the lobby, there are concrete floors, concrete columns, and concrete stair treads heading up to the second floor. In the rooms there are also concrete floors. But that material, which gives the building a raw, industrial feel, is enlivened by the hotel's interiors, courtesy of Megan Millie Design, which offer pops of color and a series of patterns in the rugs, the bedding and elsewhere. The hotel is also enlivened by its art, such as the photo collages by Beth Kerschen that hang over each bed.
The interior of Jupiter Next reminds me a little bit of being inside another WPA-designed building on East Burnside, one where the firm for several years had its offices: the bSIDE6 building. In both cases, you get the sense that these were buildings with modest budgets — not at all because they seem cheap, but just because in both cases once you get past the dynamic facades, they're relatively bare-bones concrete buildings without sumptuous interior materials: just concrete and white drywall. In the case of Jupiter NEXT, that concrete frame becomes the canvass onto which the art, furniture, graphics and other aspects of the interiors are projected. In the front corner of the lobby is a kind of strange but beautiful and playful U-shaped cross between a seat and a sculpture, while a few feet away the word "NEXT" hangs over a distinctive wood front desk. In the room I visited, one of the light fixtures hanging from the ceiling was, though long and pear-shaped, clad in the same mirrored surface as a disco ball.
Jupiter NEXT lobby (Brian Libby)
Of course it's tempting to try and read into the newer work of Works Progress Architecture given that co-founder Bill Neburka, a major creative voice at the firm, has parted company with co-founder Carrie Strickland, but my understanding is that this project was designed while Neburka was still on board.
Even so, no firm is solely about one or two people at the top. In a previous interview, Strickland talked about how in recent years the firm had begun to enable more of its younger staff. And regardless of exactly who is responsible for what in the design, Jupiter NEXT has a similar quality to past buildings in the WPA portfolio. Like the work of other top firms in town, one sees not simply brick and mortar or, in this case, glass and asphalt shingles, but an overriding idea of the building and its form that doesn't get lost in all the little practical decisions that go along with designing a building that meets code and other strictures and is on budget.
In a way there's nothing all that radical about the architecture of Jupiter NEXT. It's just a concrete box with some windows. But in the way the architects play with that basic form, seeming to chisel into it and to push and pull at its edges, and in the experimental application of materials, you see a building that rewards a second look.
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