L-R: Towne Storage, Yard, 5 MLK (Brian Libby)
BY BRIAN LIBBY
The east end of the Burnside Bridge has become a kind of architectural laboratory over the past five years, with a succession of eye-catching buildings.
That started with the 21-story Yard by Skylab Architecture and the 10-story Slate by Works Progress Architecture, both completed in 2016 and each fusing dark metal and glass. Then came 2017’s Fair-Haired Dumbbell by FFA Architecture & Interiors, not nearly as tall yet standing out even more thanks to a colorful artist-painted façade. And earlier this year came Sideyard, also by Skylab: a four-story, brick-clad mass timber building on a small patch of land created by the Burnside-Couch couplet.
Now comes 5 MLK, which is not officially part of the city-developed Burnside Bridgehead. But standing directly across Burnside at 17 stories, 5 MLK joins them to bookend the bridge with height.
When you factor in architectural neighbors like the Towne Storage building (dating to 1915 and renovated in 2017 from a designed by LRS Architects — now a headquarters for Autodesk), or the nearby Eastside Exchange (dating to 1925 and renovated in 2013 from a design by Works Progress Architecture), these few blocks clustered around the Burnside Bridge really start to feel like a neighborhood between neighborhoods: part Central Eastside, part Lower Burnside, but with a height and ambiance more its own. And bringing that energy across Burnside, as 5 MLK does, helps potentially bring that energy to the Central Eastside. That's important because the other Burnside Bridgehead buildings are in a sense hemmed in by two busy thoroughfares and the I-84 freeway.
In terms of height, 5 MLK project helps legitimize the other big buildings here: together they’re not so much outliers, as if exiled from downtown, but instead, coupled with the Lloyd District, are one growing East Side story.
5 MLK as seen from the southwest and east (Brian Libby)
For nearly 120 years, this site at the corner of Burnside and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard was home to the Buckman Building, completed in 1900 and long known for its Fishel’s furniture store. But unlike the aforementioned Towne Storage and Eastside Exchange buildings, and unlike the nearby Vivian Apartments, a 1912 building renovated two years ago for Icelandic lodging chain Kex, the Buckman Building was torn down. I think quarter-block buildings under five or six stories tend to make for better placemaking. Yet this site is zoned for height and MLK/Burnside is one of the city’s most prominent and central crossroads.
The project was developed by Portland-based Gerding Edlen, which has spent two decades developing high-density, sustainable mixed-use buildings here and in several other West Coast cities. Here in Portland, the company really made its presence known starting in the early 2000s with the Brewery Blocks development, on the site of the former Blitz-Weinhard brewery. 5 MLK fits the brand: centrally located, glass-ensconced, and highly sustainable offices and apartment/condo spaces.
Gerding has most often worked with local firms like GBD Architects (which designed all five Brewery Blocks buildings for this client, then a few more) and ZGF (designer of the 12 West building in downtown’s West End). For this project, however, Gerding Edlen hired Chicago’s GREC Architects, which has designed a number of office and residential buildings there, perhaps most notably an Ace Hotel project from 2018. Last year the firm also served as architect of record for One Bryant Park, in collaboration with renowned architect Robert A.M. Stern.
The 450,000-square-foot, full-block 5 MLK has five levels of commercial space giving way to residential units above. But it’s not just a skinny tower sitting on a multistory stump, or even a simple L-shape, and not a clean break between office and apartment wings. The design underwent numerous iterations following criticism from the Portland Design Commission. Along the way, it seemed to lose clarity but gain in other ways, namely kinetics and transparency. It’s as if an ordinary podium-and-tower combination has been pushed and pulled apart. It's not enough to keep the overall composition from still seeming a bit corporate, but maybe a more enlightened corporate, rooted in sustainable principles and quality materials.
View of Slate and Fair-Haired Dumbbell from 5 MLK outdoor deck (Brian Libby)
Despite its girth, the design in some ways tries to keep a lower profile, or at least to be deferential. Its towers step downward to the corner on two sides, for example, bringing more light to the street and creating perhaps the building's most distinctive feature. It reminded me of Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy album cover, or terrace farming practices in Asia . At the same time, to emphasize its verticality, 5 MLK’s glass curtain wall is fused with vertical strands of thin porcelain, acting almost like drapery. The glass itself also seemed to have a mirrored quality, as if to make the reflections of other buildings its look.
But the look of the building from its exterior may not necessarily be the point. Height notwithstanding, its design seems more about the experience inside, looking out.
In my tour with two principals from GREC Architects, that sensation started in the lobby, where office workers and apartment-dwellers mix. With walls of glass, the lobby is set up as a kind of fishbowl onto this urban crossroads, interspersed with local art. It’s possible to look through the glass in four directions: west, north, east, or straight up through an oculus skylight. (Or be mesmerized by a multi-screen video installation by Portland’s Stephen Slappe.)
5 MLK from Burnside and MLK Jr. Boulevard, and a lobby skylight (Brian Libby)
I was also taken to an exercise room with such great views looking west at the Burnside Bridge and downtown that it felt a bit indulgent or even absurd to put a treadmill there. But as a runner, in the wet cold winter months I dream of such exercise scenarios.
Then there are the two outdoor terraces, the first of which is about halfway up the building and includes both covered and uncovered space. It's low enough to still feel immersed in the neighborhood, yet high enough to enjoy panoramic views. That said, the top-floor view is even more striking, with an outdoor pool and a 360-degree view of skyline and Cascade peaks.
Panoramic photo from 5 MLK top floor (Brian Libby)
Ultimately this will probably not be the most talked-about Burnside Bridgehead building. And maybe that’s just fine. There is visual interest to it from the outside—the terracing steps at the corners, the draped porcelain lines over the glass, the curving southwest façade, the outdoor decks, and how it’s all put together—but overall it’s a large glass building not wildly dissimilar from other large glass commercial and residential buildings.
Instead, I think 5 MLK can boast its design credibility in another way. It’s the building of this bunch I’d probably be happiest to live or work in.
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