Portland Architecture

Gradient House, Sequitur winery and the rise of an award-winning firm: Linden, Brown Architecture

Gradient House and Studio (Jeremy Bittermann/JBSA)

 

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Last fall the top prize at the local American Institute of Architects annual Oregon Architecture Awards, known as the Honor Award, went to a first-time winner: Linden, Brown Architecture for the Gradient House and Studio. It’s a smart, beautiful reinvention of live-work space for the post-pandemic era, as well as for Oregon’s new frontier of zoning that breaks down the tyranny of single-family houses.

For me, like many, Gradient provided an introduction to the work Linden, Brown, which is the latest in a succession of award-winning local small firms founded by architects formerly with Portland’s Allied Works (including Waechter Architecture, Lever Architecture, and Beebe Skidmore).

“The work at that place is so good because everybody who's playing a role has is would probably be a very good sole practitioner,” Linden says of Allied. “And even if they're working on the concept design or working on some small detail, everybody's got great vision. So if anybody leaves, they're already primed and have the drive to be a practitioner who can oversee an entire project, as opposed to a role player someplace else.”

Since that AIA award, and since I visited Linden and Brown at their studio in industrial Northwest Portland near the Fremont Bridge, the firm has received another honor. This month Linden, Brown Architecture was named to Architectural Record magazine’s prestigious Design Vanguard, honoring emerging practices across the nation. And besides Gradient, they have seen built striking projects like Sequitur winery, outside Newberg in rural Yamhill County, for which the firm helped save and restore a historic barn as part of a new tasting room.

 

Gradient House and Studio (Jeremy Bittermann/JBSA)

 

Linden, Brown’s L-shaped, 5,000-square-foot single-story Gradient House and Studio, located on a double-lot beside a nature preserve in North Portland’s St. Johns neighborhood and designed for the founders of a shoe company, Studio Noyes, is both residential and industrial-looking. Huge sawtooth skylights rise above a conventional pitched roof that connects two separate structures, wrapping an outdoor courtyard. Gradient’s sloping site creates a tall-ceilinged work studio in the rear of the property and a cozier neighborhood-focused residence upfront. Yet as the name suggests, it’s not a clean break, either. Workers sometimes meet on the home side and the family may hang out in the studio.

“A decade ago, live-work commercial buildings were pretty hip, but in most cases you still had a 20-foot-wide, nine-foot-ceiling, shoebox of space,” Brown says. “With Gradient, we had room to figure out what is the right way to craft this thing.” They took inspiration from the site itself. “That idea of gradient, it permeated every thought process through the project,” he adds. “The site drops ten feet from front to back. That’s one example. And the project itself is a gradient of live and work.”

With remote working seemingly here to stay, office vacancies may have ballooned downtown, but neighborhoods across the city have been invigorated, no longer emptied out of people during daytime hours. Yet how we fit commercial space into heretofore residential areas is not as easy as simply setting up desks in former bedrooms—at least not for the long haul. Gradient in that way is both unique and a template.

The firm’s founders, Brent Linden and Chris Brown, hail from different places in the American South and each worked for at least one iconic firm before coming to Portland to work for Allied Works.

 

Chris Brown and Brent Linden at the firm's studio (Arthur Hitchcock)

 

Linden is from Miami and at the beginning of his career worked in the New York office Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, leaving the city just before the September 11 terrorist attacks to go attend graduate school at Rice University in Houston, where he graduated  in 2004. At Rice, Linden met Allied Works’ Brad Cloepfil, a visiting professor, who also offered him a job. Linden stayed at Allied for over 16 years, rising to the role of design director.

Brown was born and initially raised in Houston, an architect’s son. But when he was seven, Brown’s dad left the profession and bought a hardware store in a small Arkansas town called Mountain Home, in the Ozark Mountains. Later, while attending the University of Arkansas, Brown fell under the tutelage of renowned architect and professor Marlon Blackwell, including a full summer interning at Blackwell’s firm, and then, three years later, joining the firm full-time. “It just baked in all this understanding of how to look at where you are,” Brown says, in addition to what he calls “the re-imagining or revisioning of the vernacular of place.”

Brown first came to Portland to work at another acclaimed local firm, Skylab Architecture, for four years beginning in 2007. While there, he worked on an addition to the firm’s best-known project, the Hoke Residence, popularized in the Twilight movies, as well as the eye-catching Skyline Residence and the HOMB modular system. Brown joined Allied Works in 2013, and worked with Linden on projects including the Corvallis Museum in the southern Willamette Valley, the National Veterans Memorial Museum in Columbus, Sokol Blosser Winery Tasting Room in rural Yamhill County, and the U.S. Embassy in Mozambique, as well as design competitions for expansions to the Metropolitan Museum of Art expansion in New York City and the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo (now the Buffalo AKG Art Museum).

 

Sequitur winery (Jeremy Bittermann/JBSA)

 

Despite their architectural pedigree and their ability to produce bold designs, the duo’s process lacks ego. Linden and Brown are at their best collaborating and partnering with their clients to shape the architecture, be Studio Noyes’ founders for Gradient or the founders of Sequitur winery, for whom the firm designed a contemporary new tasting room in Yamhill County that renovated and expanded a historic 1935 barn. Contractors and architects said it was prohibitively expensive, but the renovation saved over $300,000 versus new construction. And, Brown adds, “The soul of that farm is intact because that barn is there.”

The Sequitur winery commission brought them together beginning in 2018, after each partner following departure from Allied Works trying his hand at being a sole practitioner. “It was a bigger project than either of us could have done by ourselves,” Linden says.

 

Sequitur winery (Jeremy Bittermann/JBSA)

 

Linden and Brown had lucky timing: By the time the pandemic arrived in 2020, they were already set up with a trio of projects, including Gradient House, another house, and Sequitur winery. “Chris and I actually ended up still working in this studio throughout most of the pandemic, because we both have the same age children,” Linden recalls. “And so we ended up as families co-watching each others’ kids. We were in our own little bubble.”

Despite having no built portfolio (unless you count their Allied Works contributions, which you very much should), they won over Sequitur with a commitment to closely oversee every step of construction. It taught them larger lessons: that the best design comes as much through attention as from talent, and from a culture where the best idea always wins.

“Most of our clients are creative people in some vein, whether they're writers or animators or shoe designers or winemakers,” Linden says. “We get excited about their ideas, and that feeds into the work; they can see their own impact, and the work gets better because of it.”

 

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“A different way of developing cities” — SERA Architects' Tim Smith discusses the OMSI District and civic ecology

Tim Smith at his his AICP College of Fellows enshrinement (SERA Architects)

 

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Last December, more than a decade after it was first announced, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry unveiled plans for its OMSI District along the east side of Willamette River, which will turn surface parking lots and vacant land between the Marquam Bridge and Tilikum Crossing (and adjacent to the museum) into a high-density enclave. The district is projected to include 1,200 housing units, forming with the Burnside Bridgehead development to the north a residential bookend to the otherwise non-residential Central Eastside. There will also be mixed-use commercial buildings, as well as a waterfront education park focusing on indigenous heritage, and a Center for Tribal Nations on the OMSI property. There are ambitious sustainability goals here, its backers promise, and a commitment to equity.

Although ZGF is the OMSI District's master-plan architect (replacing Oslo and New York-based Snøhetta), SERA Architects is a partner on the development team, led by Edlen & Company; principal Tim Smith helped put together the development team. This comes as Smith, founder of the firm’s Urban Design and Planning Studio, was earlier this year named to the American Institute of Certified Planners' College of Fellows. Smith has also served locally as vice president of the Portland Planning Commission and the Mayor’s Central City Roundtable, not to mention as urban design advisor to the City of San Francisco for the Treasure Island Redevelopment. At SERA, he has also been instrumental in the firm’s long-range planning and urban design efforts for Google.

Anticipating an interview with Smith about OMSI and his long career on the occasion of his College of Fellows honor, I also watched a 2011 TEDx talk that Smith delivered called "A Living Community Framework for Sustainability," in which he discusses the social and equity-based components necessary for healthy and sustainable urban communities; that topic wound up guiding a lot of our conversation, including our talk about the OMSI District.

Brian Libby: Congratulations on your fellowship.

Tim Smith: Thank you very much. It just goes to show you that if you are standing upright for 40 years, they'll give you an award. So here I am.

I watched your 2011 TEDx talk earlier today, which focused on the concept of civic ecology and took inspiration from E.V. Walter’s Placeways, which puts human experience at the forefront of urban design as a way to address contemporary social and environmental dislocation. But you mentioned coming from Philadelphia, which got me thinking about Edmund Bacon’s seminal 1967 book Design of Cities. These are two very different perspectives about urbanity and placemaking, almost like Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses.

Edmund Bacon was actually my teacher [at the University of Pennsylvania]. Kevin Bacon the actor is Ed's son. I used to live down the street from all of them, so I have one degree of separation from Kevin Bacon. Ed’s approach was definitely a top-down, ego-driven one. When you took his course, he would show things that he had done, and if you questioned any of it, he would just not even respond. More importantly, in Design of Cities Bacon favors the axis—with its wide multilane boulevards—and other very formal aspects of planning. The axis is really an example of how to exert power in city planning, and I just really have grown to have difficulty  with the concept. In a city like Paris with many axes, what’s more interesting are the neighborhoods off axis, which are basically medieval, and whose fabric has been largely determined by people who lived in the neighborhood rather than something that was done from on high.

Conversely to Edmond Bacon, civic ecology argues that social infrastructure is at least as essential. It brings to mind Portland's turnaround in the 1960s and ‘70s, through neighborhood organizations: a kind of civic ecology. But some of that neighborhood activism has since come to be regarded as NIMBYism, or lacking inclusiveness.

One of the best outcomes of a civic ecology process would be something called a civic public-private partnership. The idea behind it is to eliminate the concept of NIMBYism: that you engage citizens as the third leg of a local government and private developer stool, so that they co-create the vision and the steps to implementation for change in any given place. Community stakeholders will have less reason to be against change if they are actually part of the sausage-making, as it were. I think Portland's success back in the ’60s and ’70s was rooted in neighborhood groups and the city and private developers being open to working with each other. I don't believe that's the case now in Portland. Many people say the neighborhood model is broken in Portland. That may be true, but what's really broken is the relationship: the constructive, co-creative relationship between those three entities.

 

Covers of Placeways (UNC Press) and Design of Cities (Thames/Hudson)

 

For years Portland was praised as a progressive boutique city with amazing street food and bike culture: a destination. Now, there’s this perception we’re struggling more than other cities to bounce back from the pandemic and the unrest. Given that you look at cities with a longer view, what do you make of this?

Cities have ups and downs, as do communities, neighborhoods, countries. It's all part of being a nested bundle of integrated systems. Occasionally all the systems are positively reinforcing each other, and occasionally a couple of them get sideways, and begin to kind of fracture things and slow things down. The best example of this is the community I mentioned in the TEDx talk, Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, where I lived for a number of years. In the 1960s, that community was really suffering from the failure to compete with suburban development. Folks in the community bootstrapped a strategy to make it much more dynamic, forming a host of  civic entities that were able to localize the neighborhood’s decision-making. They realized that the city of Philadelphia with its limited resources couldn’t be as helpful and responsive as a local governance structure could. From time to time there would be issues of disagreement among people working within the civic-public-private structure, which caused the system to slow down or break, but eventually they always figured it out and moved on.

In Portland, obviously the issues are much greater.

How so?

We don't yet seem to have a unifying vision of the city. You might say that at the beginning of the Portland Plan, back in the ’70s, there was this unified vision of where we needed to go, which made neighborhood associations work. The problem with that vision is that it did not include the African American, Asian, Native American, Hispanic and other communities. So here we are years later and that vision has kind of faded. There's a real question out there about what's the new vision and whose vision should it be. Suddenly there's a lot of factions that are out there raising their voices, saying, ‘You need to pay attention to us because we live in this place, too.’ I feel like there's a call to action that the folks in city government are beginning to sense. I firmly believe we're going to be okay once we kind of get this together.

So what can we do? There’s a movement afoot to change Portland’s system of government. Is that a step in the right direction?

I'm very interested in this charter commission, to see what they recommend.  I wonder, however, if it might  have been better to develop a process of vision and unification first, and then ask the question, ‘What governance model and therefore charter do we need to actually make this new kind of vision happen?’ There are more complex forces out there that we need to embed in our city systems, and maybe we need a different kind of governance model. I think Portland will bounce back, because cities are resilient. If we can be much more inclusive and figure out a process to make this new vision happen, we're going to be even better than we were.

 

A view of the OMSI District site (SERA Architects)

 

That might be a good segue into talking about SERA’s urban design work with OMSI. It’s an interesting placemaking opportunity in the Central Eastside, which doesn't have residential except at the Burnside Bridgehead. OMSI’s property is also a crossroads with the Hawthorne Bridge and downtown, and on its southern edge it’s beside a new transit bridge leading to South Waterfront. For years Portland Public Market wanted to locate down there, and maybe still does. This area is also part of the so-called Innovation Quadrant. A famous architecture firm, Snøhetta, was hired to produce a master plan. But years have gone by without any groundbreaking.

Snøhetta’s master plan was interesting, but what really stuck out to us was that some of the sustainability goals didn’t have an implementation strategy behind then. Certain aspects of it didn't feel too buildable, to be polite. So when OMSI put out the RFP for a developer to implement the master plan, I helped put together the team that's working on it now: Edlen and Company, a company out of Cleveland called Long Haul Capital that is involved in the impact-capital world, the Farkas Group [an infrastructure, financing & development agreement advisor], and a company called Urban Systems that does a lot with smart-city infrastructure. OMSI also hired ZGF Architects to lead the Central City Master Plan process.

What about OMSI’s sustainability goals, and the opportunity for an eco-district?

We began to realize that a standard development approach would not be able to achieve the carbon-reduction outcomes and other sustainability goals district-wide. So OMSI and the development team applied for and received a grant from the Bullitt Foundation to have a series of design charrettes focused on the entire district, as opposed to a building by building approach. You're probably familiar with Bullitt’s headquarters in Seattle, one of the nation’s first to be Living Building -certified. They said, ‘We want to fund you to take this Living Building approach and do it for an entire neighborhood.’ In response to that challenge the team came up with ideas about integrated, equitable-district infrastructure that included shared energy, water waste, food systems, urban habitat, local economy, last-mile mobility, digital open-source economy. Edlen and Company is not an infrastructure developer, so we formed a brand new company focused on district scale infrastructure called InfraCenters LLC. It's a joint venture between SERA, Long Haul Capital and Civic Technology Ventures. In the OMSI district, InfraCenters will investigate: How do you actually create a district scale integrated system where the water, the energy, the waste systems of all kind, and last mile mobility are all supported by a digital platform.. Central to our mission is carbon neutrality and social equity.

How can you build that civic ecology along with the architecture itself? How can there be more than for-profit development down there?

We responded to a grant opportunity from Metro for equitable and sustainable development and have been working for more than a year with OMSI, the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, the Columbia River Inter-tribal Fish Commission, the City of Portland, Prosper Portland and others to create a Center for Tribal Nations and Waterfront Education Park in the OMSI district. We're getting close to creating a concept that will integrate with all these other ideas—perhaps a Portland Public Market, an Oregon Botanical Project—and act as a catalyst for an Innovation Quadrant. We've also been talking to a number of impact investors, including banks who through the Community Reinvestment Act are required to invest locally. We have gotten them interested in the idea of investing in perhaps a local entrepreneur space or even a clean technology hub within an actual InfraCenter building, whose focus would be BIPOC community entrepreneurs. It could be a live-work space. We want to provide a pathway for a diverse array of community members to participate in all aspects of the emerging  climate-change economy instead of limiting it to the usual experts

What has emerged is a partnership between Western science and traditional ecological tribal knowledge and perhaps  a more thoughtful and inclusive way to describe and address an issue like climate change. Because, ultimately, where we are going in terms of technology is back to traditional tribal knowledge about systems thinking and working with nature. Both OMSI and its inter-tribal partners are excited about telling that story in the district through the real infrastructure that we hope to create down there. So it's a mind-blowing opportunity.

 

Rendering of future OMSI District (ZGF Architects)

 

This sounds very different from traditional development, but with so many moving parts it also seems difficult to pull off: a puzzle with a lot of pieces.

What is really different about this is usually architecture and planning firms are waiting to respond to an RFP or a development opportunity and then, as a designer, you're at the mercy of what the developer is going to be able to pencil out to their investors. Bringing your own money to the table is an opportunity to change how development can happen. And I feel like we may be on the cusp of creating a different way of developing cities where the money gets directed to do really good things: social equity building.

It’s interesting to me that you work for an architecture firm, but a tenet of the civic ecology you talk about is that we can’t build our way to true sustainability.

My hypothesis is that the best way to address some of our complex issues is to start with the software—the resource flow systems, the relationships—and build the hardware—the physical change—on top of that. We've all been doing it the opposite way: building the hardware and then retrofitting software into existing structures. The real impact will not come from a bunch of green buildings sitting next to each other. It's going to be from an integrated neighborhood approach that contains an array of buildings, streets, and spaces interconnected through a digital platform that enables real-time response to human needs. In such a neighborhood, people will have control over their place and their livelihoods and can feel a sense of ownership of their community. And so that's the vision behind this. It's turning things  inside out and flipping the scale quite a bit.

 

Systems diagram for OMSI District (SERA Architects)

 

It reminds me of places around town where a big idea for redeveloping a neighborhood has either failed or achieved mixed results: the South Portland Urban Renewal Area in the 1960s, for example, which today feels like failed urbanism except for the Lawrence Halprin-designed fountains, or even the South Waterfront, which came a generation later and, though quite different, also lacks much urban energy.

I think the first problem with many new developments is a misreading of the opportunity—is this really a blank canvas or is there some underlying context that suggests a deeper and richer approach? Imagine if that original South Portland neighborhood had remained, and those wonderful fountains had been inserted into that? Those residents might have taken a deeper ownership of that neighborhood and thus those fountain spaces might have been a different kind of community infrastructure. It would have been a completely different outcome.

At the same time, we have to figure out how to keep neighborhoods like that from becoming so successful that they begin to price out the people that made them interesting in the first place. How do we broaden accessibility to all developments—racially, ethnically and financially—and make new development  permanently affordable: intergenerationally affordable and accessible? I think we have a great start at OMSI because OMSI is not going to sell the property. They're going to keep it on a 99-year land lease, which opens up all kinds of possibilities for enduring accessibility and attainability.

So really a unique, interesting landholder in that regard. What’s the key to making it work?

These developments work when people in the neighborhood feel a sense of ownership. People don't like having stuff handed to them from on high: ‘Hey, we figured this out. Now it's yours.’ It just doesn't work. It really doesn't. So co-creation is the whole basis of the civic-ecology model, which is that those who participate in the sausage-making are going to feel ownership and therefore it's going to have a life that goes beyond what the designers designed. Because it will always be being designed.

Could you talk about making some of these ideas into a kind of toolkit, given your work with Metro?

A number of years ago, we were hired by Metro for an initiative called  Great Communities.. Metro was seeking decision criteria to ensure that  Urban Growth Boundary decisions would not only satisfy growth requirements but also yield great communities. We developed criteria that addressed a number of Civic Ecology issues: How do you handle energy, and water? What about the local economy? Is the topography such that it would support a walkable community? The work was accepted by Metro and is now part of the criteria that they use to bring land into the urban reserve and ultimately the growth boundary. Now UGB decisions are likely to offer the opportunity to connect to existing neighborhoods, or to support a Main Street. When people impacted by these decisions can become part of the process and realize that what's going to happen isn't just a development to satisfy growth goals, but an opportunity to build a new or enhance an existing community it offers an opportunity to avoid a NIMBY conflict.

 

Rendering of future OMSI District (ZGF Architects)

 

And NIMBYism, even though it can turn negative, it’s often comprised of locals who are active in their community. Which, in theory, could be turned around into something positive. But often NIMBYism is specifically about opposition to height.

NIMBYism is a message that there is the potential to create a real community. There are people in the community who have the energy and the time to participate in something positive because they're able to organize against something. Imagine if you took that energy and organized it into co-creation, to begin to weave together all these aspects of their lives and future residents of this area: to achieve something much better than just arguing about six-story buildings or three-story buildings? Development can become much more aspirational. People then have a platform to say, ‘I want my community to evolve to a place where we're energy self-reliant, where we have urban agriculture, where we have developed relationships with farmers outside of our community, where local entrepreneurs can afford to live here, where there's affordable housing. We want all these things. And you know what? If we can be part of where these things happen, I would gladly exchange all the things I keep fighting against, like tall buildings.’ I think when you hear people saying negative things, it's really a call for help. People don't like railing just for the sake of railing. They're really sending a signal. You have to be open to the signal.

Tell me some great city like you have visited that inspires you.

There's a bunch of them. There's a beautiful city in southern France called Aix en Provence. Oh my goodness, it is so wonderful! It has got everything we've been talking about. There are certainly some great neighborhoods in Philadelphia where I lived for a while. I mentioned Chestnut Hill, but when I was living there it was a bit racially stratified. The adjacent neighborhood, Mt. Airy, is diverse and it’s one of the most wonderful neighborhoods in America. I’m originally from Detroit, and in the neighborhood I grew up in, North Rosedale Park, my father was president of the civic association and our entire family was deeply engaged in the community. Of course, with disinvestment in Detroit, it really suffered. But it’s a shining example of great urban neighborhood, and it’s coming back again.

What might Portland learn from Detroit?

Cities like that are fascinating because there are opportunities they have there that we don't have here. What has happened in Detroit is that they are so desperate that they seem to have moved away from bureaucratic siloing  and toward an integrated focus on problems. And they're actually getting a lot of stuff done. I think it's kind of what we need to do here.

That’s a very relevant discussion given that Portland might eliminate its arguably obsolete system of government, where elected city council members control bureaus but aren’t accountable to specific geographic constituency.

It's a real problem. I'm completely against the non-geographic focus. Commissioners in Portland are forced to be about bureau-focused silos. I sense they do not want to be and that they get interested in problem solving. It is just very difficult in any governance structure to think and act holistically. With our system it is even more challenging. But if they were in charge of a piece of geography and were able to work with all the bureaus, they'd be the first ones to want to de-silo those bureaus. I remember years ago a mayoral candidate took me out to lunch, because we were fellow TED talkers that year, and he asked, ‘Could you give me some advice on what I ought to do if I became mayor?’ I said, ‘The first thing you’ve got to do is break down the silos. Everyone will hate you and you'll probably be a one-term mayor, but you've got to break those silos down. Otherwise the city is just going to devolve.”

You’re a principal at SERA, and I admire how the firm has endured over generations, after being founded by people like Bing Sheldon and Don Eggleston. What advice might you give about succession?

I'm trying to get out of the way and maybe just advise. It's a very difficult thing to do. When you get to a point where you have a depth of experience, that is the time to step aside, become an advisor, and let other people discover things on their own. And I'll do that.

Bing was a mentor, and I always remember: he just leaned on me very closely for a number of years, until one day he came up to me and said, ‘You know what? You're on your own now. I think you know what you're doing. You know what to do. You come and see me if you need me. But I'm not your guy anymore.’ And that was that. And boy, is that ever a tough thing to do. I'm the second generation and we are now advancing the third generation in the firm. And I think one of the great things Bing and Don did was to make it an employee-owned firm, which means that people have different incentives than they do if they're working somewhere where the profit goes to a few people at the top.

Conceptually, it’s like some of what we've been talking about with civic ecology.

Yeah, I guess we're a civic ecology firm. And it works. It really works. In setting up the systems of relationships and flows of money and investment and everything, that helps you become a different kind of firm. We want to have an impact in the community and on the planet, and you can't do that just by responding to RFPs and making sure your work pencils out financially. We at SERA are on the cusp of a new paradigm and I think our industry is as well. It's all a big experiment – and lots of fun!

 

 

 

 

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Looking at AIA Oregon Architecture Awards winners by Allied Works, Lever and more

Meyer Memorial Trust (courtesy Jeremy Bittermann/JBSA)

 

BY BRIAN LIBBY

It's that time of year again: accolades for the city's best architecture of the past year via the American Institute of Architects' Oregon Architecture Awards, this time juried by a trio of out-of-town architects: Pascale Sablan of David Adjaye Associates' New York office, Bryan C Lee Jr. of Colloqate Design in New Orleans, and Ricardo de Jesús Maga Rojas of STG Design in Austin.

Overall, the list of Honor, Merit and Citation Awards given out is comprised overwhelmingly of projects for public and nonprofit clients. There are two private residences and one private for-profit company office that received awards, as well as one luxury apartment. But that's basically it. A nonprofit headquarters and a nonprofit museum jointly won the highest accolade, the Honor Award, and most all of the Merit and Citation Awards went to high school and college projects, and to affordable housing.

One thing's for sure, though: when you're Allied Works Architecture, the AIA Awards mean you'd better keep expanding your trophy case.

Honor Awards

At last month's ceremony, the firm led by Brad Cloepfil took home AIA Oregon's top prize, known as the Honor Award, for the Benton County Museum in Corvallis. This adds to an already-unprecedented number of Honor Awards won by Allied Works in years past, including last year's top prize for the Providence Park expansion, in 2018 for the National Music Centre of Canada (in Calgary), in 2015 for its Pacific Northwest College of Art renovation here in Portland, in 2013 for the Sokol Blosser Winery tasting room near Dundee, in 2012 for the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, and in 2008 for the Booker T. Washington High School in Dallas.

The Benton County Museum is an exceptional little jewel that fits well into its context of downtown Corvallis near a succession of historic buildings. While visiting and writing about the building for The Architect's Newspaper in October, I was delighted by everything from its Japanese ceramic tile exterior cladding to its light-filled gallery spaces to its endearingly eclectic collection, the latter of which was presented with the help of local design firm Renate. The building is laid out as four simple bays, with half of the third bay made into an outdoor courtyard, onto which the galleries open.

 

Benton County Museum (Brian Libby)

 

Allied Works' principal Chelsea Grassinger told me, "We were drawn to the hand-crafted quality of the ceramic tile: the rake texture and how the glaze dips into the valleys. Bringing something that had a kind of masonry scale was important, but marrying the historic context with a contemporary façade." But the design also sought "to open up that bay of the building to the courtyard," she added. "It goes back to breaking down the barriers, and creating some surprising opportunities for transparency. We had all of the typical technical requirements for daylight control and temp and humidity, but it was important to really open up the building visually and experientially."

Yet the other Honor Award winner at this year's AIA Oregon Architecture Awards, Lever's Meyer Memorial Trust, is the true Portland architectural project of the year. Located on Vancouver Avenue in North Portland, with a view of the Interstate 5 freeway that may soon be expanded, the project is exceptional as both product and process.

The Meyer Memorial Trust's designer, Lever Architecture, is also no stranger to AIA awards, having received the Honor Award in 2019 for Redfox Commons and in 2011 for the Design Animation Studio, as well as many lower-tier AIA Citation and Merit awards over the years for projects like the Treehouse apartments at OHSU, the Oregon Conservation Center in Southeast Portland (for The Nature Conservancy), the Flex spec-office space on 82nd Avenue, and the L'Angolo Estate Winery tasting room.

In an article for Metropolis magazine about the Meyer Memorial Trust headquarters, the nonprofit organization's CEO, Michelle DePass, reminded me that moving from the Pearl District to North Portland was a homecoming, as the trust's original benefactor, grocery magnate Fred G. Meyer, originally lived in the neighborhood. Yet with a renewed emphasis on empowering communities of color,  DePass added,  “We wanted to be in a place where people could walk by and say, ‘I know Meyer. Meyer knows me.’”

 

Meyer Memorial Trust (courtesy Jeremy Bittermann/JBSA)

 

The 19,800-square-foot Meyer Memorial Trust headquarters is set back from the street to encourage civic interaction. Metal cladding and a quartet of peaked-roof forms give the building’s exterior hint to both the industrial district and the residential neighborhood nearby. A relatively long, thin building footprint allows the building’s spaces to fill with daylight.

What's also noteworthy about the Meyer project is how its two distinct volumes are both wood-framed but built differently, for reasons related to community. A three-story office building utilized traditional materials and methods, while an adjacent single-story pavilion and gathering space called the Center for Great Purposes was one of the first structures in the United States to be constructed with mass plywood panels, beams and columns.

“Plywood gets used in buildings a lot, but it gets covered up by all the other finishes, and you never see it. It’s such an industrial material,” explained Lever Architects’ Chandra Robinson, who led the design and also won the Young Architect Award from the AIA along with the firm's design awards. The Meyer design utilizes traditional stick framing in the rest of the building "because some of these smaller subs were not going to have experience with mass timber,” Robinson added. “We wanted to pair standard construction they’ve done before with a chance to learn about building with mass timber. We really wanted to make sure that those folks could then go on to another bigger project after having that experience.”

The Meyer Memorial Trust and Lever also received the AIA's 2030 Award for its sustainable design.

One other thing about the two Honor Award winners: these projects were both led by female principals — Allied's Grassinger and Lever's Robinson. These two firms were founded by men, by two of the most highly acclaimed Portland architects of our time: Allied's Brad Cloepfil and Lever's Thomas Robinson (no relation to Chandra). Yet in a time when equality and opportunity have become more important than ever, these firms are empowering women and reaping the award-winning results. In Chandra Robinson's case as a Black woman, it's even more encouraging because architecture is traditionally nota  just male-dominated but white-dominated profession. It's not just what you build, but how you treat and empower people along the way, from the smallest subcontractors to the architects designing the whole thing. The award-winning results speak for themselves.

Merit Awards

Four projects received the equivalent of the silver medal: the AIA's Merit Award. One of them is arguably a far-more prominent and widely seen project than any other in this awards program: the new Hayward Field at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

 

Hayward Field (University of Oregon)

 

Designed by SRG Partnership, the stadium project began in controversy, as it necessitated the demolition of America's most historic track and field venue. Sports architecture is not traditionally inclined towards historic preservation. Treasures like Wrigley Field in Chicago and the Rose Bowl in Pasadena are unfortunately exceptions to the rule. And when you're the University of Oregon athletic department, which has made newness its brand while taking advantage of Nike co-founder Phil Knight's benefaction, perhaps it was no surprise to see even this track Mecca remade. But you know what? The new Hayward looks pretty great.

 

Opsis's Multicultural Center addition for WWU (Benjamin Benschneider)

 

Merit Awards also went to Opsis Architecture for Western Washington University's new Multicultural Center addition in Bellingham, to DLR Group for Discovery High School in Camas, and to William Kaven Architecture for the Heartwood residence in Portland's Oak Grove neighborhood.

Opsis has practically made a career out of handsome university buildings like this Multicultural Center addition, with its striking zinc exterior sun shades, even as the firm has received distinction recently for public projects like the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton and a renovation to the historic Kibbie Dome at the University of Idaho. And DLR is veteran of award-winning K-12 school projects, although its highest-profile recent work has been last year's transformative renovation of the iconic Michael Graves-designed Portland Building.

 

Discovery High School (Top: Lara Swimmer, bottom: Alan Brandt)

DLR Group is a large multi-city firm and has designed K-12 and higher education projects for clients all over America. Discovery High School was designed around the idea of what's described as project-based learning. I'm not sure what that means, but I think the answer may come in part from the fact that none of the photography seems to depict a traditional closed-door classroom with a teacher lecturing to students. There are science labs and wood shops and apparently yoga classes outside, and it paints a collective picture of a better way, which the light-filled spaces only encourage.

 

William Kaven's Heartwood residence (Jeremy Bittermann/JBSA)

 

William Kaven is also a multiple award-winner, especially for houses. This year's Merit Award comes just a few months after its Royal residence in Portland received a 2021 International Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum.

Citation Awards

There were seven Citation Awards (equivalent to a bronze medal) given out by the AIA jury: three for housing projects, two schools, an architecture-firm office and a park pavilion.

That park pavilion, the Gerry Frank Rotary Amphitheater in Salem by CBTWO Architects, is a striking covered gathering area at Riverfront Park, which functions a lot like Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland. Its curving forms are made with glulam beams and its translucent skin with fabric, and the basket-weave patterning was inspired by the native Kalapuya people living along the Willamette long before European settlers. And perhaps appropriately, the pavilion recalls architect John Storrs' design for the Lumber Industry Pavilion at the Oregon Centennial in 1959, it too a soaring wood sculpture as well as a shelter.

 

CBTWO's Gerry Frank Rotary Amphitheater (Matt Swain)

 

It may also be worth noting this Citation Award going to a Salem firm. Though these are called the AIA Oregon Architecture Awards, until a couple years ago these were always the AIA Portland Architecture Awards. When the Portland chapter was absorbed into the long-dormant state chapter, the awards seem to have become a de facto state awards, but in reality it's mostly still a Portland architectural awards ceremony. That's all the more reason, though, to highlight a non-PDX firm winning.

The Bend Science Station is the latest from perennial AIA award winner Hennebery Eddy Architects, and an interesting dual program. This building, part of the OSU Cascades campus, provides science-related educational space to K-12 students and training teachers. In essence, it's a space for both actual K-12 classrooms and a space to teach teachers. There are two learning labs, a research room, a teacher-training space, and most distinctively, a small tower. The Bend Science Station is also designed to achieve net-zero or even net-positive energy production.

 

Bend Science Station (Alan Brandt)

 

Another regular AIA award winner, Hacker, picked up two Citation Awards this year, for the Gilkey Middle School and the Bailey Residence.

The Gilkey building, part of the French American International School in the West Hills and completed in 2019 (the AIA's date-eligibility rules are generous), gives the campus a sense of place that it never had with its preponderance of double-wide modular buildings. Before this building, the school didn't even have its own cafeteria. Now, the boomerang-shaped Gilkey is full of light in every space, from classrooms to hallways to a central gathering spot and cafeteria in the middle.

 

Gilkey Middle School (Bruce Damonte)

 

When I wrote about the Gilkey Middle School for Metropolis magazine last year, I remember the head of Gilkey, Emmanuelle Burke, telling me that the building had an immediate impact. “I think this place is fostering community in a different way,” she explained. “It’s created a series of separate spaces, but they all relate back to public areas where we can meet each other, both kids and teachers. We have more space for teachers to work together, and we have more spaces for parents to come in and speak with us. We have spaces for all the people we’re hosting.”

The Bailey Residence is a circa-1972 house at Black Butte Ranch in Central Oregon, a resort community built in the '60s and '70s that at its best can feel like a sibling to the better-known Sea Ranch community in California. Hacker did not change the exterior much, simply adding a large window to the front facade to illuminate a central stairway. Inside, the firm's interior design team transformed the feel to something more nicely contemporary, yet maintained the essence of the original space with its pine wood paneling. "The exercise was really about stitching in new things that helped to elevate the old," Hacker's Jenny Fowler explained in a Dwell article by Melissa Dalton.

 

Bailey residence (Jeremy Bittermann/JBSA)

 

Citation Award winner the Custom Blocks Studio, a new home office for the Portland office of Mahlum Architects, is the first Living Building Challenge-certified project in the city.  Owned and occupied for more than half a century by the Custom Stamping company, a machine parts fabricator, the two-block cluster of warehouses was soaked in oil and grime before  developer Capstone Partners commissioned a 2018 core-and-shell renovation by Scott Edwards Architects to clean up and seismically bolster the structures. The southwest corner of the complex, where Mahlum set up its office, was built in the 1930s as a Chevrolet dealership.

The LBC comprises seven performance categories, or “Petals”: Materials, Place, Water, Energy, Health, Equity, and Beauty. Buildings achieving full Living Building status, like Seattle’s Bullitt Center, meet standards in all seven areas. Satisfying only some can earn Petal certification. Mahlum’s tenant improvement in the Custom Blocks attained certification in Materials, in addition to Place, Equity, and Beauty. From cabinetry and wall panels to desks and screens, Mahlum vetted over 350 manufactured materials, working with partners to confirm ingredients and avoid Red List chemicals and VOCs. The firm also commissioned a 50-year life-cycle assessment to help achieve net-zero embodied carbon emissions.

 

Custom Blocks (Lincoln Barbour)

 

“The good news is the industry is moving in the right direction. Large and small companies are rallying around this, and coalitions of companies are coming together around material transparency,” Mahlum's Jay Hindmarsh told me for a 2020 Metropolis article. “They’re saying, ‘Come to us first.’ But it’s still a fairly select group of people. When you call suppliers to trace their material ingredients, you still hear a lot of things like ‘It’s a trade secret.’ We need these LBC projects to prompt manufacturers to invest in transparency.”

 

The Louisa Flowers (Jeremy Bittermann/JBSA)

 

Another Citation Award went to Lever Architecture's design for The Louisa Flowers, the largest affordable housing development built in Portland in the last five decades at 12 stories and 240 units. It's named the African American pioneer and civic leader who settled in Portland in the late 1800s. Louisa Flowers's family was one of the first black families to own property on Portland’s east side, operating a farm and building homes near the site of this new building. It's nice to see Lever applying its talents to an affordable housing project, which along with the Meyer Memorial Trust perhaps marks the firm's move into more projects for the public good.

Raleigh Slabtown, the final Citation Award winner, is a luxury apartment building in Northwest Portland that has helped to give the neighborhood a pleasing fabric of medium-density buildings, shops and restaurants. The design does a nice job of nodding to Northwest's traditional apartment buildings while still seeming contemporary.

 

Raleigh Slabtown (Lincoln Barbour)

 

This emerging part of Slabtown really has a pleasing medium-density setting and the buildings, while none of them arresting, have a kind of collective simple handsomeness. In keeping with SERA's longtime track record for sustainable design, Raleigh Slabtown is also designed to earn a LEED Gold rating from the US Green Building Council.

Congratulations to all the winners.

 

 

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Favorite architecture of the 2010s (part five): home renovations

Lincoln Street Residence (Lincoln Barbour)

 

BY BRIAN LIBBY

In this continuing occasional series discussing my favorite architecture of the 2000s, we've already looked at two types of housing: multifamily and new single-family houses. Now let's turn our attention to renovations of single-family homes, including in some cases conversion of another building type.

As I mentioned in previous posts, there surely are all kinds of worthy projects I won't be writing about here. I only realistically see a portion of the projects out there, so this list is not an argument that the projects I'm talking about are the best per se. I'll be the first to admit that I'm also drawing from my own archive of magazine and newspaper stories to a large degree. But if you feel strongly that there's something I've unjustly left out, let me know. A couple of times after previous posts, people have written to argue for their work or I've simply remembered more projects that I loved, and I've amended the original posts to include them.

Where Old Meets New

That preamble notwithstanding, if asked to name house renovations that really caught my attention, two bold alterations of historic early 20th century houses in Southeast Portland immediately come to mind: Fivesquare by Lever Architecture and the Lincoln Street Live/Work by Beebe Skidmore.

There probably are some people out there who look at the classic American Foursquare house that Lever expanded with a glass cube on top, or the large Craftsman that Beebe Skidmore gave a much glassier and contemporary-styled new west-facing facade and think they've been desecrated. On some level I can understand that aversion, because Foursquares and Craftsmans like these are beautiful in their own right. In each of these cases, the contemporary alteration or addition is jarring to the original composition.

However, there are still a whole lot of Foursquare and Craftsman houses out there, and none of them are like these houses. What's more, each project says something about the desire to adapt these homes to modern living or how to expand them.

In the case of Fivesquare, they could have expanded it the way most do: simply adding more in the back of the house. But it's not as if that doesn't change the overall composition too; it just doesn't change the view from the street like Fivesquare's little third-story cube does. Doing it this way lets the original house be itself and the addition be its own thing.

The new square footage expands the unused attic space perches on top of the original 1910 house, at a 45-degree angle, like a modern treehouse, offering panoramic views of the neighborhood. “When we came up with this idea in the studio, everyone liked it,” Lever founder Thomas Robinson told The New York Times in 2015. “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.”

In the case of the Lincoln Street residence, the new glass facade is transformative in terms of the natural light it adds to the space. While it's true that from a side or diagonal view the juxtaposition of the new glass cubes on the west facade against the original Craftsman is quite eye-catching, one can still look at the house straight ahead from the sidewalk and not even notice the change.

I also appreciate the point architect Heidi Beebe made about the spirit of the original. When the house was built over a hundred years ago, she noted in a 2018 New York Times interview, it wasn’t considered nearly as conventional as it is today. In fact, “it was sort of over the top,” she said, with the large decorative beams beneath the overhanging roof and the wooden lattice pattern running down the side of the front porch. “Some people still build Craftsman homes today, but they tend not to have all the flair and oddities of the originals.” Maybe these glass insertions are a little over the top too, but in a way that suits the original spirit. Maybe there's always been a touch of the Postmodern style to this house and we just didn't see it.

 

Fivesquare (Lincoln Barbour)

 

If they're a little jarring at first by adding contemporary elements, these additions are actually following historic preservation best practices in a way that many old-home expansions are not. In any non-reservation building project like an office or school, the idea is to make it very clear where the original architecture ends and the new alterations or additions begin. Most historic single-family homes that get renovated or expanded don't do that. They try and disguise that work. In this way, Fivesquare and the Lincoln Street Residence may boldly contrast old and new architecture, but they do it honestly.

Near where these projects stand there are lots where old homes have been torn down and oversized, tritely neo-historic homes have been built in their place. This is another reason to like the two Beebe Skidmore and Lever-designed projects: they're realistic about giving customers the larger, more light-filled homes they want. But they don't eradicate what was there only to patronizingly build something there in a warmed-over, dumbed-down version of that historic style.

One other house comes to mind as a true fusion of the original architecture and a contemporary language. In this case, the original house was midcentury-modern, so it's not a case of juxtaposition so much as the repeating of a rhythm: the Council Crest House, in which Seattle architecture firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (in collaboration with Don Tankersley Construction) transformed a 1952 house in Southwest Portland's Council Crest neighborhood by architect Roscoe Hemenway—which, incidentally, was designed  for inventor Karl Kurtz, who developed stereoscopic devices for Sawyer’s, maker of the famous View-Master toy.

 

Council Crest Residence (Nic Lehoux, Ian Allen)

 

"There’s a natural progression and sequence: a sort of unfolding and choreography as you go through," said Robert Miller of BCJ in a 2019 Dwell article about the project.

The ground floor’s ceiling was raised to allow a ribbon of clerestory windows, filling the interior with light—especially after a wall separating the dining room and living room was removed.  The door and windows on the ground floor were also moved about four feet toward the road, and a wall of basalt fencing added just beyond the exterior to increase privacy. But it is divided into three large sections, allowing passersby on the street to see straight through the interior to the view beyond.  A new top floor, a kind of penthouse suite for the couple, was also added, but set back along the north and west from the ground floor to keep a lower profile, with a wall of ipe cladding extending past the edge of the house to form a secluded terrace to the south. The architects also cut a swath of glass into the middle of the top floor on the street-facing side to introduce more light.

"We extended roof lines, decks, and hardscaping as far as we could go," said homeowner Greg Hoffman. "There’s a couple views from the exterior that scream, ‘This is something unique,’ but certainly from an interior standpoint, it’s just really well-executed craftsmanship, with an emphasis on harmony and balance. It’s hard to fully appreciate unless you’re in it." 

I have to agree. While the house viewed from outside really does seem like a true hybrid of Hemenway's 1952 original and BCJ's 2018 transformation, the interior is just a cocoon of wood surrounding beautiful furniture and art that gives way to stunning panoramic views.

Warehouse To House

Two of my favorite single-family home projects that transformed their original architecture started not with old houses but warehouses.

The Bowstring Truss House by Works Progress Architecture, completed in 2013, was adapted from a 5,000-square-foot former warehouse and auto repair shop in Northwest Portland. It's all about the wide-open space enabled by a series of four bow-string trusses and the beauty of this exposed roof framing. The design had to then insert a standard residential program that the clients could live among. 

 

Bowstring Truss House (Matthew Williams)

 

The project had a fairly long gestation. The owners, artist Linda Hutchins and her husband, John Montague, first came across the warehouse in 2006, when she was looking for a new studio. But after walking through the space, Hutchins recalled in a 2015 Dwell article that she told her husband, "I don’t want my studio here. I want to live here." With the real estate market booming, the architects initially recommended tearing down the warehouse, building a new multistory condominium building, and living in the penthouse. "But that really wasn’t why we bought the building," Montague says. The warehouse had to stay.

Make no mistake, though: WPA made the project sing. Key to the whole thing is a small atrium carved into the middle of the space, as well as 11 skylights dotting the roof. There's a couple of bedrooms when you first come in, and more in the back, but the living room and kitchen go around the wood-clad atrium in one big room, with light pouring in from above and from a small adjacent courtyard.

Another warehouse conversion I quite like from the past decade is the Division Street Residence by Emerick Architects. The project began with an 8,000-square-foot one-story building that had been a corner grocery, a printing press and a mechanic’s shop. The intent was to construct an industrial loft on top inspired by the clients’ former apartment in the TriBeCa neighborhood in New York. "We lived in New York in the heyday of loft conversions,” homeowner Joan Childs told Amara Holstein in The New York Times. “The rawer it was, the cooler you were.”

 

Division Street Residence (Lincoln Barbour)

 

The 2,400-square-foot loft created on the second story is lined with 13-foot-high windows, which were custom-made to replicate 1930s steel-framed factory windows, only they're made from wood and come with double-paned glass. The interior has few walls save for a single bedroom and bathroom off to one side. Like the atrium does for the Bowstring Truss House, here a large fireplace anchors the combined living and kitchen area. Downstairs includes a guest apartment and two-car garage. But the whole thing looks not much different than the warehouse did before the project began. The upstairs addition feels like it was always there.

Some additions are bold and a juxtaposition of two architectural languages, and others feature additions meant to blend in. There's no wrong answer, just good and bad. Or in this case, good and good.

Midcentury Southwest

There are several houses renovated over the past decade that don't necessarily radically alter what was there, but fine-tune and update the homes, especially the kitchens, in a way that helps these homes come alive again. Just about all of these seem to be located in Southwest Portland or just beyond, in Beaverton.

Many of the projects I'm about to mention were chosen based on love for the original homes as much as the excellence of the renovations themselves, yet a few small moves by contemporary designers and architects can really become some of the best parts of what gets subsequently unveiled.

Take this 1959 William Fletcher House, renovated by Jessica Helgerson Interior Design, where a series of built-in bookshelves, skylights and a red tile-covered kitchen island stand out, and make a nice pairing with the wood surfaces enveloping much of the rest of the interior. 

 

The William Fletcher-designed Ruell residence (Grant Harder)

 

"It was about being inspired and taking cues from midcentury design," project manager Emily Knudsen Leland of Helgerson's office said in a 2016 Dwell article by Amara Holstein, "but also bringing in modern pieces that fit." 

Some of these same qualities exist in Jessica Helgerson Interior Design's renovation of the Feldman House by Saul Zaik. "The house had some really lovely things about it and some really problematic things," Helgerson recalled in Dwell. "But our goal was for it to look as if we hadn’t done anything, to be authentic to the era of the house. What would Saul do?"

The Saul Zaik-designed Fletcher Residence (Grant Harder)

 

One of my favorite renovations of the past decade to visit was the Sutor House by Pietro Belluschi, its restoration overseen by his son, architect Anthony Belluschi. The Sutor is particularly special in Pietro Belluschi's portfolio. Although it wasn't the first house he designed, it was really the first in what came to be called the Northwest Modern style. It also arrived just a year after the Watzek House, located just a few hundred yards down Skyline Boulevard. Both houses exemplify the marriage of Modernism with Northwest vernacular traditions such as farmhouses, barns and ranch houses. In the case of these two houses, though, they also show a strong Japanese influence, whether it's the Watzek's courtyard or the way the Sutor almost resembles a pagoda.

Inside, Anthony Belluschi's design reconstructed the former maid’s quarters, which had been turned into a breakfast nook, and modernized the kitchen to gain space by moving a wet bar to the dining room. And some of Pietro's original design details look better than ever, such as the woven-wood ceiling at the foyer and the curving wall of zebra wood. Yet the most intriguing aspect of the Sutor renovation may be outside.

While designing the Sutor House, Belluschi befriended Jiro Harada, a professor at the Imperial Household Museum in Tokyo and author of numerous books on Japanese gardens and architecture who was in town as a visiting professor at the University of Oregon. Influenced by Harada, Belluschi and Gerke created an elegant, Japanese-style strolling garden at the house that in later years disappeared through neglect. Homeowner Aric Wood and his family have uncovered that original garden one shovel-full at a time. "It was so overgrown you couldn’t even find the rock wall," Aric Wood said in Dwell. "But we uncovered the rock wall to find the stone steps. We dug out the stone steps and discovered pathways leading down into the forest. It’s been kind of a continuous process of uncovering."

 

Sutor House (Brian Flaherty)

 

Then there's the Watzek itself. Although it didn't undergo any kind of renovation that would noticeably alter what's there, the roof has been replaced and other acts of maintenance performed over the past several years. But what's most significant is that starting in 2011 the Watzek House became accessible to the public. it had been bequeathed to the University of Oregon in 1996, but on the condition that Yeon's partner be allowed to keep living there. The arrangement continued until 2011, and now each summer the house is available for public tours. I've been a few times over the years, for tours and a couple private dinners and public talks.

That living room at the Watzek never ceases to amaze me, with its coffered wood ceiling and exquisite detail. The dining area with its floor-to-ceiling glass is also exquisite. Being at the Watzek is like experiencing some kind of handover from traditional architecture into modern, maybe because the furnishings are more traditional. In any case, it's a masterpiece, and quite probably the best house in Oregon.

 

Watzek House living room (University of Oregon)

 

I also would like to mention a recent remodel by architect Paul McKean of a Richard Campbell-designed house in Southwest, also just off Skyline Boulevard.

In the early 1960s, architects Richard Campbell and Joachim Grube acquired a parcel of forested land in Portland’s Sylvan Highlands west of downtown that had gone undeveloped because of its uneven topography. Soon the partners co-designed for themselves and their families a pair of houses nestled on two small swaths of high ground.

This Campbell-designed house was completed in 1962 and won an award in Sunset magazine shortly thereafter. For more than a half century the house went unchanged, occupied by Campbell's ex-wife. It's in the main room as one enters, where the kitchen, dining area and living room are combined under one massive pitched roof where one feels submerged in a cocoon of wood.

Cain-Wong Residence (Spin Photography)

"There’s not much drywall in that house," McKean said in Dwell, "just those beautiful cedar ceilings and the Douglas fir beams."

Finally, there is the one house on my list that's not in Portland but rather Beaverton: the Heather Court residence by Garrison Hullinger Interior Design. It's a remodel of one of many homes in the area built by Robert Rummer, and to my eyes this is one of the best Rummer treatments I've seen.

Rummers have always had an inherent challenge, I think: their atriums. I've been in several of these homes over the years, and often there are these spaces between the entry and the main living/dining area. They bring in light and work almost like covered outdoor areas, but homeowners often seem clueless about what to do with them. They're not literally outside, after all, yet they're also not a traditional room of the house that has a function.

Heather Court Residence (Blackstone Edge Studios)

Like most, this house's atrium had become an extended foyer. But Hullinger’s team, led by interior designer Nikki Maeda, made the atrium feel more fully like the outdoors, adding a naturally stained teak deck and even placing clusters of river rocks in the corners, as if the deck were a floating dock. Next to a cluster of garden chairs, a wall of decorative patterned concrete tiles draws the eye. Instead of a pass-through space, the glass-roofed atrium now acts more like an enclosed front yard.

As I write this, almost all of us have been spending more time at home than ever. It's shelter from the elements and from exposure to Covid-19. Sensing that this pandemic may take years for the world to fully recover from, especially given the tragically inept response from our corrupt national leadership and how it's cost us many lives, it may be that home designs and home renovations in the years ahead become more modest. Or given how international travel seems destined to become more seldom and more expensive, perhaps we'll instead double down on fixing up our homes.

Yet these renovations are perhaps also a reminder that both good and bad times come and go. These houses have seen many decades, and chances are they will survive both the pandemic and the threat to democracy we face today. That's comforting.

 

 

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Favorite architecture of the 2010s (part four): new houses

Ash + Ash (Josh Partee)

 

BY BRIAN LIBBY

It's time to talk houses in this continuing series of posts highlighting some of my architectural favorites of the past decade.

But in this case, If I'm talking great houses, it could refer to a tower, a village, a warehouse, a glass cube, a music box, and in one case not a home per se but a HOMB. Maybe it's my own bias, but I'm often not talking about a house with a huge garage in front. I'm talking about slender but not skinny. I'm talking about clients ranging from John & Yoko to a group of homeless women. I'm talking about new construction and remodels alike.

When I look at my list of favorite single-family residences, it's at 17 projects and counting, and the first thing I notice is that only a handful are single-family houses that are site-built from the ground up on traditional lots and not classified as accessory dwelling units, skinny lots or other types of dwellings. That may say something about my own architectural tastes and interests. I do love a mid-century modern renovation, or bringing an old bungalow alive. Or it might say something about the existing housing stock in Portland. There aren't many vacant residential lots left in Portland proper, and not everyone has the stomach (or wallet) to tear down a perfectly good little house just to build a new one.

For now, let's look at just these new single-family houses. I should specify that I'm restricting the conversation here to houses in the Portland metro area. And as always, this is not a list of the six best. There are always great projects out there that I miss. (Please tell me what they are!) These are just five I got to see and really liked.

Let's start in no particular order with Ash + Ash by Hennebery Eddy Architects. It's the home of firm co-founder Tim Eddy.

 

Ash + Ash (Josh Partee)

 

Completed in 2014 and winner of AIA Portland's 2030 Challenge design award for its sustainable features, it's the recipient of a LEED Platinum rating due to its highly-insulated thermal envelope, geo-exchange heat pump system, under-floor radiant heating, a rainwater reclamation system with for domestic and potable use, triple-glazed windows and deep overhangs.

But none of that occurred to me when I visited Eddy's home so much as its resemblance to the iconic Case Study Houses constructed in mid-century Los Angeles. The use of naturally stained wood cladding to compliment the white stucco on the exterior helps mark this as a Pacific Northwest home, but the house's glass and horizontality still for me harken back to those gems.

I also was a fan of the Music Box Residence by Scott|Edwards Architecture. The first thing I always remember about the house is that it was designed for two musicians named John and Yoko. Alas, it's obviously not that John and Yoko, but the house itself is what you might call a Double Fantasy. 

 

Music Box Residence (Pete Eckert)

 

The clients both perform as classical musicians and tutor young musicians. “It’s two boxes with a lot of glass connecting them,” firm principal Rick Berry told me for a Gray magazine article. “You’ve got kids, a family, different types of music going on. There’s so much that has to go on in the space, so there’s a lot of flexibility.”

Another favorite from the last ten years was Tower House by Waechter Architecture, completed in 2013. Constructed on the steep slope of a ravine, a lot that had never been developed because it was thought to be unbuildable, the footprint is only about 538 square feet. But instead of cantilevering outward, the Tower House, as its name indicates, goes upward. I love that while it's an unassailably crisp, contemporary design, what it most resembles is a medieval fortified tower. Even so, the exterior cladding in black corrugated metal, with radiused corners to eliminate the need for corner trim, is vintage Waechter.

The four story house mostly treats each floor as its own room, so the design doesn't feel confining. The living room and kitchen occupy the top two floors to take advantage of the view, while the master bedroom is nestled at the bottom. Because it's such a small footprint, the natural light is amazing, and so are the views.

 

Tower House (Lara Swimmer)

 

Of course this is just one of several houses by Waechter Architecture from 2010-2019 that I could have named, and as it happened, we're not quite done with the firm as it relates to this series of posts; you'll see them again in a post about ADUs and alternative-lot houses. And I could have picked a couple other houses by the firm on traditional lots. In fact, I'd argue that Waechter Architecture has been the premiere single-family home designer of the decade in Portland. There are other individual houses by other architects that are just as compelling, but to my mind nobody built so many excellent houses as Waechter in the 2010s.

Next there's the Rahman Residence by Scott Pitek. The lot in North Portland that Pitek had to work with was nearly ten times the 500-square-foot footprint of the Tower House. But it did already have a house on it. Instead of tearing down the circa-1919 bungalow, Pitek's design took advantage of the fact that the original house was situated at the back of the lot and simply went up next to it. It wasn't built on an expensive budget, either: about $122 per square foot.

Rahman wanted a modern house that could also fit unobtrusively into the existing neighborhood of homes built between the 1890s and the 1930s. And that it does. Completed in 2012 and clearly of our time, this gabled house has a classic feel to it, and the steep pitch of the roof allows its attic to become habitable space. What's more, Pitek's design makes inexpensive materials like Hardie panel siding sing by employing a simple lap that gives the facade texture.

"The first thing I did was spend a month with her just trying to understand her, her goals, what her style and aesthetic was—not just in on a superficial level but her aesthetic of living," Pitek says. "We also asked how could that align with creating a mutual house? I say ‘mutual’ in the sense that it’s appealing to anybody, it’s laid out in a way that’s flexible, you can add walls in certain locations, and it’s logical. We wanted to create a shell that she could live in but that at the same time had no market detraction if she ever wanted to sell it. That, basically, was the goal."

"We thought, What are some of the really simple, classic forms of structures, and there was the simple gabled-roof house," Pitek explained in a 2014 Dwell article by William Lamb. "She didn’t want to build a basement, so we thought, okay, a gabled-roof house is great because you’ve got all your storage up in the attic."

 

Rahman Residence (Steven Scardina)

 

It's a bit of a stretch to include the Karuna House by Holst Architecture in a list of Portland or even Portland metropolitan area residences. I mean, it's in the country outside Newberg, in Yamhill County. I grew up near these parts, in McMinnville, and I never think of these towns as being part of Portland. Yet the reality is they've become a bedroom community for the city, and so I'm using that as an excuse to include what's an incredibly green home.

In fact, Karuna House is the first building to be receive a Platinum LEED for Homes rating from the US Green Building Council, achieve Passive House PHIUS+ certification, and registration with the Swiss MINERGIE rating system. It's actually the first MINERGIE-certified building in North America. All this, and it's a net-zero energy house too, thanks to a large onsite array of solar panels. Astonishingly, thanks to its robust building envelope and high-performance windows, the house uses 90 percent less energy than a conventional home designed to code.

 

Karuna House (Jeremy Bittermann)

 

"We knew we wanted to push the boundaries in terms of design, which you don’t see as often with passive houses, especially in the US," Holst co-founder Jeff Stuhr explained in a Gray magazine article. "That, right off the bat, was appealing to us. Could we break the code, so to speak?"

"Meeting these different rating systems' strictures at the same time added an almost ridiculous degree of difficulty, and even just building to Passive House standards alone impacted a lot of design decisions. "There was quite a bit of complex modeling done with where the materials had to come together, and what we needed to do to hold this stuff without creating huge thermal bridges between inside and outside. In school we learned bout tectonics and expressing the structure," Stuhr added in a Portland Architecture Q&A. "In Passive House it’s not impossible but you have to be much more deliberate, and much more careful about the envelope and what becomes interior versus exterior structure, almost to the point where they never touch. You’ll see in the living room or bedroom where we might have buried the steel on the outside wall within the window wall. We had to keep it completely inside because steel is such a terrible conductor."

One other house to achieve Passive House certification comes to mind: the Skidmore Passivhaus by In Situ Architecture, led architect Jeff Stern. Somewhat uncommonly for a Passive House, it's actually comprised of two separate buildings, accessed through an unheated passageway. But this is a live-work scenario, so it makes sense. And for a house that's all about staying tightly sealed, there is nevertheless a strong connection to the outdoors, thanks to large expanses of glass.

 

Skidmore Passivhaus (Jeremy Bittermann)

 

This house is so well insulated, in fact, that Stern and his wife, who occupy the house, barely even need any heating. "It's the equivalent of four hair driers and yet we were perfectly comfortable," the architect said in a 2014 Portland Architecture interview.

Looking at this quintet of houses, what do they have in common? The first thing I noticed is that four out of five have flat roofs. All five are generally comprised of a whole lot of rectangles. But then again, aside from pitched roofs, aren't most all houses? Weirdly given its uncommonness as a design feature, two of these houses are entered via small bridges. Two of them alternate beautiful natural-wood cladding and white stucco, and two have some kind of charred or darkly stained wood cladding, but two make use of more inexpensive, utilitarian siding materials.

Next I plan to write about some of the stand-alone houses I omitted here: ADUs, etc. But if there's a great house I've missed, please let me know. There have already been a few stragglers among the offices and institutional buildings I've written about for this favorite-architecture-of-the-2010s series, so these lists can always be amended. The point is to share and revisit designs that are compelling and endure.

Funnily enough, I've never owned a home of my own, and since leaving my parents' McMinnville house for college in 1990, I've never even lived in a rented house. In all those 30 years, it's been dorm rooms at first and then a succession of apartments. But you know what? We just got pre-approved. Single-family houses are destined to no longer comprise such a high percentage of dwellings. In the future, more and more will live in higher-density housing. Yet the pull of one's own house remains strong. I can't wait to read my book on the front porch.

 

 

 

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Favorite architecture of the 2010s (part three): apartments, condos and affordability

Works Progress Architecture's Slate (Brian Libby)

 

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Continuing this multi-post look at my favorite local architecture projects of the decade, some of which I named in a recent Portland Tribune column and others I'm noting for the first time here, we come to what is without a doubt the decade’s most talked about architectural need: housing.

Even before the cataclysmic election of 2016 and even the before the Great Recession caused by deregulation of financial and real estate markets, America was experiencing nearly unprecedented levels of inequality, which in turn has impacted housing affordability.

We see it on the streets every day: people in tents, people sleeping in their cars. And of course it goes far beyond such obvious markers: the scores of thousands on affordable-housing waiting lists, and the people quietly moving away.

So what did we do about it? Well, we mostly built apartments and condos for rich people in the central city, and some more cookie-cutter subdivisions full of McMansions. That's what the cynic in me would say. We did build some affordable housing too, thankfully: only a fraction of what we need, but certainly not nothing. So we've got the two most extreme ends of the economic spectrum taken care of. Now all we need is to build more multifamily housing for those of us in between.

Expose Yourself to Help

Remember Bud Clark? I'm thinking of this colorful Portland figure not just for being the Portland mayor in the 1980s who wore nickers, sported a handlebar moustache and said "Whoop! Whoop!" I'm thinking of former bar owner who was the naked model for that once-ubiquitous "Expose Yourself To Art" poster.

Thankfully there was the Bud Clark Commons by Holst Architecture, which provides both shelter and more permanent housing as well as a day center.

 

"Expose Yourself" poster (Mike Ryerson), Bud Clark Commons (Andrew Pogue)

 

Named to the prestigious national Top Ten Green Projects list from the American Institute of Architects' Committee on the Environment, the LEED Platinum-rated project provides a walk-in day center and a 90-bed temporary shelter as well as 130 studio apartments for homeless men or women seeking permanent housing with support services. Investments such as one of the region's largest solar hot water heating systems, a tight thermal envelope to reduce heating loads, and a heat recovery system help the building perform 51 percent better than code in terms of energy efficiency and 53 percent better in water efficiency.

Not only is the Bud Clark Commons impressively efficient, but it serves as a striking symbol of Portland's 10-year effort to end homelessness in the city, which turned out to be a noble failure simply because of its audacious goal but a success in terms of providing much-needed resources. Situated on NW Broadway between Old Town and the Pearl District, it's part of a kind of gateway into downtown and its form exemplifies Holst's long track record of exceptionally attractive, refined architecture. Though simple in form, a pair of long, rectangular brick volumes, Holst gives the building kinetic energy and charm with color and natural wood details.

 

Blackburn Building (Ankrom Moisan), Laura's Place (Joshua Jay Elliott)

 

There were any number of other award-winning projects that chipped away at the problem. Laura's Place by Architecture Building Culture is one example.

On a larger scale, there are more recent affordable housing projects I liked such as Ankrom Moisan's Eastside Health & Recovery Center (also known as the Blackburn Building) for Central City Concern. It is one of only five facilities in North America to integrate clinical services with transitional housing, palliative services, and respite housing under one roof. Ankrom's design breaks up this otherwise large mass into four digestible parts, creating a handsome building full of light. Though they're of different scales, these two projects even sort of look alike.

I also liked the recent Woody Guthrie Place by Carleton Hart Architecture, a 64-unit affordable housing project clad in wood that takes inspiration from the famous singer, who lived in the neighborhood in the early 1940s, and the simple boxcar in how the mass floats above its base like a railcar over the tracks.

 

Woody Guthrie Place (Josh Partee)

 

Bedrock Goes Modern

High-end apartments and big houses may have been built more than the affordable housing our society needs, but there’s no denying the kinetics of buildings like Slate by Works Progress Architecture (pictured at top), for Beam Development and Urban Development Partners and part of the broader Burnside Bridgehead development. (And here I thought the developer must have been Fred Flintstone's boss.)

This is a different building depending on whether you're viewing the north and south facades or the east and west facades. It's really a long building, and those long sides are simple flat facades of metal panels and glass: simple and elegant and nicely detailed. Yet it's the west and east façade that really pop thanks to a wide range of depths and frames to the different units.

It's a kind of pattern language one saw somewhat often a few years ago, both in the WPA portfolio and in architecture magazines, and I'm not surprised. Call it a fad if you like, but it reminds me of different picture frames hanging on a wall. It gives this Slate facade a sense of being not one building but a cluster of individual units. There are all kinds of moves architects can make to break up the mass of a building, as it's often called. Many of those moves I find unsuccessfully superficial moves: the change in material or the cut into a facade to make a fat building look thinner, or the small strip of pretty stained wood in calling your attention away from of a sea of cheap HardiePanel siding. Yet at least in Slate's case, I think the device really works. Whenever I come across it, I want to stop and stare, as if I'm going to be able to see those units actually move, the way their kinetic architecture all but implies.

Wintour Light

I also picked the Cosmopolitan Condominiums by Bora for Hoyt Street Properties as one of my favorite multifamily residential buildings of the decade. I find it attractive because of its (relatively) tall, slender proportions: a rare quality in Stumptown.

 

Cosmopolitan Condominiums (Jeremy Bittermann)

 

The northern Pearl District has been hit-and-miss when it comes to its build-out over the past decade. Unlike the southern Pearl, where an existing fabric of old warehouses and industrial buildings led to many new structures which aped that architecture both in material (bricks) and scale (relatively short but often squattier than the older buildings due to  occupying full or half blocks), the northern Pearl was more of a blank canvass: an opportunity to go taller and perhaps more contemporary. It's not to say there aren't some glassy buildings to the south or brick buildings to the north, but the Cosmopolitan to most of the rest of the neighborhood felt more like a New York building, even though it would have been dwarfed in Manhattan: it gets a leg up aesthetically just by being taller and more slender.

Yet Bora's design had nuance as well, using balconies and other indentations to cut into the facade and enhance that slenderness. When a building isn't quite so rotund, it's also easier to spread natural light across every unit — a far cry from some of the Pearl District condos of old, with proportions like bowling-alley lanes.

Meet Me at the Plaza

Not every big multifamily housing project was new construction from the ground up. I was a big fan of the Portland Plaza condominiums restoration by Opsis Architecture (which, strangely, does not seem to have the project on its website) with interiors by Studio Staicoff.

 

Portland Plaza (Brian Libby)

 

Completed in 1973, the Portland Plaza was the first condominium highrise in the city. It was initially supposed to be twin towers, but the building, often nicknamed The Norelco for how the interlocking circles of its footprint resemble that brand of electric shaver, has plenty of presence as a single.

The Portland Plaza's site comprises an entire city block, but the building itself is substantially set back, giving it a surprisingly large grounds in back, all of which Opsis transformed without losing the essence. The facade is newly crisp, and the building actually makes a fitting companion to the Keller Fountain one block east.

Joys in the Hood

More than I had room to make note of in my Portland Tribune best-of-the-decade list (even if you include the honorable mentions), I wanted to applaud a variety of mixed-use buildings with residential units above — projects that fit into their neighborhood contexts well.

One such project is Makers Row by Risa Boyer Architecture. Full of natural light, the project in Northeast Portland combines 19 apartments with ground-floor commercial space in a highly energy-efficient envelope. It's also visually compelling in how the design seems to combine the cantilevered balcony and second-floor deck into one form.

 

Maker's Row (Risa Boyer Architecture), Division Street Housing (Hacker)

 

Although I try to make it out into the city and all its quadrants, there are three projects near where I live in Southeast Portland that I've now passed many times and gone into at least a few times. These projects have all grown on me a lot over time, either for the simple beauty of their forms or their natural textures. One is the 3339 Division Street by Hacker Architects. (I find this kind of non-name refreshing. It's a lot better than naming another one after some developer's daughter or through some trite marketing exercise). Though it looks nice from the street, what's really special is its public courtyard.

A few blocks southwest of that building, on Southeast Clinton Street, is the CYRK Building by Deca, which is a really nice natural-wood-clad building that almost feels like a template for contemporary neighborhood mixed-use fabric architecture. I also quite liked the Langano Apartments by WPA, a four-story, 30-unit mixed use building on Hawthorne Boulevard that won a regional AIA award shortly after its completion.

 

CYRK Building (Deca, Inc.), Langano Apartments (Joshua Jay Elliott)

 

Origami by Waechter Architecture was one recent favorite. I find the composition of this building gorgeous. Designed for developer Project^, it plays with a row house typology in a compelling, contemporary way.

Though I was thoroughly impressed visiting the building for Metropolis magazine a few months ago, and Waechter Architecture is definitely one of my two or three favorite Portland firms of the decade, I hesitated slightly about adding this building to my decade-favorites list simply because one of the units I visited had a closet and a bathroom taking up most all of the space next to the front windows. But the truth is I'd be happy to live in one of these units, especially the ones on the side of the building that come with their own built-in ADUs. Origami is also particularly worth cheering for because it provides that crucial missing-middle housing our city really needs.

 

Origami (Waechter Architecture)

 

Bionic Timber

I'd like to end with what's been the decade's most exciting architectural trend, one that is happening worldwide but is particularly relevant and a pioneering phenomenon here in Portland: mass-timber buildings. Specifically the proliferation of cross-laminated timber, an engineered product first popularized in Europe that is as strong as steel and allows wood-framed high-rises for the first time, has led to several exceptional projects that point the way forward. It's like the Steve Austin of architecture (as in The Six-Million-Dollar Man, not some fake wrestler).

Mass timber buildings are inherently sustainable because of how wood sequesters carbon. They're naturally more seismically resilient. And being in a wood-framed building, especially one where the timber ceilings have been left exposed, is a quietly magical experience.

 

"The Six Million Dollar Man" (MPTV Images), Carbon12 (Andrew Pogue)

 

One condo tower, Carbon12 at Fremont Street and Williams Avenue by Path Architecture for developer Kaiser Group, was at the time of its completion the tallest wood highrise in the United States. To me Carbon12 is also specifically about Ben Kaiser, whose firms both developed and designed the project, and who is all but an evangelist for mass timber. "To make an impact around environmentally conscious construction, you have to start with the big idea,” he told me for a 2018 Architect Magazine article.

"Everyone has realized that the term ‘wood structure' needs to be re-imagined as something far different than it once was. These products, when correctly manufactured and installed, act much more like concrete than the wood we're accustomed to."

The guy has taken some flak, in large part because Carbon12 sits on Williams Avenue beside some single-family houses. A case could indeed be made that the zoning of Williams and Vancouver Avenues allows taller buildings than would be congruent with the adjacent neighborhood. But we also very much need density, and to some degree I see these sometimes abrupt changes in scale as part of city life.

 

Framework (Lever Architecture)

 

Another CLT-framed tower planned for the Pearl District, Framework by Lever Architecture, was an even more impressive design but has not been built. Designed for Project^ and the winner of the US Department of Agriculture's Tall Wood Building Competition for innovation in mass-timber architecture, it combined ground-floor retail with both office space and 60 units of affordable housing. That it seems to have not penciled out after the architects and developers went to all that trouble to test and prove CLT's fire resistance at this height is really unfortunate. But hopefully that pioneering design work will continue to be replicated in the rest of Lever's exceptional emerging portfolio.

Let me reiterate a point I made in a previous in this favorites-of-the-decade series of posts: I know there must be projects I missed that rise to this level. If you're an architect reading this and feel you've been unfairly left out, lay it on me man. I can always do a post about the great stuff I missed. I just don't have the time I'd like to see everything when most of my rent is paid by writing about stuff out of town.

All that said, looking at these projects collectively makes me feel once again encouraged by the talented group of firms we have here.

 

 

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Favorite architecture of the 2010s (part two): going public

Providence Park expansion (Jeremy Bittermann)

 

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Continuing this multi-post look at some of my favorite architecture of the 2010s, let's step away from all those offices and turn our attention to public buildings of one kind or another: gathering places, university buildings, nonprofit community centers.

As I mentioned in last week's initial post chronicling favorite architecture of the 2010s, this is not meant to be a comprehensive list. I know there are some exceptional buildings and designs I didn't visit. This is merely a group of seven projects I did see that have really struck a lasting chord.

Park Life

In my magazine-writing work, I've wound up over the years writing more about stadiums, arenas and concert halls than perhaps any other type of project. I grew up going to Oregon Ducks football games at Autzen Stadium and Trail Blazers games at Memorial Coliseum (now officially Veterans Memorial Coliseum), not to mention the occasional play or musical at Keller (then Civic) Auditorium. There's something about thousands or even hundreds of people coming together, be it for sports or performing arts, all immersed in a collective experience that can inspire mass joy and sorrow, all step for step with what's happening on the stage, court or field.

Over the past decade, the collective energy coming from sold-out Providence Park during a Portland Timbers match is something to behold. Though the park's capacity is small, it has long generated one of the most intense home-field environments in global team sports. The crowd gives it that energy and makes the noise, but the design of Providence Park has never hurt: specifically the large overhanging roof from A.E. Doyle's original design, which ricochets much of the noise that would otherwise drift away. Plus the old former baseball park has always had atmosphere. The seats hug the field, and there isn't a bad one in the house.

All of which must have made the Providence Park expansion that was unveiled in 2018 a challenge for Allied Works. It wasn't that they were replacing a portion of the old stadium. This side, where the old baseball outfield used to be, had already been rebuilt a decade or so ago. When the latter expansion was announced, it seemed a bit absurd. But the popularity of the Timbers and the smallness of the stadium and the large season-ticket-holder waiting list created enough justification. And the Allied design was compelling enough that, once completed, the new Providence Park addition made it easy to forget the previous renovation.

 

Providence Park expansion (Brian Libby)

 

As I wrote in my Portland Tribune column summarizing my best-of-the-decade pics, "It's not easy to expand an intimate stadium without losing its essence, but the design by Allied Works only makes Timbers and Thorns soccer games louder and more exuberant. Led by Brad Cloepfil, the city's most acclaimed architect of this generation, Allied designed a host of noteworthy Portland projects this decade after spending much of the previous 10 years focused on museums and cultural buildings in other cities. That they so clearly scored with the firm's first stadium project will hopefully lead to more." Indeed, if Autzen Stadium ever gets expanded again (following an addition in 2002), I wouldn't mind Allied getting the commission.

The architects took inspiration from Estadio Alberto J. Armando in Buenos Aires, Argentina, better known as La Bombonera (, which "really stood out being surrounded by city on all four sides," Allied Works principal Chelsea Grassinger explained in a 2017 interview, "and one of side is narrow like along 18th [Avenue in Portland]. And we were inspired by the nature of it: the wall of fans and the intensity that brings. That was really the one that stuck out as inspiration for what we could do here." The Allied team also took inspiration from theaters like the Globe in London and the Teatro Oficina in Sao Paulo, for "the stacked wall of audience close to the stage and the action, and really being within the action but also intensifying the stage and the activity," Grassinger added.

Indeed, the stacked upper decks of the Providence Park expansion look unique, even though they're of an existing type. So many stadiums in America get designed by a small handful of Midwest architecture firms like Populous of Kansas City and HKS in Dallas. Allied made its name internationally with creative renovations like the Wieden + Kennedy Building and a string of acclaimed art museum projects from New York to Seattle to Denver. Design is problem-solving first, so they figured out the basic task of stacking more seats into a confined former outfield bleacher (including a cool arcade created by hovering over the sidewalk), but they also did it with style — or, more specifically, a striking visual language that both continues and expands the Allied Works voice.

Refresh as First Step

If we're talking about stadiums and arenas, how could I leave out my beloved Memorial Coliseum? Actually, I did leave it out of my Portland Tribune list of the decade's best projects. That was in part because I didn't want to seem biased. I was involved in a grassroots effort to save the building from demolition ten years ago.

What was called a "refresh" of Veterans Memorial Coliseum (as it's officially been known since a 2011 renaming) was a $5 million investment in mostly things we don't see, like a new roof. But along the way, the design by Merryman Barnes Architects also smartly removed the unnecessary glass partition at the entrance, it refinished the bottom of the glulams between the glass in a natural stain, and much more.

Memorial Coliseum refresh (Brian Libby)

The campaign to save and restore Memorial Coliseum almost perfectly paralleled the decade itself, only it got a head start. In 2009, Mayor Sam Adams announced the Coliseum would be torn down to make way for a new minor league baseball park, following the Portland Beavers' displacement from Providence Park by the Portland Timbers and owner Merritt Paulson, as part of a jump to Major League Soccer that necessitated a soccer-only stadium.

After that plan was abandoned and a stakeholder advisory committee convened by the mayor arrived back at the multi-purpose-arena plan that has always been the Coliseum's reason to be, Adams then brought to council a $32 million restoration plan that failed to come to a vote for various back-room reasons. The arena continued to break even, but then in 2016, Commissioner Steve Novick introduced a measure in City Council to demolish the building. That measure was defeated, and helped prompt a successful application to the National Trust for Historic Preservation for what's called National Treasure status, which was awarded in 2017.

This refresh is just the first step towards a larger renovation that will hopefully be in the many tens of millions. A third-party economic study commissioned by Mayor Charlie Hales found that a Coliseum restoration would pay for itself in the increased bookings as well as $2 billion in economic impact over 20 years. But thanks to the refresh, the Coliseum is already turning a profit.

Smaller Stage, Big Impact

If Providence Park is a distinctively designed gathering place, so too is the Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley during the annual Pickathon festival.

In 2019 for the sixth year in a row, Portland State University School of Architecture students designed and built its treeline stage. This one utilized 160 wooden apple-harvesting bins to create an immersive environment suggesting an orchard of towering trees—reaching 40 feet high at the tallest point. Taking inspiration from the structure of the apple blossom, the PSU architecture students and faculty constructed a series of towers using the apple bins, lent by a Pacific Northwest fruit producer.

In 2018, the students created what they called a "grove of columns." Built using more than 2,000 pieces of lumber, the stage structure featured a grid of 113 monumental 32-foot columns that formed a wooden grove at the edge of the forest and wrapped the stage a labyrinthine series of intimate spaces for festival goers to explore, and with hundreds of cross braces towering above like tree limbs.

 

Pickathon 2016 and 2019 (Pickathon)

 

The stages, which began in 2014, have also followed a diversion-design-build concept. The stage’s building materials are re-used. In 2018, it was to construct structures at transitional houseless villages in Portland.

In an age where inequality is greater than at any point in generations, and those in the upper one-percent of incomes seem to spend ever more lavishly, these Pickathon stages represent a new generation of designers and architects who not only want to get their hands dirty building things but want to serve the public. PSU has made design in service of the public a cornerstone of its School of Architecture, and it's impressive.

Stuttgart on the Willamette

There's actually a stadium connection allowing my transition into another type of public building: the Karl Miller Center on Broadway and Harrison Street at Portland State University. The building was designed by Behnisch Architekten, which originated in Stuttgart but now has offices in Munich and Boston.

Though founder Stefan Behnisch has become an internationally renowned architect in his own right, thanks to landmark sustainable projects like 1997's Norddeutsch Landesbank (which I got to interview him about for Architect magazine in 2013), he is also the son of German architect Günter Behnisch, who designed  the stadium for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich (as well as the West German parliament in Bonn).

The project, designed by Behnisch in collaboration with SRG Partnership, began with a remodel of the business school’s existing home, a 100,000 square foot, six-story building dating to the 1970s that was bulky and unimaginative. “Grim doesn’t really even begin to describe it,” Behnisch partner Robert Matthew Noblett recalled to me in a 2018 Metropolis magazine article.

 

Karl Miller Center (Brian Libby)

 

But the Karl Miller center is really all about the additions. A 45,000-square-foot expansion to the north, clad in Alaskan yellow cedar, arranges perpendicularly intersecting boxes so that they cantilever to provide shade to outdoor plazas at the northwest and northeast corners of the lot. And the real showstopper—the story of the building—is the five-story atrium bridging the gap between old and new. It fills the interiors of both adjacent buildings—especially the spaces furthest from exterior windows—with natural light.

“It’s structured in a little bit of a European tradition,” said Stefan Behnisch in the Metropolis story. “Normally in Europe for good daylight we would say, ‘Don’t make any floor plan deeper than 14 meters.’ It is something that drives us whenever we build here in the United States.” 

Speaking of PSU

Portland State University actually got two new gathering places this decade (not to mention three spots on this favorites list), and like the Karl Miller Center, Viking Pavilion, an honorable mention in my decade-best list, is really a renovation plus expansion—in this case of the Stott Center— yet feels like an entirely new place. Designed by Woofter Architecture in collaboration with Sink Combs Dethlefs (now part of Perkins + Will), the building's name appears to refer not just to the school's sports mascot but to the wood-cladding on the arena as one moves inward from the lobby — it looks like some ancient ship's hull.

 

Viking Pavilion (Brian Libby)

 

The Stott Center was basically an ancient rec center (it actually dates to 1966) doing double duty as the home of a Division I college basketball team, and to say it was inwardly focused is being kind. Now Viking Pavilion actually faces the South Park Blocks, which was a no-brainer, and it does so with lots of glass.

Viking Pavilion is only 3,000 seats, which is still small for college basketball, but it's much more than an arena. There is a range of student gathering and study areas, classrooms, and a cafe. The arena itself is also flexible. When I visited, there was not a basketball game but a school science fair happening there.

Speaking of Vikings

On a smaller scale from these projects, Nordia House by DiLoreto Architecture, on SW Oleson Road near the Tigard border and the Washington Square mall, was perhaps the decade's best community building.

Home to the nonprofit Nordic Northwest, which celebrates the cultures of Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, the roughly 10,000 square foot building is, as I wrote in a 2016 Portland Tribune column, "a humble but wondrous symphony of wood and natural light." Centered around a glass-walled main hall are a gallery, an outpost of the popular Nordic-themed Portland restaurant Broder, and space for everything from concerts and movie screenings to classes and dances to church services (a Lutheran congregation holds Sunday services there).

 

Nordia House (Jeff Amram)

 

When I visited Nordia House on a  weekday morning, it place was teeming with life: a throng of locals hanging out in the café and a steady stream of visitors to its gallery. Part of the appeal is the setting in which it exists. Set back from busy Oleson Road, Nordia House looks out onto a protected wetland, its tall trees casting a dappled light through the glass. If you're there in a time of precipitation, the rainwater captured on Nordia House’s roof becomes a delightful waterfall at the entrance.    

Community of Books

In best-of-the-decade lists I think it's easy to unwittingly favor stuff that's more recent, from late in that ten-year span. Maybe that's why I almost forgot the Vancouver Community Library by the Miller Hull Partnership of Seattle.

This was one of two Vancouver projects I had on my best of the decade list, along with the Vancouver Waterfront development, which I'll cover in an upcoming post.

The signature of this building is not on its relatively straightforward exterior but rather inside: its four-story, nearly 200-foot long atrium, which cantilevered balconies from upper floors look out upon, and beneath a beautiful slatted wood ceiling. I guess I am a sucker for any kind of wide-open atrium space.

 

Vancouver Community Library (Miller Hull)

 

Each floor has a specific collection and services with its own distinct character—I particularly remember the colorful children's section— to allow patrons to find the environment that suits them. The bottom of the atrium can feel like a public street, while the wood-wrapped reading room on level five and feel cozy. There's also an expansive rooftop deck with views to the Columbia River and Mt. Hood.

Libraries are an interesting project type. On one hand, the digitalization of media and literature means that people do not necessarily need or use libraries in the same way. Yet most libraries I visit are usually teeming with people. They're part community center and part learning center, part job-training center and part oasis. And given the unprecedented economic inequality plaguing our society today, which has only been hastened by the election of 2016, libraries are more important than ever as resources for those in need. Yet earlier this week, there was also a book-banning bill proposed in Missouri that would actually imprison librarians for sharing certain unapproved books. In this Orwellian nightmare that is Donald J. Trump's America, libraries are intellectual life preservers.

The Vancouver Community Library was LEED Gold rated, continuing a broad portfolio of work from this firm, whose work in Oregon also includes the Tillamook Forest Center and the Water Pollution Control Laboratory.

Ulysses' Opus

One of the architectural pleasures of this decade has been seeing Portland Public Schools embark on a multiyear effort to renovate and rebuild some of our local high schools. So far I've visited three renovated schools: Roosevelt, Franklin and Grant. They all had design qualities I liked, and in varying degrees they have been interesting fusions of old and new architecture.

I think of this three, though, my favorite is the most recent one I visited: Ulysses S. Grant High School, recently renovated by Mahlum Architects.

 

Grant High School (Benjamin Benschneider Photography)

The culmination of a five-year process that included a two-year student and community engagement effort as well as two years each of design and construction, the renovated Grant High is a vibrant, light-filled learning environment. Though its old hallways and classrooms retain the essence of the old architecture, including a choir room memorable for its use in the movie Mr. Holland’s Opus. The project also includes a handsome brick-clad new wing that meshes well with the original building.

Yet what’s perhaps most compelling is how Mahlum’s redesign clarified the original classical revival design by Knighton & Howell, which had become cluttered with ill-advised alterations. The architects also made creative use of old materials. Hallways are festooned with wood salvaged from the old gymnasium floor. Grant has become a better version of what it always was. The ornamental entry to gorgeous separate arts building, for instance, can be seen for the first time from across the courtyard because the old gym that used to stand there, a shabby 1950s addition, has been demolished and is no longer blocking it. In back, the trailers have given way to a courtyard that allows students to enjoy the school’s bucolic park-side setting.

There's still more to come in this series on favorite architecture of the 2010s. I haven't talked about any housing yet, be it condos or single-family houses, ADUs or tiny houses or homeless housing. And there's a few offices I forgot to mention in my last post. Oh, and then there's infrastructure and landscape design. But public buildings are in some ways my favorite.

 

 

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Favorite architecture of the 2010s (part one): a treehouse, passageway and dumbbell

Portland Japanese Garden Cultural Crossing (Brian Libby)

 

BY BRIAN LIBBY

A few days ago in a Portland Tribune column, I picked 25 of my favorite works of architecture and urban design for the 2010s (with 10 honorable mentions). I'd like to talk a little about the choices, although I'm going to break this up into a couple of posts.

Before I begin, though, I want to say that these are just 25 projects I happen to have really liked. The list is obviously in no way a definitive verdict, and I'm sure there are some great projects that may have deserved to be on this list but I somehow missed. Notice, if you will, that the Tribune chose a headline naming this Portland's best architecture of the 2010s. Here I'm just saying these are my favorites.

Why the distinction? It's not some act of false modesty. It's because I only wish I could cover Portland architecture full-time and see a lot more local projects than I do. But in an age where no newspaper or magazine in Portland has architecture writers on staff, I have to spend a lot of my work time covering projects in other cities. This year some of my biggest writing assignments had to do with, to name a few: the Chase Center arena in San Francisco, the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, the Canadian House of Commons in Ottawa, cannabis dispensaries in Florida and California, a hotel renovation in Virginia, houses in Seattle and Spokane and British Columbia, a concert hall in Guangzhou, memorials in Alabama and Boston, an apartment in Venice (Italy), and a warehouse conversion in Austin, among others. I love my job as it is, and I like writing about projects in other cities. But it doesn't leave as much time as I would like to visit every cool project in the Portland area.

I did, though, make it to these projects, all of which struck a major chord, and which for my own amusement I've separated out with subheadings named after old pop songs.

 

Turning Japanese

If the 25 in the Tribune column weren't necessarily completely in numerical order, an exception was my top pick, which I arrived at relatively easily; or at least it came to mind quickly and decisively: the Portland Japanese Garden Cultural Crossing by Kengo Kuma and Associates with Hacker Architects.

In particular, my thoughts first went to a café with no coffee: the Umami Café, a glass box nestled into the hillside that offers a view across the forested treetops. I may not be able to get my usual double espresso there, but the delicacy of the glass and wood composition and the treehouse-like experience it provides was a delight that transcends beverage options.

 

Umami Café, Portland Japanese Garden Cultural Crossing (Brian Libby)

 

And the Umami Café is just one of three buildings comprising the Cultural Crossing. There are two additional buildings, with spaces for gallery exhibits and lectures, classes, and a gift shop. Recalling classic Japanese pagoda architecture yet rendered with contemporary materials, it's a union of past and future. The moss-covered green roof recalls thatched roofs of Japanese farmhouses but its overhangs are made of crisp aluminum. The floor-to-ceiling glass is paired with slats of wood that filter the light in beautiful shadows. The buildings are laid out in zigzagging patterns that create more corners and bring more light inside. And the sequence of walking up that wooded hillside and up the new stairway is a kind of processional, making the Portland Japanese Garden feel even more like an enlightened oasis.

"I am convinced that the Japanese gardens can play a big role in busy urban environments. They can introduce a new way of thinking to people, a particular philosophy of contemplation and deep connection to nature and maybe even themselves, which is completely different from western-style gardens," Kuma explained in a 2015 interview. The new buildings, he added, "can function as a social space and a passage to the rest of the garden. My purpose has always been to give an identity to the building with its surroundings. Integration of the structure and its environment is what I aim for in design, and this design for Portland Japanese Garden is no exception."

 

Walk This Way

Although I picked the Cultural Crossing as my favorite, Union Way by Lever Architecture for developer Project^, also quickly came to mind.

It's not so much that this is an eye-catching building from the outside. It's not that this is the most ambitious projects on the list in terms of square footage or budget or even much showiness. Most of all, it's also a beautifully simple idea. Renovating an early-20th century auto repair shop in the West End that had relatively little street frontage, the design cut a central spine down the middle and lined it with micro-sized retail outlets. It acts as a passageway between two cultural landmarks: the Ace Hotel and Powell's City of Books. But being inside this passageway is really being at a place of its own. It's lined with native Oregon poplar, left naturally stained, with a succession of skylights above.

 

Union Way (Jeremy Bittermann)

 

As a result, being at Union Way almost feels like one of those artworks from the Light and Space movement by the likes of James Turrell. The purpose is to create a kind of street: to make this interior hallway feel almost like it's outdoors. Yet being there, I like to stop and stare upward for a moment, enveloped by natural materials and light.

Union Way was just one of several projects by Lever Architecture that I could have named to this list. Just a couple blocks away from Union Way is ArtHouse, an excellent dorm for Pacific Northwest College of Art. Up on Marquam Hill is the excellent Treehouse housing project for OHSU. There's Albina Yard, one of the first cross-laminated-timber-framed project in the city. There's Redfox Commons, which I have as an honorable mention on the list, and the unbuilt Framework building, which would have been Portland's most impressive and innovative CLT building. One other project, the Fivesquare house, I had on my list right up until the end but bumped off the list to add more firm diversity. But it's terrific too. Lever is definitely in the conversation for top firm in town.

 

True Colors

In rainy Portland, we don't just need big windows and skylights, but also, arguably, a dose of vibrant color now and then. That's why I smile every time I pass the small Fair-Haired Dumbbell office building by FFA Architecture + Interiors for Guerilla Development at MLK Boulevard and Burnside Street, and why I quickly thought of the design for this list.

Recalling the Portland Building by Michael Graves, it's an example of using the façade as an artistic canvas, in this case not riffing on architecture's past but simply becoming a mural. Absurd? Maybe. Timeless? Perhaps not. Irresistible? Definitely.

 

Fair-Haired Dumbbell (KuDa Photography)

 

The Fair-Haired Dumbbell is actually an office building, although I think more than most, people never really stop to consider its purpose because the colorful facade is so much its story. It has small windows like the Portland Building, but because the overall footprint is small, the natural light levels inside are much better.

This has been a divisive project: like the other buildings at Burnside Bridgehead that have been completed, people either seem to love or hate them. When I've professed my affection for the Dumbbell in social media, people have often argued against the building by saying the paint will fade over time and that it's not very robustly built. I don't disagree, but a repaint isn't such an impossible thing, and I don't mind some thin walls if the place has some kind of inspiring presence, which it does. The Dumbbell is also a counter-balance to the other Burnside Bridgehead buildings, all taller and tending to be clad in dark metal, with its vibrant colors and in its modest scale.

The Fair-Haired Dumbbell also comes in the context of Guerrilla Development's portfolio, into which it fits more congruently than FFA's portfolio, quality firm as FFA is. Whether it's renovating older buildings, such as The Zipper or other buildings on Sandy Boulevard from utilitarian single-story warehouses and car dealerships, or new construction like The Rocket on Burnside or the Dumbbell just down the street, Guerrilla stands out for its quirky creativity and how these seem like passion projects more than pure business ventures.

 

9 To 5

From here I'm going to move from individual buildings to a category. My Tribune list was more of an art than a science, I guess you could say. I wanted to think about trends and project types and what they said about the economy and society along with beautiful buildings. So I'm going here with some commercial projects.

We tend to think of housing as the story of the decade: the overwhelming need for affordable places to live, the proliferation of accessory dwelling units and tiny houses, the march of mediocre apartment buildings. Yet as the economy boomed after recovering from the Great Recession and the upper income brackets disproportionately benefited (especially after t2016), office projects came in large numbers, and often with large ambitions.

Today with more and more people telecommuting, and especially with digital and mobile technology allowing one to work anywhere, offices buildings are competing for tenants with greater emphasis on shared spaces inside and outside — amenity spaces, as I've often heard them called: someplace you can take your laptop to work, or meet a friend for coffee. We have seen the open-office configuration come to more and more companies as well, although seemingly often to the chagrin of employees, who like the greater variety of workspaces but not the loss of their cubicles and privacy.

 

Expensify (Garrett Rowland)

 

One of my favorite office projects transformed an old bank. The Expensify headquarters by ZGF Architects at SW Fifth and Stark, for the app developer of the same name, reminded us that the First National Bank downtown had always had an incredible atrium, but the design also transformed the space with contemporary insertions into the Beaux-Arts shell.  I particularly like the two floating metal-and-glass boxes at the back of the atrium, which provide extra meeting space while also juxtaposing stylistically against the ornamented original setting.

In adding Expensify to the list, I wrestled with that age-old question when it comes to renovation projects: how much credit should go to the original building, and how much to the renovation architects? Often it's a matter of how the original was transformed. That's why projects like the Wieden + Kennedy Building by Allied Works, for example, have always ranked high. In the case of Expensify, the two contemporary boxes floating in the back of the atrium definitely make it clear that this is not simply a fixed-up old building. There is also some exceptional interior design work in some of the attendant spaces surrounding the atrium. Yet it is still that original light-filled atrium that makes the place special, with its glass roof creating the sensation of a Victorian railway station. All that wide-open volume and light: it's the kind of architectural space I love the most. Yet I still decided to give ZGF enough credit to put this project on the list, because sometimes when you have a wonderful architectural experience, it's best not to over-think it too much. Walking into Expensify was one of my favorite building tour experiences of the last decade. It was the fourth project I thought of after the Cultural Crossing, Union Way, and the Fair-Haired Dumbbell.

The headquarters for ad agency Swift by Beebe Skidmore at NW 17th and Overton, for (once again) developer Project^, had less to work with in renovating a group of utilitarian adjoining concrete-block warehouses in Slabtown. In that way, it's more akin to the aforementioned W+K space. That's probably not a coincidence, since firm co-founders Heidi Beebe and Doug Skidmore worked for many years at Allied. In both cases, you feel the bones and textures of the modest but large original, but no one would mistake the new building for the old one.

 

Swift Agency (Jeremy Bittermann)

 

The firm has a way with breathing new life into old structures, be it a warehouse or a house, with big, bold geometry and plenty of glass. But their work also has a kind of organic quality, as if they've responded to conditions as much as they've imposed their architectural will. There are often little architectural quirks with a Beebe Skidmore project born from responding to an existing condition. They don't just seek the blankest canvas they can create in that old shell. Their Lincoln Street Residence also made my top 25, although I'm going to hold off on talking about that one until the next post; suffice to say it boldly reinvents a traditional Craftsman-style house. Without question, this was one of my favorite firms to emerge in the 2010s.

One North by Holst Architecture, built at North Williams and Fremont for developers Eric Lemelson, Nels Gabbert and various partners, is a curvy confection outside and offers light-filled atrium of its inside. In this decade there seemed to be a lot of creativity with window apertures: either giving them wide or angular surrounding frames or, in this case, having the window seem to curve outward from the facade. Was it a move born of function? Doesn't seem to be. But does everything really have to be resolutely functional? You can trace the case for delight as a central responsibility of architecture all the way back to Vitruvius. On one website, I read a description of one north as "Gaudí-esque."

 

One North (Andrew Pogue)

 

Holst went through a big transition in the 2010s. Firm co-founders John Holmes and Jeff Stuhr (the first two letters of each's last name gives Holst its name), though still relatively young for architects—a profession where practitioners often seem to work past traditional retirement age—sold the firm and retired. I say more power to them. I wouldn't mind retiring right now. It also gave the group of employees who bought the firm from their former bosses—Kim Wilson, Kevin Valk, Dave Otte and Renée Strand—a chance to leave their own mark.

The buildings that have come since naturally have a slightly different voice than Holst buildings with the founders. But it's dynamic, responsive and attractive stuff. I could easily have added a new-era Holst building to the list, such as the excellent 72Foster or the Rockwood Boys & Girls Club. But I believe some of the new leaders and continuing staff members had a hand in One North too.

 

Field Office (Hacker Architects)

 

As an honorable mention on the Tribune list, I also had Field Office by Hacker, one of numerous handsome office projects the firm completed over the decade. I could have easily included the firm's design for First Tech Credit Union headquarters in Hillsboro, at its time of completion the largest CLT-framed office building in the United States, which also had a nice atrium of its own. But Field Office, like its name indicated, was an interesting exercise of trying to integrated indoor and outdoor space in a variety of places within what was also a fairly long, thin constrained site along the railroad tracks. Oh, and guess who the developer was? Project^.

I could also have easily chosen any number of other office projects, especially interior renovations of old warehouses. As more and more creative businesses moved to the Central Eastside Industrial District in the 2010s, many made thoughtful use of the raw spaces available. Others breathed new life into some of the wonderful 19th century buildings of Old Town and the Skidmore Historic District, which in its way is more valuable to the city than the construction of some entirely new office tower — and inherently more sustainable.

I've only covered a portion of the 25 buildings on the list and the 10 honorable mentions. You can read the Tribune column to get the whole roster, but in the next post I'll be looking at some of the public buildings, multi-family and single-family housing, and some urban/landscape design projects that were favorites as well. And in a post to follow, I also hope to look at some great designs by local architecture firms of the past decade that I didn't include on the list but are just as compelling: their work in other cities.

 

 

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Lever Architecture's Redfox Commons leads Portland Architecture Awards winners

Redfox Commons (Lara Swimmer)

 

BY BRIAN LIBBY

In the eyes of the jury, Redfox Commons stands alone. At the annual Portland Architecture Awards, handed out by the Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architects, there are often multiple winners of the night's top prize, the Honor Award. Last year, for example the Honor Award went to five projects. In 2009 and from 2012-16 it went to two projects, and in 2011 the Honor Award went to six projects. In the last decade, only 2010 and 2017 have seen just one project win this top prize.

Indeed, Redfox Commons, which I visited earlier this year and wrote about for a September Portland Tribune column, is impressive. Though the name of the building always makes me think of comedian Redd Foxx and the sitcom Sanford & Son, I was dazzled by the wide-open volumes provided in this pair of 1940s warehouses totaling some 66,000 square feet, as well as the bounty of natural light coming from their skylights and from a glass-ensconced interstitial space between them. The original trusses were sandblasted and remain exposed, becoming a focal point, especially given the new 80-foot clerestory windows that were added to each roof. The exterior is rusty metal, taking on the deep acorn hues. Located near the dramatic colonnaded entrance to the 1905 Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition, Redfox Commons is also part of a new wave of gentrification that has crossed from residential areas south of NW Vaughn Street and into a heretofore-industrial area.

 

Outside (Jeremy Bittermann) and inside (Brian Libby) Redfox Commons

 

If Lever was the sole Honor Award winner, there will still plenty of other prizes to go around.

The 2030 Award, which is presented by the AIA Portland Committee on the Environment to projects with exemplary sustainable-design credentials, went to two projects. One award, reserved for unbuilt projects, went to the Great Smoky Mountains Institute Second Campus in Townsend, Tennessee by Hennebery Eddy Architects.

The other 2030 Award went to Tillamook Row in Portland's Eliot neighborhood, designed by Erica Dunn and Green Hammer. Tillamook Row, which I visited last December and wrote about in a Portland Tribune column, is the first multi-family residential project in Portland available to renters that achieves net-zero energy usage. Designed according to Passive House standards, the five-building, 16-unit development gets all of its electricity from a rooftop solar array and takes advantage of massive cisterns to harness rainwater.

Tillamook Row (Green Hammer)

The Merit Award, essentially the silver medal, was given out four projects.

The River District Navigation Center, designed by Opsis Architecture, was one Merit Award Winner. A 100-bed homeless shelter located on surplus Prosper Portland-owned land on NW Naito Parkway beside the Broadway Bridge that also offers on on-site medical clinic and an array of other services.

 

River District Navigation Center (Opsis Architecture)

 

Spearheaded by developer Homer Williams and Dame and funded largely from a donation by Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle (as well as money from Multnomah County), it has been a controversial project: Portland Design Commission approval was appealed by a nearby condo owner and the cleanup plan approved by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality was challenged in the Oregon Court of Appeals by developer Jim Winkler, who owns an adjacent office-zoned property.

The design utilizes a premanufactured Sprung structure, stretching heavy-duty fabric over an aluminum frame. Meant to be somewhat easily movable, it's basically a glorified tent. But the fact that it's been sufficiently embellished and its volume carved into with skylights and storefront windows makes this into a pragmatic architecture with dignity and a shelter that feels like emotional as well as physical protection.

Another Merit Award went to the Jarrett Street 12, a rental apartment project of a dozen units designed by Architecture Building Culture and located on North Interstate Avenue along the MAX line.

 

Jarrett Street 12 (Architecture Building Culture)

 

Utilizing modular construction techniques, the project saved money through its reduced construction time. The units were craned into place in just two days. But it's not just quickly built. Jarrett Street 12 is detailed well. The architects get light and shadow from the overlapping facade cladding and slightly offset windows. It's a contemporary building with a subtle hint of the classic base-middle-top configuration. This was one of two awards Architecture Building Culture won from the AIA this year.

A Merit Award also went to the High Desert Residence in Bend, designed by Hacker Architects. As seen in photos, the cedar-clad and glass-ensconced home is a fascinating series of intersecting planes, with a large double-height wall of glass and its overhanging eave stretching to meet upper and lower rectangular wall forms that appear like a series of dominoes or matchbooks. The composition reads as space that's been cut into as much as something that's been erected. But it's not just for aesthetics' sake, or not simply the aesthetics of the house as viewed from outside. These moves help selectively frame views.

 

High Desert Residence (Jeremy Bittermann)

 

Though wholly its own, the High Desert Residence makes sense in the portfolio of Hacker, which has worked frequently in the Bend area, particularly since principal Corey Martin joined the firm—lots of beautiful, gently sculptural wood-clad stuff—and it is comparable to Martin's pre-Hacker houses of the early 2000s. Yet the house in its kinetics and reduced geometry also slightly resembles a house in Portland for the same client by Seattle firm BCJ, known as the Council Crest Residence (which I wrote about earlier this year for Dwell). When the relationship is right, design-savvy clients only enhance the work of talented architects, and sometimes they even become a collaborative design voice of sorts.

Hacker was a double winner on the night, also picking up a Merit Award for Berwick Hall at the University of Oregon in Eugene. This project was one of two winners at this year's Portland Architecture Awards that was actually completed back in 2017, as was the Jarrett Street 12. I believe the rules allow one to nominate a project completed as far as two years back, but I wrestle a bit with whether this eligibility window is too large.

 

Berwick Hall (Jeremy Bittermann)

 

That said, Berwick Hall is impressive. Provides a permanent home for the Oregon Bach Festival and part of the University of Oregon’s School of Music and Dance, the venue is broken into two portions: the office bar and the rehearsal room. Together, they provide space for program rehearsals, recitals, lectures, and receptions, as well as administrative offices and support space for the OBF staff. The rehearsal room in particular seems impressive, which Hacker's awards submittal likened to an instrument itself. Its walls are shaped for optimal acoustics: curved at the top and flat at the bottom, with the top corners pulled back. There are also variable acoustic banners that can adjust sound qualities. Berwick Hall is also energy efficient: 63 percent better than a building designed to simply meet energy codes.

And now for a quintet of winners for the Citation Award, the AIA's bronze medal.

 

Silica (Daniel Kaven)

 

William Kaven Architecture's Silica office building took home one such award. Designed for developer Ruben J. Menashe, The Silica places three stories of leasable office space over ground-floor retail. A concrete base gives way to timber framing above, the wood ceilings and columns revealed through a glass curtain wall. As I wrote about in a 2018 Portland Tribune column, what seemed evident to me beyond the materials and forms was that The Silica gets the details right. Its scale is right for Williams: dense enough for the future, yet modest enough to be congruent with nearby houses.

A Citation Award also went to Lever Architecture's design Oregon Conservation Center, which is the headquarters for the local chapter of The Nature Conservancy. Before Lever (one of this year's quartet of multiple award winners) got involved, this was an eyesore of a Southeast Portland office building, which the architects re-clad in pre-weathered steel while also adding a glass-and-wood-ensconced new addition. At first I was confused as to why the home for an environmental organization like The Nature Conservancy would be clad in what looks like rusty metal. To my eyes, it works better at Redfox Commons, and it seems to give this project more of a post-industrial than an ecologically-minded look. But as Lever's Thomas Robinson reminded me on a tour, very little nature exists in a vacuum. The cladding is a remember that human-made objects will eventually become part of the landscape again. And the steel-clad upper portions now float above the base of the building in a way they didn't before, giving the composition a sense of lightness and breaking down its mass.

 

Oregon Conservation Center (Jeremy Bittermann)

 

A Citation Award went to Building 2 of the Center For Health and Healing at Oregon Health and Science University, on its South Waterfront campus. Connecting to the original Center for Health and Healing with both its third and fourth floors, the building is clad with a glass curtain wall in interlocking patterns that express the building’s interior functions. (The first seven of 15 floors are dedicated to ambulatory care, outpatient surgery, and an outpatient care unit while the next three floors line the perimeter with treatment rooms).

There aren't many cuts or indentations into this fairly monolithic building, and the reflective blue-gray glass doesn't offer much transparency, but it does provide a mirror to the nearby riverfront and to other South Waterfront buildings, and the facade through its patterning has a dynamic quality.

 

OHSU Center for Health & Healing Building 2 (ZGF)

The last two Citation Awards went to an officially unbuilt design and to a completed house in West Vancouver, British Columbia.

Works Progress Architecture won a Citation in the Unbuilt category for 7 Southeast Stark, which is currently under construction at that address, beside the freeway overpasses connecting I-5 and I-84. This type of building could easily be an eyesore, simply because it's more parking garage than office building, with four levels of steel-framed, glass-clad offices sitting atop five levels of concrete parking garage. Yet the WPA design breaks down this mass into what reads as a series of smaller basic blocks, thanks to some semi-translucent screening on portions the parking-garage levels and an upper glass-clad portion that tapers back diagonally from the southwest to the northeast corner. It's almost like a Rubik's Cube with a few of the pieces taken out on two corners.

 

7 Southeast Stark (Works Progress Architecture)

 

Architecture Building Culture received a Citation Award for the Howard residence in West Vancouver. Situated on a triangular property sloping downward from an adjacent railroad track, the boomerang-shaped house wraps around a front courtyard, which southern exposure bathes in summertime sunlight.

The interior is divided into two intersecting wings: a two-story portion that allows one to look down from a mezzanine at a double-height kitchen in the center of the house, and then, past a glass-ensconced hallway along the front courtyard, a single-story wing with three bedrooms cantilevered over a small ravine.

 

Howard Residence (Andrew Latreille)

 

One thought about the jury, which was comprised of Montreal architects Cécile Combelle of Atelier Barda, Kiel Moe of McGill University and Kim Pariseau of Appareil Architecture: I was somewhat surprised to learn that they did not actually come to Portland. My understanding is that the trio stayed in Quebec in order to avoid carbon-producing travel by commercial air.

Is it wrong for the jury not to be physically here for their deliberations? On one hand, having observed a few Portland Architecture Awards jury sessions over the years, I know they don't visit projects in person anyway, even when they do come to Portland. Or rather, they may visit a few projects to confirm the decisions they were already leaning too, but because it's too logistically difficult for them to see all the entrants, they're doing it by looking at pictures anyway. But something about the remote jury deliberations still feels funny. At least when they come here in person they're getting a sense of the larger urban context. And if they want some help deciding on, say, an Honor Award or a Merit Award for some particular project, they do still at least have the option to visit in person. What's more, staying in Quebec means the jury process is no longer a conversation with the community. When the jury has come to Portland in previous years, they've presented their work and observations at an annual jury-critique night. They attended the awards ceremony. It meant that these jurors stood behind their decisions not just figuratively but literally. Certainly it's important for all of us to be mindful of cutting carbon, but there a lot of ways to offset the carbon generated by three people getting on flights. Why not have the AIA commit to planting 50 trees for each juror instead? Or is it really just a fundraising question?

That said, the jury did well, I think. Or at the very least, if I'd have been a member of jury with those three Montreal architects, I'd have supported most all of these projects winning awards

 

 

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Allied Works, Waechter, Fieldwork and ZGF lead Portland Architecture Awards winners

National Music Centre of Canada (Jeremy Bittermann)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

An arts center, a winery tasting room and a bank renovation: these were the three projects that took home the Honor Award, the highest honor available, at last week's 2018 Portland Architecture Awards from the American Institute of Architects' Portland chapter, recognizing the best designs by local firms. Actually, though, there were five Honor Awards if you include the two additional ones given out in the small projects category, both going to Fieldwork Design & Architecture: for Day Wines and the Forest Park Bridges. That means wine-tasting buildings in tiny Dundee, Oregon—population 3,284— took home two of the five biggest awards of the night.

Overall, 21 awards were given out by this year's Philadelphia-based jury—Karen Blanchard of SITIO, Jeff Goldstein of DIGSAU, and Jason Smith of KieranTimberlake—plus a handful of additional prizes.

Growing up in McMinnville and passing through Dundee hundreds of times en route to Portland, if you'd have told me then that two buildings in Dundee would someday win architectural awards I would have laughed. It seemed little more than a Plaid Pantry convenience store, an old Baptist church and a brick schoolhouse. But winery buildings in Yamhill County wine country have in recent years become an opportunity for some of Portland's most talented firms to get creative in a non-urban context and to interact with a beautiful landscape. Day Wines and Furioso, this year's winery-building honorees, join superlative winery buildings by firms like Allied Works and Lever Architecture completed in recent years.

Overall I'd say Waechter Architecture may have been the night's biggest winner, taking home the most total awards with three. But Fieldwork would be a close second, given that both of their awards were Honor Awards. Opsis Architecture was also a double winner.

Furioso Vineyards (Lara Swimmer) and Expensify (Garrett Rowland)

Honor Awards

The National Music Centre of Canada in Calgary, designed by Allied Works and an Honor Award winner, is quite a complex project: a series of nine interlocking towers housing a museum, performance hall, interactive music education center, recording studio and broadcast center, stretching over two blocks and wrapping around an existing historic building, the King Edward Hotel. Wrapped in gorgeous glazed terra cotta, the NMCC is like one big inhabitable sculpture, yet in the variety of viewpoints and opening it offers, the project never becomes monolithic. The city's most acclaimed firm, Allied Works has spent nearly 20 years at this point designing high-profile museums and other arts facilities, from the Museum of Art & Design in New York to the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver. But this project may be its most architecturally ambitious.

Fellow Honor Award winner Furioso Vineyards is the latest gem from Waechter Architecture and lead architect Ben Waechter, whose resume includes time with Allied Works (as well as the great Renzo Piano) before establishing his own firm. It feels as if Waechter, perhaps even more than Allied itself, wins some kind of Portland Architecture Award for every project entered. And you know what? It's hard to argue with that. Furioso takes inspiration from the agrarian barns dotting the surrounding Willamette Valley, with its largely wood construction and sloping roof. But in this case, the blackened cedar walls are a kind of semi-transparent screen sitting atop a concrete base, while the large overhanging corrugated metal roof, slightly asymmetrical as it peaks just off from the middle and larger than any barn roof, protects visitors from sun and rain while in its materiality also recalling farm buildings. The project combines wine production facilities (screened by the wood walls) with a glass-walled tasting room, offering panoramic views to the surrounding vineyard-covered rolling hillside.

The third Honor Award winner is no surprise: the Expensify headquarters by ZGF. A four-story, sky-lit atrium is surrounded by open offices, with the architects adding a pair of pavilions that cantilever outward from the back of the space. The design, which I wrote about in a September post, celebrates the Beaux Arts style of the original 1916 bank building without being slavish to the original, instead combining classical and modern style.

Forest Park Bridges (Caleb Couch)

For Day Wines, the Honor Award winner in the Small Projects category, Fieldwork transformed an existing 11,700 square foot former vitamin factory and gravel parking lot off busy Highway 99W in Dundee into a communal natural winemaking facility, tasting room and courtyard for Day Wines and 10 other winemakers. Whereas Furioso is in more of a rural setting among the vineyards, Day Wines has to do more to create a sense of place. But the designers did that with a courtyard blending seamlessly with the cedar-clad tasting room, which includes a large cantilevering roof to extend outdoor events into the rainy season. In its horizontal, linear form, the Day Wines project is evocative of classic midcentury modern style, yet its crisp materiality gives the project a contemporary feel.

The Forest Park Bridges project consists really of a trio replacement bridges for three hiking trails. Fieldwork created bridges made of modular components that can be brought to the site by hand, thereby minimizing site disturbance, while making use of weathered steel structural components. I find a certain lyricism in these bridges, and that's not a surprise given that this firm has always excelled at small little projects like this requiring craftsmanship and an eye for minimal forms rooted in function.

Overall this quartet of Honor Award-winning projects could be said to represent three generations of Portland firms. ZGF is the most venerable; while there are plenty of young architects infusing the firm with talent, it's been around for a half century and cracked the code on how to prosper when your founding principals are long gone. Allied Works is the established king of the hill for this generation, having completed almost two decades of great work since its landmark Wieden + Kennedy building. Waechter and Fieldwork represent some of the best of the new generation.

Day Wines (Jeremy Bittermann), Oregon Zoo Education Center (Christian Columbres) 

Of course the Honor Award was just one prize given out last week. There were also the second and third-tier Merit Awards and Citation Awards, as well as a few one-off categories for projects and individuals.

Among the one-offs, there was the 2030 Award, which honors the project that best exemplifies efforts to meet the 2030 Challenge for sustainable, net-zero-energy architecture. It went to Opsis Architecture for the Oregon Zoo Education Center, which houses staff offices, six classrooms, an environmental science classroom lab, and outdoor nature learning and play spaces. It's designed for net-zero energy with an extensive rooftop solar array and a rainwater system that will serve the large restrooms on the west side of the zoo. There was also the Emerging Professional Award, which went to Dristi Manandhar of Carleton Hart Architecture; the Young Architect Award, given to Jeffrey Guggenheim of the Guggenheim Architecture + Design Studio; and the President's Award, given posthumously to the late Robert Frasca of ZGF.

Merit Awards

The Merit Award, an equivalent of the silver medal, went to five projects, four of them local: the Oregon Episcopal School's Lower School in Southwest Portland, designed by Hacker; SINBIN in Northwest Portland, designed by Skylab Architecture; Carbon12 in Northeast from PATH Architecture; the University of Oregon's Price Science Commons and Research Library remodel and expansion in Eugene by Opsis Architecture; and Lents Commons in Southeast Portland, also by Hacker. But there were an additional three Merit Awards given out in the small projects category: to Waechter Architecture for Slender House, Webster Wilson for the Fowler Avenue ADU, and Scott Mooney for the Pinwheel ADU.

OES Lower School (Lara Swimmer) and Carbon12 (Andrew Pogue)

The OES Lower School could have won the 2030 Award, for it is also designed to be net-zero and is naturally ventilated. The simple palette of wood and glass, with skylights and a central open stairway flooding the interior with natural light, make this a quintessentially Hacker project: handsome, clean-lined and possessing an elegant simplicity through its embrace of natural materials.

PATH Architecture's Carbon12 may be the most history-making project of all these Portland Architecture Awards winners. As the tallest mass-timber building in the United States at the time of its completion, it exemplifies the future that awaits us, especially here in Oregon: one where even tall buildings are made out of wood, which makes them far more sustainable than even the greenest concrete and steel-framed buildings and also brings us greater earthquake resilience. Winning a design award like this also has to feel validating to PATH, which is led by developer-architect Ben Kaiser and has now fully re-emerged after losing talented co-founder Corey Martin to Hacker a few years ago.

The Price Science Commons is another addition to Opsis's large portfolio of handsome university buildings, which are part of not just UO but Portland State University, Oregon State University, Reed College, and many community college buildings throughout the region. I happened to visit Skylab's SINBIN a few months ago for a Metropolis Magazine Think Tank talk, and was delighted by its odd combination of indoor skate park, residence and meeting space, all with an almost Escher-like sense of geometric sleight of hand. Lents Commons is attractive not just for its natural wood cladding and eye-catching geometry at the ends of its shoebox-shaped buildings, but the tree-lined courtyard that extends from the street deep into the site to add much-needed public gathering space at the street level.

Price Science Commons (Christian Columbres), SINBIN (Jeremy Bittermann)

The three small projects to win Merit Awards all speak to maximizing land on which to build. Both Webster Wilson's Fowler Avenue project and Scott Mooney's Pinwheel are accessory dwelling units, while Waechter's Slender House makes use of a tiny footprint of land between an existing house and a warehouse.

In a broad sense, I've always been interested in how constraints can actually stimulate creativity, and the fact that what we used to call granny flats are winning the design awards instead of mansions is, to me at least, pretty damn cool. It's not to say these projects were cheap to construct, but they make it feel like great residential design isn't just for the well-off.

Fowler Avenue ADU (Caitlin Murray/Built Photo), Pinwheel ADU (Olivia Ashton)

Citation Awards

Finally there were the bronze medal-equivalent Citation Awards. In the main category, five projects were winners: the Rockwood Club for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Portland by Holst Architecture; Viking Pavilion at Portland State University by Woofter Architecture, which I wrote about in an enthusiastic June post that likened this arena to a ship in a bottle; Flex by Lever Architecture, an excellent little commercial building on 82nd Avenue (which I reviewed for the Portland Tribune);  a project by Mahlum Architects at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg with a name that to the uninitiated may look like a typo, Tapʰòytʰaʼ Hall, but actually is derived from a Takelma language word that means “to be blessed and to prosper” (Kudos to UCC for the creativity, sense of heritage, and inclusiveness); and Tykeson Hall at Oregon State University's Cascade campus in Bend, by Bora Architects, another net-zero-ready sustainable campus building.

In the small projects category, there three more Citation Awards given: to Open Studio Collective for the El Nido Residence, another accessory dwelling unit; to Beebe Skidmore for the Stephens Street project, a renovation and re-imagination of a modest existing 1914 Craftsman home; and an Unbuilt Citation Award to Waechter Architecture for the Society Hotel project set to be built in Bingen, Washington, just across the Columbia River from Hood River.

Thinking about what projects might have won this year but didn't, my mind goes to the Karl Miller Center at Portland State University by Behnisch Architekten (with SRG Partnership), Hacker's Field Office speculative office building, the Jupiter NEXT project by Works Progress Architecture, and Kengo Kuma's house at last year's Street of Dreams. But it's not always easy to discern what the cutoff date is for one year's round of awards versus another's; Jupiter in particular may go for it next year.

Meanwhile, congratulations to the 18 (by my count) firms that took home these honors. Whether an Honor, Merit or Citation Award, it's a certificate on the wall and, perhaps more importantly, validating recognition from your peers. Many of these firms are not strangers to these awards, but thankfully the list includes newcomers as well. And in this format, the awards are friendlier than ever to small projects, which it's hard not to like.

 

 

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Kengo Kuma, Hacker Architects lead 2017 Portland Architecture Awards winners

Portland Japanese Garden Cultural Crossing (Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

The Cultural Crossing at the Portland Japanese Garden by Kengo Kuma and Associates (with Hacker as the architect of record) took the top prize on Friday night, known as the Honor Award, during the Portland Architecture Awards, given out by the Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

A total of 15 different awards at three levels — Honor Award, Merit Award and Citation Award, akin to gold, silver and bronze — were given out over the course of the evening, juried by a trio of San Francisco-based practitioners: Zoë Prillinger of OPA, Allison Williams, and William Leddy of Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects.

Honor Awards

The Japanese Garden project stood alone as the only Built Honor Award, and that was no real surprise. Nothing could compare to the exquisite detail and interplay of light and shadow brought by Kuma's firm and their local architect of record, Hacker. Kuma is currently one of the world's hottest architects, mentioned often as a candidate for the profession's highest honor (and lifetime achievement award), the Pritzker Prize, and receiving a lot of attention for his National Olympic Stadium project in Tokyo for the 2020 games.

That said, a new category this year, the Small Project Honor Award, did go to a Joseph Albers Exhibition at the Hayden Gallery in Eugene, designed by Portland architect Landry Smith. He created what was described as "a lightweight, flexible framework that could display a wide range of works in various galleries at the university and other institutions...an open-ended kit of parts system."

Joseph Albers exhibition (Landry Smith Architect)

Merit Awards

This year two built projects took home the second-tier prize, the Merit Award, both of which were out-of-town works: the L'Angolo Estate Winery tasting room by Lever Architecture and The Pavilion in Bend by Opsis Architecture.

For L'Angolo, a newer winery located on 23 acres outside of Newberg in Yamhill County, "The goal was to create a tasting room experience that reflects the family’s approach to winemaking—a direct expression of the Oregon soils and climate without embellishment," the awards submittal explains. The architects sought to "reflect this winemaking philosophy with a design that connects to the vineyard experience while also responding to the views, climate, and Oregon’s emerging identity as a producer of great wine." The architecture of the tasting room is defined by two dramatically large slanting roof planes, the larger of which extends over a glass-walled public space. It's a striking little jewel, and it seems to represent the most significant work of winery architecture since Allied Works' acclaimed Sokol Blosser Winery Tasting Room, which won the Honor Award in 2013.

The Pavilion by Opsis is described by the firm as "a seasonal open-air covered NHL regulation ice rink and sports facility located on an 11-acre site." Under a dramatic 30,000 square foot canopy, the facility supports an ice rink during the winter months and a variety of recreation sports activities and events throughout the remainder of the year, all next to a 10,000 square foot support building that provides reception, skate rental, multi-purpose meeting room, concessions, locker rooms, offices and storage.

L'Angolo Estate (Jeremy Bittermann) and The Pavilion (Opsis Architecture)

There was also a third Merit Award given out, a Small Project Merit Award, to Laura's Place by Architecture Building Culture. Laura's Place is described in its submission as "a supportive transitional housing facility for women who have graduated from Central City Concern’s Letty Owings Center, an in-patient treatment facility that also provides health services to pregnant or parenting women. Laura’s Place offers mothers who have successfully completed their treatment programs a communal home where they can take their next step in the recovery process and translate new skills to everyday life." The facility serves an average of 16 women and 16 children every year.

Led by Brian Cavanaugh, Architecture Building Culture was a 2015 Portland Architecture Awards winner for the Vomo Island Spa in Fiji, which won what was then simply called a Small Project Award (without an Honor, Merit or Citation designation). Laura's Place also previously won a Citation Award from the AIA Northwest & Pacific Region Design Awards, and a national Small Project Award from the AIA earlier this year.

Laura's Place (Joshua Jay Elliott)

Citation Awards

A total of eight projects won Citation Awards. Five came in the form of the Built Citation Award: Pearl West in Portland by Hacker and GBD Architects; Jane Sanders Stadium in Eugene by SRG Partnership; the US Embassy Compound in Paramaribo, Suriname by ZGF Architects; Olympia Place in Amherst, Massachusetts by Holst Architecture; and the Doppelganger duplex project in Portland by Works Progress Architecture. There was also a Built Interior Citation Award that went to Roosevelt Middle School in Eugene by Mahlum Architects. There was the Small Project Citation Ward for the Treeline Stage at Pickathon by the Portland State University School of Architecture. And the Unbuilt Project Citation Award went to Guggenheim Architecture and Design Studio for the Sunnyside Veterinary Hospital in Sunnyside.

Pearl West is a speculative office building in the Pearl District. Given that it sits in a neighborhood of large multi-story early 20th century warehouses, "the design team wanted to change the typical approach to this building type," the architects stated in their awards submission, "to take a typology that is usually expressed in a generic way, and instead create a contextual building that exhibits a sensitive understanding of its place." They also sought "to look beyond the building’s contextual response to how it could contribute to the transformation of its neighborhood, the Pearl District, into a more connected, pedestrian friendly urban environment – bringing new values that include sustainability, connection to the natural world, and urban walkability.”

Pearl West (Christian Colombres), Jane Sanders Stadium (Lawrence Anderson)

SRG's brief from the University of Oregon for Jane Sanders Stadium was "to create the best fan and player experience in collegiate athletics," as the submittal describes it. A primary design move was to push the stadium back from the street and compress its scale, which allowed the team to create a new plaza and opened up space for a future academic building. "The result for the stadium is a more welcoming entry sequence and a more intimate fan experience. The entry plaza also integrates the stadium with the rest of the university, connecting the site to a popular student pathway that extends through campus.”

For the US Embassy in Suriname, ZGF's submittal explains, the client "wanted this new small diplomatic post to be a welcoming and secure working environment for Embassy staff and visitors while creating a productive and enjoyable place to work that supports the existing sense of community." The new embassy’s exterior palette makes a nod to the local vernacular "by taking cues from the natural landscape earth tones and the white colonial architecture." Exterior facades are clad in shingled white horizontal terra cotta panels, "allowing the sun to cast an ever- changing texture of shadows throughout the day." A two-story loggia helps protect the main public face between the main entry and consular entry, which the architects call "a welcoming gesture off the formal entry court and can be used for protected event space throughout the year."

A student housing building at the University of Massachusetts campus, Olympia Place consists of a new, five-story, wood-framed building that provide 232 beds for students in 73 apartments. "In addition to fully furnished units ranging from studios to four-bedroom suites," the submittal text goes, "the building provides students a double-height common space with multiple fireplaces, study rooms, breakout spaces, a lounge, a fitness center, and a staffed front desk. Digital technology, ultra-fast wifi, and movable furniture put Olympia Place at the forefront of innovative student housing.” 

 

US Embassy in Suriname (Dimitri Nenkov), Olympia Place (Christian Phillips)

Holst Architecture has won many Portland Architecture Awards over the years, from the Belmont Street Lofts to Bud Clark Commons, but this award may be particularly satisfying for the firm since it comes after Holst's change in ownership, which saw longtime employees Kevin Valk, Renée Strand, Kim Wilson and Dave Otte take over from founders John Holmes and Jeff Stuhr.

Doppelganger is a residential duplex development where, "rather than using the typical development approach of splitting the lot to form two individual narrow houses," the submittal explains, "this development allows both residences to occupy the entire site, intertwined as the living spaces rise from the ground floor entry to the third floor bedrooms. Each residence floor has an adjacent outdoor space and openings to the interior are carefully placed as to allow for maximum privacy between units.” The project is just the latest in more than a decade of awards for Works Progress Architecture (until recently known as Works Partnership Architecture), including an Honor Award last year for the Slate building at the Burnside bridgehead in Portland, a Merit Award in 2014 for the Bowstring Truss House, and a Merit Award for the Langano Apartments in 2013.

In their submission for Roosevelt Middle School, Mahlum cited how the high level of transparency "reflects the local culture of welcoming openness, acceptance and curiosity. Everything happens in full view of the school community, and while navigating their learning environment, students are enabled to discover new interests while their curiosity is sparked."

Doppelganger (Joshua Jay Elliott), Roosevelt Middle School (Eugene School District)

The Treeline Stage at Pickathon is a wonderful student project, in which 690 wooden trusses were formed into three towering, variable height ‘sanctuary vessels’ surrounding the performance stage, and which will later, as the award submittal explains, "become the structural basis of 30 micro-houses (aka sleeping pods) for a new village for houseless veterans in Clackamas County, Oregon. Following the Pickathon festival, the stage was dismantled and the trusses are being reused to construct the 30 sleeping pods.” This is the fourth year that PSU students have designed and built a Pickathon music festival stage, but this year's is both the most visually striking and, even more importantly, doubling has future homeless housing. It's a wonderful act of ingenuity, not to mention beautiful.

The Sunnyside Veterinary Hospital "represents an innovative and leading-edge approach to veterinary medicine for cats and dogs," Guggenheim Architecture and Design Studio writes in its award submission. "We created an efficient and functional design that innovates on how pet treatment, care and client hospitality come together." The design was also inspired by Happy Valley’s rural history; the architects describe their design as a modern barn.

Treeline Stage (Clive Knights), Sunnyside Vet Hospital (Guggenheim Architecture + Design)

The final project award of the night, the Architecture 2030 Award, targeting sustainable design excellence, went to the Yellowstone National Park Youth Campus by Hennebery Eddy Architects. This is an ambitious undertaking, with some 10 buildings being constructed. The architects describe a design that's "inspired by the dramatic landscape and rich cultural history of the region," with a campus of buildings that "reflect a contemporary expression of vernacular architecture of the West.”

One final accolade was the Emerging Professional Award, given to Nada Maani of Opsis Architecture. Maani is a 2015 graduate from Portland State University's master's degree program in achitecture and, according to Opsis's submission, "embodies traits that reinforce our confidence that the future of our profession will be in good hands...Whether as a member of a project team, active participant in office focus groups, or ambassador of this girm within the community, she has made herself integral part of the successful growth and culture of this office."

As I look at the entire list of winners, what's noteworthy is that there are few Portland-based projects led by Portland architecture firms. The Honor Awards went to a Japanese firm (although a Portland firm was architect of record, it's not quite the same) and a temporary Eugene exhibit by a Portland architect. The two primary Merit Awards went to projects in Bend and Newberg. It's only when we get to the Small Project Merit Award that we get an award for a local project by a local firm. Of the eight bronze-hued Citation Awards, only Pearl West by Hacker and GBD and the Doppelganger by WPA were entirely local. That makes only three out of 14 that were entirely Portland-designed and built.

Yellowstone National Park Youth Campus (Hennebery Eddy)

One thing that seems to have slipped off the list of awards given out this year is the Mayor's Award for Design Excellence. This is a tradition that dates back to Mayor Vera Katz, and apparently either Mayor Ted Wheeler decided it wasn't worth his time, the AIA thought it was unnecessary, or somehow the awards were given out but not mentioned.

Don't get me wrong, though: I'm not alarmed. First of all, having a world-class architect Kengo Kuma contribute a project here is a big deal, not only because the Cultural Crossing is utterly masterful but also because it has already led to three other Kuma-designed projects in town: a restaurant and two houses, with other projects proposed. What's more, many of the aforementioned awards went to Portland architects for work in other cities. It's always impressive when a local firm is tapped to design a United States embassy, for example, even if America's reputation has been disgraced and tainted terribly by Donald Trump. We see in these awards a sizable presence for Portland firms in nearby cities like Eugene and Bend, but we also see firms' reach extend to further locales like Massachusetts.

In trying to think of any projects that I didn't see on the award winners' list that surprised me, the first that came to mind was Snøhetta’s unbuilt design for the Willamette Falls Riverwalk, but perhaps the firm didn't apply; same goes for Allied Works' design for the former Oregonian building. In either case, I'm not sure whether they applied. Sometimes you expect these projects one year and they wind up on the awards list the next year. Looking towards next year's potential winners, projects like Kengo Kuma's house at the 2017 Street of Dreams seems like a good candidate, as does the Karl Miller Center at Portland State University by Behnisch Architekten. But you never know.

Looking at the list of winners, we see some familiar names: firms that win an award almost every year such as Works Progress Architecture, Holst Architecture, Hacker and Hennebery Eddy. But there are also new names, and that's always nice to see: architects like Landry Smith and Guggenheim Architecture and Design Studio. It's nice to have a balance of both.

Meanwhile, congratulations to all of this year's winners.

 

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The connector: talking with Donald Stastny, AFO's 2017 Honored Citizen

Donald Stastny (Architecture Foundation of Oregon)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

The phrase "Honored Citizen" sounds like a euphemism for being old. I think I've even seen it used on laminated menus at Shari's, the ubiquitous restaurant and pie house chain, in favor of "senior citizen" to denote discounts on chicken strips and Folgers. But the Architecture Foundation of Oregon's annual Honored Citizen is something a lot more special: the closest thing we have in Portland to a lifetime achievement award for architects and other members of the building industry.

Without question, Donald J. Stastny is deserving of such an award. Whether it's architecture, urban planning and design or managing design competitions, the last of which he has become particularly known for, Stastny has over the past 30-plus years helped make Portland what it is today, and has impacted a variety of cities and sites around the country. He's a talented architect and designer, but he's also been just as talented at empowering others.

A native Oregonian who studied at Oregon State University, the University of Washington and the University of Pennsylvania, Stastny has designed cultural buildings like the Museum at Warm Springs and a variety of other structures for Native American tribes across the American west. He has been involved in city planning and urban design for a variety of cities but especially here in Portland, co-creating the first Central City Plan and impacting projects like the historic Governor Hotel renovation, as well as helping to plan Waterfront Park and the Pearl District. He also co-founded the now-defunct but very influential Oregon School of Design.

Stastny may be best known for the design competitions he managed, starting with the Pioneer Courthouse Square competition won by local architect Will Martin, which became a national model. He has gone on to manage design competitions for landmarks like the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania (honoring passengers killed on September 11, 2001) as well as for the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the US embassy in Berlin, the Alaska state capitol (won by Pritzker Prize winner Tom Mayne), and the memorial in Oklahoma City to those killed in the 1994 domestic terrorist attack there. Stastny has managed the design selection processes for five facilities on the National Mall in Washington, DC: Union Square, the Washington Monument/Sylvan Theater area, Constitution Gardens, The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, and The National World War I Memorial. He has also assisted the US State Department in selecting architects for five different American embassies.

Tower of Voices - Flight 93 National Memorial, Pennsylvania (Paul Murdoch Architects)

This year's Honored Citizen award is not the first such honor for Stastny. He has already been elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects, the American Institute of Certified Planners, the Canadian Institute of Planners, and the Institute of Urban Design. He was awarded the 2006 AIA Northwest and Pacific Region’s Medal of Honor and the 2009 AIA Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture.

As if that weren't enough, Stastny has also helped bring some very talented architects from other parts of the world to Portland, such as Snøhetta and Behnisch Architekten.

Oh, and he's also an accomplished sculptor.

If there is one quality that links Stastny's many endeavors, though, I think it is his ability as a connector, linking architects and clients, buildings and public spaces.

Recently I visited Stastny at his condo just south of downtown to talk about his impressive career. 

Portland Architecture: I’m interested in the evolution of your career over time, which has included architecture, urban planning, and managing design competitions. You’re someone who cares passionately about our city, yet you’ve also been able to bring outside perspective from the out-of-town work you do. It’s like a kind of ongoing journey to explore what cities and design are all about.

Sometime during the earlier part of this year before this recognition from AFO, I was going through the same kind of thought process: ‘How did you end up here and what trajectory does it have?’ The work in a lot of ways hasn’t changed. It’s been in three areas.

One is architecture: trying to create meaningful places. There’s a lot of cultural work within that in terms of Native American cultures, as well as some mixed-used housing, and a lot of small museum work for towns and counties: people who want to maintain a track record of their heritage.

Then there’s the planning and urban design part. At Penn, that’s what my major was: urban design. I was in one of these classes of 12 that came from all over the world. I’m from this little small farming community in southern Oregon. There are people there from Harvard and Boston, New York City, Los Angeles. Sometime in that process I realized I understood cities maybe better than they did. The reason was I understood what community was from growing up in a small town. Cities are just collections of communities. But what brings them together? What are the connections that make some sort of urban structure?

Then the third element is competitions and design process. I’ve now run over 70 different competitions, for public spaces, for institutions, for embassies. The thing that is interesting about competitions is the way I’ve been successful: I bring to them a sensibility about architecture and program and urban design: ‘What are you trying to accomplish, and how does it fit into its particular setting?’ I try to set the table for bringing in people to do their best work. But because I am an architect, I’m able to create the environment for them to work in. They don’t have to worry about politics. They can focus on doing their best stuff.

Oklahoma City National Memorial (Tulsa World)

The competition thing, which is to me very interesting, goes along with your comments about what cities are about. For the last five years, the competitions we’ve been involved with deal with civic open space in different ways. I think what we’re realizing nationally is in our cities, both how we experience them and the way our cities are made, what is more important is the spaces in between, not the buildings themselves. So people, and I think we as a nation, are beginning to understand that the open space of cities is both the glue that gives us character and provides very necessary connectivity, of communal life: the commons and what it can be.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the spaces in between. How do you begin to structure those in a city? As we begin to think about these new competitions—for example, we’re doing one for a greenway corridor in St. Louis—we’re beginning to think about paths and connections: the three dimensional experience of going through a space. You’re thinking not about property lines but the sequence of moving through those spaces, which I think begins to get to questions of equity and community connections.

The buildings to me at this point are not very important. I still love to design buildings, but I think the importance of a building in a larger construct is a lot more interesting to me.

You were present for some of the big decisions that made Portland what it is today, like co-creating the first Central City Plan and the construction of Pioneer Courthouse Square. How do you see what’s playing out today as the city grows and densifies, and becomes more expensive?

I think about the dynamic of these neighborhoods going through gymnastics to maintain the quality they have. And it’s often being led by newbies to Oregon. But sometimes they don’t want it to evolve or continue to develop. What is the future form of Portland? What is the future form of the city? How are we going to get there? Another issue that comes up…the people that are moving in, and taking positions in planning and other areas, try to reduce Portland to a formula. They get down to the 200-by-200-foot block. They get down to a few other elements, and then they judge everything by that, as opposed to how a city evolved organically dealing with the economics of a certain time.

To me, in the work I’m doing in St. Louis and Dallas and Detroit, we’re dealing with the issue of equity. We’re dealing a lot with some fundamental issues we faced 20 years ago here in Portland, about transit and connectivity. People are looking to our successes in Portland. I’ve often said one of the biggest exports of Portland is the design professionals who never seem to be here anymore: they’re off lecturing in other cities. The point I keep making is we made mistakes. But can we as a city be the guiding light for other cities going through what we’re going through right now? If other cities get to this point, with this nirvana place to live that’s choking itself, how do we transport that to other places?

We did some work in Austin. I love Austin. I think it’s a great city. I go in there and say, ‘This is what Portland was 20 years ago.’ They’re on a trajectory where they’ll be dealing with some of the same issues. How do you counsel them in such a way that it isn’t what they do today or tomorrow, or what they do looking down the pike a decade or two decades? This idea of city building is not the immediate thing of building a building. It’s being a bit of a clairvoyant, maybe: ‘If I do this action, what does that mean down the road?’ That’s also a difficult thing to do in a financing climate with biannual or annual budgets and political evolution going along with that. How do you somehow get the trajectory going in such a way that even if you have the Trumps and the McConnells along the way? Somehow you get through.

Museum at Warm Springs (Anne Marshall)

Given your involvement creating the first Central City Plan, what do you make of Central City 2035 or some of the other planning efforts underway?

Have you seen the post office [redevelopment plan]? To me there’s nothing in the plan that I feel takes lessons learned and kind of re-interprets it in a different way. I think that’s what we’re missing in Portland: not necessarily regurgitating things we know already. What are we doing that’s innovative, that’s recognizing a different kind of construct?

I came to town when the Downtown Plan had just been adopted. When we did the Central City Plan, I really pushed, and a lot did, for it to be a citizen based plan. The whole way we structured that thing, from Bud Clark and Margaret Strachan and those, was to create a citizen based Central City Plan, much along the pattern of the Downtown Plan. At some point, through political intervention and otherwise, it was taken away from citizens and thrown to the Bureau of Planning to flesh it out. The Bureau of Planning, then, basically did what planning bureaus do. They looked at it as a regulatory thing as opposed to a vision thing. It was developed mostly as a set of regulations as opposed to an overall vision. They moved away from citizen-based planning, although they did a lot of workshops, to make a hybrid between professional and citizen planners.

What I’m concerned about is what the Central City Plan does and doesn’t do.

How so?

It doesn’t necessarily look at lessons learned and the future structure of the city. It’s, ‘What did we do before?’ It’s a good plan, but it’s not about vision. If you go back to the first Downtown Plan, it was just a very simple diagram, and it had a set of design guidelines that were true guidelines, maybe 20 or 22, saying, ‘This is the way we’d like to see you operate and perform.’ That served as the basis for design review going forward. When the Central City plan came in, the Bureau of Planning wrote a specification about how the city might develop. That was in some places not right, especially not in the Pearl District. They envisioned a five-story Pearl, and developers decided that wasn’t they wanted. How the new plan came together, I know there are some innovative people working on it. But I do know the plan is far more political. The residents here are complaining about height in South Waterfront. Everyone’s kind of focused not on the city as a whole but their piece of property.

It’s tied to the Comprehensive Plan, too. They’re going to redo that, and have to every five years according to Oregon statute. The difference between a visionary plan and things like the Comprehensive Plan is that they’re static. You can change it with amendments or going around the zoning. And yet truly visionary plans really try to set more of the context of what is going on, and what the desired outcomes might be. They should be much more performance-based than prescriptive. That is hard to do with populations that are, again, protecting what they know and being able to visualize what could be. To me, that’s what you get out of travel: you see what is possible. It opens your eyes to what can be done.

One of the big things developers work with is the cost of money. And money is cheap at this point. When you’re talking about percentage points that are double what they were in 1980 or ’82 is when the economy went bonkers. We were a young firm and we had something like $50 million worth of work on the boards. Within a month it went away. You’re just watching the rates go up: 18 percent, 19 percent. Most developers just said, ‘The hell with this.’

And today things aren’t dissimilar. We’re in a constant boom-bust-boom cycle.

It was not lessons learned. It was, ‘We’ll use the same formulas and do the same thing we did before.’ To me one of the most interesting things that came out of the bust and the Great Recession was the reorganization of the construction industry. We lost a lot of our smaller contractors and subcontractors. In the design industry, think of what it did to a whole generation of architects. There isn’t a firm in town that isn’t hungering for architects of 40, 45 with a ton of experience under their belt. That generation went on to do other things.

Could you talk about the legacy of design competitions in Portland? I was troubled by certain recent projects that could have used them, like the new courthouse for Multnomah County. It was so rigged to pick local firms that world-class firms like OMA (Rem Koolhaas) and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill weren’t even shortlisted. That seems provincial to me, and speaks to the need for a well-managed competition.

Let me precede this by saying I don’t sell design competitions. There are a lot of times when they’re not appropriate, like when a sponsor is looking for free work. They are appropriate when you’re looking for ideas, and ways to approach a situation differently than you normally would.

The work in St. Louis I’ve been involved with for redoing the whole Gateway Arch grounds, which is just about finished—about $400 million, $250 of it private—the thing that came out of that, that one of the chief authors of the process championed: he was convinced that a design competition would bring forth ideas they would not normally get with a straight RFP. The competition I’m working on with the Greenway is the same thing. They looked at an RFP. But they said no. I think what competitions give you is an opportunity to see a project through a different lens.

What we work for is getting the very best designers that we can, whether that’s local or international and national, or teams, and give them the problem with as few constraints as we can. It doesn’t mean that they will come up with what the select design is. But you’ll have a group of four or five different looks at a project. From that you learn an awful lot. In our competitions, whether you’re a juror or a sponsor, everyone comes out of it learning something.

I heard about the Multnomah County Courthouse after the fact. And I agree completely. I think that was a missed opportunity. It’s not that it won’t be a great building done by a local form. But what the opportunity might have been to put that into a competitive situation: a good example is Wayne Morse US Courthouse down in Eugene. We had a competition to develop that. At the time you’d never go and hire Morphosis straight out. Or you might now. But when you looked at the competition entries, the Morphosis one was the only one that took a courthouse apart and redefined it. I go up to the post office property again. I just think that that should be a competition, whether it’s a master-planning competition or something else. 

Planning Kendall Square in Cambridge (Harvard University)

And on your watch, design competitions are not just places where we create icons or memorials. It's also about interstitial spaces and how they work together, right? It reminds me of a column I wrote last year discussing four opportunity areas around the Broadway Bridge—the Rose Quarter, the Blanchard Portland Public Schools site, the post office and Centennial Mills—but no one was looking at them collectively.

We did a competition not long ago for Kendall Square in Cambridge north of MIT. That’s their innovation quarter. Through development agreements with these multinational research companies that are there, they ended up being gifted essentially four different park sites within this area. Working with the City of Cambridge, to say, ‘Let’s create a design competition for a framework plan,’ it was based on the experience here in Portland of Pioneer Courthouse Square. We felt it was our living room. We realized we wear it out and sometimes it isn’t available. In the core right now we’re dealing with Pioneer Square and Director Park and then the Park Blocks. You’re really talking about a series of spaces. They don’t each have to be the same thing. They can take on different functions. So we said, ‘Let’s do a framework plan through design competition.’ We wound up with this concept of how you glue these spaces together. Which brings me back to here. What our planning here needs to do is not necessarily think about what the icon of the place is but how it connects. Your idea of four opportunity areas [at the Broadway Bridgehead] is right on. But it’s not a time right now when they’re thinking into the future.

What about the role of architects and designers as activists?

When the Downtown Plan was put together, about half the advisory committees were made of architects and designers. Who are the activist designers today? Stuart Emmons is one of the only people who comes to mind. Others come and go. But very few are willing to become an active part of the discussion. Portland really needs to step up and be a leader. I think we get too insular here when we’re looking at our own little backyard as opposed to asking how we as Portlanders or Oregonians can impact or help other cities become better places.

I wrote something for The Downtowner 30 years ago. I wrote, ‘Portland has to avoid becoming a boutique city.’ You become insular and you become blinded to what other issues are that have to do with building cities. We really had to take a much broader look at the city: how it operates, how it functions, and be transformative in terms of what should be done for the future. Frankly I don’t think that has changed. Maybe we have become a boutique city. But we still have this very provincial attitude about Portland as an island as opposed to a beam of light.

Besides the official work you’ve done—the architecture, the urban design, the competitions—you have also been instrumental in helping to bring some world-class architects to Portland, such as Snøhetta (to design the James Beard Public Market) and Behnisch Architekten (to design PSU’s Karl Miller Center). Portland doesn’t necessarily need a starchitect like Frank Gehry or Jean Nouvel to come here, but those two firms are good fits. Could you talk about those efforts?

When I do that, it’s with the feeling they will make a difference here but can work within the culture of Portland, and that Portland can learn from these people. It’s very purposeful.

When I went to Snøhetta, we’d worked with them on the National Mall. I said, ‘You guys are kind of Portland guys. You ought to come and talk and share some of your ideas going forward.’ One of the things I’ve been able to do has a lot to do with these kinds of contacts that I’ve made throughout the world, really, and how you make the connections, say, between local situations and what some of these people represent. You don’t necessarily need starchitects coming to town. But you need people who can take us up a notch or two going forward.

When I look at the different types of work you’ve done, and the civic efforts you’ve been a part of, the word “connector” comes to mind as something that unites everything: connecting people to their city or community, connecting designers with the right project.

I think you’ve kind of nailed it. Making the connections, connecting people, connecting projects, connecting design within the projects: it’s a lot of it.

When we closed the firm [StastnyBrun Architects] I said, ‘What really intrigues me, and gets my juices going?’ I realized it was this idea of creativity. It didn’t matter if it was creativity of process, of building, of a piece of art. If you’re able to be creative, or work in a creative field, that is the juice that makes life rewarding. I think what I do, especially with competitions, is to create an environment for others to be creative—and to give them the opportunity to do their best work.

 

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A conversation with the Oregon Black Pioneers' Willie Richardson

Members and leaders of the Oregon Black Pioneers (University of Oregon)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

On May 17, the University of Oregon's School of Architecture and Allied Arts will bestow its annual McMath Award for historic preservation to an organization rather than an individual for the first time. What's more, the award will go to a recipient that has never restored a single historic building or even helped preserve one in any way. And yet giving the McMath Award to the grassroots volunteer organization Oregon Black Pioneers is definitely worthwhile. After all, architecture history is not just the buildings we preserve or say goodbye to, but also the people behind those buildings and their stories. In this way, Oregon Black Pioneers is not simply deserving of recognition but an essential player in telling the complete Oregon story.

Since 1993, the Salem-based Oregon Black Pioneers have produced publications, mounted exhibitions, presented lectures, sponsored conferences, organized musical and theater productions, delivered classroom presentations and curriculum to public schools, and recognized burial sites for African American pioneers. The organization's members have also authored two recent books about black history in Oregon, African Americans of Portland and Perseverance, the latter a history of African Americans in Marion and Polk Counties.

In 2013 the organization also produced “All Aboard: Railroading and Portland’s Black Community,” an exhibition held at the Oregon Historical Society focused on the African American community around Portland’s Union Station from the 1800s to 1940s, and next year will see exhibit of “Racing to Change: Oregon’s Civil Rights Years,” which will be on display at The Oregon History Museum.

As much as Oregon (or at least its larger cities) may now have a reputation for progressive politics, our state has a very racist history, full of KKK marches and exclusionary laws, some of which has kept our percentage of African Americans living here pretty low compared to other states. Yet as Oregon Black Pioneers president Willie Richardson knows, the mission here is not so much to change the past as it is simply to tell the story.

"It’s not just about educating black folks," Richardson said during our interview. "It’s about educating all Oregonians. No matter what you do in Oregon, you’ll find the footprint of a black person that was there. And that’s all over the state. Black folks weren’t congregated in Portland. 32 of Oregon’s 36 counties had African Americans in them. It may be one. But that one has a tremendous amount of impact. They provided services. They owned land. They did all the things that Oregon laws said they couldn’t have. And that’s the peculiar nature of Oregon: laws on the books that aren’t enforced. We had a lot of joy about this. Every day we literally learn something."

Richardson first came to Oregon from South Carolina, and she says living here gave her a different perspective. "I came out not because I knew anything about Oregon. It was more of a family move," she explains. "I had a couple sisters coming from the east coast to Oregon. One had been accepted at Willamette University. That meant the other couple of us said we’d make a move too. We didn’t know anything about Oregon. And after six months if I wasn’t so broke I’d have probably packed up and left. There’s a huge difference coming out of the south, where you’ve lived in a basically segregated environment, to Oregon where any given day you probably weren’t going to see anyone who looked like you from one hour to the next. But with four sisters coming at the same time, we looked to each other. It would have been to a slight degree a little bit more concentrated with North, Northeast Portland. Salem was very different in that you did not have that: no concentration of anybody. You basically lived in a neighborhood where you were the only black person. It was a stark difference. But it worked itself out in that one of the things I tell folks who come here, particularly African Americans, is that Oregon will teach you how to live amongst people—not black people, not white people. You have to learn how to live with people—if you allow it to happen."

"If you blend it all together and put it in its rightful place, you get the full breadth of Oregon," Richardson says of the Oregon Black Pioneers' storytelling efforts. "Few as it may have been in terms of minorities here, those people have been significant to the development of the state. It’s about knowing how we got there: the pathways that were out there and cleared for the rest of the folks like me who can keep moving: giving honor to them. If they had not come with their slave masters into the state and figured out a way to survive, I would not be here."

At the heart of the award, and the Oregon Black Pioneers' effort, is what Richardson calls "history out there that’s not talked about. You didn’t hear about it when you heard about the Oregon story and the Oregon Trail or any story about Oregon. You never heard of the thread regarding the African American input into it. That just pushed us further down the road. We began to tell that story and share it with the rest of the state. Along the way, we also discovered there were other folks, white folks, who also wanted to be part of helping tell that story and ferret out information. We’d say to groups of people as they came out, 'We need you to understand something: you have the information. You still have your family diaries, letters, stories that you were told. You still have all of that in your records or your memory. We’re asking you to share that with us: not to use it to beat you up because your ancestors had a slave on their property or racist beliefs in their past. We don’t care about that. We want the stories and the histories. All we want is the Oregon story to be accurate. We can’t change history. But help us write and tell the African American story, so we can convince the historians to share the names of African Americans as pioneers.' The logging story would not have been successful without African American. Mining would not be successful. The Oregon Trail would not be the Oregon Trail without black folks, without slaves being on that trail. People could not understand that slaves were on the Oregon Trail. We said, how do you think those white folks crossed all that terrain without a slave to help them? Don’t forget that they were on that trail and they came into Oregon. Stop thinking all-white for everything."

 

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Boston-based Portland Architecture Awards jury applauds local design culture

Juror Elizabeth Whittaker (Merge Architects)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Each year on the eve of the Portland Architecture Awards, the trio of jury members selecting the awards gather with an audience at the AIA's Center For Architecture to discuss their own work and, more importantly, what the awards submittals lead them to think about Portland's architecture and architects overall.

This year's Boston-based jury of Tim Love, Elizabeth Whittaker and Mariana Ibanez has between them some remarkable resumes. Each has taught or currently teaches architecture at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. Whtitaker's firm, Merge Architects, combines design and craft in an innovative, meaningful way. Ibanez's work explores new possibilities for integrating architecture and technology. Love's firm has a lengthy history with public buildings, housing and master planning.

The jurors, only one of whom (Love) had been to Portland before, began by noting "a lot of commonalities between the interesting work being done in the Boston metro area and Portland," as Tim Love put it. "One reason might be because of land values and the rising cost of real estate and those pressures. It’s forced our cultures to get smart about using inexpensive materials. The use of HardiePanel or metal panel, that family of stuff is similar. And the building types are similar; the single family small lot stuff that’s very much like neighborhoods in south Boston and Somerville: cottages on small lots. You’ve got the small developer stuff off like 12 to 30 units, and the big macho developer stuff. That whole food chain is familiar to us. It was like we were shopping for moves."

"I really appreciated the level of detail," Whittaker added. "It’s uncanny how you’re pulling that off out here. Some of these projects are so well crafted. I think it wasn’t necessarily a fancier or more expensive material. It’s as if the people putting them together care more, maybe more than I find in Boston with the crews we work with. I don’t know what the building culture in Portland is like. Maybe there’s something going on out here. Maybe there are less of them and they’re less of a dime a dozen."

Juror Tim Love (Utile Architecture & Planning)

"The Boston market is so overheated now it’s hard to get contractors and the quality is dropping off," Love agreed. "I think the difference is…for the most part the projects that we liked, there’s a little bit more sense on the architects’ side about what the capacity of the contractors are. Some firms in Boston I think over-reach what the crafts can deliver."

Love and Whittaker also identified a couple of quirks relating to how different parts of buildings are put together.

"Portland is very good at realizing that he ground floor is different from the upper floors," Love said. "You do good podiums here, and not always in the same way."

"Which is interesting, because there aren’t as many tall buildings," Whittaker added. "You don’t need to rely on the podium."

"I think the ground floor and upper floor uses are also about choreographing sequences," Love explained. "On the ground floor it can be tunnel-like with competing retail things. We had discussions about the quality of coming into the lobby and what the effect of surprise was when you went to the upper floor: that difference is undervalued, I think. Some very modest projects had a very interesting handle on that."

The jury then returned to the notion of how Portland architects handle materials and form, not just in a sense of craftsmanship but also "a smart economy of materials, where a lot of the projects have one or two," Whittaker explained. "Very simple, super pure forms."

As they talked, the jury showed what was supposed to be a random group of images from projects submitted, but the work of Waechter Architecture seemed to keep coming onscreen, and some of the jury's comments seemed, at least in my mind, to refer to Waechter's sense of material economy as an emblem for the greater Portland architecture community.

"If you can’t use luxurious materials to do your thing and you’re left with HardiePanel or metal panel, you need to really use that material more to clad a volume," Love said. "You can’t objectify it. It’s a wrapper. And then what you’re left with as you have fewer and fewer moves is to just subtract voids and proportions. It almost becomes like a version of stucco contemporary architecture in Vienna. But it’s not stucco. It’s HardiePanel or metal panel. That’s very interesting to us. You’re forced to think about composition with the basics. I think American architecture is more one of assembly. I think there’s an interesting theoretical 'aha.' Maybe we’re just trying too hard. Pick a nice gray HardiePanel and embrace the thing. That’s weird because it changes the strategies a little bit."

When the jury offered to take questions, I asked what some of their initial impressions of Portland had been.

"It’s a pretty great city, and probably a great city to be in as an architect," Love said. "The only downside is it may be more isolated as an economy than a city like Boston is. But I think the scale of the city has an influence on the scale of the work. I think that sense of appropriate scale, almost miniaturized. It’s almost like a four-fifths scale. I like four-fifth cities. Houston is like a six-fifths city. Everything seems all pumped up there."

Juror Mariana Ibanez (NPR)

Another member of the audience asked if the jurors had any advice for Portland architects. Whittaker seemed to want more formal daring.

"I think you’re doing so much so well, in terms of how you’re detailing, and the care shows in the finished product: the way it’s built. That’s what stands out the most," she said. "I think there is a formal sensibility that seems very specific to Portland, and I see a few projects that are breaking out of that. I’d like to come back in eight years and see even more ambitious geometries that are also bringing along this level of craft. It’s easy to do something that’s formally loud but not to do it well."

"I’d like to see some public architecture that isn’t schools," Love added. "I’d like to see an excellent civic building where people can argue about what’s coming to their neighborhood. Most of the excellent work is private, right? Maybe some advocacy can be done for that."

Love also offered some praise based on the local set of conditions. "Small firms in Portland have to be more entrepreneurial. In Boston they’re all connected with the universities."

But Whittaker confirmed that the world has taken notice of our city. "There is a buzz about Portland, and there has been for a while," she said. "And it’s about livability."

Ibanez added that a lot of her students at Harvard do thesis projects on Portland even though they’re not from here.

Ultimately the jury process is always an imperfect one. It makes sense for objectivity's sake for out-of-town professionals to act a jurors, but they almost always have to decide the winners based on photos instead of site visits, and in most cases they have no familiarity with the city at all. Yet these annual awards have shown a continuity across the years and across juries in terms of what they like: projects that blend craftsmanship and an eye for the little details with a reverence for local natural material and, increasingly, a little bit of formal daring.

  

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WPA, Beebe Skidmore, Waechter lead Portland Architecture Awards winners

Beebe Skidmore's Swift headquarters (Swift)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Beebe Skidmore Architects and Works Progress Architecture (formerly Works Partnership Architecture) took home the top-level Honor Award on Thursday night at the annual Portland Architecture Awards, given out by the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Mentioned together, the names of two winning projects sound like guesses for a four-letter word puzzle beginning with 'S' on Wheel of Fortune: Swift and Slate. But instead of winning a Buick (as my college roommate once did on the show - winning word "judge"), these firms take home a certificate and the validation of being in the company of many superb past projects honored in the awards' history.

Swift, by Beebe Skidmore, is a renovation and transformation of a cluster of attached warehouses in Slabtown near NW 17th & Overton into a light-filled and wide open home for the Swift advertising agency. Both alumni of Portland's most acclaimed firm, Allied Works, Doug Skidmore and Heidi Beebe deserved this Honor Award in my mind.

The project retains much of the original concrete-block warehouse in a visible way even as it adds contemporary architecture. They retained the original sawtooth skylights, for example, and then used that triangular form as inspiration for a mezzanine addition. Inside there is a hive of activity, with light pouring in and a generous amount of space devoted to common areas. And there is a broader sense of surprise that happens there in terms of proportion. When the architects punched new window openings into the old concrete walls, for example, they placed them not symmetrically in the middle but according to where the concrete was strongest. As a result, it feels highly detailed yet a step ahead of expectation, somehow. The whole composition feels like a piece of music to me.

Slate (Works Progress Architecture)

Slate has, during its construction, maintained a relatively low profile given how its next-door neighbor, Yard (also being built more or less at the same time), has been so controversial and garnered so much press. The two buildings are not dissimilar in some ways, each with some pretty dark facades. Yet Slate is going to be seen as the more successful. It continues WPA's exceptional ability with facade patterning, with a series of white apertures contrasting the darker facade material.

And Slate contributes to what is now a really noteworthy portfolio of buildings in one extended area: the Central Eastside and lower Burnside. And while this is the first big award for Beebe Skidmore, WPA is a regular at the Portland Architecture Awards. I wouldn't be surprised if they're the most winning firm of the past decade; if not they've got to be in the top handful. And it's well deserved.

There were lots of other awards given out last night, many of them equally significant.

WPA's Framework (Brian Libby)

Works Progress Architecture also won the Craftsmanship Award, for its Framework project, also in this Lower Burnside area. It's part of a new generation of timber-framed buildings, along with work by firms like Lever Architecture and PATH Architecture, which I wrote about in a recent Portland Tribune column called "Framing The Future." And it's gorgeous, with a similar facade pattern language to Slate only smaller and perhaps a little more transparent.

After the Honor Award, the sort of silver medal of the night is the Merit Award, which went to five projects. Two Merit Awards were designated for small projects, and both of those were won by Waechter Architecture: Oakley House (which I wrote about last year for Dwell magazine) and Pavilion House. The aforementioned Framework by WPA also won a Merit Award, as did Holst Architecture for the Open School East and Hacker for the Lakeside at Black Butte Ranch.

Oakley House (Waechter Architecture)

The next award tier is the Citation Award, which went to six projects. Waechter Architecture won for the Red House, a renovation of an existing early 20th century farmhouse in Southeast Portland; I wrote about it last year for Oregon Home magazine and was impressed by how Ben Waechter was able to apply his gift for simplifying the feel of its space by economizing its materials and detailing to an old house instead of a ground-up building. As if these awards weren't enough, Waechter also won for the Sawtooth multifamily housing project. I could be mistaken, but I think everything the firm entered won an award. Oh, and Waechter took home one of the two Honor Awards last year, in addition to a few in the past. Quite a roll.

Another of my favorite firms to emerge in recent years, Lever Architecture, won a Citation for its Albina Yard project, which is also exceptionally innovative for its wood construction. I visited the building a few weeks ago and came away very impressed, not just with the crispness of the composition but also its warmth. Even the wood stairway is beautiful.

Stairway at Albina Yard (Brian Libby)

Hacker, which has done excellent work for decades now, be it under the influential Thomas Hacker or today with a new generation at the helm, also won a Citation for its attractive Basecamp Townhouse in Bend, which shares a developer with the Honor Award-winning Swift: Project. Bora also won a Citation Award for the Cosmopolitan Condominiums, which I blogged about earlier this summer and generally quite like too.

The final Citation Award went to another frequent award-winning firm, Holst Architecture, for its Karuna at One North. Visiting this building extensively last year for a New York Times article, I came away hugely impressed, so much so that I'm a bit surprised to see Karuna not win an Honor Award. It could hardly be more energy efficient, as a commercial building with much of the same approaches as the earlier Holst-designed Karuna House outside Newberg that a couple years ago became the first in the world to earn LEED, Passive House and the Swiss Minergie rating. What's more, I think this Karuna building that received a Citation Award is particularly beautiful with its curvy facade openings.

Karuna at One North (Brian Libby)

Despite not getting the gold medal from this year's three-person jury panel, all Boston-based, Karuna at One North did win one of the top non-juried prizes, the Mayor's Award, selected for a final time this year by Mayor Charlie Hales. Also winning a Mayor's Award were the Kerns Micro House by Fieldwork Design and Architecture, Slate by WPA, and Park Avenue West by TVA Architects. The mayor reserved two awards for small projects and two for large urban projects, and between the tiny Kerns project and the tall Park Avenue West tower downtown, he certainly covered the size spectrum.

Another special prize, the 2030 Award for innovative sustainable design, went to ZGF Architects for the Rocky Mountain Institute. ZGF in recent years has managed to combine leading-edge green strategies and a deep sense of how to make elegant civic buildings, reflected its listing this year atop the Architect 50 list as the nation's top firm.

Two other projects won the Significant Design Contribution Award, which is nominated by the architect. General contractor Hoffman Construction won for TVA's Park Avenue West project, and Reworks was honored as owner/contractor for Lever Architecture's Albina Yard.

At the annual Jury Critique on Wednesday night, the eve of the awards, this year's Boston-based jurors (Elizabeth Whitaker of Merge Architects, Tim Love of Utile and Mariana Ibanez of Ibanez Kim) were very complimentary of Portland architecture in general, especially the level of craft and elegant simplicity that seemed to span projects.

Congratulations to all the winning firms, as well as to the nominees who did good work but for whatever reason didn't make the awards list.

 

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Architect Magazine names ZGF nation's top firm

Eliot tower (Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Each year Architect magazine, the official publication of the American Institute of Architects, publishes a list of the top 50 firms in the United States. And while Portland is only the 20th-largest metropolitan area in the United States, the magazine this month named Portland firm ZGF Architects as tops nationally.

What does the list mean, and how is it calculated? It seems to be a combination of business and financial success mixed with achievement in design and sustainability. The magazine cited ZGF's 17 percent increase in net revenue in 2015, and its "relentless push for higher building performance," with managing partner Ted Hyman telling interviewer Amanda Hurley, “They feed off of each other. If we can show [clients] we’re bringing value in terms of design, it affects the bottom line. It takes care of itself.” Hurley also notes that ZGF recently brought in a chief financial officer who previously worked for two law firms and a new “chief people officer” to spearhead talent development.

At the same time, a number of major ZGF projects have come to a head, either recently completed or about to be, such as a major expansion of the Nike campus in Beaverton, a new cancer center for the University of Arizona, the J. Craig Venter Institute for genomics research in La Jolla, California outside San Diego, and offices for the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado, not to mention landmarks of recent years like the Federal Center South project in Seattle. And the firm has a long history, dating to 1942, with a host of important Portland buildings and structures.

"The firm practices with imagination and finesse," wrote Architizer's Eric Baldwin in a recent tribute.

When I sat down recently with two ZGF partners, Kathy Berg and Jan Willemse, they offered a mix of pride in the achievement with an acknowledgement that lists can be a bit superficial or subject to an infinite number of different calculations.

"After it was announced someone at the firm said to me, ‘What does this mean? What did we do?’ I said, ‘It’s pretty opaque,’" Willemse recalls. "You get the survey and fill it out and you give them this information, and list projects that have been completed. But it’s not entirely clear the weighting of the questions and answers and categories: business, sustainability and design. It’s some average of those. I’m not sure which counts for more or less. I do know we’ve been in the past ranked in the top 10 a few times. We’re used to being recognized, even when from year to year the questions shift. Were we surprised? Yeah. You never know."

UA Cancer Center (N. Merrick/H. Blessing), Stanford Central Energy (Matt Anderson)

"I think it puts us in good stead," Berg says. "There are a lot of other good firms on the list. When I looked at the questions, I was encouraged that what we’re spending a lot of time looking at, Architect was too. We’re talking about relevant topics for our firm and our employees. That to me is a good sign."

How much of the ranking is about design? "Architect is AIA sponsored. It’s probably a more balanced evaluation of things than you’d get out of more of an aesthetically driven magazine that’s looking for visual aspects for buildings, and questions about business aren’t a part of the equation," Willemse says. "This is a balanced look across these levels: with people, with clients, with business numbers. Aesthetics, beauty and meaning will always drive our business. They’re prerequisites. You have to focus on those or you won’t survive. But can you take care of your people? Can you watch the bottom line, while serving your clients and community well?"

Berg says what she found the most exciting was "being recognized for design and sustainability. I think the industry is moving away from the idea that they are mutually exclusive. Sustainable design can create incredibly beautiful solutions. I think people can really see that."

"Some sustainable projects are a bit awkward," Willemse added somewhat sheepishly. We agreed on some major, high-profile green projects of recent years in both Seattle and Portland, some completed and some unbuilt, that were categorically ugly despite meeting rigid sustainability strictures like the Living Building Challenge. "You don’t want to bash them. But as a profession we do want to believe you can create beautiful things that are sustainable."

I've long felt that ZGF is that rare firm that seems to transcend the industry's traditional distinction between "service firm" (able to win big commissions based on having done other big commissions in the past) and "design firm" (noted for its quality creations and awards but without much practical big-job experience). Berg and Willemse believe that stems from the firm's culture, and the influence of longtime partners like Robert Frasca (the 'F' in ZGF). "There’s this ethos that a project can always be better," Berg says.

12 | West (Brian Libby)

Berg also cited the firm's success with trying new project types. "There isn’t a sense here that we just do health care or campus buildings or corporate offices. When we did the Portland International Airport expansion, it was one of the first airports we’d done," she explains. "When we did Doernbecher, it was one of our first children’s hospitals. We get some of the best projects in our portfolio doing that type for the first time or working for a new client for the first time. We spend a lot of time making sure the client wants to go on a fantastic journey with us."

"It’s contextual as opposed to formulaic, and all of that really originated with Frasca," Willemse adds. "It’s kind of quintessentially Portland in that you make do with what you’ve got. This was never a heavy industry driven place or an economic center. I think that allowed the firm to continually try different kinds of projects. The Vollum Institute was our first of that type. Frasca designed what’s called the interaction stair: the idea that you’d create casual collisions if you actually took some speace and said peole are going to run into each other here, and foster new ideas. You now see that everwhere. It’s the principles of how human beings utilize their space moving through their day when they have choice to be connected. Those principles drive the work, not necessarily an aesthetic." 

"It’s also about the quality of the detailing, and just the craft of making," Willemse adds. "That goes to stewardship of resources, whether it’s the physical or the client’s money. Frasca always loved doing institutional work, so our muscle memory became about createing 50 or 100-year-old buildings. That’s not the same mentality you get from, say, developer-driven work. It creates a quality of intention." ZGF has gone on to do a lot of developer-driven work, of course, like the 12 West building in which the company's headquarters is situated; it was developed by the city's most prominent developer, Gerding Edlen. But Gerding Edlen also has a commitment to sustainability that is seemingly as strong as its need to make a profit.

Berg and Willemse also stress the everyday firm culture and its attention to detail. "That’s what I joined the firm for: the attention to detail," Willemse says. "My bosses like Frasca used to say, 'We want it to pass the 500-foot test and the five-foot test."

"I remember coming to the firm, and ZGF was the first I'd worked at that said, 'We don’t copy details. You re-draw it, and understand how it applies to this project, and you make it better," Berg recalls. "We don’t copy for the sake of efficiency. We build on it and make it better. You won’t see the same details on project. Brooks [Gunsul, the 'G' in ZGF] was very adamant that you don’t copy and paste."

The two partners also talked about how the look of ZGF's buildings has evolved with changing times and material technologies. Works of the Reagan-Bush era like the KOIN tower, the Justice Center and the Oregon Convention Center, all with more masonry on the exterior than glass, look very different from the firm's more glassy 21st century projects. Particularly since the arrival of projects like the Eliot condos in the West End, or the aforementioned 12 West, one can associate ZGF in this Eugene Sandoval era (to name a key ZGF partner and leader of recent years) with glass as much as any material. 

"As we’ve brought in new blood to the firm, things are going to evolve naturally," Willemse says. "In the ‘80s, where postmodern was on its last legs but there were residual elements you see in buildings like the KOIN center, they were of their time and place. But I don’t think there’s a panelize brick manufacturer left in the Northwest today."

"And some of what we do with glazing now," Berg adds, "the technology didn’t exist in the ‘80s: the giant pieces of glass we can get from China and the unitized curtain walls."

"Has ZGF evolved into just better design? I think in many respects that goal of a certain quality of timelessness has remained, as has a commitment to a quality of craft," Willemse says. "But it has evolved over time with the technology available and the staff? Is there a difference now? Sure."

By no means is every ZGF building a masterpiece. The Randall Children's Hospital is, while great functionally, not exactly a looker. And take the NV, a new 26-story condo in the Pearl District by the firm's Seattle office, which at least to my eyes looks both banal and, thanks to some loud patterning on one corner of the facade, quite unattractive and even trite. I'd take the much-maligned Yard tower over this building. But for every NV there are a host of very fine and timeless ZGF buildings, not just from recent years but over the decades.

In a way, I think the KOIN Center is indicative of ZGF's enduring quality as much as its impressive and highly sustainable green projects. There is so much postmodern and neo-historic architecture of the 1980s that hasn't aged well at all. But KOIN has a timeless quality that transcends 1980s style; it's almost like a brick-clad Chrysler Building in how it elegantly tapers towards the top.

Portland International Airport canopy (Travel Portland)

When I think of ZGF over the years, I also think one of their best works is not a building per se: the canopy at Portland International Airport. ZGF's fingerprint is all over that airport, from expanded concourses to the innovative Port of Portland headquarters there next to the parking garages to even the MAX train leading there (the firm designed many of its stations). But being under that glass canopy is always a thrilling moment. Whenever I'm about to fly out or I'm there picking someone up, I almost always stop and marvel at the sensation of being underneath a glass roof bigger than a couple of football fields. It's functional — the roof is there to keep the rain off us without compromising the light — and yet it brings a sense of wonder.

What does the future hold in Portland for the firm?

Despite its tremendous success both business-wise and architecturally, the firm's true roots lie in civic and institutional projects, like the Oregon Convention Center and Doernbecher Children's Hospital. But Portland lacks the public and private wealth of other major cities that is often necessary to make such works happen regularly. Hence ZGF's strong presence outside the city with offices in several cities. But there is more to be done here of that scale. I'll bet ZGF would have done a better-looking and more Portland-appropriate headquarters hotel by the Convention Center than Metro is about to get. OHSU is also expanding steadily onto its South Waterfront campus, which seems tailor made for the firm. And as a longtime proponent of Veterans Memorial Coliseum restoration, I'd be happier seeing ZGF on the job than a firm that would mistakenly put too much of its own fingerprint on Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's masterful original 1960 design.

And with one of the biggest waves of new construction the city has seen in a century, I expect to see a host of new ZGF office buildings and condos appear in the ensuing years as well. Chances are when they come, they won't necessarily get as much attention as bolder competing works by other firms, but these buildings will endure and exhibit a sense of quality craftsmanship, sustainable performance and restrained handsomness that will mean architecture critics and passers-by of 2076 will appreciate them as much of those of us in 2016.

  

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Allied Works and Waechter Architecture lead AIA Portland Architecture Awards winners

PNCA's Schnitzer Center for Art and Design (image courtesy PNCA)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

The two projects to take home the top-level Honor Award at this year's Portland Architecture Awards from the local American Institute of Architects chapter could not be more disparate in scale. One, Waechter Architecture's Garden House is a small accessory dwelling unit in the backyard of a larger home. The other, Allied Works' Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art & Design at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, re-imagines a full-block sized early 20th Century federal building. But the design acumen is first rate in both of these projects, by Allied Works and Waechter Architecture, in the eyes of the jury.

The Garden House is noteworthy for its cantilevered second floor, which adds square footage to a small floor plate while adding a striking sculptural quality. PNCA, while it may lack the razor-sharp precision of some past Allied Projects, is a breathtaking transformation of a formerly dark, oppressive space into a light-filled work centered around a new atrium.

Both of these firms, as well as many of this year's other award winners, are no stranger to the architectural trophy case. Although last year's jury declined to hand out any Honor Awards, Allied Works took the prize in 2013 with its Sokol Blosser Winery tasting room near Dundee, and in 2012 for Denver's Clyfford Still Museum, as well as the 2008 Honor Award for Booker T. Washington High School in Dallas. Weachter won an Honor Award in 2011 for the J-Tea teahouse in Eugene, as well as top honors in this year's AIA Northwest & Pacific Region for the Pavilion House.

Waechter Architecture's Garden House (photo by Sally Schoolmaster)

The next tier of honors, known as the Merit Award, went to four projects, all by firms that are regulars in the AIA Portland Architecture Awards winners' circle: 3330 Division Street, a mixed-use apartment building on burgeoning SE Division Street by Hacker; Tree House, an octagonal residential building by Lever Architecture at Oregon Health & Science University's Marquam Hill campus; Fire Station 76 in Gresham by Hennebery Eddy Architects, and (in the Unbuilt category) a Memorial Coliseum renovation plan by Skylab Architecture. The Hacker project was also singled out as a 2030 Award winner for its sustainable credentials.

Hacker's 3330 SE Division (photos by Jeremy Bittermann)

Lever Architecture's Tree House (photos by Lara Swimmer)

Hennebery Eddy's Fire Station 76 (photos by Josh Partee)

Skylab's Veterans Memorial Coliseum renovation (rendering courtesy AIA)

ZGF Architects, which won the Honor Award in 2013 for its Hatfield-Dowlin Complex at the University of Oregon, in 2011 for the Legacy Emmanuel Medical Center Central Utility Plant and in 2010 for its Jaqua Center (also at UO), won a Citation Award this year for its Stanford University Central Energy Facility. Citation Awards, the AIA's third-tier prize, also went to Ankeny 2/3, a residential project in Southeast Portland by Colab Architecture + Urban Design, and the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center in South Dakota by Dangermond Keane Architecture.

ZGF's Stanford University Central Energy Facility (image courtesy AIA)

Colab's Ankeny 2/3 (photo by Darius Kuzmickas, KuDa Photography)

Dangermond Keane's Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center (image courtesy AIA)

This year's Small Project Award went to two projects: the Vomo Island Spa at Vomo Island Resort in Fiji by Architecture Building Culture and the Artisan's Cup project (a Portland Art Museum exhibit of bonsai plants) by Skylab Architecture. ABC firm previously won an Unbuilt Citation Award in 2011 for its Lubavitch Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, and a Citation Award in 2012 for the Stubbs Residence. Skylab has won several AIA awards, including an Honor Award in 2012 for the Nike Camp Victory pop-up, and an Honor Award in 2008 for 12 + Alder, a mixed-use project downtown.

ABC's Vomo Island Spa (image courtesy AIA)

Skylab Architecture's Artisan's Cup (image courtesy AIA)

The Jury Award and the Mayor's Design Award rounded out the night's prizes. The Jury Award, previously known as the People's Choice Award, went to the Pickathon Tree-Line Stage, a temporary work created by a team from Portland State University's School of Architecture. The Mayor's Design Award went to two projects: Allied Works' Schnitzer Center at PNCA, and the Stadium Fred Meyer by Mackenzie. An Honorable Mention for the Mayor's Award also went to Colab for the aforementioned Ankeny 2/3.

PSU's Tree-Line Stage (image courtesy AIA)

Mackenzie's Stadium Fred Meyer (image courtesy AIA)

Overall the awards seem to confirm that there is a small group of firms that win awards nearly every year they enter, such this year's Honor Award winners Allied Works and Waechter Architecture as well as venerable names like Holst Architecture, Works Partnership Architecture (both frequent winners in years past), Skylab, Hacker, Henneberry Eddy, Lever Architecture, and ZGF. But there are always firms like Architecture Building Culture and Colab quietly racking up honors, and firms like Mackenzie or Dangermond Keane infusing the city and beyond with new designs.

Although the recurrence of these firms attests to their resonance with a variety of juries, who each year come from out of town to evaluate these projects, the awards are, it must be said, a snapshot look at the local design seen by a trio of jurors without much of a deeper sense of Portland and the firms at work. (This year's jury included Kevin Daly of Kevin Daly Architects in Los Angeles, Betsy Williamson of Williamson Chong in Toronto and Sierra Bainbridge of MASS Design Group in Boston.) That's largely a good thing, for it frees up the jury to evaluate the architecture without prejudice. Yet it's also asking these jurors, however talented they may be, to pick winners in just a few short hours, usually doing so based solely on photographs rather than going to each project (which would be prohibitively time-consuming).

It's not to say the jury failed here. I might have chosen PNCA and the Garden House as the Honor Award winners too. But awards, as we all know, are an imperfect endeavor and often fail in the long run to be the best measure of quality. For architectural quality is ultimately the opposite of a split-second decision, instead a reflection of design and construction that endure across eras and stylistic periods.

So if you're an architect reading this who didn't win, keep in mind the Academy Award for Best Picture. It has actually gone to the not-best picture (How Green Was My Valley in 1941, Oliver! in 1968, Rocky in 1976, Dances With Wolves in 1990, Forrest Gump in 1994) far more often than it has gone to the best one of any particular year (Citizen Kane, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas and Pulp Fiction in those same years). But we all come to know what the best movies are.

That said, congratulations to these deserving firms.
 

 

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Portfolio: award winners by Waechter, Works Partnership, Hacker

Wachter Architecture's Pavilion House (images courtesy of the firm)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Earlier this month, the American Institute of Architects' Northwest & Pacific Region handed out its annual design awards, devoted to projects from a cluster of states including Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Hawaii. And this year, Portland firms cleaned up, with three different firms taking home awards:  Waechter Architecture, Works Partnership Architecture, and Hacker (recently renamed from THA Architecture). In the latter case, Hacker won two awards, including the top one, the Honor Award.

As part of our occasional Portfolio series, featuring images from projects in and out of town by local firms, here are images of the four winning projects by these three firms.

First up is Waechter's Pavilion House, winner of a Citation Award (third place) from the AIA. The firm was tasked with the challenge of designing a “glass house” with privacy.  The solution was to use a pavilion-like form where the four supporting legs of the building are strategically placed to block unwanted views and provide privacy. These four rectangular legs support the second story and have dual functionality as they also contain the stairs, kitchen, half bath and storage on the ground level. Between these legs, the open floor plan expands to outdoor living through floor to ceiling glass and doors. The polished concrete floor is cast on grade, creating a seamless transition to the surrounding yard.  

Works Partnership Architecture's Langano Apartments project on lower SE Hawthorne Boulevard won a Merit Award (second place) from the AIA. The four-story, 30-unit mixed-use building includes 2,800 square feet of retail space and 13 surface parking stalls.

The project replaces Jarra’s Ethiopian Restaurant and the Langano Lounge, which closed in May. The restaurant’s owners, Petros Jarra and Ainalem Sultessa, retained ownership of the development.

Langano Apartments (photographs by Joshua Jay Elliott)

The first of Hacker's two award winners is a new home for the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Central Oregon, located on the west side of Bend. Winner of the Honor Award from the AIA (first place), the project includes a 250-seat sanctuary with minister and choir platform, seven meeting/classroom spaces, a catering kitchen, an administrative office suite, and support spaces. The building will also serve the community as an event and performance space, a preschool, and will host yoga classes, art exhibits, and other community meetings.

The project is designed to embrace the high desert landscape, while also serving as a model of sustainability within the often harsh Central Oregon climate – embodying the Unitarian Universalist principle of “respect for the interdependent web of all existence.”

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (photos by Lara Swimmer)

Discovery Hall at the University of Washington, which won Hacker a Merit Award, serves as an academic hub for science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs and houses classrooms and laboratories for chemistry, life science, physics, electrical engineering, software development and geographic information system.

The 74,600-square-foot building, also photographed by Lara Swimmer, is oriented east-west for optimal solar control with the use of daylight, sunshades and light controls. Operable windows in the classrooms and offices increase occupants’ control. Chilled beams, displacement ventilation, heat recovery, and solar hot water will further decrease energy use.

Discovery Hall (photos by Lara Swimmer)

 

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CO Architects' Jonathan Kanda on the Collaborative Life Sciences Building being named to the AIA Top 10 Green Projects List

CLSB (photos by Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

In the realm of sustainable American architecture, there is no greater honor than being named to the annual Top 10 Green Projects list, selected by the American Institute of Architects' Committee on the Environment. It's something only a few Portland buildings or Portland architects' works have achieved, and most of them have come in the past few years.

Two projects were named to last year's list, for example: Holst Architecture's Bud Clark Commons and the Edith Green Wendell Wyatt Federal Building by Cutler Anderson (of Bainbridge Island, Washington) and SERA Architects. In 2012 the Mercy Corps headquarters by THA Architecture made the list, as did two out-of-town projects by local firms: Portland Community College's Newberg outpost by Hennebery Eddy Architects and the Hood River Middle School Music & Sciences building by Opsis Architecture. But before that, it was fairly rare to find something from the Rose City on the list, even though Portland has seen itself as a leader in sustainable design for over a decade.

This year, the Collaborative Life Sciences Building by Los Angeles firm CO Architects and Portland's SERA Architects has been named to the list. It's a validation for this latest addition to Oregon Health & Sciences University's Schnitzer Campus in South Waterfront (a collaboration with Portland State University and Oregon State University). The 650,000 square foot building, completed last year for about $295 million, had already earned Platinum LEED status for features such as green roofs, storm water collection for non-potable water, and energy-efficient lighting and climate control, making it about 45 percent more efficient than a comparably sized building designed to code.

The building is comprised of the 12-story Skourtes Tower on the north and a five-story south wing, which are connected by an atrium in the middle, along with lecture halls on the east and west sides. It includes lecture halls, classrooms labs, specialty research centers, OHSU School of Dentistry facilities, and offices for health professionals and educators from multiple institutions.

I'm not necessarily head over heels about how the CLSB looks from the outside, perhaps a bit like a banal office tower fused with oblong additions in three directions. But there was a lot of program to fit inside this building. And being inside the multi-story atrium, as a stream of students and faculty move about like some kind of academic/medical core sample, it still is a genuinely lovely space to behold. Given how it seems to work so well for its occupants, coupled with the building's environmental credentials, one has to call the CLSB a rousing success.

 

Recently I exchanged questions and answers with CO Architects principal Jonathan Kanda about being named to the COTE Top 10 list and what he takes away from the experience.

Portland Architecture: How did you react upon hearing the news that the CLSB was named to the COTE Top 10 list? Was it a surprise? 

Kanda: Our team thought we had a very interesting sustainability story with the CLSB given the project’s size, programmatic complexity, and aggressive sustainability targets. But each year the bar gets raised on COTE submissions, so it’s always gratifying to win. The team is very pleased to be recognized!

Any building, green or otherwise, is the sum of many different components and design aspects, but what do you think sold the COTE committee on the decision to put the CLSB on the list? 

All projects that receive COTE awards inherently perform high with regard to energy efficiency and the use/preservation of material resources. I believe the CLSB is one of the largest projects in the country to achieve LEED Platinum, but I’d like to think a few factors helped to distinguish the CLSB: The site has been remediated and resurrected from its industrial past, and it is situated at a multi-transit crossroads. In consideration of the environmental cost of getting to and from our buildings, the CLSB site gives its users and visitors every possible option to minimize their carbon footprint. It is a perfect marriage with the Portland urban ethos. But frankly, the core decision by the three university-owners to merge resources and build a shared, collaborative facility really elevated the sustainability narrative. Sharing, maximizing the utilization of space, and creating an adaptable, flexible building that can accommodate ever-changing curricular and pedagogical trends was the greenest decision of all. We’re starting to see more of these partnerships take hold.

What kind of feedback have you received so far from users of the building and other stakeholders? 

We are pleased that the feedback from the users and stakeholders has been overwhelmingly positive. A lot of the sustainability achievements go unnoticed or are simply woven into the daily experience. Users notice the public spaces, areas to gather, socialize, and build human relationships…and the light and views! Some of the views are truly extraordinary.

Have you received any data yet regarding how the building is performing, in terms of energy or otherwise?

The building has been operational for just under a year, so the analysis is still a work in progress.  But so far, the building performance appears to be on track.  From an energy standpoint, it is estimated to perform 45% more efficient than a typical building code facility.

Is there anything from this project that might constitute a lesson learned, or an advance that you might be able to apply to other projects? 

As mentioned earlier, we are engaged in several projects that are supporting multi-institutional and interdisciplinary partnerships that leverage collaboration and maximize the sharing of human and physical resources. It’s like another form of passive sustainable design.

Could you talk a little about the partnership that CO and SERA had, and the complimentary skills the two firms had that helped the project become successful? 

A project of this size, complexity, and ambition required the blended skills and expertise of two firms, and a partnership like none that I’ve experienced before. SERA had the native understanding of everything Portland: mindset, environment, design review and permitting process, codes, relationships with the AEC community, etc. Plus deep experience in building highly sustainable buildings in the Pacific Northwest. CO brought national programming and design expertise to this hybrid building type. We co-located in SERA’s office for several months, along with consultants, contractors, and owners.

 

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A conversation with SRG Partnership's Jon Schleuning (part 2)

WSU Veterinary & Biomedical Research Building (image courtesy SRG)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

This is a continuation of my discussion with SRG Partnership founding partner Jon Schleuning, FAIA, who recently received the received the 2014 Medal of Honor from the American Institute of Architects' Northwest & Pacific Region. From historic preservation to master planning, architecture to professional leadership, Schleuning has over the past four decades helped make Portland what it is today, and has influenced generations of designers.

Portland Architecture: How has the profession changed over time for you?

Schleuning: The profession is moving in two separate directions. The delivery side is building-focused and moving towards wanting  everybody to be together, often in a common physical location. The idea is  to get everybody together so we can collectively make  more efficient and better decisions. On the design side, we’re at the other extreme, focused on cloud-computing, complex BIM modeling, and interactive video conferencing. The design-based teams want to be more far-reaching and as a result, are more fragmented. In addition, we’re not limited to thinking about individual buildings but larger scale eco-districts and clusters or families of buildings. Todays design challenges emphasize resource conservation and sharing, optimization of current facilities, and strategic densification. Share the energy. Consolidate the water. Thinking in bigger chunks. It’s not only, ‘Here’s the building and we’re on budget and time, but have we used the the resources on hand in an optimal manner? Are we left with 200,000 square feet of vacant space that no one knows what to do with?’ A design team has the responsibility to do more than just  design a building, but  to seek broader solutions:  ‘ why not remodel here and add a new addition her instead. It may be smarter than just a stand-alone new building here.’ 

SRG previously worked on the restoration of the Washington State Capitol, and now you’re working on a $200 million plan to restore the Oregon state capitol building. Could you talk about that particular opportunity and challenge? How has it made you appreciate the original architecture?

In the early 1970s our office did the planning studies for the new wings on the south side of the State Capitol Building which  ZGF  designed and implemented in the mid-70’s. Thirty years later, SRG was selected to do a new master plan focused on seismic upgrades and much-needed renovations; and in 2014, our team was chosen to implement many of those recommendations. I have been  deeply involved in much of that work; and  hopefully the legislature will be supportive. The building needs it.

What is interesting is a major public building, the product of a national design competition, completed in 1938 at the height of the Depression. This followed a fire that had destroyed the previous, very classical and ornate facility. And here, the State of Oregon selects a building design so distinctly modernist and different than anything else. Initially I looked at it and said, ‘Well, it’s kind of a solid, utilitarian piece, neither dramatically handsome  nor homely, just matter of fact.’ But the more I work with it, the more pride and respect I have for that building. 

Oregon State Capitol (image courtesy History.com)

The Capitol was completed at the same time Belluschi was doing the [Portland] Art Museum. You see the similarities in terms of the simplicity of the massing, the clarity of the building elements and proportions, and the readability of its purpose and function. . There is a presence and a cadence to it that is really remarkable. There is minimal detail. There’s no base. It’s a modernist building at a pivotal time in architectural history, moving from classicism into modernism.  Here is a building so appropriate for the citizens of Oregon. It wasn’t ostentatious. It was utilitarian. It was handsome. It has a presence to it. It was an East Coast architect that captured the persona of the state. Today, 75 years later, it’s probably even closer to the state’s persona than the Depression-ravaged citizenry of the ‘30s, embodying the heritage of a sustainable environments, the bottle bill, public beaches and rivers and more. Everything about Oregon is embodied in the pioneer statue on top.  Not some heroic politician on a horse, just an average guy looking for something better. It’s inspiring. 

What does it need to be relevant today and tomorrow as a working building?

You realize the need to protect the building from seismic damage and worn-out infrastructure; but also the need to enhance the working environment.  Bring in more natural light, re-capture the natural ventilation. When it was completed in 1938, it was the most sustainable state capitol in the Union.  It is a classic sustainable building and we’re preserving that. One of the goals of the 2009 Master Plan was to make it the most sustainable capitol in the country once again.

We’re addressing the seismic issue through base isolation technology [under-floor seismic protection] and we decided to lower the floor a few feet at the same to make the space usable for additional hearing rooms and departmental space. We can make this building a habitable and efficient governmental center without damaging its historic character. The public can enjoy the building and the people using it can be more efficient and get more done.

What keeps you going in the profession?

I have a strength in design that can envision new combinations of ideas and to convince people that these ideas are beneficial to the client and the public. It’s that transition from an abstract ideas into sketches into a building that’s often missing right now, especially when someone says, ‘I want 200,000 square feet  for a certain amount of dollars.’ The process needs to be more flexible and  nebulous. I have the privilege to work with talented people where everybody contributes. Everybody has good ideas. It isn’t hierarchical. I’m more of an orchestra leader, saying, ‘Let’s explore this point,’ or, ‘Have you thought about this?’ It’s lucky that SRG has always been blessed with diversity with people of different talents, interests and types; but also the diversity of ideas in saying, ‘Let’s try this or let’s explore this.’ When a majority of your clients are owner-users, you also have the obligation to be certain that what you do for then really works; that it’s not a whim or a fad. If you try something new, you’d better test it first.

What energizes me are the people around me. Architecture is the greatest profession in the people it attracts -- people drawn to the profession not for flashy cars or corner offices. They’re attracted to architecture because it’s about people contributing something lasting, not just here today and gone tomorrow. It’s the idea of transforming ideas and people’s expectations into something that’s special and tangible.

What’s a connecting thread amongst SRG’s clients?

They fit a common pattern – mostly people and institutions interested in contributing to the betterment of daily lives. A recent project is the Veterinary and Biomedical Research Building at Washington State University. It is a very sustainable kind of building and received national Lab-of-the Year recognition; but it is really trying to  accomplish other things, many of which are relatively subtle. For example, the person working in the lab is the same person who uses the rest of the building. There’s not the differentiation of the lab portion and a corporate portion. We brought natural light into all the spaces. Everybody shares the light, the views, the common spaces, the same materials. Everybody is treated equally. 

It seems like part of what you’re designing is social as well as physical.

When you  have an open environment like our office, people become less territorial. It isn’t about having private offices, but having clusters of people around you. These conditions create collaboration and connectivity --  to nature, to natural light and views, to me, and to your neighbor. In the research, healthcare, and education fields where we do  considerable work, the basic premise is sharing. So the question is, ‘Can we create environments for better collaboration and sharing?’ It’s not about objects or things but the more  intangible elements. Finding places where you can have a public persona and a little bit of privacy. People are not just extraverts or an introverts but a little of both. Translating that to architecture is what  is meaningful. It doesn’t have to be a church or a cathedral to have a spirit of place that says, this feels comfortable and I like being here. Once that’s true, then you’re willing to share things and together, you can achieve more than you ever could on our own. That’s the power of collaboration and working as a team.

 

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A conversation with SRG Partnership's Jon Schleuning (part 1)

Jon Schleuning (image courtesy SRG Partnership)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Last fall, SRG Partnership co-founder Jon Schleuning received the 2014 Medal of Honor from the American Institute of Architects' Northwest & Pacific Region, awarded to architects who have demonstrated excellence in design, architectural education, or service to the profession while promoting public understanding of architects and architecture.

Founded in 1972, SRG Partnership has distinguished itself over the decades with experience in both historic preservation and in new construction, with an emphasis on sustainability and research. SRG's projects usually aren't flashy, but they possess a timelessness and rigor that reflects the wisdom of Schleuning and a team including principals like Kent Duffy and Dennis Cusack.

SRG's first project was the master plan for Johns Landing (in conjunction with John Storrs), which launched SRG’s reputation for planning and urban design. It was soon followed by the Lower Willamette Management Plan for the Port of Portland—the first successful strategic policy plan approved by local, state and national agencies for 16 miles of river use and shoreline development. The firm has overseen renovations to both the Washington and Oregon state capitol buildings, created high-tech facilities for like Intel and Fujitsu, popular public facilities like the Oregon Coast Aquarium and Mount St. Helens Visitors Center, and leading-edge green buildings like the Lillis Business Complex at the University of Oregon, Bellevue City Hall, Shriners Hospital in Honolulu, and numerous works for the University of California system.

In the early 1980s, SRG also served as architect of record in partnership with lead architect Arthur Erickson as one of the three finalists for the Portland Building commission. SRG's work is perhaps the opposite of the Michael Graves-designed building that was ultimately constructed, but as I saw at a recent dinner for Graves when the architect was in town last year for a public talk with Randy Gragg, Schleuning could not have been more gracious towards his more famous colleague.

Schleuning also has a long record civic involvement, including his presidency of the City Club of Portland and numerous review boards for Pioneer Square, Pioneer Place, and the Portland Performing Arts Center.

Recently I met with Schleuning to talk about his career and his passion for architecture.

Portland Architecture: After growing up in Portland, you originally studied at Yale University under famous names like Josef Albers and Vincent Scully, and got to meet Eero Saarinen. Yet you ultimately transferred to the University of California at Berkeley. What attracted you there?

Schleuning: I went through architecture school in that brief period of time where behavioral science suddenly was taking off. Yale’s program was in transition and UC Berkeley had just developed the College of Environmental Design. We were looking at prisons and all kinds of spaces that shaped people’s lives in a constructive way. I was just passionate about it.

What are your memories of working on the Portland Building competition?

It was an interesting time. I don’t see it as a high point or pivotal moment in my career. The Portland Building is probably midway from where I started and where I am today. It came at the end of a period of very intense public involvement that I felt was fundamental to what architecture was about -- cities and people and streets. It was also at a time when we had a lot of urban renewal work, the Portland Development Commission was really powerful, and there was a lot of federal money. So our firm was doing urban design studies for Morrison Street and Pioneer Courthouse Square and things like that. There was an intense interest in the public sector and the public domain. Portland, with its small blocks, has 33 percent of the land in public ownership; so you’re dealing with small chunks of real estate. At the time when other cities were building blockbuster, mega-buildings, Portland was still locked in. And it was a blessing.

When we approached the Portland Building, here was a chance for a public building that had some legitimacy to it. We were excited and delighted to be a part of one of the teams. Erickson had been doing some lovely work and had just finished the anthropology museum at UBC. He was a wonderful man, but we just didn’t have enough of his attention. I don’t think any of the three finalists’ projects were really successful. BOORA had an interesting one with Mitchell Giurgola. It was introverted with a big interior space. In our design, Arthur had the big strand that cut through the middle. It was a great idea that we didn’t really incorporate in any convincing matter, but it was a great idea. There were view corridors through the building. Buildings weren’t barricades, and especially public ones. Buildings were meant to have a porosity to them, especially on the lower levels. The Portland Building doesn’t accomplish that. I don’t think the Erickson building did it well. But to end up with a building that was really more pivotal stylistically rather than architecturally, that was [disappointing].

Arthur Erickson/SRG Portland Building entry (image courtesy SW Oregon Architect)

Why do you think that was?

Part of it was the way the competition was set up. Which gets back to where we are today, in that often there’s a predetermination of what needs to be done without a careful analysis by the right people—not that it has to be only by architects. But architects and urban planners ought to be involved in figuring out what should be done. My mantra is not, ‘What can be done?’ We can do almost anything now. It’s, ‘What should be done?’ That’s the moral imperative that makes sure architecture is not just a commodity. If there’s no moral imperative then we’re cranking out shoes or refrigerators or cars. When you get to that point, someone says, ‘Here’s what I want to do. Do it for me.’ Yet it’s that incredible creative aspect that the design professions bring, to say, ‘What if we did something different? Not for the sake of being different, but let’s turn it upside-down and look at it and see if maybe there’s something we were missing.’ The responsibility of architects today is  to get to the decision-makers before they make the decision. It’s being on the policy side so you’re able to say, ‘Instead of doing that building, maybe we should do a smaller addition and two renovations.’

You seem to think as much like an urban planner as you do as an architect.

I remember when I was working with [former Portland Mayor Neil] Goldschmidt on Pioneer Place. We got down to the three finalists and visited with them. We had all the boards and presentation materials. Neil had moved to DC [to be the US Secretary of Transportation] and came back. I said, ‘Do you want to see what we chose?’ We were really excited about this three-block development downtown and these great boards  that Rouse had developed. Neil came in and said, ‘It looks great. But what are you doing about JC Penney? What are you doing about the old bookstore?’ He was two steps ahead of everyone. He said, ‘This is great, but it doesn’t help the city if it puts JC Penney out of business or you lose JK Gill.’ You’re looking at a bigger chessboard. And you’re trying to get people to say, ‘I know you need that 60,000 square feet but think of what the next move is. Don’t make a move that two moves down the line will not allow you to do something even more spectacular. And there’s a lot of good examples of that, where people are rushing into what I would call premature decisions. Part of what we need to do as architects is step back and say, ‘We’re imaginative people. Let’s use our imaginations.’

How have things changed over your career with respect to that kind of civic planning and ambition?

Twenty years ago, the public sector had a lot more money. They brought more dollars to the table. Once the money dried up and they became facilitators of the city rather than real leaders You’d ask, ‘What’s the big move?’ We had the Blazers or a baseball team looking to relocate. There were civic things motivated by the fact that the public sector needed more than just talk. Once they were undercut financially, they lost their nerve in some ways. I was lucky enough to participate in a time that was about leveraging what you did have. The attitude was not, ‘What can you do?’ or ‘What can’t you do?’ It was, ‘What should you do?’ It wasn’t restrictive. It was, ‘How do we solve it?’

UO's Lillis Business Complex (photo by Lara Swimmer)

I remember being on the planning team for the first part of South Waterfront. We the best economic resource consultants out of Los Angeles and San Francisco. They said, ‘Housing just won’t work.’ We said, ‘Well, we want housing .’ They said, ‘It just won’t work.’ We sat at the table and finally at one of the meetings with Larry Dully, who was leading the process for PDC, we said, ‘we’re asking the wrong question.’ So we turned to the economists and said, ‘Assume that housing is an integral part of what we do. Tell us what we have to do to accomplish it.’ Don’t just say what works, because we’ll just get the same formula. And they came up with some creative ideas that allowed housing to proceed. Previously the best thing they suggestsed was a shopping center. Give us a break!

SRG's offices overlook Pioneer Courthouse Square from a classic A.E. Doyle-designed building from the early 20th century. How does the urban setting outside your window reflect the kind of work you like to embrace as planner and architect?

It speaks to the power of mid-rise high density. You look at the differences between what’s happening in South Waterfront and what’s happening in the earlier portions of the Pearl District. The  mid-rise high density allows me to sit here and see people’s faces. This time of year you’ll start getting the guitarist on the corner or the bell-ringer for Christmas. You talk about connectivity. I practiced for a year and a half on the 16th floor of what was the Georgia Pacific building where you don’t have that kind of connectivity.

When you talk about density from and urban point of view, the important part is you want not only this visual connectivity, but also the physical connectivity. If you have to walk 400 feet before you can turn 90 degrees, that’s not successful. You’ve got to be able to move laterally and be able to have greater choice. When you do that you’ve got shafts of light coming in, you’ve got some other view corridors. It’s not just about low-rise or high-rise or mid-rise. The density is the denominator that makes the urbanism. 

What do you love best about the job and what is your skillset? 

I’m practicing today because it’s probably the most exciting period in 50 years. There’s no real dominant ideology, so everything can be evenly examined. We’ve got technology at levels unperceived when I began in the early parts of the profession. We’re able to visualize in animations all kinds of situations. We’re able to test lighting and glare. Just the whole technical level is at a point where we can look at issues in a much more intellectual manner than just intuitively.

Washington Legislative Building renovation (photos by Laura Swimmer)

The second aspect is the profile of the people you work with. When I started in Berkeley in the early ‘60s, the joke was that only the plumbers had less diversity than architects. Architecture was just a bunch of gray old men. Now, just take a look. I cannot practice today without being surrounded by people of all ages, nationalities, and different skills. Never before has it been more collaborative or more team-oriented.

You know the famous story of Edgar Kaufman getting ticked off at Frank Lloyd Wright and wanting to see how the house was coming. He got on the phone and said, ‘I’m getting in my car and I’m going to be up there in three hours.’ Wright had been doing other things and procrastinating. He sat down wildly for a few hours, and Fallingwater appeared by the time Kaufman arrived. We don’t have that today. It’s not within the mind of one person. So what you require are really great team players and collaborators.

I pride myself on having been around long enough to know that I’m an idea person. I’m not a detail person. You can talk about craft and say how wonderful craft is, and you’ll put me to sleep sooner or later. And that’s why we have people that really can do that well. I’m more interested in putting together combinations of things that haven’t been done before. ‘Why not have the psychologist in the office.’ Why not do this or why shouldn’t other things occur?’ It’s that ‘What if?’ aspect that generates new ideas. That, plus working with the creative people we have.  We’ve never had stronger talent than right now – in our office or in the profession.

 

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Award winners: Barton, Johnson, SRG, Peting, YGH

L. Rudoph Barton (image courtesy PSU)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Local architects and members of the design profession have been taking home numerous honors lately. Here's a roundup of their awards and acknowledgements.

Portland State University architecture professor L. Rudolph Barton has been awarded a Fulbright visiting professorship to the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland for the 2014-2015 academic year. Barton is the first PSU professor to receive a Fulbright Scholar Award to travel to the United Kingdom. The highly competitive award allows Barton to spend six months, from January to June, working with the Urban Lab of the Mackintosh School of Architecture and urban design staff with the city of Glasgow. The goals of the research project include developing an urban design case study of Glasgow, as well as creating reciprocal exchange programs between PSU and the Glasgow School of Art and strategic partnerships between the cities of Portland and Glasgow.

“The city of Glasgow and Scotland itself are major success stories in innovative urban design. Glasgow has transformed itself from something of an industrial wasteland into one of Europe’s most energetic, creative cultural centers," Barton said. "I hope to bring back a few ideas so that Portland, and Oregon, can learn from Glasgow’s example.”

Architect-educator Don Peting, founding director of the Pacific Northwest Preservation Field School at the University of Oregon, is being honored with the 2014 George McMath Historic Preservation Award, presented each year to an individual whose contributions have raised awareness and advocacy for historic preservation in Oregon.

Cameron Huber's perFORM 2014 design (image courtesy Hammer & Hand)

University of Oregon undergraduate architecture student Cameron Huber has won the $2,000 first-place award for his entry in the "perFORM 2014: A House Design Competition" sponsored by Hammer & Hand (a sponsor of this site). The contest challenged emerging architects to fuse high design with high-performance building in designing a single-family house “that achieves Passive House-like levels of energy performance while being resourceful, replicable, and beautiful.”

 “The goal of this project was to loosely follow Passive House standards in order to achieve a high performance envelope and overall system, while creating a truly flexible environment or a forward thinking family," Huber said. "There is far more that goes into sustainability than what can be shown on an energy spreadsheet.”

The Architecture Foundation of Oregon has named Art Johnson, who founded Portland’s KPFF Consulting Engineers 40 years ago, as its annual Honored Citizen. Johnson built KPFF into the premiere structural engineering office in the region, which also supports a robust international export program of its design expertise. Johnson is the first structural engineer to receive the award, which goes to a non-architect member of the architecture and design community for lifetime contributions to the built environment.

Veterinary and Biomedical Research Building (photo by Lara Swimmer)

The new Veterinary and Biomedical Research Building on Washington State University’s Pullman campus, designed by Portland firm SRG Partnership, has received R&D Magazine's Lab of the Year award. Designed by SRG, the VBRB was one of four projects recognized internationally, receiving a High Honors Award. The  competition showcases emerging thinking, sustainable practices, and creative responses to challenges in the design, construction and operation of modern laboratories.

Portland firm Yost Grube Hall Architecture received an Award of Honor for the Health Careers Center for  Central Oregon Community College in Bend, Oregon. The 47,000 square foot facility also received a Hammurabi Award in February from the Masonry and Ceramic Tile Institute of Oregon.

Congratulations to all the winners.

 

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Two Portland buildings named to AIA's 2014 Top 10 Green Projects list

Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Courthouse (photo by Nic Lehoux)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Yesterday two local projects by Portland firms were named to the American Institute of Architects Committee on The Environment's annual Top 10 list of the nation's best sustainable designs: the Bud Clark Commons by Holst Architecture and the Edith Green Wendell Wyatt Federal Building modernization by Cutler Anderson (of Bainbridge Island, Washington) in partnership with SERA Architects.

The two projects join a handful of Oregon buildings that have been named to the list since its inception in 1997, but with increasing regularity in recent years, including the Mercy Corps headquarters (designed by THA Architecture), PCC Newberg (designed by Hennebery Eddy) and the Hood River Middle School Music & Sciences building, all in 2012, as well as 12 West (by ZGF) in 2010, Eugene's Wayne Morse US Courthouse (by Santa Monica, California's Morphosis) in 2007, and the Bank of Astoria (by Tom Bender with SERA). The Lloyd Crossing Sustainable Design Plan by Seattle's Mithun was also named to the list in 2005.

"We are very excited to have been selected for this award because it recognizes the importance of uniting good design and sustainability," SERA's Lisa Petterson said by email. "Working with our design excellence partner, Jim Cutler, to integrate place-based/climate requirements early really enhanced the design. The biggest lesson learned from the EGWW project was how important having specific performance targets was on creating a culture of success both for sustainability and design."

(You can click here for a 2012 interview I did with James Cutler about the Wyatt for this blog, or click here for a 2013 interview I did with Cutler about the buiding for Architect magazine.)

The Wyatt Federal Building Project was originally planned as an occupied remodel, but was restarted in 2009 by the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) as a more extensive re-imagining that existing 18-story, 512,474-square-foot office tower (orignially completed in 1974) stripped down to its steel framing. ARRA legislation required the design team to meet the requirements of the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), including 55% fossil fuel reduction (compared to a code-designed building), 30% energy usage reduction, 20% indoor potable water reduction and 50% outdoor potable water reduction. "Having a specific goal to meet allowed the team to determine if they were meeting the goal, and to keep designing until the goal was reached," Petterson added.

Looking up at the EGWW's west facade (photo by Brian Libby)

The Wyatt used to be a drab, forgettable office building. Now, it stands out in a big way because of two bold design moves: the exterior screens shading the west facade, and the slanted top. Both are based in sustainable, functional design moves: filtering glare with the screens and optimizing solar panels with the diagonal roof. But each is also an aesthetic move, so much so that the building has an almost post-modern quality.

It's a trend I have increasingly noticed amongst leading-edge sustainable design projects. The Bullitt Center in Seattle, for example, which is the first US office building in the United States to meet rigid Living Building Challenge standards, has an almost cartoonishly large roof that stretches seemingly for acres past its facade. It's done to maximize diffuse natural light without glare, a worthy functional effort, yet aesthetically it seems to have an oversized sense of proportion. I'm unquestionably a fan of the Edith Green Wendell Wyatt, but if I were judging it on a purely aesthetic basis its to signature moves, the facade screens and the slanted top, would seem too large.

Thankfully when you achieve such optimal performance as the Wyatt does, we needn't judge the building superficially on aesthetics alone.

It was a little surprising to see the Bud Clark Commons, which was completed in 2011, named to this list in 2014. But eligibility for the honor stretches back 10 years, and besides: it was not at all surprising to see the AIA's Committe on the Environment found the project worthy of honor.

"We are extremely honored to be the recipients of what we consider one of the most challenging sustainable design awards programs in the nation," Holst partner Jeff Stuhr said by email. "For over 15 years, we have promoted and integrated green strategies into our work. For us, and perhaps most importantly, we believe that building timeless architecture - projects that will stand for a century or more – is the most sustainable thing a firm can do.”

Bud Clark Commons (photos by Sally Schoolmaster)

The LEED Platinum-rated project provides a walk-in day center for the homeless with with a 90-bed temporary shelter as well as 130 studio apartments for homeless men or women seeking permanent housing with support services. An estimated $60,000 per year is being saved on energy thanks to investments such as one of the region's largest solar hot water heating systems, a tight thermal envelope to reduce heating loads, and a heat recovery system for residential unit. All told, the building performs 51% better than code in terms of energy efficiency and 53% better in water efficiency.

Not only is the Bud Clark Commons impressively efficient, but it serves as a striking symbol of Portland's 10-year effort to end homelessness in the city. Situated on NW Broadway between Old Town and the Pearl District, it's part of a kind of gateway into downtown and its form exemplifies Holst's long track record of exceptionally attractive, refined architecture. Though simple in form, a pair of long, rectangular brick volumes, Holst gives the building kinetic energy and charm with color and natural wood details.

If there's any downside to the project, it'sperhaps not the  the design but its expense. The Bud Clark Commons cost $28.75 million (not including land) for its 106,000 square feet. In the future, if Portland is really going to forcefully address homelessness, we might need to  compliment such an impressive flagship as Bud Clark Commons with some pragmatic, high-bed-count solutions too. But the Wyatt had a very similar per-square-foot cost. To look at first costs alone is of course to paint an incomplete picture. These buildings will ultimately save millions through their efficiency.

Meanwhile, having multiple Portland projects on the prestigius AIA/COTE Top Ten for the second time in three years gives a whole lot of validation to the idea that our city's design community is leading the way nationally. For all the jokes about our "Portlandia" DNA of bearded hipsters engaged in artisanal crocheting or pickling, the truth is that our culture thrives on innovation, not just as a means to make money but to create a more lasting sense of place. Bud Clark Commons and the Edith Green Wendell Wyatt Federal Building embody this tradition and move it forward.

 

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Allied Works, ZGF lead AIA Design Award winners

UO Hatfield-Dowlin Complex (photo by Wolfram Burner)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Last Friday's annual AIA/Portland Design Awards saw two projects in the Willamette Valley win the evening's top prize, the Honor Award: Allied Works Architecture's Sokol Blosser Winery Tasting Room near Dayton in rural Yamhill County, and ZGF's Hatfield-Dowlin Complex for the University of Oregon, outside Autzen Stadium in Eugene.

These are two firms very familiar with AIA/Portland Design Awards, including the Honor Award. Familiar too are some of the night's other winning firms, such as Skylab Architecture, THA Architecture, Hennebery Eddy, Lever Architecture, and Opsis Architecture. There are many excellent firms in this city, some of which don't have a closet ful of awards. But the consistency with which these firms win year after year is no coincidence.

Honor Awards

Allied's 5,000 square foot Sokol Blosser Winery Tasting Room opened this summer, and it represents the growth of Oregon's wine industry. Sokol Blosser, one of the region's pioneering wineries, had relied on the same basic tasting room since the early 1970s, and visitors would often drive up, see it was already overflowing, and turn around. Allied's task was to create a bigger space, yet not to tower over the beautiful rolling hills with some faux-Mediterranean monstrosity, like many big wineries do. “We wanted to make it look like it just grew up out of the earth,” Alison Sokol-Blosser told Portland Monthly's Sam Coggeshall earlier this year.

The design is comprised of numerous cedar-clad interior spaces carved into the hillside. “It’s this crazy labyrinth,” Cloepfil told Coggeshall. “It’s the valley’s first piece of contemporary architecture that really responds to where it is—to landscape, earth, and light.” Along the way, Sokol Blosser gives Cloepfil an addition to his portfolio of Oregon projects. Allied first gained acclaim with the Wieden + Kennedy building in the Pearl District in 2000, quickly followed by the 2281 Glisan Building. But since then much of the firm's work has been out of town. Paired with Allied's under-construction rehabilitation of the historic 511 Broadway building for PNCA (as well as a collection of houses and work for Catlin Gable school), Sokol Blosser helps give the top Portland architect of his generation more of a local footing.

Sokol Blosser Winery Tasting Room (photos by Jeff Jahn, PORT)

Although Sokol Blosser may not be Allied's most prominent project given its portfolio includes major art museums in Seattle, New York and Dallas, there may not be another building that better represents Cloepfil's signature talent for envisioning buildings situated seamlessly within the Oregon landscape, poised to receive a bounty of light.

ZGF's Honor Award for the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex at UO is another confirmation of the architectural partnership between the university, Nike, and a design team led by Gene Sandoval (with interiors by Firm 151). This architect-client combination already had been responsible for the magnificent Jacqua Center at the University of Oregon, which previously won an AIA/Portland Honor Award. Sitting beside Autzen Stadium, Hatfield-Dowlin feels like Rotterdam on the Willamette: a series of crisp interlocking rectangular volumes that poetically blend metal, glass and black granite. Nike and co-founder Phil Knight's multi-million-dollar benefaction meant that this project had an uncommonly high budget, but budgets alone do not make first-rate architecture. From the elegance of the materials to the way light moves in and out of the space to an exceptionally clever array of graphics, art and multimedia, Hatfield-Dowlin is greater than the sum of its meticulous parts.

Merit Awards

The next tier of awards, known as the Merit Award, went to two projects: the Colonel Nesmith Readiness Center in Dallas, Oregon by THA Architecture, and the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services' Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant Engineering Building, by Skylab Architecture in collaboration with Solarc.

The Colonel James Nesmith Readiness Center provides training facilities, recruiting, administrative and family support spaces for the Oregon Army National Guard. THA's design, targeted for LEED Gold and also received a Design-Build Institute of America national design award, is situated around its main assembly hall, which filters daylight from skylights through a wood framework reminiscent of the wooden barns common to this rural area, yet with a more highly ordered geometry. This is the latest in a long line of restrained yet elegant THA public building projects, a firm specialty. The firm previously known as Thomas Hacker Architects is showing that, even as its namesake founder increasingly hands the reigns to a new generation, the quality remains just as high.

Top: Naismith Readiness Center (image courtesy DBIA), bottom: CBWTP (via AIA)

The CBWTP Engineering Building provides offices and support spaces for Bureau of Environmental Services staff. "Oriented radially along the path of the sun, the building will feature a rooftop that folds up and down," says Architizer. "As the seven separate folds of the roof tilt, in sawtooth rhythm, clerestory windows fill the void created by the upward fold, responding to the movement of natural light and airflow. The downward fold drains the landscaped roof runoff into a berm on the south facade and bioswales return the stormwater to the Columbia Slough. The folded roof combined with a north-oriented, louvered and operable glass facade, will allow daylight and natural ventilation to fill the interior during working hours and make possible night flush cooling. The building's hydronic system will connect to the plant water flow, efficiently heating and cooling. The entrance to the plant will be modified to provide a native and adaptive environment, creating a public space in front of the building with views to an existing pond. A newly landscaped commons area will be accessible to the plant staff as well as for educational tours of plant operations for the public. A circular open space in the center will feature landscaping and interpretive features demonstrating water treatment strategies."

Citation Awards

The next tier of award went to two built and two unbuilt projects. In the unbuilt category, Lever Architecture won for ArtHouse, the new dormitory for the Pacific Northwest College of Art located on the North Park Blocks. With natural light filtering into its deepest interiors and a bold undulating metal facade, ArtHouse helps mark Lever's arrival as one of the city's most talented firms. The firm previously won an AIA Honor Award for its work in Southern California for some major Hollywood studios, but ArtHouse, arriving within months of the Union Way project (which also was honored this year by the AIA), showed that Lever founder Thomas Robinson's talents reflect his time at two of the world's best firms: Allied Works and Herzog & DeMeuron.

Top: ArtHouse (photo by Brian Libby), bottom: Cascades Academy (courtesy AIA)

The other built Citation Award went to the Cascades Academy of Central Oregon in Bend by Hennebery Eddy. Besides winning a slough of past design awards, the firm has made highly sustainable college and university projects its bread and butter, be it the net-zero Portland Community College facility in Newberg, Oregon or this new project. Hennebery Eddy's architecture also feels somehow quintessentially Northwest, teeming with wood and light.

Hennebery Eddy also won a Citation Award this year for the unbuilt Fire Station 76 in Gresham, a series of simple rectangular and triangular volumes that alternate transparency and solidity while showing off the firm's experience with fire stations. Every time I drive down Sandy Boulevard in Portland, I smile at the firm's design for Fire Station 28, which combined a historic existing building with an entirely modern wing next door - the two buildings are surprisingly congruent, an exercise in interweaving old and new architecture.

Top: Fire Station 76, bottom: Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (images courtesy AIA)

THA Architecture's design for the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship  of Central Oregon made the firm a repeat winner on Friday night with its unbuilt Citation Award. Although the building's form is boxy, its glass curtain wall makes for not only a compelling display of visual kinetics but also is a nod to traditional eclesiastical stained glass. Corey Martin, formerly of PATH Architecture, led this design, reflecting his imprint on the firm.

Other Awards

This year the Bend area was well represented in the AIA Design Awards, including a Craftsmanship Award for the Central Oregon Community College Science Building by YGH Architecture and Bend firm Pinnacle Architecture.

The Sustainability Award went to another THA project, the Bayview Branch Library in San Francisco, which the firm designed in partnership with SF firm Karin Payson Architecture + Design.

Top to bottom: Bayview Library, Galleria, Reed College PAB (images courtesy AIA)

A Special Award for Adaptive Reuse went to the Galleria building rehabilitation into a City Target, by Portland's FFA Architecture and Interiors in tandem with Alameda, California's MBH Architects. The design completely eradicated any last semblance of the old Galleria building interior, which is disappointing to those of us who grew up going to the building's atrium of small shops, but it's an urbanistic triumph, maintaining the integrity of the historic Galleria exterior while exemplifying a new model of urban Target stores.

Two projects won the People's Choice Award. First place went to Opsis Architecture's design of the Reed College Performing Arts Building, which expertly balances contemporary lines with consideration of the school's early 20th century campus buildings. Second place went to Union Way, the Lever Architecture-designed shopping alley in Portland's West End.

If there's one project I think got shortchanged from the AIA jury, it's this one. It may only have created a series of storefronts fronting a new urban alley, but both the program and the execution are exemplary.

Union Way (photo by Jeremy Bitterman)

Luckily, Union Way also won the Mayor's Award for Design Excellence. "The team for that project took two nondescript buildings that most of us have never noticed and, by cutting an alley through them, transformed them into a place of interest and delight," Mayor Charlie Hales commented. "Like the sculptor that sees a statue inside a block of stone, the Union Way team saw a great place just waiting to be uncovered. They have created something that is beautiful to look at.  They have created something that is a delight to experience. And they have created something that can help all of look at our urban fabric in a different way. That is truly great design."

 

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Award winners: THA, Holst, SRG, ZGF, YHG, UO

THA's Hallie Ford Center in Corvallis (photo by Lara Swimmer)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Recent months have seen Portland firms take home a number of awards, from projects to the work of individual architects. As we dive into the fall arts season, let’s take a moment to acknowledge the acknowledgements.

Holst Architecture, for example, has received the Project of the Year award from Residential Architect magazine’s 2013 Design Awards for the Bud Clark Commons. Featuring 130 studio apartments for residents who have been experiencing homelessness, the project beat out a host of swanky houses. Think of it: people not long ago living on park benches and under bridges now occupying space that’s won a design award over mansions.

“I just assumed we were going to pick a house or an apartment that showed the expertise of the architect and their use of the best materials in creating the best spaces,” juror Brian Messana said. “But this project to me encapsulates all of that.”

“Good design should be available to everybody,” fellow juror EB Min added. “That’s one of the tenets of modernism. I think this project really addresses that. When we’re talking about residential architecture, everyone just jumps to think about single-family homes. But this is a residence as well. And beyond the social program, the design itself is lovely. As a piece of architecture in Portland, it functions beautifully. It’s a great addition to the cityscape as well.”

Holst's Bud Clark Commons (photo by Brian Libby)

“We chose to offer this as an example to everyone: that you can achieve something for a relatively mundane, straightforward project that usually is not treated very well,” concurred juror Robert M. Cain. “It goes beyond.”

Meanwhile, Portland’s THA Architecture is the recipient of the 2013 Region Firm Award from the American Institute of Architects’ Northwest and Pacific Region.

“Two interrelated qualities stand out about THA Architecture. The first is the breadth of consistency they achieve from concept to detail and the beautiful work that results. Second, is the quality and focus of the firm’s culture and the way it infuses itself into every aspect of the firm’s highly evolved practice.”

The award may denote a generational arrival for THA. Once known as Thomas Hacker Architects, the firm has moved beyond the shadow of its talented founder, Hacker, who studied under Louis Kahn and who, as a University of Oregon professor, influenced a number of acclaimed architects like Brad Cloepfil and Rick Potestio. Now, however, THA principals like David Keltner, Becca Cavell and more recent addition Corey Martin are playing leading roles. The firm continues to make public buildings such as museums and higher education facilities its bread and butter, but is also moving further into condos, apartments and other residential projects.

Bayview Library, San Francisco (photo by Bruce Damonte)

Recent THA projects, for example, include the Hallie Ford Center at Oregon State University in Corvallis and the Bayview Library in San Francisco, with a number of others under construction: the State of Alaska Library Archives Museum in Juneau, 3339 SE Division (an apartment building) in Portland, and the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Central Oregon in Bend.

THA also received another honor recently, as did two other Portland firms.

The September issue of Architect magazine includes its annual list of America's top 50 architecture firms. THA came in at #8, while SRG Partnership came in at #22 and ZGF at #24. Last year, ZGF was the top-listed Portland firm on this list (and the only one), at #10. This year, SRG also came in at #10 on Architect's alternate listing of the top 50 sustainable design firms, with THA at #11 and ZGF at #35.

YGH Architecture also was honored recently. Architect Lona Rerick, who directs the firm’s sustainability efforts, received 2013 BetterBricks Award in the Building Design category. The award recognizes her leadership in the Pacific Northwest’s green building community and her many accomplishments in sustainable design during her more than 10-year career with YGH. While at the firm, she has led or played a significant role in the sustainability strategies for numerous projects, many of which earned LEED Gold or Earth Advantage Gold certification and have realized energy consumption rates ranging from 30 to 45 percent below current code requirements.

Rerick is a former chair of the AIA Portland, Oregon Chapter’s Committee on the Environment and has served as the head of YGH’s Sustainability Committee since 2002, helping lead the firm through The Natural Step planning process. Additionally, she is instrumental in coordinating YGH’s efforts to meet the AIA 2030 Commitment, which sets guidelines that move buildings to carbon neutrality by the year 2030. She also currently sits on the National Sustainable Design Leaders Group, an elite selection of nationally recognized green champions.

Students Jason Rood, Alex Kenton and Ben Bye (image courtesy University of Oregon)

Architecture students from the University of Oregon also recently won first place in the "Timber in the City: Urban Habitats" contest, an international competition of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.

Called upon to design a mixed-use facility for a site in Brooklyn, New York, a team that included UO architecture undergraduates Benjamin Bye, Alex Kenton and Jason Rood used cross-laminated timber as a new building technology to create a cost-effective, environmentally friendly solution for creating livable and recreational areas that support a wide range of daily activities for residents. The UO students’ work was chosen from 1,000 entries.

 

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Allied Works and Skylab Architecture lead AIA Design Awards winners

Clyfford Still Museum (photo by Jeremy Bitterman)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Two local firms already quite familiar with winning AIA Design Awards from the Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architects, Allied Works and Skylab Architecture, walked away with the top prize at a ceremony held October 26. Allied's Clyfford Still Museum in Denver and Skylab's Nike Camp Victory in Eugene each received the Honor Award from this year's jury: Trey Trahan of Trahan Architects in Baton Rouge, Stella Betts of LevenBetts in New York City, and Joe Day of Deegan Day Design in Los Angeles.

The Clyfford Still Museum continues an impressive streak of high-profile art museums Allied Works and founder Brad Cloepfil have designed in cities around the country: the St. Louis Contemporary, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Museum of Art & Design in New York, among others. And this new Denver project may be the most acclaimed of them all.

Clyfford Still Museum (photo by Jeremy Bitterman)

"The building is just a box, albeit one the architect has shaped so that its proportions are perfect, its textures alive with light, and its interiors an oasis of clear frames for Still’s gestures and forms," wrote Aaron Betsky of Cloepfil and Allied's design in Architect magazine. "It is a box that does not pander to its site, nor tries to disappear. It answers it with architecture, which is to say with an articulation of a wholly human response to that place. 'The figure stands behind all of my work,' Still said of his art, and now architecture of the highest quality frames that figure."

Along with the Honor Award, the Clyfford Still Museum also won the AIA's annual Craftsmanship Award the same night.

Nike's Camp Victory,  constructed outside the University of Oregon's Hayward Field for the Olympic Trials, continues a tradition of compelling temporary architecture by Portland architects, recalling Boora Architects' creations of years past for PICA's Time-Based Art festival. Skylab has also received numerous honors in the past, including an Honor Award in 2008 for a mixed-use building on SW 12th Avenue, an Unbuilt Merit Award from the AIA last year for the Bureau of Environmental Services' Columbia Boulevard Support Facility, an Unbuilt Citation Award in 2010 for the Weave Building.

Nike Camp Victory (image courtesy Skylab & Hush Studio)

The next tier of AIA distinction, the Merit Award, went to two projects: the Mountbatten Nantechnology Electronics Research Complex at the University of Southampton by IDC Architects, and the Panther Lake Elementary School in Seattle by DLR Group. That means the top six awards of the night all went to projects outside Portland.

What's more, although IDC and DLR both have offices in Portland (they each are headquartered elsewhere with numerous offices in other cities), making them eligible for the awards (either the location of the project itself or the competing firm has to come from here), of the firm team members listed by the AIA for each winning project, few to none of the names I searched on seemed to be based here. Locations like Pittsburgh, Glassgow, Toronto and Seattle came up as home bases instead.

Top: Univ. of Southampton (courtesy IDC), bottom: Panther Elementary (courtesy DLR)

That's not to say there weren't people from IDC's and DLR's Portland offices working on these projects; I'm sure there were, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to enter. What's more, we should judge these projects on the merits of the designs, as the jury did. Both projects seem impressive, too. It would be provincial and silly to be nitpicky about what constitutes an eligible project for these awards, for we need all the talent we can get that wants to associate itself with the city. But perhaps this just highlights the fact that this year's awards had a decidedly less local bent.

The next round, a kind of bronze medal called the Citation Award, went to another out-of-town project but this one by a firm headquartered here: the Wagner Noel Performing Art Center at University of Texas-Permian Basin in Odessa, Texas by Boora Architects (with an assist from Rhoteenberry Wellen Architects of Midland, Texas). Boora has found a niche designing performing arts venues for smaller cities and larger suburbs, such as the Mesa Art Center in Arizona.

Top/middle: Wagner Noel Center (courtesy Boora), bottom: Stubbs Residence (via ABC)

A Citation Award also went to the Portland firm Architecture Building Culture for the Stubbs Residence in Seattle, which imaginatively and fearlessly combines a historic home with a new addition equal in size and contrastingly modern in style. I've always been a lover of hybrid architecture such as this, where a new addition doesn't ape the original structure but makes itself a new chapter in the story of the building.

And while other winners like Boora, Skylab, IDC and DLR are all established firms with enough employees to compete for major institutional projects, ABC and founder Brian Cavenaugh are an up and comer. Cavenaugh already won a national Young Architects Award earlier this year from the AIA. Although nothing's guaranteed, perhaps ABC could become the Allied or Skylab of Portland's future.

One unbuilt project, THA Architecture's design of a new headquarters for Portland advertising and graphic design firm Downstream, won the evening's Unbuilt Merit Award. Due to difficulties with developing the site, Downsteam has reportedly since decided to renovate an existing building rather than build this headquarters, but that's all the more reason to give this design its moment in the sun. Someday someone should curate an exhibit of the best Portland Architeture that was never built, from the Delta Dome to the Weave Building. Might this project make that cut?

Downstream headquarters (rendering courtesy THA Architecture)

Another film familiar to the AIA Portland Design Awards, Works Partnership, took this year's Sustainability Award, for a storefront commercial building called the Washougal Incubator that seeks to invigorate that small Washington town's historic downtown core. Works won an Honor Award last year for the Tandem residential project in Portland, and the firm's heretofore signature project, the bSide6 building, received an Honor Award in 2009. The firm has also received numerous AIA awards for unbuilt work.

For the past decade or so, our city's leader has chosen the annual Mayor's Award for Design Excellence. This year Sam Adams chose the Randall Children's Hospital at Legacy Emanuel, designed by ZGF. In each of his prior three years, Adams had chosen housing: Works Partnership's Tandem Duo in 2011, SERA Architects' Patton Park Apartments and PATH Architecture's Williams Five Condominiums in 2009.

And finally, the People's Choice Award went to two projects. First place among these was Boora's Vernonia Schools (a single K-12 project despite the pluralized name), which replaced a high school, middle school and grade school that were decimated when the small Coast Range town experienced major flooding in 2007. The second-place People's Choice Award went to DLR Group's design of another small-town educational facility: the Scappoose High School Auditorium, headed by a Portland-based team of Scott Rose, Levi Patterson and Kent Larson.

Congratulations to all the winners.

 

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Architecture + Design Festival returns with a month of exhibits, discussions, screenings, tours and awards

Bud Clark Commons, 2011 AIA award winner (photo by Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

What does October mean to you? Maybe it's about football season kicking into high gear. Maybe you're keen to stay outdoors before the rains arrive. Maybe you're caught up in the presidential race, or busy hanging Halloween decorations with your kids. But autumn is also when the arts kick into high gear, and for architects and design enthusiasts, each October brings the annual Architecture + Design Festival.

Presented by Portland's American Institute of Architects chapter but in partnership with a host of local design and arts organizations, A+D 2012 kicked off a few days ago with an opening night party at the chapter's Center For Architecture (newly minted as an independent nonprofit). Festivities continue tonight with a First Thursday celebration, also at the CFA (403 NW 11th Avenue), featuring an installation by Jordan Tull called "Ecto-Paraprism," which Tull describes as not as something from Ghostbusters but "a flexible crystalline facade that feeds off the existing core of AIA PDX. The installation explores transparency, reflection and ownership in a dynamic relationship between host architecture and parasitic intervention. Ecto-Paraprism redefines and dominates an existing structural facade to provide a temporary and alternative visual orientation for AIA PDX."

There are also two lectures this week, including a free one tonight at Portland State University's Shattuck Hall Annex by New York architect Dan Wood of WORKac called "Architects create places, not spaces,” as part of the Department of Architecture's 2012-13 lecture series. (Many already-existing events by other local entities are additionally placed under the A+D Fest banner.) Saturday brings "Electrifying Times: Streetcars and the Building of Portland" at the Architectural Heritage Center (701 SE Grand, $10-13).

Next week starts with a panel discussion on Monday, October 8 at the Center For Architecture (5:30PM, $10-15), part of the International Interior Design Association local chapter's monthly discussion forums. It promises that "compelling members of the Portland design community will be gathered to discuss the integral role collaboration plays in the emerging multi-disciplinary design industry." There's also a Tuesday film screening at 6PM for Detroit Wild City (CFA, 403 NW 11th, free) by French documentarian Florent Tillon, hailed as "a poetic portrait of the dystopian ‘Motor City’ where grass is growing in parking lots and building after building is crumbling apart." What can America's Pompeii tell us here in the Next American City?

Saturday, October 13 brings a trio of events. First, beginning at 10AM, there's "Design Matters: A Tour of Exceptional Portland Homes" ($40), featuring seven houses by a compelling variety of Portland firms. There is Skylab's HOMB, for example, a new prefab housing model that has been constructed in Portland for the first time this fall. There are also two renovations, one of a 1950s ranch house by Paul McKean (a past winner of the top local AIA design award) and another a rehab of the circa-1958 "Home of Tomorrow" by Donald Blair and William Fletcher, an AIA winner from back in 1960. Also included is the striking wood-festooned Graham Towers duplex, one of the last projects by PATH Architecture before lead designer Corey Martin left for THA Architecture.

Skylab's HOMB concept (rendering courtesy Skylab & Method Homes)

If you're not looking to drive all over town for the homes tour, October 13th also brings a lecture by architect-historian William Hawkins, also at 10AM called "Greek Revival Style in the Oregon Territory,1839-1859" ($10-18) at the Architectural Heritage Center (701 SE Grand). There's also the ASLA Design Awards, honoring the best in local landscape arcthitecture (6PM, Tiffany Center ballroom, 1410 SW Morrison, $65-85).

October 16 brings two more events, both at 6PM. A lecture at the University of Oregon (70 NW Couch, free) called "Material Computation" will be delivered by Achim Menges, architect and professor at the Institute for Computational Design at the University of Stuttgart. A pioneer in construction innovation, Menges will discuss how material characteristics can drive architectural form using computational techniques, which promotes an understanding of form, material and structure not as separate elements, but rather as complex interrelations. At the same time, there's a screening of the film How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster? (CFA, 403 NW 11th, free). Directors Norberto Lopez Amado & Carlos Carcas profile the British starchitect Norman Foster with a blend of curiosity and reverence. It seems unfortunate that both events take place at the same time. If they were staggered, one could make an evening of it.

On October 18, the AIA's Committee on the Environment hosts the latest Pecha Kucha night (CFA, 403 NW 11th, free), in which participants show up to 20 slides each in no more than 20 second increments, with the topic of what sustainability means to design professionals, community members, educators, artists, and members of the community (Center For Architecture, free). The Bosco-Milligan Foundation's 17th annual "Riches of a City" auction is scheduled for Saturday, October 20 (Melody Ballroom, 615 Southeast Alder, $75-100).

The highlight of any Architecture + Design Fest is the annual AIA Design Awards, which this year are scheduled for Friday, October 26 at The Plant (935 SE Alder, $50). This year the event is actually called "DesignmiX" and features a series of sculptural objects (or "follies") on display created by designers and architects. The "DesignmiX" is preceded by An Evening With the Jury on Thursday, October 25 (CFA, 403 NW 11th, $5), in which the Design Awards jurors (from New York, Los Angeles and Baton Rouge) discuss their impressions of Portland.

There are even more events happening during the A+D Fest than I've listed here. Check out the event website for more details - and then go out and get inspired.

 

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How three local designs made the AIA's Top Ten Green Projects list

PCC Newberg (photo by Stephen Miller)

BY JULIETTE BEALE

While Portland may have lost its lead as the most bike-able city to Minneapolis, and one publication now ranks ours as only the ninth greenest city in the country, we are arguably still at the forefront when it comes to green design, as evidenced by having three projects on the 2012 AIA COTE Top Ten list: the Mercy Corps Word Headquarters, Hood River Middle School, and Portland Community College’s Newberg Center. Earlier this week, The University of Oregon’s Architecture Department hosted a panel discussion featuring key members from each of these projects’ design teams.

The Mercy Corps World Headquarters, designed by THA Architecture, is a LEED Platinum project that combines an existing historic structure with a modern addition. Open offices were placed on the outer edge near the windows, in the historic portion, and core and service elements were located toward the center. In the modern addition, the entire East elevation is a curtain wall shaded by street trees.  The project has a 3,800 square-foot green roof, stack ventilation through the main staircase, and re-used timber stair treads.

Hood River Middle School Music and Science Building, designed by Opsis and set to achieve net-zero energy usage (generating as much as it consumes), is located within the context of a larger school that is on the National Historic Register. The building’s design demanded an acute consideration of the natural context, the historic fabric, and the school’s sustainable/ science curriculum. The project has a geothermal heating system with heat exchange recovery ventilators, a radiant floor slab, and high mass walls for thermal storage. Trusses and other materials were salvaged from the demolition of a buss storage barn previously located on the site for re-use in the new roof structure.   

Portland Community College- Newberg Center, by Hennebery-Eddy, is the first of six buildings planned for this newest PCC campus. A net-zero project like Hood River, the building’s envelope is insulated with structural insulated panels (SIPS).  Sloped ceilings leading upward toward skylights provide enough diffuse light to meet lighting needs during daytime hours. A series of louvers and dampers, located below windows, bring fresh air into the building.   Large stacks, located along the building’s central axis, naturally vent air, while a109-kW photovoltaic array generates all the space’s energy.

Panelists (from top) Alec Holser, David Keltner, Doug Reimer, Erica Dunn

One panelist was quick to note that all three Portland projects outperformed the others on the list, a good boost for Portland pride. Projects are judged on a set of criteria including light and air, water cycle, land use and site ecology, among others. Yet these panelists collectively suggested several other driving forces rooted in our well-established sustainable building culture.

For example, the clients of these projects were savvy and didn’t need to be convinced into adopting strict sustainable goals, panelists agreed.  For Mercy Corps, a sustainable building was in tandem with its official mission: “To alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities.” PCC Newberg’s President went to the design team with the goal of creating the most sustainable building possible.  At Hood River Middle School, the curriculum being housed in the new building was environmental, so the client wanted a sustainable building to showcase these technologies in an educational way.

Government and nonprofit incentives also helped projects along. The State of Oregon, for example, offers many financial incentives to promote green design. PCC-Newberg took advantage of the Energy Trust of Oregon’s Path to Net Zero program.  The project’s solar array as funded by a bond measure that stipulated 50% of project funds had to go toward solar technology.

Hood River Middle School (video courtesy Opsis)

Having a high goal such as LEED Platinum or net zero focused the clients’ attention and gave them something to rally behind, panelists also said. For Hood River Middle School, the building itself was to be a tool for sustainable education. Working with Opsis, they investigated all the ways net zero strategies could also be used in the classroom. Building energy use monitors are in visible locations for students. A portion of the wall was cut back to reveal the construction. Students were involved in the process of designing a living machine. 

David Keltner of THA mentioned that Portland is already positioned at a tipping point when it comes to our understanding of sustainable technologies.  For this type of project to be successful, panelists agreed, it demands an integrated project team of architects, engineers, contractor and client.  There also must be industry buy-in. “Engineering something that is not out there in everyone’s vocabulary is like designing a Ferrari,” Alec Holser of Opsis said. Having professionals ready to work together to find new approaches to meet these challenges was fundamental.  In the case of net zero, many of the technologies must solve two problems at once and then they need to work with the other strategies. There is a complex balance, for example, between daylighting and heat gains. The PCC innovative sloped ceiling helped spread the light of a standard type and sized skylight. 

Panelists were unanimous that net-zero projects are paving the way for future invention and innovation in materials and technologies.  As they become more of a norm, codes too will need to be updated.  Net zero water usage is difficult to achieve when water recycled on site cannot be reused in the landscape or restrooms.

Mercy Corps (photo by Jeff Amram)

A great lesson from these projects is that green buildings can be designed in a way that educates their users. Whether it’s building performance monitors or an architectural display of strategies on the facade, the more users learn, the more comfortable users become with these buildings. Through understanding there is change. When people know they are in a cutting edge building with passive heating/ cooling they have different expectations.  Erica Dunn of Hennebery Eddy cited that more people complain of being too hot when they have AC than when they don’t because they are mentally prepared for a greater range in temperatures. It’s really about common sense, Rob Reimer of Hennebery Eddy said. “It’s not about gadgets or gizmos. Just designing a smart building.” 

In the end, continually searching for new paradigms is critical for advancing the design discourse. For example, David Keltner noted there is always talk of reductions in energy use, but what about a consideration of new forms of energy production?  Our next step will entail a re-thinking that is even more outside the box. It will be interesting to see how this may shape the future of COTE Top Ten Green Projects.

 

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Three projects by Portland firms make AIA Committee on the Environment's Top Ten Green Projects list

Hood River Middle School (photo by Michael Mathers)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Since it began in 1997, the American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment's annual Top Ten Green Projects list has been the highest honor a sustainable building project can achieve. Though Portland seemed to be an industry leader, for much of the past 15 years there have not been many projects by local firms to crack the list until ZGF's Twelve West finally did so in 2010 (although GBD Architects' Gerding Theater was an honorable mention in 2007).

This year, however, Portland is dominating the list, with three projects by Rose City firms in the just-announced Top Ten for 2012: the Mercy Corps headquarters in Old Town, designed by THA Architecture; Hood River Middle School, designed by Opsis, and the Portland Community College Newberg Center, designed by Hennebery Eddy. Maybe it helped having local architect Clark Brockman of SERA Architects on the six-person jury, or perhaps the fact that two of the three honored projects achieve net-zero energy usage was more of a factor. Regardless, this should help cement the city's status as a national sustainable design leader.

Mercy Corps headquarters (photos by Jeff Amram)

The Mercy Corps building occupies a prominent position along the Willamette riverfront, on Naito Parkway at the west edge of the Burnside Bridge. THA expanded the historic Packer-Scott building to go from 42,000 to 85,000 square feet. There's a green roof atop the building, and eventually there will be an array of solar panels operated and studied by students at the University of Oregon's Portland campus next door.

Mercy Corps received a top-level LEED Platinum rating, as well as a very low EUI (energy use intensity) score of 36, less than half the average of an office buiding. Potable water use was also reduced by 40 percent compared to a space designed to code specifications.

PCC Newberg (photos courtesy Hennebery Eddy)

The PCC Newberg building is the first structure in what will eventually be a 15-acre multi-building campus. It is constructed from structurally insulated panels (SIPs) that reduce heat loss from thermal bridging and air infiltration. The buildinng is naturally ventilated with louvers and double dampers to prevent drafts. As reported in Eco-Structure, "When outside temperatures dip below 55 F, heat-recovery ventilators condition fresh air, and the concrete slab circulates 90 F water through a closed-loop radiant system in the slab that then radiates heat to the building occupants. In warmer months, ceiling fans provide a 3 F drop in ambient temperature and use a fraction of the energy of a traditional air-conditioning unit. A 109-kilowatt rooftop PV array meets the center’s remaining energy needs."

Hood River Middle School (photos by Michael Mathers)

Opsis Architecture's design for Hood River Middle School's new Music and Science Building is also net-zero for energy, thanks largely to its exterior envelope, be it well-insulated walls, triple-glazed windows, or detailing that prevents thermal bridging.

The main entrance, as Eco-Sructure also explains, "is purposefully sited at the inside corner of the building so that the mass of the concrete walls and a concrete slab shelter the entrance against winds from the Columbia Gorge. The thermal mass also buffers the interior spaces against seasonal temperature swings. Also contributing the net-zero-energy status is a tight envelope, a geothermal heating system, heat-exchange recovery ventilators, a radiant-heating system in the slab, and a 35-kilowatt solar PV system on the roof."

Besides its energy efficiency, all rainwater runoff at the new Hood River Middle School building gets collected and treated in a new bioswale, then is stored  in a 14,000-gallon underground cistern, and then reused for irrigation in the student garden. All told, some 123,000 gallons of water will be saved annually. As someone raised in the next town over from Newberg, McMinnville, all I can say is I wish the rest of this town's architecture, infrastructure and planning were of an equal design caliber to the PCC facility.

 

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Award winners: SRG, Ayotte, Reidy, Soderstrom, Cavanaugh

UC Riverside School of Medicine research buiding (photo by Lara Swimmer)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

This post marks the beginning of a new Portland Architecture continuing series, in which from time to time we will round up recent awards and honors bestowed upon the local design community.

First up is Portland firm SRG Partnership, which received a Special Mention for Sustainability in R&D Magazine’s 46th annual international Laboratory of the Year competition. Completed in 2011, the 60,000 square-foot, three-story facility is designed to achieve LEED Gold certification from the US Green Building Council.

Laboratories are some of architecture's biggest energy hogs, with heavy-duty ventilation systems and energy use, but the Riverside project is predicted to use 60 percent less energy then a facility designed to code, which also will save $500,000 per year in operational costs. The space is also full of natural light and natural materials like wood, both of which also are missing from most labs. Back when SRG won a merit award from AIA/Portland last fall for the lab, the jury called the project, "a strong concept that pulls from projects such as the Salk Institute," referring to Louis Kahn's masterpiece in La Jolla, California.

Meanwhile, Portland architect Hal Ayotte of Fletcher Farr Ayotte is the recipient of the University of Oregon’s 2012 George McMath Award. The awards ceremony will take place Wednesday, May 30 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the UO in Portland White Stag Block at 70 NW Couch Street. Proceeds from ticket sales to the award luncheon ($50) will benefit financial aid programs for the university’s historic preservation students.

Ayotte's 40 years of professional practice include numerous renovations of historic landmarks, especially the National Park Service to the Oregon University System. Ayotte oversa projects like the reconstruction of Crater Lake Lodge, for example, winner of numerous local and regional American Institute of Architects design awards, as well as Mount Rainier National Park’s Paradise Inn, Multnomah Falls Lodge in the Columbia Corge, the Salem Passenger Rail Depot; the Marcus Whitman Hotel in Walla Walla, the State of Oregon Library in Salem, and the White Stag Block in Portland for the University of Oregon.

Also honored recently was Soderstrom Architects. The firm's design of the University of Portland bell tower received the Masonry & Ceramic Tile Institute’s Hammurabi Award for excellence in masonry. The Bell Tower, which sits beside a Pietro Belluschi-designed chuch, was designed by Dan Danielson of Soderstrom.

Bell Tower, University of Portland (image courtesy of the university)

“The jury found the level of craftsmanship to be outstanding,” wrote Randy Nishimura, one of three jurors for the Hammurabi Awards. “The integration of brick and precast concrete elements, and the application of the Flemish bond patterning are particularly successful. The texture, coursing, and brick patterns all complement one another in the service of creating a unified whole. The result is a complete, finished little jewel.”

The award was announced at a luncheon at Portland’s Governor Hotel on Thursday, March 1, 2012. Franz Hall, also designed by Soderstrom Architects, also received Hammurabi Award in 1997. The Bell Tower, dedicated in 2009, is the realization of a longtime vision by University benefactors and administrators to both showcase the University’s Catholic character and serve as a landmark symbol for the campus community.

In sustainability news, this year's BetterBricks Awards, honoring the region's innovative designers, builders and clients achieving high degrees of sustainability and energy efficiency, included an award in the Design-Engineer category for PAE Consulting Engineers' Steve Reidy, who had an inspiring message about how occupant comfort is an essential part of good design.

"We spend a lot of our lives as engineers – I do – talking about building metrics, building performance, goals," Reidy said. "But really the thing that inspires me is kind of maybe a little different as an engineer. I’m looking for, and I really excited about how a building feels. And everybody in this room will sit and say, ‘What does that mean?’ And it means something different for every person. Some person may think lighting is important, or space comfort. I spend a lot of time talking about temperature. It may be the size and shape of the room, it may be the architecture of the space, maybe the finishes and how a space looks. But the most important thing is, when you’re in a space that performs, when your project performs and you have occupants that go in there and say, ‘This space feels great,’ that’s when I’m inspired. That’s when I really feel that I’ve done the work I was meant to do, which is to bring those buildings forward and to put the occupants into those buildings. I think at that point they feel ignited. And I’m really excited when I go to my clients and feel that. That’s my excitement."

Lubavitch Foundation, Vancouver (rendering courtesy Achitecture Building Culture)

And finally tonight, Portland architect, Brian Cavanaugh has received a 2012 Young Architects Award from the American Institute of Architects. The award is given to individuals who have shown exceptional leadership and made significant contributions to the profession in an early stage of their architectural career. Most recently, his firm, Architecture Building Culture, received a 2011 AIA/Portland Design Award for the interior renovation of the Lubavitch Foundation of British Columbia headquarters in Vancouver.

“Brian possesses a sophisticated and creative mind coupled with a deep commitment to furthering the profession’s role in building rich and propelling communities through design excellence, advocacy, and proactive leadership,” the jury wrote in its comments for the Young Architects Award.

 

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Record 6 projects receive top honors at AIA Portland Design Awards

Digital Animation Studio, an Honor Award winner (image courtesy Lever Architecture)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Every year for the past decade as I've covered the annual AIA/Portland Design Awards, the top prize, known as the Honor Award, has gone to one or two projects. This year, however, the jury felt far more generous. A record six projects walked away last Thursday night with the night's biggest accolade.

The winners of the Honor Award were: (1) the Legacy Emmanuel Medical Center Central Utility Plant in Northeast Portland, designed by ZGF Architects; (2) the Early Childhood Development Center in Gresham, designed by Mahlum; (3) the Tandem duplex in Southeast Portland, designed by Works Partnership Architecture, (4) J-Tea teahouse in Eugene, designed by Benjamin Waechter; (5) the Digital Animation Building and Campus in Glendale, California, by Lever Architecture; and (6) the Bud Clark Commons in Portland by Holst Architecture.

Many of these firms have been honored before, some numerous times. ZGF, for example, won last year's Honor Award for the Jaqua Center in Eugene, and has received the same prize in years past for projects like the Doernbecher Children's Hospital at OHSU. To be honest, though, winning for a hospital utility plant rather than, say, ZGF's much acclaimed Port of Portland headquarters, much have been a surprise even to the firm.

"A real achievement architecturally for such a banal program," the jury said of the Emanuel plant. "Expertly executed at every level from siding down to the detail. Subtle and evocative use of light that animates the building at night. There was a real inventiveness in the use of standardized industrial materials."

Works Partnership's Tandem project (photo by Brian Libby)

Works Partnership has won a slough of awards for its unbuilt work as well as for its B-side6 building. Of the Tandem project, which this blog covered in depth earlier this year, the jury was enamored with its "clear, strong concept," adding, "One move has a dramatic impact in a split level house type. Adventuresome use of materials for both exterior and interior.  Wonderful interior detailing and use of perforated material. " Tandem also won this year's Mayor's Award for Design Excellence.

Holst, honored this year for the Bud Clark Commons, received a Merit Award last year last year for the Ziba World Headquarters, following awards in years past for projects like the Belmont Street Lofts and Clinton Condos.

Bud Clark Commons (photo by Brian Libby)

The jury said it was impressed "by the long and rigorous process by the architect, clients and community for this building type," applauding its "beautifully and cleverly composed elevation, using one window type to create a subtly dynamic façade."  Overall, they said the project was "carefully executed at every level with a light hand," and called the courtyard "an ingenious working component of the building as both social and architectural transition space. Uplifting."

Honor Award winner Ben Waechter has only been practicing in Portland with his own firm for a few years (he previously worked for Allied Works locally as well as the Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Italy), yet by my count all three of his major projects have won AIA awards, given that J-Tea's two predecessors, the Cape Cod House and the Z-Haus, both received recognition last year. And J-Tea, like Z-Haus, was featured prominently in Dwell magazine. Waechter has to be considered on of the top up-and-coming architects in the city.

Ben Waechter's J-Tea (image courtesy Dwell magazine)

Of J-Tea, the jury commented in their traditional series of run-on sentences, "A dramatic transformation of a typical bungalow into residential and commercial space. Only four components each rendered beautifully. The canopy, the porch, the tea-walls and the tea-bar are all equally and carefully considered in relationship to the experience of tea. A nice set of transitions between the street and the interior of the tea-bar.  The plainer quality of the assemblage makes it feel like you are walking through the layers of a painting. Lively and light with minimal means."

Mahlum, the Honor Award winner for Gresham's Early Child Development Center, won a Sustainability Award last year for Hayes Freedom High School in Camas, Washington; the firm, even after Rick Potestio's departure, has established itself as a venerable leader in building green schools.

Lever Architecture, the one firm out of the five Honor Award winners winning this year for the first time, has more experience than this fact might indicate. Principal Thomas Robinson spent six years at Allied Works, the city's most acclaimed firm, including on projects like the AIA award-winning University of Michigan Museum of Art. Before that, Robinson was a senior project architect for what may be the top architecture firm in the world, Herzog & de Meuron of Basel Switzerland, where he led the development of the innovative perforated copper façade and tower structure for the New De Young Museum in San Francisco.

"Fantastic transformation of a common industrial building," the jury wrote of Lever's Animation Building. "The projected benefited from careful tectonic analysis. There is a beautiful choreography of light and space, which manifests itself that is smart and clear and ready to be abused by the animation geeks. We also like the reuse of the recycled gym floor for the floors and walls."

This year's jury also awarded five second-tier Merit Awards to five projects: (1) the Two Story Four Square house in Boise by Heide Beebe and Doug Skidmore; (2) the School of Medicine Research Building at the University of California Riverside by SRG Partnership; (3) the Interchange residence in Portland by William Kaven Architecture; (4) Director Park in Portland by ZGF; and (5) BodyVox Dance Center in Portland by BOORA Architects.

Two Story Four Square in Boise (image courtesy Beebe Skidmore)

Of these winners, Beebe and Skidmore are the newest presence. They established their firm in 2007 and were honored this year for restoring and transforming a circa 1924 home prairie/craftsman-style home on the edge of a Boise historic district.

BOORA's win for BodyVox is seemingly well deserved, given how the firm restored an old industrial building on a low budget yet created a place with warmth, function and beauty. That said, it's a project that already competed in last year's AIA Design Awards. Such was also the case for projects like Tandem and J-Tea. This practice of allowing projects that don't win one year to compete again the next is a practice I'd like to see be discontinued.

Winning a Merit Award is a major validation, and the first AIA award, for William Kaven Architecture. The firm previously made its biggest plash as part of the 11 x Design Tour in 2009, which introduced many of the city's most talented young firms and architects such as Kaven, PATH Architecture, the now-defunct SEED Architecture Studio, Ben Waechter, Design Department, and Webster Wilson. Kaven's Interchange residence, located in the Overlook neighborhood of North Portland, is a gorgeous home oriented around a courtyard in the rear and showcasing the client's art collection.

William Kaven's Interchange Residence (photo by Brian Libby)

The third-tier Citation Award went to two projects: the Everett Community College Student Fitness Center in Everett, Washington, by SRG; and the James F. Miller Theater Complex at the University of Oregon in Eugene, designed by THA Architecture. SRG, as both of their awards this year indicates, has been a relatively frequent award winner over the years, and almost always for their educational facilities. THA winning an award is no shock; the firm has won countless AIA awards over time, such as an Honor Award for a new theater at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.

Two more special awards were given out. The Sustainaibilty Award went to Hennebery Eddy Architects for Portland Community College's new facility in Newberg, which is set to become the first net-zero energy educational building in Oregon, and the Craftsmanship Award went to a trio of architects - Randy Stegmeier, Ryan Yadan, and Jenn Ward - for the Quiet House, which the jury hailed for its "sublime" detailing and materials. Stegmeier works at ZGF and Ward at the very talented (but so far scarcely marketed) up-and-coming Firm 151.

Five project won unbuilt prizes. The Unbuilt Merit Award went to the Overton House in Portland by Works Partnership and the Bureau of Environmental Services' Columbia Boulevard Support Facility by Skylab Architecture. Both both firms have won many AIA awards over the years. One of the three Unbuilt Citation Awards was given to another new Portland firm, Architecture Building Culture, for the Lubavitch Center in Vancouver, British Columbia. Ben Waechter's Tower House was also honored, as was Works Partnership's North Mississippi Apartments.

Overall, the award winners overwhelmingly are comprised of two project types: residential and public buildings. With just a few exceptions such as J-Tea and the Digital Animation Building, almost every winner was either a house, multifamily housing, a health care facility, or an educational or government facility. Where is the private sector? If these awards are an accurate reflection of architectural quality, the corporate world of offices is laggging behind. Which is particularly amusing given that many in this demographic comprise the 1% controlling some 20-40% of the nation's wealth that Occupy protests around the nation are now addressing. Why are nonprofits, families and budget-strapped public sector entitites committing to quality design when they have fewer resources to do so?

Meanwhile, congratulations to all of this year's winning projects and architects.

 

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Wood be king: design awards jurors assess Portland style

Tingley-Fortin Residence (photo by John Jensen)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Last night the trio of jurors presiding over this year's AIA/Portland Design Awards gave their annual Jury Critique presentation, beginning with a discussion of their own work and then moving on to observations about local architecture.

This year’s jury was an all-female affair, consisting of Merrill Elam of Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects in Atlanta, Lisa Iwamoto of Iwamoto Scott Architecture in San Francisco, and Vanessa Kassabian of Norwegian firm Snøhetta’s New York office.

Although Merrill broke from tradition by only discussing one of her firm’s projects, an unbuilt cultural and popular music performance venue in Taiwan, Iwamoto and Kassabian both demonstrated a compelling array of projects from their respective portfolios.

Snøhetta's World Trade Center memorial in New York (image courtesy DesignWire)

In particular, Snøhetta’s emergence from an Oslo firm with no American built work to a major presence in New York and beyond was of interest. The firm opened its Manhattan office after receiving the coveted commission for the World Trade Center Pavilion, the only building occupying the site of the former twin towers. Then Snohetta benefited from a kind of happy accident. “Originally the intent was to open as a project office for the World Trade Center,” Kassabian explained. But after the project faced numerous delays, “In order to keep the office open we’ve taken on other work. Now we have 14 projects underway.” Among these are an art school building at Bowling Green University in Ohio, a library at North Carolina State University, and a major expansion of the landmark Mario Botta-designed San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Snøhetta proper has also designed acclaimed international projects like the Alexandria Library in Egypt.

Although her firm designs projects of all sizes from furniture prototypes to regional master planning, Iwamoto is an expert at digital fabrication and the author of a book called Digital Fabrications: Architectural and Material Techniques. “We look at the relationship of modularity and pattern to an overall surface,” she said. With training in both engineering and architecture, she has particularly explored how thin, light materials such as fabric and paper can be made to expand and contract, to be permeable and non-permeable depending on conditions and needs.

Although each year the out-of-town jury is hampered by a lack of time and experience seeing Portland, two of three had been to the city before. And they all had good things to say about local design.

“A lot of what we saw had exquisite craftsmanship,” Iwamoto said. “I was jealous coming from San Francisco: the budget here is often 200 a square foot, but the quality and material lushness for the budgets achieved is remarkable.”

Jurors Merrill Elam, Vanessa Kassabian, Lisa Iwamoto (images courtesy AIA/Portland)

“The architecture that’s coming out of Portland is very beautiful,” Kassabian added. “We have to commend you.”

If one attends the Jury Critique from year to year, it can be interesting to hear over time how different jurors from different cities arrive at similar conclusions. This jury, for example, noted (to put things in baseball terms) Portland ability to hit singles and doubles making up for its lack of home runs.

“At first there didn’t seem to be any super innovative project that popped out above the rest,” Iwamoto explained. “As we started digging more, the true innovation seemed to happen in the subtle innovations that made certain projects sing. It was more like a celebration of a natural material, or just doing enough and not going overboard. There were a tiny handful that were really experimenting with form.” The overall level of quality, the jurors agreed, was stellar, even if it wasn’t eye candy.

Most of all – and this of course is a common refrain from year to year – the trio was taken by how much wood they saw. “We were absolutely overwhelmed with the amount we saw at all scales,” Kassabian said, “from the structure to the interiors to the exteriors to the furniture.”

“In some cases wood takes on a language that is not unfamiliar but is beautifully done, the post and beam construction,” Iwamoto added. “Houses you start to expect to see more wood. But it started to become anything, we realized as we started looking through the portfolio. Even in the large institutional projects it was used selectively as a nice way of humanizing them. Do you guys all get together and swap your wood details? How do you know how to do all that?”

The jury’s next observation, however, was a politely delivered criticism. “I think the language of the projects followed a pretty modernist idiom, but there were only a tiny handful that were really experimenting with form,” Iwamoto said. At the time, the screen was displaying an exception to the rule: a house by Skylab Architecture. Although the jury never announces winners at the annual Critique Session, they did seem to display (in support of some of their positive comments) numerous projects by that firm as well as standout projects by Ben Waechter (the Tower House), Holst Architecture (Bud Clark Commons), BOORA (BodyVox dance studio), and ZGF (the Port of Portland headquarters).

The jury also had especially kind words for public buildings, such as the Bud Clark Commons and the renovation of Portland State University’s Lincoln Hall. “We were amazed by the integrity and the quality of publicly funded projects,” Iwamoto said. “We started to wonder what is going on here in terms of wise public officials shepherding projects through the system. There were a number of projects like that."

Bud Clark Commons (photo by Brian Libby)

Showing a photo of Clark Commons, Iwamoto applauded “the very clever means to create an animated and beautiful façade, in this case just turning some of them upside down and painting them different colors.” In the case of Lincoln Hall, Kassabian added, “This one we thought was interesting because of the historical building with a modern material. This was a pretty radical change from the before, and something we thought was extremely successful.”

At the end of the night, when the floor was opened to questions, one audience member asked, if wood is the default material here, what is it in the cities these jurors work in? “”In Atlanta? Artificial stucco,” Elam said, illiciting a laugh. “We don’t have anything as pervasive. There’s a lot of synthetics going on.”

“We see a lot of glass and metal in new york. Some of the older buildings, obviously brick, but not as nice as what’s here,” Kassabian answered.

“In San Francisco, we have a variety of materials: wood, stucco, metal, glass,” Iwamoto said. “What pervades is the general sense of, ‘Don’t touch anything.’ We love our Victorians, for example. You can’t mess with them. That’s a big thing for us to overcome.”

The notion of historic preservation as a barrier was a curious thought to end on, given how the jury had praised Portland for its tendency towards adaptive reuse. Yet Iwamoto wasn’t saying we should knock our best old buildings down. (Only a few outgoing City Council members and a smattering of baseball fans believe such things.) Rather, she seemed to be expressing the idea that architects naturally embrace the opportunity to dive in: to marry new architecture with old, to use wood for more than residential floors and cabinetry, to marry landscape and building more holistically, and to seek more boldness of form than the decorated box that is the norm not only in Portland but across design circles.

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Timberline Lodge tops AIA survey of favorite Oregon buidings

Timberline Lodge dedication, 1938 (image courtesy Friends of Timberline)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Perhaps it's fitting that Timberline Lodge is on top given its location, just below the snowy peak of Mt. Hood. The lodge, completed by the Works Progress Administration in 1937 from a design by Gilbert Stanley Underwood (an architect with the US Treasury Department), was the biggest vote-getter in AIA Oregon's survey of architects' 100 favorite buildings for the organization's centennial.

That Timberline would be honored now is interesting timing. Today, with the economy faltering like no time since the Great Depression, many have expressed frustration that the United States has not invested more in public works projects as FDR's administration did. Yet with projects like the Oregon Sustainability Center or restorations of local landmarks like Memorial Coliseum or Centennial Mills, Portland if not the federal government has sought to continue that tradition.

"Here, to Mount Hood, will come thousands and thousands of visitors in the coming years," President Franklin Roosevelt said in his dedication speech at Timberline. "Looking east toward eastern Oregon with its great livestock raising areas, these visitors are going to visualize the relationship between the cattle ranches and the summer ranges in the forests. Looking westward and northward toward Portland and the Columbia River, with their great lumber and other wood using industries, they will understand the part which National Forest timber will play in the support of this important element of northwestern prosperity. So, I take very great pleasure in dedicating this Lodge, not only as a new adjunct of our National Forests, but also as a place to play for generations of Americans in the days to come."

"One of the reasons people go to the building," architect Joachim Grube told Oregon Architect magazine this month, "is that it was conceived in very difficult economic times for the US, and it was kind of a symbol of survival for coming out of a dark time. That adds to the magic of the place."

Timberline also represents old-world craftsmanchip in a way that no other structure in Oregon can match. It is the only 20th century public building of its size that was constructed and furnished entirely by hand, including original craftwork in wood, wrought iron, weaving, applique painting, mosaic and stained glass.

Mt. Angel Abbey Library (photo by Brian Libby)

Coming in at #2 on AIA Oregon's list was the Mount Angel Abbey Library, designed by the legendary Finnish architect Alvar Aalto and completed in 1970. This is one of only two buildings in the United States designed by Aalto, along with Baker House at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which coincidentally was completed in 1948, just three years before Portland architect Pietro Belluschi became dean of the architecture school at MIT. One of the world's most prestigious architecture prizes, the Alvar Aalto Medal, is named after him, as is a university in Helsinki. If Aalto is not in the top tier of 20th century modern architects alongside Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, and Le Corbusier, he's not far off.

The AIA chose Belluschi's Equitable Building at #3, honoring what has often been called the world's first modern office building; the circa-1947 Equitable was the first major structure in the world to be built with an aluminum and glass curtain wall (narrowly beating out the United Nations headquarters for that distinction). Yet history and innovation are not the only relevant factors, for the Equitable is also quite beautiful even today.

Another Belluschi design checks in at #4, with the Portland Art Museum. Built in 1932, this is among the earliest of Belluschi-designed landmarks and arguably put him on the map. And, as the oft-told legend goes, the architect convinced a skeptical museum to go ahead with his modern design rather than a faux-historic Georgian style they sought thanks to the help of Frank Lloyd Wrigt, who wrote museum trustees a letter of support for Bellusci's design.

US Bancorp Tower (photo by Bradley Maule)

When Belluschi left for MIT in 1951, the renowed Chicago/New York firm Skidmore, Owings Merrill took over his Portland office, creating a host of local landmarks still relevant today. Among these is the #5 selection, the US Bancorp Tower, better known as "Big Pink," which SOM designed in collaboration with Belluschi.

Big Pink and Pioneer Courthouse Square, the #6 entry, are the lone entries from the 1980s. This was a time when postmodern architecture briely flourished. Although the Michael Graves-designed Portland Building is an icon of that time, with its colorful facade of faux garlands, Courthouse Square takes on a more quiet, enduring style. Rather than an in-your-face irreverence to the architecture, turning historical forms into cartoons, the square's design by the late Portland architect Will Martin evokes classical history with its Greco-Roman-like columns, but never crosses the line into outright caricature. That's particularly appropriate given how Pioneer Courthouse Square has a sincere role to play as Portland's principal gathering place for political rallies, concerts, Christmas tree lightings and much more.

Central Library (photo by Brian Libby)

I would have thought Central Library, the #7 choice, might take top honors in the poll. Portlanders love their libraries (the city has at times had the most library card holders per capita of any large American city) , and this Georgian-styled beauty by A.E. Doyle was lovingly restored in 1997. The American Library Association also ranked Central as one of its top 10 libraries in the nation for architecture. Perhaps the fact that architects are voting made a difference, given how most favor modernism more than the general public. Yet if that's the case, choosing Timberline #1 wouldn't make much sense.

Gordon House, in its original location (photo by Brian Libby)

Frank Lloyd Wright's sole Oregon building, the Gordon House, makes the list of top Oregon architecture at #8. It isn't nearly as ambitious as Wright's most celebrated homes, such as Fallingwater. Yet it typifies his Usonian series of houses and the notion that quality modern architecture can be applicable to the lives of people living not only in cities, but on the prairies and in small towns. It's just too bad that the Gordon House, completed in 1964, had to be moved from its original location in Charbonneau along the Willamette River. The new location at the Oregon Garden near Silverton and the act that it's now open to the public give the Gordon House more opportunity to be seen now, but Wright's design was adapted specifically to its location, with one side framing views of the river and another oriented towards views of Mt. Hood. The couple that bought the Gordon House in 2000 had never heard of Frank Lloyd Wright. (Apparently they moved to Charbonneau from The Moon.) They bought the Gordon only in hopes of tearing it down. Yeah, and I buy Picasso paintings so I can fingerpaint over the canvas.

Memorial Coliseum under construciton in 1960 (image courtesy City of Portland archives)

Luckily the #9 entry on the list, Memorial Coliseum, is still standing. Faced with demolition in 2009, the building is now set to be restored in 2012. During the fight to save the Coliseum, those with vested interests in building a baseball stadium on the site (thereby allowing PGE Park to be converted to soccer) tried to pigeonhole the building as simply a decaying eyesore - typified by the "ugly Costco" comment made by Commissioner Randy Leonard. Now, the decision by Mayor Sam Adams and others to save Memorial Coliseum is being validated by its placement on this list. Can you imagine the uproar if someone tried to tear down Timberline Lodge, or Central Library? Each era has its icons, and the Coliseum represents the very best of modernist architecture of the mid-20th century. Then again, though, I'm biased: the Coliseum is my favorite building in the city, and was a cause worth fighting for.

Watzek House (photo by Brian Libby)

Rounding out the list at #10, the John Yeon-designed Watzek House has had a good year in 2011 after earlier this year topping Portland Monthly's list of the top local houses, and also opening to public tours for the first time. Yeon was too much of a wanderer to pursue architectural fame like the better known Pietro Belluschi. But there's no denying that his talent was just as great. The Watzek is part Bauhaus, part farmhouse, with hints of Japanese and Scandinavian design. It doesn't grab you by the lapels with its greatness like Wright's Fallingwater, the sole other house to be added early to the National Register and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art. But it charted a new way forward and veritably gave birth to Northwest Modern architecture of the midcentury, a style still celebrated today for its simple elegance.

The AIA Oregon website has not only the top 10 buildings list, but a full top 100. I was curious to see what else made the list, especially because there are no projects from the list built before 1984. If one project from more recent times was going to be included, I'd have voted for Allied Works' Wieden + Kennedy headquarters. In terms of other ommissions, I of course being an Oregon Ducks fanatic (and historian) would have also voted for Autzen Stadium. Actually, though, the highest ranking building from recent times is 12 West, designed by ZGF. Somewhat appropriately, it #12.

But enough about my selections, or the AIA's. What would you add to the list? These rankings are only fun if they prompt a conversation.

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Architecture + Design Festival returns with tours, lectures, awards, screenings, exhibits

UO's Jaqua Center in Eugene, 2010 AIA Honor Award winner (photo by Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

This Thursday, September 29 brings the return of the Architecture + Design Fest, presented by the Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the AIA in Portland, the A+D Fest brings a variety of events and happenings.

As I write this, the festivities are set to begin in just a few hours with the Opening Night Party (6:30PM, AIA Center For Architecture, NW 11th & Flanders), with a a glimpse of the month’s myriad events and activities. The Center for Architecture will be converted to a lounge complete with music, specialty cocktails, and local organic hors d’ouevres.

The party is also a kickoff for this month's AIA Oregon 100th anniversary exhibit. The exhibition explores the impact architects and architecture have had on the State of Oregon, its regions, and cities through the century. Some of the most beloved buildings in the state will be featured as well as issues facing our community, such as sustainability and land-use which architects have made a significant contribution.

Tours

Leedy House (image courtesy AIA/Portland)

The first big event after tonight's party and exhibit opening is "Design Matters: A Tour of Exceptional Portland Homes". A rare opportunity for guests to glimpse inside six sensational Portland residences, the tour includes the Leedy House by architect Paul McKean, who won top honors at the 2009 AIA/Portland Design Awards; the NW Raleigh House by Giulietti/Schouten, which thoughtfully re-imagines a 1970s ranch house; the Belluschi House (formerly known as the Burkes House) by legendary architect Pietro Belluschi and renovated by his son, Anthony Belluschi; the Cape Cod House (previously featured in Portland Architecture) by Ben Wechter; the Ankeny Lofts by COLAB; and the Tingley-Fortin House, designed by owners Ellen Fortin and BOORA's Michael Tingley.

I've visited the Belluschi House, the Tingley-Fortin House, and the Cape Cod House, and I've followed the work of the other three architects for years. And all are superb designs with superior craftsmanship. This isn't just a homes tour: it really is an example of the best residential design in Portland.

Are you a lover of midcentury and ranch houses? Next Saturday (October 8) brings the Reedwood Neighborhood Walking Tour, in southeast Portland just north of the Reed College campus. Dating to 1955, Reedwood is an eclectic mix of well-designed and built mid-century homes, providing a suburban feel to a neighborhood that is within 10 minutes of downtown Portland. The neighborhood also faces an uncertain future as local zoning regulations have created the potential to dramatically change the landscape of Reedwood predominately through infill. The Reedwood Neighborhood Walking Tour is presented by DOCOMOMO, a national nonprofit dedicated to documenting and conserving buildings and neighborhoods of the modern movement (from which its acronym is derived), and Portland's Architectural Heritage Center. ($15 general, $10 for AHC members). 

Award Programs

Interested in landscape architecture? As if the homes tour and the art exhibit on Saturday weren't enough, there is also the ASLA Design Soiree (6PM, Tiffany Center, 1410 SW Morrison Street, $65), in which the local American Institute of Landscape Architects celebrates professional and student excellence by recognizing the firms, individuals, and agencies responsible for outstanding works of landscape architecture and environmental planning that promote an enhanced quality of life in Oregon and beyond.

The centerpiece of the Architecture + Design Festival, now in its third year (though its predecessor, Architecture Week, ran for many years prior), is the annual AIA/Portland Design Awards program. This year's awards have been combined with a 100th anniversary party for AIA Oregon; the event, called The Party of the Century Gala, is scheduled for the Portland Art Museum (1219 SW Park Avenue, $35). Last year the sole winner of the top prize, the Honor Award, was ZGF Architects' design of the Jaqua Center at the University of Oregon. Who will claim it this year?

Snøhetta's hotel & confrence center in Ras Al-Khaimah, UAE (image via tuvie.com)

As per tradition, the night before the awards brings An Evening With The Jury (5:30PM, Center For Architecture, $5), a discussion by the trio of out-of-town jurors about their own work as well as their overall impressions with the city. This year's jury includes Merrill Elam of Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects in Atlanta, Hilary Sample of MOS Architects in New York, and Vanessa Kassabian of Norwegian firm Snøhetta’s New York office.

On October 21 is the Young Designers Award program (7PM, Center For Architecure, NW 11th & Flanders). "As chair of the A+D festival, one of my major hopes was to try and engage a broader base of designers – multi-discipline - in Portland and to also reach out to the younger architectural generation," Carrie Strickland of Works Partnership said by email. "I think that the AIA does a fantastic job of supporting and promoting established architecture firm and individuals with its collection of services and with the annual design awards program, but it is also imperative to acknowledge the young designers that find their place in the profession – those dedicated to finding outlets for their ideas in their formative years. Young designers come out of school and, if they’re lucky, find employment at firms working within teams. Much of the focus shifts from creative and analytical processes to building technical competency. This award is hoping to encourage emerging designers to continue to explore their own ideas."

"Young architects and designers have it tough right now," Strickland adds. "We all do. Emerging professionals in a tight job market need to compete on a different level and find ways to set themselves apart from their peers.  I know that when we look at applicant for interns we are careful to look at how well they can express their ideas. The trend now is to rely on digital technology to tell your story – but young people need to make sure they are developing skills to express concepts and ideas that can carry water and not just seduce with imagery. Being able to sketch an idea on a napkin as a means of communicating your concept versus rendering something for 2 days in whatever 3D modeling program is the current rage and be a game changer for someone hoping to establish themselves."

Film Screenings & Art Exhibits

Beginning this Saturday (October 1) at 6PM at the Bside6 Gallery (524 East Burnside) is an exhibit called "Body Building," curated by Christine Taylor and Jeff Jahn. A look at how architecture houses the body, the exhibition is based on the concept of housing the body using form, structure, fashion and video. The exhibit portrays how fashion and architecture intertwine as a complex organism, shaping how we visualize our world and the spaces we inhabit.

The Architecture + Design Fest also includes several curated film screenings, the first coming next Tuesday (October 4) with a selection of short films by...me! It seems strange to describe my own work, but the films in "Film Shorts by Brian Libby" (6PM, Center For Architecture, NW 11th & Flanders) are about three to seven minutes each and are basically a succession of experimental travelogues. Marc Mohan of The Oregonian writes, "Brian Libby's films manage to meld the quotidian and the sublime, or rather perhaps expose the one within the other.” Whether it’s pigeons flocking around a local Portland dairy, a double-decker bus ride in London, the canals of Amsterdam and Copenhagen or the freeways of Los Angeles, the intent is to view urban and natural settings with a quiet sense of wonder. The show was curated by Thomas Philippson of the Northwest Film Center.

Another film screening comes the following Tuesday, October 11, curated by local nonprofit The Cinema Project. "Building A Home in the 1970s" (6PM, Center For Architecture, free) features films by Videofreex, Richard Brick and Rudolph Burkhardt documenting some of the counter-cultural movements that challenged notions of community and home and promoted alternatives to the very physical structures in which communal activity could take place. The black-and-white videos serve both as do-it-yourself guides to alternative structures (like geodesic domes and “inflatables”) and documents of the artists, their friends, and families who participate both as builders and inhabitants.

A third screening night, "Deep Urban Space", comes Tuesday, October 18 (also 6PM at the Center For Architecture, with free admission) curated by Michael Neault, a writer, researcher, and media arts programmer with Second Story Interactive Studios. One film, called "Lost Buildings" by Chris Ware and "This American Life" host Ira Glass, is about the evolution of one boy’s obsession with Chicago’s disappearing architectural heritage and the friends he makes along the way. With inventive animations by Chris Ware, it offers a more intimate perspective on Chicago’s buildings. Also showing is "My Playground," a documentary pursuing roving teams of parkour athletes as they infiltrate the urban arena.

Lectures

Next Wednesday, in a talk called "Modular Making in the Age of Digital Craft" (7PM, Oregon College of Art and Craft, 8245 Southwest Barnes Road, free admission), Mark and Peter Anderson of Anderson Architecture, a design and contraction firm integrating the fields of art, architecture, and construction will present their ideas and approach to design/build. The event also includes tours of the new Vollum Drawing, Painting and Photography Building and the Bonnie-Laing Malcolmson Thesis Studios designed by Charles Rose Architects of Boston in collaboration with COLAB Architecture + Urban Design of Portland from 7-7:30. The presentation will occur from 7:30-8:30 in the Vollum Building Painting and Drawing Studios.

In conjunction with the Architecture + Design Fest, Portland State University's architecture department is inaugurating a new lecture series called "Firsts". On October 7 comes Petra Kempf, a New York architect and urban designer who founded URBANTRANSITS, an interdisciplinary research initiative focusing on the transient nature of cities. She has worked with the Department of City Planning in New York City, the Project for Public Spaces and Richard Meier and Partners. Later in the month, on October 27 comes John Ochsendorf, an engineer and educator specializing in the history and technology of historic structures. Ochsendorf  is the first engineer to be awarded a Rome Prize (2007) and the first structural engineer to be awards a MacArthur Fellowship (2008). He currently teaches architecture and civil and environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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MulvannyG2's Jerry Lee, Presidential Volunteer Service Award recipient, talks about giving back

Jerry Lee (image courtesy MulvannyG2)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

One day he's a Portland kid delivering newspapers and the next, a few decades later, he's being recognized by President Obama as a leading example of serving his community. The recipe for his success? "If you’re benevolent and kind, it pays back," Jerry Lee said in a recent phone interview.

MulvannyG2 Architecture’s Seattle-based Chairman of the Board, Lee received a 2011 Gold Level Presidential Volunteer Service Award presented by the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation. “Your volunteer service demonstrates the kind of commitment to your community that moves America a step closer to its great promise,” Obama stated in his congratulatory letter to Lee.

Lee, who originally hails from Portland and studied at the University of Oregon, has logged more than 500 hours of community service in the last 12 months alone. He is a member of Seattle Children’s Hospital Foundation’s “Circle of Care” and as a board member of the College Success Foundation. He is a board member for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, The Martinez Foundation, and the Bellevue Arts Museum. Lee also actively supports the Seattle Art Museum and Communities in Schools/Seattle, as well as Kin On Community Health Care and Nikkei Concerns, both elderly care facilities serving the Pacific Northwest.

Lee says his father first taught him the value of generosity. "We lived at Second and Yamhill and my dad had a grocery store there for 35 years," he recalls. "It was basically full of pensioners. I remember my mother getting upset at my father at all the IOUs in the register. Dad pretty much fronted the bill until their Social Security checks came. When hungry people came in, dad gave them food to eat. Sometimes at our dinner table there were transients. In the 35 years they had their business, they never were robbed once. There was no graffiti. I’ve always felt that dad’s goodwill was a kind of halo that was protected around the store. I think that kind of philosophy was what I took in the business world."

Rendering of Gashora Girls Academy site plan

Mulvanny G2, for which Lee has worked for more than 35 years, has designed numerous pro-bono projects over the years. The latest example is the Gashora Girls Academy in Rwanda, which opened in February. An upper-secondary boarding school for 270 girls, In addition to offering high quality college-prep academics, the Gashora Girls Academy is focused on eliminating the impediments that exist to girls receiving an education. They are provided nutritious meals, mental and emotional support, access to healthcare, and a supportive learning environment with optimal conditions for assuring their future success. The 30-acre campus overlooks Lake Milayi and includes student dormitories, a dining hall with attached kitchen, science and technology labs, an art/mixed media center, and sports fields.

So what made Lee want to become an architect? Why was design the route to carrying on the benevolence he saw in his father?

"When I was a kid down at Shattuck school, I had a friend, an immigrant from Hong Kong. We hung out a lot together, but he never invited me to his home," Lee remembers. "In the seventh grade I finally went over there, to a place at Second and Alder. On the second floor there was this big floor space, and all these immigrants had plywood sheets that they lived on temporarily maybe 10 by 12 feet. My friend and his sister and mother and father lived there. I was just appalled. I came back and told my mom, 'I want to become an architect and design homes for immigrant housing when I grow up.' That’s what started my path."

When Lee first started at Mulvanny as a draftsman in the 1980s, "I ran the blueprint machine and swept the floors, at the bottom of the totem pole," he recalls. Today, as a head of the firm, he is far from a top-down leader. He says his Asian heritage, viewed through his parents' example, was about hard work as well as family. "We’ve always blended our culture with our business practice," he explains. "Finance and profits are all good, but I think we take a different philosophy: that if you do the job right, profits are a byproduct."

That starts with a happily company family. "We have breakfast every Friday morning together. I think it’s important we break bread together with our co-workers. You’re never going to sit with the same guy every Friday. We try to make them like ‘Family Feud’ or ‘Hollywood Squares’ or ‘Survivor’. We’ve even taught the Macarena and had lessens in setting places at the table. We try to get together for bowling, or a ball game. It’s important to involve the family, including spouses. I think because of it we have a tendency to work together. The Chinese philosophy says if you put a bundle of sticks together you can’t break it like you could just one stick. Together we can make mountains move."

Redmond City Hall (image courtesy Public Art 4 Culture)

Still, Jerry Lee seems to be an extra big stick. Or, to mix metaphors with help from Reggie Jackson, Lee may be the straw that stirs the drink. Certainly there are projects for which he holds pride as an architect. In our conversation, Lee cited projects like Redmond City Hall, and talked about how the firm has expanded continually over the years, including an office in his hometown that has designed a number of award-winning projects.

Yet it always comes back to his giving spirit - not just a convenient giving, but one with true force and meaning. Consider a final story from Lee:

“I had an Ichiro signed baseball bat I got in 2001, which I loved. But my dad says if you give something to charity, it should be something you treasure, not just something you’re looking to get rid of. So I donated it to Komen Foundation for an auction fundraiser. It raised $1,000. Not long after that, a friend of mine gave me a birthday present. It was a signed jersey from Wayne Gretzky, the world’s greatest hockey player. He wanted to give something back that was as good as the Ichiro bat. But the year after I donated that jersey to Komen  and it raised $10,000. USA Today was part of the sponsorship campaign that year, and they printed a picture of the jersey. Six months later I got this big box in the mail, and it was a signed jersey and a letter from Wayne Gretzky saying, you can’t give this one away.’”

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PSU, partnering with Paris school, wins grant to build Haiti orphanages

An orphan in Haiti (photo by Jan Sochor)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

The Partner University Fund, an initiative of the French Embassy of the US to promote innovative collaborations in research and education between French and American universities, has selected for funding a proposed three-year partnership between Portland State University's Department of Architecture and the Ecole Speciale d’Architecture de Paris.

The $485,000 grant will allow the two schools to collaboratively design and build two orphanages in Haiti during the first two years of the partnership. The third year of the partnership will feature a cultural and educational exchange in which Portland State University architecture and engineering students will study at the Ecole in Paris and the Parisian students will come to Portland, involving approximately 140 students.

Haiti was chosen as the focus of the collaboration because of the need for rebuilding in the earthquake-ravaged country, and both programs will bring unique strengths and specialties that are expected to complement each other: the Ecole Special d’Architecture de Paris specializes in emergency architecture, and the Department of Architecture of Portland State University focuses on field work and community engagement.

Ecole Speciale d'Architecture, Paris (photo courtesy Wikipedia Commons)

The Ecole Speciale d'Architecture was founded in 1865 by engineer Emile Trélat as reaction against the educational monopoly of Beaux-Arts architecture. Since its beginning, the school has included innovative courses such as domestic hygiene and urban public health. It was officially recognized as providing "public utility" in 1870, and recognized by the state as an institution of higher education in 1934. Notable students and staff have included Robert Mallet-Stevens, who was with Le Corbusier widely regarded as the most influential figure in French architecture in the period between the two World Wars; Farah Pahlavi, wife of the former Shaw of Iran; and August Perret, whose post-WWII reconstruction of Le Havre in Paris was declared by UNESCO one of the World Heritage Sites.

On the PSU side, the initiative continues the work of professor Sergio Palleroni, who previously was awarded the American Institute of Architects 2011 Latrobe Prize for a research proposal looking into the role architects play in public interest projects.

“This is a wonderful recognition of Sergio's initiatives and the enthusiasm he has brought to the outreach efforts that distinguish the architecture program at PSU," John Blumthal, principal at Yost Grube Hall architects and a board member for Architects without Borders. "I believe the student experiences made possible by this grant will influence the life-long direction of professional careers and provide these prospective architects a global perspective for their work that they would not gain in any other way.”

"This project has Sergio's name written all over it: the innovative design of the curriculum to meet a tremendous and urgent need, the dense cultural and design experience afforded to the students, and an implicit trust in everyone involved," said Megan McMorran, Director of Programming/Operations, Action Center at Mercy Corps.

The award, and Palleroni's continuing efforts, also indicate a broader identity in design and art for which Portland State University is distinguishing itself. PSU professor and acclaimed artist Harrell Fletcher has quickly upped the reputation of the school's art department through his focus on art as social practice: not just making objects or installations in galleries or public spaces, but using art and artful thinking to stimulate conversations and highlight a wide spectrum of social needs. It's an ideal fit for Portland, where we lack a sizable old-money class to invest in art and design, but have carved out a different kind of currency through connections and social awareness.

What's more, the partnership between PSU's architecture department, a decade ago fighting for its very right to exist, and a prestigious institution like the Ecole Speciale d’Architecture de Paris will only enhance the reputation of this university, which is now evolving from a middling commuter school to an urban university at the forefront of a worldwide conversation about design, art and the roles they play.

More from Portland Monthly's greatest houses list

M. Lloyd Frank estate (image courtesy Wikipedia Commons)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Continuing our look at Portland Monthly magazine's list of the top 10 local houses of all time (begun in Monday's post), compiled for the April issue, we find what may be the largest house of the group.

The 6th-ranked M. Lloyd Frank Estate was completed in 1924 and is located on the Lewis & Clark campus, which took over the property in 1942 (it now houses the president's administrative offices). The house was designed by Herman Brookman for the heir to the Meier & Frank department store fortune and, as Randy Gragg writes, it is a "merging of graceful period architecture and breathtaking landscape design," as well as a "classic pre-Depression mash-up of opulence and stylistic eclecticism."

M. Lloyd Frank Estate (image courtesy [email protected])

Among the highlights of the M. Lloyd Frank are its hanging stairwell and its brickwork, the latter of which was composed to make the house appear to have been built over multiple eras. Yet it may be the landscaping that truly makes the property stand out. "The Frank Estate," Gragg adds, "is ultimately about the experience of space, drawing you through a compression of intimate rooms and expansive grand halls to the crescendo of an eight-acre formal garden framing a view of Mt. Hood."

Still, the faux-rustic brick work? That to me is architecture trying to be something it's not. If the house was built in one swift stroke, there's nothing that ought to compel a builder or architect to try and indicate otherwise. Why build all that opulence and grandness and then, in effect, apologize for it?

Cobb House (image courtesy Portland Monthly/Oregon Historical Society)

Another grand mansion, the Cobb House from 1917, makes the list at #7. As a jury, we felt that a building by A.E. Doyle practically had to be included. It's not to say the Cobb was chosen because Doyle was the designer, but given his role in building early-20th Century Portland, it was a pleasure to find one of his houses worthy of inclusion.

"Arguably no Portland architect shaped early Portland so widely as Albert E. Doyle, who designed much of the city's emerging financial district; our trademark white terra-cotta buildings such as the Meier & Frank Building and Lipman's (now Hotel Monaco); the earliest buildings of Reed College; and our most-visited civic building, the Multnomah County Central Library."

The Cobb House earns accolades for how it unites indoor and outdoor spaces on a steep site, especially the rounded breakfast room overlooking the gardens. It's in the Jacobethan style, which, as juror William Hawkins notes in his book Classic Houses of Portland: 1850-1950, was popular a the time around the country for lavish estates and summer homes.

"In Portland, Doyle's Cobbs mansion incorporated the best of select details within a masterfully balanced framework of gable-ended forms," Hawkins writes. "The lavishly appointed house is of masonry construction (mostly brick with dressed-stone trim) and incorporates appropriate Classical details, which define it as Jacobethan. Tudor elements are also found in the house, with half-timbering in the garden room extension and rough-cast stocco work on the engaged tower and kitchen/garage wing." Jacobethan style died a quick death in America with the oncoming of the Great Depression - perhaps not unlike what the Great Recession did to local condo towers.

"The entire ensemble," Hawkins concludes, "including the circular drive at the entrance court, the gabled entry with its oriel windows, and the balustrated gardens, make the Cobbs House one of Portland's most exceptionally designed homes." Needless to say, this was one that Hawkins the juror strongly advocated.

Saul Zaik House (photos by Brian Libby)

The #8 entry on Portland Monthly's houses list is one I had the good fortune to spend some time in: architect Saul Zaik's own home on NW Saint Helens Avenue. In talking with Zaik for a 2009 profile, he described the way he he and early Portland modernists like Belluschi, Yeon, Van Evera Bailey and Walter Gordon "were into a lot of big roofs and adaptation to site. William Fletcher, by comparison was always trying to do international architecture and build it out of wood," Zaik explained. "But Square boxes with cedar siding and no overhangs require a lot of maintenance."

Belluschi and Yeon helped show Zaik's generation that followed what the Northwest modern style could and maybe should be. "The work we liked to do came right out of our time at University of Oregon: that sheltering aspect. It was done around Eugene by Jim Morton, Bruce Chase, Denorval Unthank. But how many times would I drive clients around the Watzek house? There was also the Sutor house across the street, and the other one up the street Yeon did. We were ooing and aahing."

At heart, Randy Gragg writes in the Portland Monthly article accompanying the houses list, "Zaik relishes interpreting warm, clean forms of modernism for the Northwest landscape in the mlocal material of wood - and in this pursuit, the home he designed for his family stands as the finest example. The house is really a series of three separate pavilions - living spaces, bedrooms, and the carport - all connected by bridges and pathways. Each room is little more than columns, beams, and planes of glass-and-wood paneling. As simple as a Native American longhouse, but as delicate as a leaf, Zaik's home seems to almost hover above its wooded, hillside site."

Maegly House (image courtesy Portland Monthly/Oregon Historical Society)

The 9th-ranked house on the list represents the prairie style that was popularized by Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright but never saw a boom in the Northwest. The Maegley House, completed in 1914 from a design by John Virginius Bennes. Although he also designed Portland's landmark Hollywood Theater and many buildings in Corvallis for Oregon State University, the architect was a Chicago native, explaining the Sullivan/Wright influence.

But it's not simply strict prairie style, for the Maegley has a Meditterranean tile roof, molded stucco and bay windows. Inside, each of the major public rooms are connected directly to each other and to the outdoors. This is a kind of modernism forerunner, exhibiting the simplicity of detailing and inside-out consideration that would inform generations of contemporary homes. For that reason, prairie style has also, as Gragg notes, become popular with today's era of faux-historic McMansions.

Rockwood House (photo by Richard Strode)

The #10 house on the list was the biggest surprise for yours truly. I've been covering architecture in Portland for over a decade, but am somewhat embarrassed to say I was not familiar with the Rockwood House until Randy Gragg suggested it to the rest of the jury. But now I want to become the Rockwoods' pro-bono housesitter.

We'd decided to include a house from the past 30 years on the list, and had been considering two recent houses in North Portland, PATH Architecture's Park Box and Atelier Waechter's Z Haus, as well as the Hoke Residence by Skylab Architecture. Yet the Rockwood House, which architect and professor David Rockwood designed for his parents at a site on the north shore of Hayden Island, was irresistibly magnificent.

Rockwood House (photo by Richard Stode)

"Rockwood's design channels Yeon's uncompromising craftsmanship by way of the celebrated prefab aesthetic of Charles and Ray Eames," Gragg writes. "Standing as commandingly as a Venetian palazzo on the Columbia River, the Rockwood House features an exposed stell structural system based on a near-perfect 11-foot, 6-inch grid. Panels of lightweight pumice concrete sandwiching foam insulation (a system Rockwood invented well before "sustainable" wall panels became mainstream) attach to the steel grid to form the exterior walls and roof." The house, Gragg adds, "creates the peaceful sense of floating in some much larger whole with every view and space framed by the grid."

Each of the jurors also selected a series of honorable-mention selections, and I will feature those in a post to follow.

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PSU's Sergio Palleroni wins Latrobe Prize for study of architect activism

Sergio Palleroni (image courtesy IDSA Northwest)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

The American Institute of Architects has named Sergio Palleroni, professor of architecture at Portland State University, and three of his colleagues from across the country as the recipients of AIA’s 2011 Latrobe Prize. Palleroni and his colleagues won for their research proposal looking into the role architects play – and could play in the future – in public interest projects. Palleroni is Professor and Fellow of the new Center for Sustainable Processes and Practices at Portland State.

The prize includes $100,000 in research funding for the team, which in addition to Palleroni, includes Bryan Bell, executive director of Design Corps; Roberta Feldman, professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago; and David Perkes, AIA, director of Gulf Coast Community Design Studio at Mississippi State University.  Theirs was one of nearly 500 proposals considered for the prize, which is given every two years.

Recently I spoke by phone with Palleroni about the prize and his approach to studying the profession. Originally from southern Argentina, Palleroni previously taught at the University of Texas, Austin and the University of Washington for 18 years. He is the founder of the Basic Initiative, a multidisciplinary fieldwork program which each year challenges students from US and schools worldwide into apply their education in the field in service of the problems facing marginalized communities throughout the world.

Palleroni has concentrated since the 1970s on issues of housing and community development in the developing world, working with organizations such as the United Nations, World Bank, and the governments of Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, India and Taiwan. He received a bachelor of architecture degree from the University of Oregon and a graduate degree in research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "I was interested in how different cultures negotiated in places like cities," he explained, "and how you get people to co-exist." Some cultures such as Japan and Korea, for example, have adjusted well to dense city life, while other cultures have been mired in corruption and inequity.

The research done as a result of the LaTrobe Prize will explore how the architecture profession can get more involved in issues like planning, transportation, and housing, from which Palleroni says (accurately so) architects have been too marginalized.

"I think we’ve taken ourselves out of the debate of where society should be headed and the things that should be happening. We’re involved with so little that happens worldwide. It’s a tiny fraction of what gets built that comes from architects. In housing, for example, it's only about five to eight percent of housing. We wondered: why is that? Everybody’s been quoting that figure yet nobody knows where it comes from. What percentages are we really talking about, and what portions should we be accessing?"

It's not all bad news or a matter of uninvolved architects. The burgeoning importance of sustainability and cutting carbon to reduce greenhouse gases has brought architecture to the forefront of the conversation.  What's more, Palleroni says Portland architects generally have a greater level of involvement in these and other public-interest issues than designers in other cities.

"Twenty years ago, you’d be branded as an idealist or off your rocker [for preaching environmental architecture]. But at least now people are saying these are important issues. Things are changing. What we’re hoping to do is look at how people are taking this on and use it as an opportunity to reimagine what the profession is doing and what these new models are. We hope we can make a guide for the profession of an alternative path, a theater of operation for architecture."

"What we’re planning to do is conduct some national surveys to see how involved architects are right now in these kinds of larger ideas," Palleroni explains. "Bryan Bell is leading that. We’re going to take that and try to create a baseline to see what the profession is interested in and second what it is involved in. then we’’ interview these models and try to understand them well enough to describe them back to the profession as well."

Palleroni specifically points to how metropolitan areas, even progressive Portland's, develop mostly on their suburban fringes without much restriction on what gets built. "We can’t just let these decisions trickle down to the guy with the pickup truck in the suburbs building houses," he added. "We have to be in there making sure the houses are truly sustainable. It can’t be a generic McMansion, but housse designed for place."

"It seems like we’re denying ourselves some of the most interesting things about America. To me it seems like, just from a selfish point of view, I want to be involved in those big questions. It’s an opportunity to be involved in the kinds of things we were involved in school. Too often we end up being pedestrian about our ambitions. People say nobody pays us to be idealistic."

Interestingly, when Portland State initially sent out a press release to several local media members last week about the LaTrobe Prize, one local conservative website editor responded to all of us with a diatribe about socialist architecture. He wrote of "socialist architects" and a "barrage of propaganda from your Oregon public education and 'modern' university education."

"We have seen the photos of the people leaping from the upper floors of Chinese mass housing adjacent to factories which are urban versions of communist agricultural communes," Leonard writes, "and so are aware of the human cost that comes with the influences of state industrial 'capitalism.'"

"Modern (in a purely time sense) architecture emanating from somebody who has a degree from Harvard and now teaches the profession at a California university, is to us immediately suspect. 'Green' to Progressives, means political efficiency, not intentional technological or environmental efficiency. A socialist does not care about the cost per kwh, or how the design suppresses the soul. Serfs do not have souls."

Advertisement for one of Palleroni's lecture last year

One can only laugh off the critique of modern architecture, but  I asked Palleroni about the more serious notion that architectural planning takes away freedoms.

"Why would we deny architecture being involved in all kinds of issues? I've practiced in Latin America, Asia and Europe. A lot of these places are out-competing us in the capitalist world," Palleroni said. "And in those places, architects are involved in a lot more. Developers are seeing the value of having architects involved. Some of the best public debates about the city as a whole are places like Taipei. I think if there’s a problem America faces it’s that we’ve gotten ourselves into a series of prescribed roles which are not necessarily flexible to face the issues of today or the future."

"I’m not arguing you take away an individual’s right to build what they want, but we need restrictions," Palleroni reasons. "I want a big house with bells and whistles too. But there are so many ways you can cut the pie up. The challenge now for architecture is how we make people happy and give clients what they want in their building, but also be responsible to the practice. The world just doesn’t have enough resources to do everything. We’ve been living with a kind of no-limits mentality. The average American house since World War II has gone from 250 square feet per captia to 1000 square feet. The average house has gone from 1000 to 2500 square feet, with fewer people living in them. Not everybody’s going to get what they want, but you can actually have some pretty cool houses without consuming everything. That’s where ingenuity is involved. That’s where an architect can get involved and help a client get all the fun stuff you wanted in maybe half that size. If that’s socialism, I’m totally for it."

Seeking nominations for Portland Monthly's top 20th century houses list

Pittock Mansion (photo by charlieetoona via Flickr)

For an upcoming issue in 2011, Portland Monthly magazine and its editor, former Oregonian architecture critic Randy Gragg, are planning to compose a list of the top 10 houses of the 20th century in Portland.

Selections for the list will be decided by a jury comprised of Classic Houses of Portland author William Hawkins, architect Rick Potestio, Architectural Heritage Center director Cathy Galbraith, and yours truly. But before that, the public is invited to make suggestions and arguments.

When I heard about the list, the first house that came to mind was the Watzek House, designed by the great John Yeon.

Watzek House (image courtesy University of Oregon)

In 1935, Portland lumber magnate Aubrey Watzek looked to build a house for himself and his mother, with his friend Yeon getting the job. But Watzek initially did not like the modern, non-traditional design. Instead of trying to change his mind, Yeon suggested Watzek contact Pietro Belluschi, who was then directing the AE Doyle architectural firm, the city's most accomplished at that time. But Belluschi’s design didn't impress Watzek either, so he returned to Yeon's original proposal.

Which was a good thing, because even if the design wasn't initially to the lumber baron's taste, the house would turn out an influential masterpiece of early American modernism. And all this from an architect who was just 26 years old when he finished the construction drawings in early 1937.

As Leland Roth writes in the book American Architecture, Yeon "decided to create a thoroughly modern residence, but one designed in response to the local climate rather than adhering to abstract international formulas, and he decided to exploit wood as a building material rather than steel or concrete," which had been de rigeur in most all other iterations of early 20th century modernism, a la Frank Lloyd Wright or the Bauhaus.

Watzek House (images courtesy University of Oregon)

"The result," Roth continues, "was a clustering of rooms around a central court," drawing from Asian and early ranch styles, "with low pitched roofs carried on wood supports protecting the large expanses of glass from winter rains. The house was featured in several exhibitions and publications produced by the Museum of Modern Art."

After the Watzek, John Yeon only pursued architecture in fits and starts, producing a few other houses and the Portland Oregon Visitors Center that still stands in Waterfront Park. But he largely turned to regional planning and landscape preservation, while Yeon's contemporary, Pietro Belluschi, aggressively pursued his career and went on to become a far bigger name in international architectural history.

Belluschi ought to have a few houses up for consideration on the list as well, not just because he is Portland's most acclaimed architect in history but because a couple of the houses are magnificent. Two years ago I had the good fortune to visit the circa-1948 Burkes House, where Belluschi's own family lived for many years.

Belluschi's Burkes House (photo by Brian Libby)

As Meredith Clausen writes of the Burkes in her book, Pietro Belluschi, the project "was long in gestation. The clients just before the war had decided to sell their old colonial house and build a new one; aware of the fame of the recently completed De Graaff house by the celebrated Los Angeles architect Richard Neutra in the hills south west of Portland, they decided that theirs too should be modern. The house was designed like his others to take advantage of the view while preserving privacy. facing outwards to the expansive view of the city on one side, it opened out to a secluded garden notched out of the hillside on the other. The living and dining areas were combined into one long continuous space paralelling the view, with a kitchen area set off to one side by a large brick masonry core."

"The sense of an open expansive space was enhanced by continuous cork floors throughout," Clausen adds, "and by the lush boards of the fir ceiling which continued uninterrupted through the glazing of the walls to form protective porticoes for terraces on both city and garden sides. Exteriors were of unpainted cedar, witrh smooth, flush surfaces only lightly stained and oiled. The roofline was virtually flat, with a deep fascia and wide overhangs. Mrs Burkes had much to do with this. a woman of independent mind and sophisticated in the arts, she had brought in photographs and tear sheets indicating what she wanted. It was she, according to Belluschi, who, aware of the International Style and the acclaim the Neutra house was receiving, insisted on the flat roof."

In the handful of years before and after World War II, architects based in Southern California like Richard Neutra, A. Quincy Jones and Rudolf Schindler gained wide notoriety for their modern, glassy, open-planned homes, particularly the "Case Study" houses. This vernacular, while clearly a sister of the Northwest modernism Belluschi and Yeon practiced, was less dependent on wood and instead usually favored steel and masonry. Yet both Neutra and Jones designed homes in Portland, too, and some are worth consideration for this list, particularly Neutra's Jan De Graaff House from 1940.

Neutra's Jan De Graaff House (images courtesy Triangle Modernist Houses)

"The owners were avid admirers of contemporary architecture, and they sought out Neutra, who enjoyed an international reputation," Hawkins writes. "He would design for them Portland's first residence in the style, which would house the impressive De Graaff collection of modern art and furnishings. The design that Neutra presented," in association with local architect Van Evera Bailey, has all the International style characteristics. Its flat roof, smooth walls, and continuous banks of windows are completely shorn of ornament. Detail is simplified to the extreme to obtain the tight-skinned, box-like appearance that was a quality of the style. The exterior emphasizes long horizontal bands of windows and similar expanses of vertical tongue-and-groove siding. House design had become an abstract art, relying on floating planes of varying irregularity to achieve the assymetrical balance."

Unfortunately, though, this masterful house was in the ensuing years remodeled so extensively that it has become all but unrecognizable from the original. This house hasn't been demolished, but it's no longer Neutra's design.

 Pittock Mansion (photo by Squid Viscious via Flickr)

Of course the modernism exhibited in these houses from the first half of the 20th Century is just one of many styles and idioms expressed in residential architecture. Here in Portland, like any major city, there are Victorian houses, craftsmans, Queen Annes, colonial revival, bungalows, Tudors, and much more. If we're talking about classic houses of the past, in Portland that of course starts with the Pittock Mansion.

The 22-room house, now open to the public, was designed by architect Edward Foulkes and completed in 1914. The mansion sits on 46 acres with a view of five Cascade peaks. The design includes fine plasterwork, cut and polished marbles, cast bronze, and superbly crafted hardwoods and paneling. Its progressive features included a central vacuum system, intercoms, and indirect lighting hidden in alcoves above the walls.

"It typifies the success of the nineteenth-century American entrepreneurial spirit, which, with talent and enormous energy, was able to express itself in the construction of a mighty residence," writes William Hawkins in Classic Houses of Portland: 1850-1950.

"Foulkes, a San Francisco architect, planned two symmetrical angled wins toward the views, the intersections market by twin engaged turrets with conical roofs... A massive, red-tiled, hipped roof with prominent attic dormers sits above the central volume of the house. The axially placed central fireplaces and chimneys peak at the ridge. The house is constructed of dressed Bellingham sandstone, adorned with scrolled and modillioned cornices, a Greek meander entablature, pedimented garden doorways, and balustrated balconies."

Gustav Freiwald House (image courtesy Wikipedia Commons)

Another house Hawkins writes about, and one that received a degree of notoriety in recent years when its owners protested a condo next door that would have dwarfed it, is the Gustav Feeiwald House in Irvington. It is now the Lion & Rose Bed and Breakfast

"At first glance, the house could be of the Queene Anne style, particularly with its corner polygonal three-story turret and wrap-around covered porch. However, if roofs are the determining factor, the house would be of a more Craftsman style....The Freiwald House has the more square proportions, the wider windows, and the curved eave of the Craftsman period, despite the addition of Colonial Revival detailing at porch columns, corner pilasters, and pediments."

The Freiwald House was built in 1906 as a private residence for Gustav E. Freiwald, a 42-year-old German beer brewer who operated breweries and taverns in towns along the Columbia River from Hood River to Astoria. A year earlier, he had hired Emil Schacht, a well-known German-born Portland architect, to design a grand house for him  in Irvington. Schacht had already designed a number of brewery buildings and other commercial structures for Freiwald, but the client rejected the house design and hired HH Menges to redesign the house. It is believed that Menges took Schacht's design and added the Queen Anne exterior elements: an octagonal turret, a wide wrap-around porch with Ionic columns, and a large dormer with an arched window and balcony.

One mustn't forget seminal Portland architect AE Doyle when discussing 20th Century houses, even if Doyle is better known for larger-scale projects like Central Library, the Benson Hotel, and the recently demolished Riverdale School. Among Doyle's best may have been the Edward Harmon House from 1908, still standing at NW 26th and Lovejoy.

Doyle's Harmon House (image courtesy Wikipedia Commons)

Doyle, Hawkins writes, "had just established his practice in the city - the beginning of a long and distinguished career - when he designed the house with the solid, wide proportions then in vogue. The segmental-arched and transomed windows, the solid porch columns, and the shed dormer were Craftsman elements, as is the wrap-around hip at the gable ends - an inventive, almost Japanese form...Combined with these details are the Classical brick quoins at the corners of the house, the flat modillions at the eaves, and the non-fluted Doric columns that support the covered entry pergola."

Most every house I've written about so far, be it contemporary or historically styled, was built in the first half of the 20th century. So what about the second half?

One house that immediately comes to mind actually might not be eligible, for two reasons: it's in Vancouver, Washington and its architect, Rick Potestio, is part of the jury picking Portland Monthly's list. That said, the Burch House from 1999, which won Potestio the top local AIA award, is exceptional.

 
Potestio's Birch House (image courtesy Portland Modern)

“This house to date is still the most sophisticated and completely executed project I’ve done,” Potestio told me in an interview last year for Portland Modern. “It was truly an inspired client who as a businessman was very specific about budget and what he wanted. He wanted it to be evocative of an Asian aesthetic and to be able to bring people from around the world to see it was a work of art.”

Potestio said he conceived the house to play with the Venetian notion of a plaza on the water. But on the side it becomes more of a sculptural fragmented piece in order to frame different views. “This is a 50x80 subdivision lot located on the banks of the Columbia River and surrounded by park space as well as very mediocre tract houses,” he explained, “so the question was how to grab hold of something physically in this landscape when we couldn’t actually touch it. How can we get it to relate only to the sky, the water, and the trees? So we designed it from the inside out, manipulating the view to see trees and sky. That’s what explains the cutouts and the recesses.”

Most of all, the house is designed to capture views of the Columbia River, and to make it feel even closer than it appears. “We used proportion and modulation of space to create optical illusions,” he adds. “When you’re approaching the house through a very narrow space to an entry court at the center of the house, you see this wall of blue at the other end. The layering of screens and other grids of windows create the optical illusion of flattening out the space. By the time you get out to the deck, you’re so encompassed in the space, you don’t want to leave.”

Zaik's Zidell House (collage courtesy Portland Modern)

One other candidate from the latter 20th century I also think is worth considering for the houses list: architect Saul Zaik's Zidell House.

In 1970, shipyard magnate Arnold Zidell asked Zaik to design a house on a ship's mast. "I said 'That sounds like a lot of fun,'" Zaik told The Oregonian's Jeff Kuechle in a 2009 story about the house. "I get odd requests all the time - I never have an easy job."

Zidell had salvaged a mast 36 inches in diameter and nearly 100 feet long from a decommissioned ship and wanted to use it to support a circular rotating house high above Portland's West Hills. Such rotating houses had already been built in Southern California and Connecticut. Zaik, after consulting with a structural engineer, he concluded it would be imprudent to make the house rotate like some of those predecessors. But the octagonal two-story home offered sweeping views and a ground floor 47 feet in the air.

Zaik's Zidell House (photo by Motoya Nakamura, courtesy The Oregonian)

"Steelworkers from Zidell's shipyard descended on the site, off Fairmount Drive in the West Hills, drove a foundation deep into bedrock and set to work bolting on the cantilevered trusses that would support the house," Kuechle wrote. Zaik said he chose cedar shingles because "it's 40 feet in the air - you don't want to have to paint it every few years."

"It's just one of those places," says current owner Lance Crosier. "It's perfect - even on miserable days, it's bright and sunny. You can see the whole city. I can watch the fireworks on the river, I can see Vancouver Lake and Camas; if I stand on my tiptoes, I can see halfway to Alabama."

Portland Monthly's issue with the top 10 local houses of the 20th Century will be published this spring, and our jury will be convening in January. Before we get together and start making our list, what other houses might we consider? What are the best 20th Century houses in Portland to your eyes?

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Sex pads, split-levels and renovations: design awards jurors share their observations

Skylab Architecture's Flavor Paper, a "total sex pad" (photo by Boone Speed)

Each year during the Portland Architecture + Design Festival in October, the night before the Design Awards ceremony features an evening with the jury in which they discuss not only their own work, but the trio's collective observations about Portland and the design being generated here.

So was the case two weeks ago with the jury for the 2010 AIA Portland Design Awards: Reed Kroloff of the Cranbrook Academy of Art and Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (and previously the editor of Architecture magazine), John Peterson of Peterson Architects and Public Architecture in San Francisco, and Joan Soranno of HGA Architects and Engineers in Minneapolis.

"How pleased we were with the work we saw," said Kroloff, who also headed the Portland Aerial Tram design competition here in 2003. "We saw almost 80 projects. Usually as a jury you put a whole mess on the table and 90 percent of them fall on the floor on Day One and then you get together on Day Two and argue a lot about five or six projects. That wasn’t how it worked here at all. We looked at those 80 projects and we came back on Day Two and there were still 30 or 35 of them on the table. Which says a lot about the quality of the work. We weren’t keeping them on the table because we’re sympathetic to people in Portland, because of all the rain. It really wasn’t that at all. I live in Detroit. So screw your rain!"

Juror Reed Kroloff (photo courtesy Cranbrook Academy of Art)

"But not all of the conversation was happy talk," Peterson added. "There were a number of projects that we spent a lot of time really arguing over whether they should be moved forward."

The jury also commended the budget conscious economy in the collective submittals. "There were quite a few projects that were of the magnitude of $40 a square foot, or $80 a square foot," Soranno said. "It is really really tough to do a project of good design.I think with this economy, where clients don’t have a lot of money to spend sometimes, it was hopeful for us to see these examples and realized you don't need $500 or $600 a square foot to do something really wonderful."

A particular trend in this year's award submittals was the high number of houses. Usually architects design only the smallest minority of single-family homes in America, said to be less than 10 percent. And one would expect during recession the amount of house commissions to go down. But perhaps during tough economic times, more architecture firms are motivated to reduce fees and make residential design more attainable.

After and before at Atelier Waechter's Cape Cod residence (photo by Sally Schoolmaster)

Each year during this event the jury faces the challenge of talking about particular projects without divulging any information about which ones actually were going to win awards the following night. But architect Ben Waechter must have felt good about his chances when both of the projects he submitted, the Cape Cod residence and the Z-Haus, became discussion topics. Both wound up winning awards the following night.

"This is just fantastic in our world," Soranno said of Waechter's Cape Cod residence in Portland. "Again, with very very limited budget the design totally transformed this house. Yet one of the things we noted was that the fact that the stoop was left entact so there was this kind of remnant of this lost house. The composition is really nice."

"Often what we’re paying attention to in these houses is how they dealt with modest budgets but still did something that was strikingly architectural," Peterson said. "In this case, where they scraped the pitched roof off and built the box on top of it, you had such a dramatic shift in the character that it became a conversation about architecture for anybody that walked by. And whether it’s a positive conversation or a negative one, it’s still a conversation. For all of us, that’s a critical factor."

BodyVox Dance Center (photo courtesy BOORA Architects)

Adaptive re-use was another theme the jury noted. "Over the last 60 years it’s moved from zero percent of the building industry just after World War II to close to a third of architectural practice today," Peterson said. But in this case, the jury was complimentary about two projects that did not win awards the next night: Hennebery Eddy's conversion of a former Tri-Met bus shelter into a coffee bar, and BOORA's renovation of an old Pearl District warehouse into studios and performance space for BodyVox dance company.

"This project to readapt them as yet another place to ingest coffee was met by the jury with a very positive response," Kroloff said of the shelter conversion. "Not everything about it. There was a significant part of the detailing we thought could have been better considered, but there were parts of it that we all liked."

Of BodyVox, Peterson said, "We appreciated the reserve here. This is a nationally registered building, but the delicate hand…Sometimes cleaning up the interior is one of the most important things you can do as a designer, so we were glad to see this building was handled so gracefully."

The trio also had fun talking about Skylab Architecture's renovation of a Brooklyn building into the headquarters for the Flavor Paper wallpaper company. "This is quite a complex mixed use project. We’ve got a manufacturer who is also a retailer who is also a residential tenant. But have you guys seen pictures of this? Total sex pad. This is an Austin Powers experience."

Kroloff also had some practical advice about awards submittals. "There were moments where we really wished the submitters had provided us with more information," he said. "It’s important in any kind of competition process that…maybe you read the submission requirements really well, which I think everybody did in this case, but then you think beyond them, not to subvert the requirements, but to make sure within the limited frame of expression that you’re given within any submission package that you’re still able to convey the message of your work the way you want the jury to see it."

"And there’s a couple of things to remember on that," Kroloff added. "One, the jury sees it for about that long [snapping his finger], so there’s got to be a way for the jury to ingest the critical issues of that project quickly, and in a way that is intriguing. The second thing is that, although a jury will try and read the commentary, you don’t want it to be some Dostoyevsky experience. At the same time, you’ve got to be succinct and compelling. Try and think of this as a short story. And be careful what you choose. Certain pictures don’t really tell you anything." He then showed onscreen a picture of the corner of a building from one submittal. What does it tell me about the building? Yeah, it’s CORE-TEN [weathered steel], but what do you see there? If you’ve only got eight pictures to show, why that?

"We’re all familiar as architects with putting together awards submittals," Soranno continued. "Especially as you get older and you’re on more juries, you start to get wise to how you put together an awards package. You see some submittals that are all details and you don’t see the overall. Or when you see the overall it’s a twilight shot and it’s so dark that you can’t see all of the exterior. As a juror, you start to say, 'What does the whole look like? Is there something the designers don’t like that they’re nt showing?' It’s making sure that the package at some level is addressing the whole."

Kroloff was especially prickly about night and dusk photography, which may tick off some photographers. But his point was a practical one, not an an artistic one. "A lot of submittals rely on twilight shots or night shots. At the magazine we called those 'cheaters' because you’re relying on an optical effect of light to try and convey a certain type of message of warmth and receptability, not the character of the building. Because generally if a building is in twlight or the dark, you’re not seeing the building. And if the building is being professionally photographed anyway, they’re lighting the building artificially anyway to hype up the lit effect. You never actually see it that way in reality. When I was at Architecture magazine, we never published a single night shot ever. Because they just don’t tell the truth. And so when you choose pictures for a jury, you want to make sure that you’re telling the truth about the building in some fashion. If it’s critical for it to be seen at sunset or at night, it better be because there’s an important lighting experiment or endeavor going on in that project. So be careful about how you choose your limited number of pictures."

ZGF's Jaqua Center leads AIA/Portland Design Awards winners

Top AIA/Portland Design Awards winner the Jaqua Center (photo by Brian Libby)

The John E. Jaqua Academic Center for Student Athletes at the University of Oregon in Eugene was the top winner at Saturday's AIA/Portland Design Awards gala. Designed by ZGF Architects, the building was this year's sole winner of the Honor Award, AIA's top prize.

Surrounded by a reflecting pool, the building is a steel and glass cube with a ventilated double-skin glass facade. Floor to ceiling glass allows natural daylight to flood the interior space and a stainless steel screen forms a layer within the glass cavity. Inside, the building is centered around a large three-story atrium that is bisected with glass-ensconced catwalks. The interior design, particularly in these public areas, utilizes a series of massive wall displays. One is made from thousands of photos of current student athletes that were etched onto metal paneling and combine to form a likeness of Albert Einstein. On another wall (pictured above), the names and likenesses of past UO athletes are etched onto square wood blocks that jut in and out of the wall.

When I visited the Jaqua Center last January with ZGF partner Eugene Sandoval, he explained how in client meetings then-Oregon football coach Mike Bellotti emphasized the desire for a building that celebrated the natural beauty of Oregon. Bellotti spoke to Sandoval of how the surrounding landscape was a recruiting tool for luring top athletes from other regions of the country, and asked for a building that would articulate that sensation.

Three built projects earned the next-tier honor, the Merit Award: the ZIBA World Headquarters by Holst Architecture, the Cape Cod House by Atelier Waechter, and the Twelve West building by ZGF Architects.

ZIBA headquarters, Merit Award winner (photo by Jeff Jahn)

The ZIBA headquarters, located in the Pearl District near Union Station, is a marvel of both natural light and office space-planning. The Holst design created a massive north-facing glass facade that bathes workspaces in illumination. "A spatially rich building on a tight budget," the jury wrote, also noting ZIBA's "beautiful use of wood and metal in a contemporary manner. [Its] interiors are clean and light filled [with] a refined, buttoned-down exterior. Looks like a great place to work."

Personally, this is one of my favorite Portland buildings of the last decade and a major moment for Holst. The firm has won countless design awards in the past, but most always for residential buildings. Here Holst created an innovative corporate headquarters that is quite dazzling. I would have voted it a co-Honor Award winner along with the Jaqua Center.

Cape Cod House, Merit Award winner (photo by Sally Schoolmaster)

Waechter's Cape Cod House was just profiled here on Portland Architecture last week. It's a fine example of how a tiny (650-square-foot) home can be utterly transformed into capital-A architecture on a relatively modest budget. Waechter's Z-Haus also won an award over the weekend, the Citation Award, which is the next tier down. I'd have rated Z-Haus over Cape Cod because of its unique series of half-levels tying together the multistory space, but there's no doubt Cape Cod is deserving as well.

ZGF was certainly the big winner at this year's Design Awards given that the mixed-use building the firm calls home also earned a Merit Award. Given how the building opened in the worst possible economic climate in 2008, it could have been a disaster for the firm and developer Gerding Edlen.

Merit Award winner 12 West (photo by Brian Libby)

As it happens, the Twelve West building is filling up with tenants, and it already boasts the title of first building in the world with vertically-integrated wind turbines. When near the building downtown or in the Pearl, I've already developed a habit of looking toward the top of Twelve West to see if the turbines are spinning.

Along with Z-Haus, the other built-project Citation Award (the third tier of awards) winner was the Flavor Paper building in Brooklyn, designed by Skylab. This is another Portland firm that has become a regular each year in the AIA/Portland Design Awards, having previously taken the Honor Award a couple years ago for the firm's 12th & Alder building and an award for the Departure Lounge atop the Meier & Frank building.

Citation Award winners Z-Haus and Flavor Paper (photos by Stephen Miller & Boone Speed)

Also this year, Skylab won an Unbuilt Citation Award for the Weave Building, which has been planned for the past year and is hopefully set to break ground after a few false starts. The Weave boasts a very striking facade that implies the notion of weaving: that of the West End and Pearl District neighborhoods it straddles and the blend of creative professionals it will provide workspace for.

When I wrote about the Weave Building in The Oregonian last year, Skylab's Jeff Kovel told me it could come to emblemize how the marriage of small creative-class spaces and distinctive architecture can be a way forward even in the worst of economic climates.

Rendering of the Weave Building, Unbuilt Citation Award winner (image courtesy Skylab)

"My hope is it really becomes an example of somebody who went out on a limb and seized an opportunity to do something special," he said. "I think that type of approach is going to become more and more critical across the board. It's going to be harder to succeed with mediocre product or ideas. The competitive environment will hopefully draw more out of people."

Two other projects also received Unbuilt Citation Awards: the David Campbell Memorial to firefighters planned for the East Bank Esplanade and designed by Whelton Architecture; and the Steel Bridge Skatepark designed by DAO Architecture.

Campbell Memorial, Unbuilt Citation Award winner (rendering courtesy Whelton Architecture)

The Campbell Memorial commission was won by Whelton in a three-team invited commission for designers who double as Portland State University instructors. The design is comprised of tall lanterns symbolizing firefighters killed in the line of duty. According to a recent Daily Journal of Commerce article, the design has been scaled back. The original, Nathalie Weinstein writes, "called for a sweeping open space along the Eastbank Esplanade, with lanterns to represent each fallen firefighter. But the area it covered was too large, and adding a new lantern for any new death could be expensive for the city and the fire department. 

"The new scheme is much smaller but retains the same poetic value as the original,” Whelton told Weinstein. “Now it’s about 6,000 to 7,000 square feet. And instead of adding new lanterns, the lantern lighting patterns will be altered monthly to reflect the historical number of firefighters who died during that month.”

Unbuilt Citation Award winner Steel Bridge Skate Park (image courtesy Ambient Light Digital Renderings)

The Steel Bridge Skate Park is described in its submission materials as "a sculptural urban space, optimized for skating, but accommodating the broader community, integrating urban design and infrastructure, architecture, landscape, recreating, and art." The Jury applauded this as "a piece of provocative placemaking that is thoughtful to the skaters and a great transformation of an underutilized 'junk' space."

Craftsmanship Award winner, a private residence (photo courtesy Stephen Cridland)

One project earned this year's Craftsmanship Award: a private residence by TVA Architects in Nevada that overlooks Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada mountains. The award submission descibes how "two buildings mirror one another and are connected to one another via a boardwalk running through a graveled sculpture garden. The jury noted the project's "beautiful control of concrete, wood, glass and other materials" and its "marriage of landscape and architecture."

Hayes Freedom High, Sustainability Award winner (photo by Lincoln Barbour)

This year's Sustainability Award went to Hayes Freedom High School in Camas, Washington by Mahlum Architects. A 200-student, 20,500 square foot alternative high school named in honor of Camas graduate Denis Hayes, the building school caters to students with alternative learning styles and needs as part of a downtown campus. The Jury "appreciated how the project incorporates a comprehensive environmental approach while making an important social statement by creating a permanent home for non-traditional students" and lauded "how the project incorporates sustainability into the learning experience."

Patton Park Apartments, Mayor's Award winner (photo by Sally Painter)

The Mayor's Award for Design Excellence went to the Patton Park Apartments by SERA Architects. Patton Park is the first new transit oriented development to be built along the Interstate MAX light rail line. The five-story building, created for Reach Community Development includes 54 units for working families and 4,600 square feet of commercial space.

A&CMAPAC, People's Choice Award winner (photo by Kirsten Force)

This year's People's Choice Award went to Ankrom Moisan's design for the Arts & Communications Magnet Academy Performing Arts Center in Beaverton. The project includes a 400-seat theater, experimental studio, support spaces and art galleries for an award-winning magnet arts school that previously had to stage its productions in a Quonset hut.

Congratulations to all of this year's winners.

MulvannyG2 imagines a shopping mall of the future

Future Image Architecture Competition entry, courtesy MulvannyG2 Architecture 

Several years ago I flew to Los Angeles to report for the New York Times on a competition called “Dead Malls”. This wasn’t a competition for an actual brick-and-mortar commission, but instead what is sometimes called an “ideas competition”.

The idea behind that competition was to generate new ideas for the growing amount of abandoned suburban shopping malls across America. There were all kinds of proposals, from arts facilities to prisons. But the idea I didn’t see in that competition was the sole one that made any sense: simply stitching malls into city fabric by making them mixed use with a variety of housing and other private and public spaces, a variety of scales (both for the architecture and the businesses there), and better access for pedestrians and mass transit.

All this time later, MulvannyG2 Architecture  has been named a winner in a similar ideas competition, held by the International Council of Shopping Centers. The  ICSC’s Future Image Architecture Competition asked firms to address a potential “big box” store design built 50 years from now. MulvannyG2 won in the “Green” category for an entry that offers a six-step sustainable strategy for adapting abandoned large format stores into new uses.

MulvannyG2’s winning entry, “ReStart, ReConnect, ReVive, ReTurn, ReClaim, ReEnvision” works on the premise that by 2060 large format stores’ current suburban locations will become urban as density spreads and escalates. Global warming, presumably, would have wrought substantial climate change by that time, and fossil fuel resources would have dwindled far past peak-oil. This, the architects reasoned, would in turn provide greater incentive for large format stores’ adaptive reuse; they will become too valuable a resource to lie abandoned as many do today, or even to be functioning with that low level of density and seas of asphalt parking lots.

Sitting down with a quartet of architects from the firm recently, they discussed additional impetus behind the winning design.

“The crux of it really was stitching everything together so it would be a living entity again,” MulvannyG2’s Jonathan Dunn said.

Future Image Architecture Competition entry, courtesy MulvannyG2 Architecture 

The competition entry used an actual outer-Portland site, at 122nd and Glisan, as its starting point. “With sustainability, especially, site is so important,” said Dunn, who also co-chairs the AIA/Portland chapter’s Committee on the Environment. It’s the crux of how you take a building and shape it to the site.”

“We had a lot of conversations about the right approach,” MG2's Darren Schroeder said. “We wanted something that links everything together and is mixed use but has the financial underpinnings to work. We tried to look at this from a developer’s perspective. That part of it said, there’s no reason why these sites can’t evolve the same way the other fabric of the city has developed historically: slowly, in phases, and with multiple users.”

The design splices what was one large mass into multiple levels, cutting courtyards and skylights into the building and creating a succession of different kinds of indoor and outdoor spaces with multiple tenants and many points of entry. The program integrates housing, libraries, markets, restaurants,  an amphitheater, open space, and even farming.

The design also presumes that fewer people would be driving cars in 50 years, so there is less than half the amount of parking spaces allotted. That’s the part of this process that may have been the most fun for the architects.  Not only did they cut the amount of spaces, but also made them less obtrusive. Do shopping mall developers have any idea how ugly parking lots are? Burying them underground is more expensive, but you also get what you pay for.

“Those are the pressures of the trade,” Schroeder said. You have to be able to understand how important parking is to your client, but you also have to be able to show your client the value in wrapping it in.”

Developers of suburban shopping malls typically have looked for as much as five parking spots for every thousand square feet of spaces. With all that reclaimed space, the design added more greenspace.

MulvannyG2 also sought to bring a more local focus to a format that is usually dominated by chains. “Small local businesses was a huge focus. This used to be the big box chain and this is a complete opposite. Maybe that’s where we’re moving,” said MG2's Kelly Stewart.

Certainly a mall would start to feel different if it had lots of open greenspace and was oriented around micro-sized retail such as food carts or individual retailers. In fact, it makes me think of Saturday Market, which consists of just such a mix today.

But the reason many of us hate shopping malls is not just the chains or the ugly parking lots, but also the antiseptic feel of the interiors. Some of that bad feeling comes from the lack of natural light and air, but it’s something more, too: the failure of interior design to feel vibrant and varied. “We fight that all over the country,” adds Schroeder, whose firm designs retail facilities for many clients. “We even see it in Times Square.”

Ultimately, though, I can’t help but wonder if it’s not the design of shopping malls that needs to change but the approach of the developer, or even the fact that there is a single developer. “What used to be one big box from a tax lot perspective, a huge multi acre parcel that belongs to one holding company, we’d like to give it more like the function of a city,” Schroeder said. “How many tax lots does the city of Portland have for one block downtown? Why can’t we have 25 tax lots here? That’s where our discussion got excited. We didn’t want it to just be a site plan exercise. The idea about this is it’s supposed to work across economic boundaries. Not just a place to go and party and shop, and not a place to squat in your expensive condo. Just a mixture of demographics.”

It’s impossible to predict the future, but the future of the shopping mall can change before 2060, especially when architects and developers needn’t reinvent the wheel to find what works and what is viable for shoppers and residents. “We can grab a lot of cues from our present and say, ‘What’s important to us now?’ Light and space,” Schroeder concludes. “That’s been the guiding force, for example, in what’s made the pearl successful. Maybe it’s not diverse, but they’ve made it work by just extending the grid.”

“This isn’t a one size fits all solution. You can’t just put an urban farm in the middle of a shopping mall site. But these are under-utilized properties with real estate value. How do we get a return on that value again? Back in the day it was sufficient to do forgettable construction and call it good. Now there’s a greater obligation.”

As it happens, I was in a retail space designed by MulvannyG2 over the weekend: the renovated Fred Meyer store at SE 39th and Hawthorne. It is a big improvement over the old store, with more glass along the perimeter and more greenery in the parking lot. But there is still a lot of windowless concrete wall along Hawthorne, and a convoluted entry-exit area. If you're going to pull off a transformative retail design, it takes a willing client, too.

Architect Magazine lists SERA Architects as nation's #3 green architecture firm, ZGF as #7 firm overall

Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building renovation, rendering by Scott Baumberger and Baumberger Studio 

The May issue of Architect Magazine has come out with two lists: its second annual Architect 50, listing the nation's top firms, and a separate list of the top green architecture firms specifically.

Portland firms had a substantial presence on both lists. Most notably, SERA Architects was listed at #3, just behind the giant Chicago firm Perkins + Will and EYP Architecture & Engineering of Albany, New York.

Also on the top 10 green firms list was Portland firm ZGF Architects at #10. And DLR Group, which is based in Omaha but has a Portland office, was listed at #9.

Then there was the Architect 50 list, which had ZGF listed as the #7 firm in the country. "ZGF is as green as its Pacific Northwest roots would suggest," the listing text reads, "while its strength in health care, infrastructure, and government work has kept it chugging through the recession." New York-based Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which previously operated a Portland office and designed local landmarks like Memorial Coliseum, the US Bancorp Tower ("Big Pink"), Autzen Stadium and the Standard Insurance Center, was listed as the nation's top firm.

The Architect 50 list is a little different from other lists of top national architecture firms in that it "recognizes ecological commitment and design quality as much as profitability when measuring the country’s very best A, AE, and AEC firms."

Meanwhile, yesterday I spoke with SERA Architects' principal Clark Brockman about the listing as America's #3 green architecture firm.

Brockman likes the fact that Architect Magazine didn't just add up the number of LEED-rated projects and LEED-accredited professionals to compile the list; also included was a "firm culture" metric, for which SERA earned a high ranking. "I’d hope we keep finding new measures," Brockman said. "What we really want is to inspire more and more firms to be going green faster and faster. But this is a move in the right direction."

Today SERA has about 85 employees, which is about the same number the firm employed two years ago, when the Great Recession was beginning to take its toll. Just breaking even in terms of employee growth during the worst economic climate since the 1930s is pretty impressive. The obvious conclusion to draw is that SERA's focus on green is what allowed the firm to prosper amidst the tough times. 

But Brockman says it's not that simple. He points to SERA's diverse portfolio of both public and private clients. The firm is also an employee-owned company, which he says helps them retain talent and keep people motivated. "I sure wouldn’t want the message to be that SERA thinks we are where we ware because of green," he says. "I think of being sustainable in a broad sense. We want to be financially sustainable, protecting and saving staff, and working on green design."

Another key for SERA, Brockman argues, has been the development over the past two years of the firm's  in-house Sustainability Resources Group (SURG), comprised of employees with specific areas of sustainable expertise. "We’ve got a mechanical engineer, skin experts, daylighting and lighting experts," he adds. "Two years ago we had two people in that group amongst 85 people on staff and now it’s seven. We’re busy as heck and providing a lot of service to all the projects in the firm.  But it’s constantly changing."

Right now SERA is engaged in three major projects: the Oregon Sustainability Center (in partnership with GBD Architects) and a renovation of the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building (in partnership with Cutler Anderson Architects), both in Portland, as well as an extensive sustainable master-planning process for the city of Liwa in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

The Oregon Sustainability Center, as its website describes, is "a first-of-a-kind synthesis of unparalleled environmental performance with an integrated sustainability agenda, serving both as a technological model and as a hub for sustainable practices, policy, education, research and entrepreneurship." Located on the edge of the Portland State University campus in downtown Portland, the OSC will bring together academic, government, nonprofit and business sectors. It is being designed to achieve triple net-zero performance in energy and water use and carbon emissions, and to meet the world’s most stringent green building criteria, the Cascadia Region Green Building Council’s Living Building Challenge.

Oregon Sustainability Center, rendering courtesy oregonsustainabilitycenter.org

The OSC would be upon completion perhaps America's greenest office tower, and that is a hugely impressive achievement for SERA, GBD and developer Gerding Edlen. The only criticism I would personally make is that, to my eyes at least, from a visual, aesthetic standpoint it seems ugly, like a banal office building with a mismatched top. But this is also not a final design, so there is still time to change that. And if I'm critical of the look of the building based on the renderings released so far, let me be absolutely clear in saying that doing any Living Building office is hugely impressive. It's just that architecture is, at its ideal, a marriage of the practical and scientific with art and beauty.

I also wonder if an even greener move would be to build the Oregon Sustainability Center in an existing building, such as the empty US Customs House, which the GSA is currently seeking a tenant for via online auction, or the nearly empty Gus Solomon United States Courthouse downtown on Broadway, just a few blocks from the OSC site. But this is neither SERA's decision nor GBD's to make. That said, SERA has extensive renovation experience with landmark projects like City Hall in Portland. What better way to combine the firm's talents?

For the Abu Dhabi project, SERA and the other firms involved have engaged in what's called "energy-mapping", which Brockman says has "allowed us to map climate effects at a city scale. We’ve been siting and massing the buildings in a way that creates a comfortable place in a harsh environment. To be creating district scale tools that function in real time and allow us to design in real time based on climate and comfort, that’s a whole new world. Which I also think is a theme. It feels more and more like the projects we’re working on are all research, and they’re feeding other projects. The city-scale tool we're using in Abu Dhabi is going to be invaluable with all the eco-district work that will be happening in Portland."

The $133 million Wyatt building project (pictured at the top of this post) has been high profile, earning a feature in the Washington Post. The ultra-green retrofit will include rooftop solar panels supplying up to 15% of the building’s power needs, a new overhanging roof to provide shade, and a water collection and reuse system combined with low-flow fixtures that will reduce potable water consumption by as much as 68%. The big buzz surrounding this project, though, is a 250-foot vertical green wall that will cover the entire western facade of the office tower. Plants will grow on facade ‘fins’ that act like garden trellises during the spring and summer, shading the building to reduce energy bills. In the colder months, the plants will naturally drop their foliage and sunlight can once again penetrate the building to provide warmth.

Hopefully the green wall will actually happen, though. A May 4 report Daily Journal of Commerce report by Nathalie Weinstein suggests the GSA may wind up scrapping the wall due to budget concerns.

Brockman says lessons learned on the Oregon Sustainability Center and the Wyatt building are influencing each other. "We’re designing a new building a few blocks from an existing building retrofit a few blocks from each other, so we can share lessons back and forth," he says. "We learned something on OSC and took it to the Wyatt a week later. And the façade research on Wyatt will very much inform the way we move on the OSC's envelope design. It’s a huge privilege but exciting too."

Twelve West named to AIA/COTE Top 10 Green Projects List, first for Portland firm or building

Photo by Brian Libby 

For all of Portland's leadership in the field of sustainable design, the city and its architecture firms have been continually on the outside looking in when it comes to the biggest national architecture prize for green buildings, The American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment's Top 10 Green Projects list.

Each year the program celebrates, in the AIA's words, "projects that are the result of a thoroughly integrated approach to architecture, natural systems and technology," that "make a positive contribution to their communities, improve comfort for building occupants and reduce environmental impacts through strategies such as reuse of existing structures, connection to transit systems, low-impact and regenerative site development, energy and water conservation, use of sustainable or renewable construction materials, and design that improves indoor air quality."

But despite Portland often being called America's greenest city, and at several junctures having the most LEED-rated buildings of any US city, there has never before been a building project in Portland by a Portland firm to crack the Top Ten. Until now, with the listing of Twelve West, designed (and partially occupied) by ZGF Architects.

Portland has come close to making the Top Ten before. The Gerding Theater at the Portland Armory, designed by GBD Architects, won Honorable Mention for the 2007 list. But it still wasn't in the Top 10. The Wayne Morse Courthouse in Eugene was included in 2007's listing, but Eugene isn't Portland and the lead architect, Morphosis and Pritzker Prize winner Tom Mayne, is based in Southern California. The Lloyd Crossing sustainable design plan was included in 2005, but it was designed by a Seattle firm, Mithun, and is only an urban and greenspace plan, not a building. There was also the Bank of Astoria by Manzanita architect Tom Bender that made the list in 2002, but again, that's something different from Portland.

Photo by Brian Libby 

If our city was chasing windmills with the COTE Top Ten in years past, perhaps it took a building with windmills to make the list. That would be Twelve West, the mixed use building designed by ZGF Architects and developed by Gerding Edlen. Besides its other green credentials, including two LEED Platinum certifications, LEED-NC (new construction) overall and LEED-CI for the office interiors at ZGF's headquarters in the building, exceeding current 2030 Challenge benchmarks for energy use, and achieving an overall savings of 46% over a baseline standard, Twelve West also happens to be the first building with wind turbines in an urban setting in the United States.

One thing I've always wondered about the AIA/COTE list is whether they may be any kind of regional or other geographical bias. Was Portland merely being ignored? That seems unlikely, because even Seattle, in the same region, has earned numerous Top 10 listings. Even so, the lack of inclusion for Portland projects always seemed incongruent with what the rest of the green building world was saying about the city.

Yet when I look at the jury for this year's Top Ten, I can't help but wonder if some extra familiarity with Portland and its architects and developers was helpful. After all, this year's jury included Peter Busby, the Vancouver architect with Busby, Perkins & Will. Busby designed the Meriwether Condominiums in South Waterfront in Portland for Gerding Edlen. Did he recuse himself from choosing Twelve West? It doesn't seem so. Then there was Alison G. Kwok from the University of Oregon. She has no connection to Gerding or ZGF that I know of, but her familiarity with local architecture must have helped.

Photo by Brian Libby 

There's no doubting, though, that Twelve West deserves to be on the COTE list. The 23-story, 552,000 square foot building was constructed with low-impact materials, including salvaged, reclaimed and FSC-certified wood. Much of the concrete structure is exposed on the interior, minimizing the use of finish material and providing ample thermal mass. A 47% reduction in potable water use is predicted through use of efficient fixtures, low-water roof plantings, and rainwater reuse. And placing the building atop a surface parking lot in Portland's dense urban core (on the site of a former surface parking lot) facilitates a pedestrian oriented, car-free lifestyle for the occupants, which minimizes required parking while increasing density and reducing stormwater runoff.

In the years ahead, it will be interesting to see how Gerding Edlen and ZGF move forward. Gerding has changed its focus from new construction and mixed-use towers to renovating existing buildings, but if the economy were to start booming again, that would likely change. The developer began its rise to prominence with the Brewery Blocks development with GBD Architects, employing the firm for all five buildings plus the Armory and then an additional project, The Casey, just down the street. Those were all LEED-rated project, not to mention the Armory as the nation's first project on the National Register of Historic Places to earn a LEED rating, and The Casey was the first condo. But ZGF has now designed the first Portland building on the COTE Top 10 list, putting the firm on arguably equal fitting with GBD for top-shelf local green architecture credentials. When you couple that with the work ZGF is doing in Eugene for the University of Oregon's athletic department, such as the Jaqua Center and another to-be-announced project, it gives this venerable Portland firm a firm grip on the future.

Cusack, Steward, Gulick lead BetterBricks Award winners

Photo courtesy BetterBricks 

The 2010 BetterBricks Awards breakfast, held on February 11, honored 12 green building professionals who have, in different ways, championed high-performance buildings in the Pacific Northwest. The awards, presented by BetterBricks, an initiative of the nonprofit Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (and a sponsor of this site), recognize architects, engineers, developers, building owners, building operators, facility managers and other building professionals for their support of high performance, commercial buildings with a special emphasis on energy efficiency in the Northwest. 

Winner in the Architecture category was Dennis Cusack of SRG Partnership. Finalists were Lisa Petterson of SERA Architects and John Breshears of ZGF Architects.

As an SRG principal for almost 30 years and now the firm’s managing partner, Cusack and his partners have achieved 84 percent LEED accreditation of all staff, and 46 LEED equivalent projects.  The firm has committed to the national AIA’s 2030 Challenge. In 2008, Cusack also led SRG’s creation of a graduate research fellowship with the University of Oregon's Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory. This two year program has further deepened SRG’s collaboration with ESBL to focus on research and firm-wide training/education.

Puget Sound Science Center, photo courtesy SRG Partnership 

Among the recent SRG projects to earn significant green credentials are the Da Vinci Arts Middle School for Portland Public Schools (targeted at LEED Platinum); Mt. Angel Abbey’s Annunciation Academic Center, where 95 percent day-lit classrooms and passively cooled ventilation system have become prototypes for many other projects nationally; and the LEED Silver Puget Sound Science Center in Tacoma.

In the Design Engineer category, the winner was Bob Gulick of Mazzetti Nash Lipsey Burch. A finalist was Nick Collins of PAE Consulting Engineers.

The Facility Manager/Building Operations category saw the award go to a team from Fred Meyer stores. The other finalist was the Melvin Mark Companies Operations Team.

In the Advocate category, the winner was Susan Steward, executive director of BOMA (Building Owners and Managers Association International) Portland. You can find BOMA Portland’s list of advocacy projects here. The organization, for example, is a strong proponent of energy efficiency, and that’s probably a large part of why Steward won. (Wow, that’s eerily appropriate: an advocate named Steward.) An additional finalist in the Advocate was Clark Brockman of SERA Architects.

In the Owner/Decision Maker, the winners were Garrin Royer and Danny McGinley, of Redside Development. The photo below is of the 221 Mollala project Redside previously developed.

Photo courtesy Redside Development 

"We got our start in 2002 by focusing on sustainable commercial redevelopment in Oregon and Washington," Redside's website reads. "Today we’re a thriving, fully-integrated commercial real estate company known for successful projects, steady growth and an innovative emphasis on sustainability.

"A lot of people talk the talk when it comes to sustainability. But we actually walk the walk. By integrating construction, property management and facility services into our company, we’re able to apply a green standard to every aspect of a project — from demo and construction all the way to finishes, paint, landscaping and housekeeping."

This year, the BetterBricks Awards introduced a new category honoring a multi-disciplinary team, which is a group of professionals who joined together for a specific high-performance building project. The winning team worked on the Slocum Center for Orthopedics and Sports Medicine: John Bauman; Dr. Thomas Wuest of the Slocum Center; Whitney Churchill of The Neenan Company; Galen Ohmart of Solarc Architecture + Engineering; Brian McCarthy of CMGS Landscape Architects; and Doug McKay and Steve Korth of McKay Investment Company. Finalists were the team behind 12 West, including Gerding Edlen Development; Greg Goodman, the Downtown Development Group, ZGF Architects, Hoffman Construction, Glumac, and KPFF Consulting Engineers.

Winners were selected by a panel of judges comprised of industry professionals and past BetterBricks Awards winners.

To achieve high performance buildings, award winners have used and promoted best practices such as maximizing local climate in the design, employing early design decision-making and energy modeling, supporting building commissioning and implementing better building operations. Their projects have achieved substantial energy savings, reduced building operation and maintenance costs and enhanced productivity of building occupants.

We'll leave the light off for ya': Melvin Mark, Russell lead BOMA Office Energy Showdown winners

The Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) has announced the winners of Portland’s 2009 Office Energy Showdown. Now in its third year, the Showdown recognizes Portland-area office buildings that have made significant achievements in energy efficiency.

Participation saw a nearly 30 percent increase in the number of participants from the previous year and added nearly four million square-feet of office space to the friendly competition.

Winners were chosen from among 32 properties, representing over 11 million square-feet of office real estate. Challenged to assess their buildings’ energy performance, all participants demonstrated market leadership in quantifying their energy use and establishing baseline data that can be used to track future gains in operating efficiency.

The Grand Prize winner, which receives the “Power Broker” trophy for a property, team, or company achieving an outstanding accomplishment in all-around energy performance was the Melvin Mark Companies, a commercial real estate broker. Melvin Mark's portfolio includes the Sunset Center at Tanasbourne as well as the Columbia Square (pictured above) and Crown Plaza buildings downtown.

Three projects were also singled out for demonstrating the highest energy performance ratings. 1st Place went to the 200 Market Building, managed by the Russell Development Company. 2nd Place was the Gus Solomon Courthouse, managed by the General Services Administration (which probably uses little energy by virtue of being largely empty), and 3rd Place went to the Kruse Woods V project, managed by Shorenstein.

Then there were awards for 'Greatest Improvement', for the properties demonstrating the most significant gains in energy performance rating over the year. 1st place went to the ODS Tower in downtown Portland managed by Ashforth Pacific (now if they could only do something about the hideous sculpture in the front of the building) and designed by ZGF. 2nd Place was Montgomery Park, the Northwest Portland landmark managed by Bill Naito Company. 3rd Place was a tie between the Liberty Centre (Ashforth Pacific) and 1915 Amberglen, managed by KG Investments Management.

If they'd needed to break the tie, I'd have disqualified Liberty Centre for spelling "Centre" like Canadians. That said, Liberty Centre is also noteworthy in that it was originally to be a design by internationally renowned architect Cesar Pelli, before ultimately being designed by Portland's GBD Architects.

Design afficionados (or "designistas", as developer Dennis Wilde has called them) may snicker that many of these buildings are visually unattractive or, in some cases, located in some far-off suburban office park surrounded by surface parking lots. I mean, you never hear someone say, "Have you seen that Kruse Woods V office building in Lake Oswego? What a gorgeous work of architecture! What is that, Koolhaas? Piano, Meier?" But energy efficiency is one of the biggest movements of our time, and part of a regional effort to reduce the need for coal-fired power plants by cutting our power addiction. What some of these projects lack in looks or location, they admirably atone for by being as efficient as they can be.

bSIDE6, Shattuck Hall lead AIA design award winners

The renovation of Shattuck Hall at Portland State University by SRG Partnership and the bSIDE6 mixed-use building by Works Partnership Architecture (pictured at left in a shot by Stephen Miller) walked away with the two Honor Awards (the highest prize given out) at last Saturday's Design Awards Gala honoring the best architectural design of the year.

It's not a surprise that bSIDE6 won. Although it's only the first built project by Works Partnership to be new from the ground up (versus a renovation), the firm has established an incredible track record when it comes to these AIA/Portland design awards, having won an award for 11 of the 12 projects they have submitted in the last five years. (The project team for bSIDE6 was Bill Neburka, Carrie Schilling and Jennifer Dzienis.)

What's more, bSIDE6 is a bold-looking, unabashedly modern building that harkens to the East Burnside vernacular of building arcades that shelter the sidewalks outside while pushing the envelope of how sculptural and three-dimensional a building facade can be.

As Amara Holstein wrote of bSIDE6 in Portland Monthly, the building's "seven stories of work studios and retail space that seem to float above the street in a Tetris-like façade....With ribbons of dark-gray metal playing hide-and-seek with sleek glass, the structure mixes sexy and stern like no other building in the city. Yet Works Partnership’s bold, column-free reinterpretation of the lower East Burnside tradition of covered sidewalks nestles the building like a puzzle piece into the street’s ramshackle collection of bars, vintage retailers, and coffee shops as seamlessly as the new Ziba headquarters does in the far tonier Pearl."

Shattuck (pictured above) is now home to PSU's architecture department, and with SRG's help the circa-1915 red brick former elementary school was transformed into a more dynamic interior environment with an open plan, naturally-lit studios, a rooftop gallery, and an extensive materials lab encompassing model-making, woodworking, metalworking, and casting shop. In addition to the Honor Award, Shattuck's redesign also won the Sustainability Award, which is no small achievement in a city whose architecture community is all about sustainability.

That Shattuck Hall won the top Honor Award was a little surprising, at least to me, but there's no doubt the design work, by a project team that included principal Kent Duffy as well as Skip Stanaway, Louise Foster, Jon Mehlschau, Eric Wilson, Nita Posada, Emily Dawson and Kendall Harris, was first rate.

Besides the two Honor Awards, seven projects received the second-tier Merit Award:

• The Park Box in Portland (pictured at right), a duplex home by PATH Architecture (this project also won the night's only Craftsmanship Award). I previously wrote about the Park Box for Dwell magazine when it was part of the 11xDesign Tour last spring, although at the time it was under construction. Designer Corey Martin of PATH and his family are the residents.

• The Cyan Building, also in Portland, in a joint venture by THA Architecture and GBD Architects. This is a condo project meant to appeal to a more modest income level than the higher-end condos Gerding Edlen (the developer for Cyan) has built in the past. I visited and wrote a blog post about the Cyan a few months ago. Besides its strong sustainability quotient, I was also a fan of the project's undulating facade.

• The Portland Mall Revitalization by ZGF Architects (also pictured at right). Most of us are still getting our feet wet experiencing the new MAX light rail line traversing Fifth and Sixth Avenues downtown, but the jury, headed by acclaimed Phoenix architect Will Bruder (now a visiting professor at Portland State), was very fond of how the new rail extension and its stops interact with the array of buses, cars and pedestrian all around. Besides Bruder, of Will Bruder + Partners in Phoenix, the jury included Mark Cavagnero of Mark Cavagnero Associates in San Francisco and Brigitte Shim of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects in Toronto.)

• The Reserve in Portland by Hennebery Eddy Architects (pictured at right). No, it's not the local golf course of the same name. The Reserve is a renovation of the striking trapezoid-shaped Federal Reserve bank just south of Burnside in downtown Portland, designed by legendary Portland architect Pietro Belluschi and completed in 1949. It's great to see an under-appreciated Belluschi work be given new life. And in going from a security-conscious bank to a mixed use program, the project has brought in lots more natural light.

• The Academic Instructional Center in Bellingham, Washington in a joint venture between Opsis Architecture (the design architect) and NAC Architecture of Seattle. 

• Thurston Elementary School in Springfield, Oregon by Mahlum Architects. Incidentally, the jury for this year's awards did not supply AIA with comments about the awards (tisk tisk, gang), but when this same project was honored by the Southwest Oregon AIA chapter, the jury noted how Thurston's design was "distilled, simple, not overly structured" and "a wonderful plan that keys outdoor spaces with indoor ones." Mahlum has made its name largely with a host of similarly sustainable K-12 schools and college buildings; they've got this down.

• The Tempe Transportation Center in Tempe, Arizona, in a joint venture by Otak and Architekton. This a mixed-use transit center designed to accommodate the region’s increased business needs while integrating with its new multimodal transportation opportunities. The project is expected to earn LEED-Platinum certification.

Citation Awards, the next-tier prize, went to two projects:

• The Nines hotel by SERA Architects, a renovation of the historic Meier & Frank building along the north edge of Pioneer Courthouse Square that was originally designed by the great Portland architect A.E. Doyle.

• Shaver Green by DECA Architecture. DECA also won a design award last year, and it wasn't their first.

There were also both Merit and Citation awards given out to four unbuilt projects:

• A Merit for the TriMet South Terminus by Hennebery Eddy Architects

• A Merit for the Muslim Community Center of Portland, by Architecture Office. I met with Garrett Martin and the rest of this firm a few weeks ago to learn about this project (a separate post is forthcoming soon) and was hugely impressed.

• A Citation for an as-yet unnamed workforce housing project designed by Works Partnership and co-developed by Randy Rapaport, the latter of whom previously worked with Holst Architecture to build the award winning Belmont Street Lofts and Clinton Condominiums. Like the Muslim center, I recently met with the architects to learn more about this project and plan to blog about it soon. This isn't just an impressive design, but outright reinvents affordable housing in Portland and the United States both from a design standpoint as well as an economic one.

• A Citation for TandemDUO, a duplex house by Works Partnership

The People's Choice Award went to the Paradise Visitors Center within Mount Rainier National Park, designed by Fletcher Farr Ayotte.

And the Mayor's Award for Design Excellence, given out since the late 1990s when it was initiated by Mayor Vera Katz as part of her Mayor's Design Initiative (something I'd like to see rekindled), went to the Williams Five Condos by PATH Architecture. I wrote about the Williams Five in a blog post a few months ago. It's an excellent work of infill multifamily housing, one that PATH also co-developed.

So if you're playing along at home, that makes it three total awards this year for Works Partnership, including an Honor Award. Works also won two awards at last year's AIA ceremony. Also picking up three was PATH Architecture, although two awards were for the same project. Not far behind is Hennebery Eddy with two awards.

One other award to announce: Remember the Root Awards that Portland Spaces magazine gave out last November? Well, those aren't happening this year. But Spaces and Portland Monthly editor Randy Gragg did give out at the AIA ceremony on Saturday the same lifetime achievement award that came out of the Root Awards last year. It went to Saul Zaik, one of the city's last great remaining midcentury-modern architects. Some of Zaik's houses, as you can see from a story I wrote earlier this year about the architect for Portland Modern, are sublime. Kudos to Randy and the magazine for recognizing him.

Two Portland projects sweep AIA's national healthcare design awards

Recently the American Institute of Architects announced the recipients of its 2009 National Healthcare Design Awards, honoring two built projects and one unbuilt project. And both of the built projects are located here in Portland: the Providence North Portland Clinic on Interstate Avenue, designed by Mahlum, and the Peter O. Kohler Pavilion at Oregon Health & Science University on Marquam Hill, designed by the Los Angeles office of Chicago-based Perkins + Will.

I wrote about the awards for this week's issue of Architecture Week magazine, which you can read here.

The Providence clinic is a departure for the client. "All the rest of their clinics have red brick," Anne Schopf, a principal at Mahlum, told me for the story. "We really wanted to create a new face for them, a new attitude."

The building is more contemporary than other Providence clinics, with an expansive glass facade along Interstate. Rick Potestio, the acclaimed Portland architect who was working for Mahlum at the time, also told me, "We believed that the site, on Interstate Avenue, merited a civic-scaled building, not a one-story building that looked like it could be a pancake house." The solution was a single-story building with a butterfly roof in which the east and west elevations reaching two stories in height.

The butterfly roof form allows daylight into the middle of the building, which is divided into three clinical pods centered on open nurses' stations, trading some privacy for openness. The pods are faced with murals visible from the street through a floor-to-ceiling glass wall.

The Kohler Pavilion at OHSU didn't even have a site when the design began. A site had to be carved out of Marquam Hill by replacing an existing roadway. Now, however, the building acts as the visual face of the hilltop campus as it looks out to the east. The Kohler has a striking glass facade, and one's eye is also drawn to the building because it acts as the upper terminus for the Portland Aerial Tram. 

The new building houses an intensive care unit, operating rooms, and treatment suites, and the new Center for Women's Health. The pavilion's arrival court includes a large garden area sitting atop a 450-space parking structure. "One of [then-OHSU president] Peter Kohler's strong directives was he didn't want to look down and see cars parked," Nick Seierup of Perkins + Will said in the story. "So any view looks out over greenery." Cascading landscaped roof decks provide intimate gardens as well as terraces for the public to enjoy the panoramic views.

Both projects also reflect a strong trend in healthcare design towards interiors that aid in the healing process, P+W's Seierup added. "Studies actually prove patient outcomes are improved by access to views and natural daylight. And it's proven to have a lasting beneficial effect on staff. They make fewer errors; they're able to read charts better. There's a whole trickle-down of effects."

Two Portlanders among winning team in Los Angeles transit ideas competition

An interdisciplinary team including two Portlanders, architect Aaron Whelton of AAW Studio and planner Jacob Brostoff of the city of Portland, took first place in an ideas competition sponsored by the Southern California Institute of Architecture (Sci-Arc) and The Architect's Newspaper.

The competition, entitled "A New Infrastructure: Innovative Transit Solutions for Los Angeles," invited designers to imagine LA's transit solutions for 30 to 50 years in the future. Judges included some heavy hitters of Los Angeles architecture, such as Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss, and Neil Denari.

The winning entry, called "Más Transit" is according to the press release "a regional high-speed rail system for Los Angeles with a landscape to match. Promoting dense, organic development, it diversifies the communities in the built environment, making travel less necessary, easier and more predictable, and bypassing roadway congestion through a new raised infrastructure." 

Looping around the city, with connections to subways, light rail and buses, MásTransit links local and inter-regional commuting, providing frequent service that will also sync up with the California High Speed Rail network. San Diego via m·sTransit is less than an hour away, including transfer times; San Francisco is less than three hours away."

Now if we could only get some people started on imagining regional high-speed rail for the Pacific Northwest. At the very least, there needs to be a high-speed line connecting Portland and Seattle. Really, it ought to also include connections to Vancouver (BC), Bend, Tacoma, Olympia, Salem and Eugene or maybe even to Medford and San Francisco. Much more than a new bridge for the Columbia River and Interstate 5, we need high speed rail. However, maybe rail could also be incorporated into this crossing.

Meanwhile, congratulations to Whelton, Brostoff and the rest of their team. 

Skylab, ZGF, Holst projects earn year-end honors

Interior Design Magazine has awarded Skylab Architecture a 'Best of Year' award for the design of the branding agency North. The 10,000 square foot office situated in the Lane-Miles Standish building (formerly home to an 85-year old printing business and now on the National Register of Historic Places) took the Best Small Office category.

North sought a new kind of office that would reduce or eliminate the traditional cubicle and stretch the parameters of working in a creative environment. The design responds to alternative social interactions with a series of breakaway modules for working, eating, collaborating and lounging. A stacked, cantilevered think module reveals a newly articulated view of the West Hills through clerestory windows in the building. A series of interspersed glass and metal panels define the edit module, two soundproof rooms without doors. Taking a universal icon for quick creative thought, the media module is post-it note yellow.

The magazine also honored Zimmer Gunsul Frasca for its design of the University of Oregon Athletic Medical Center. "When student athletes first enter this sports-therapy and training facility," writes ID's Nicholas Tamarin, "they're greeted by a zigzagging white Corian bench that unravels like a roll of sports tape. And that's just the beginning of the athletic imagery Zimmer Gunsul Frasc Architects created for this 15,000-square-foot center. A seating area features four sandblasted glass screens depicting students in various athletic poses, images made from the names of the school's former athletes, while an adjacent oak wall is branded with the names of the school's most important coaches. The school's "O" logo is depicted in a large relief comprising 3,000 aluminum rods that pierce a glass wall in the nutrition bar. Even there, the stools boast leather covers laser-cut with sport statistics."

This was Interior Design’s third annual Best of Year Awards, with winners in 62 categories from a pool of nearly 1,300 entries. An award ceremony was held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York on December 4th, 2008. The winners are featured in the December issue of Interior Design.

Meanwhile, online design magazine Cool Hunting has selected Holst Architecture's Clinton Condominiums as one of the 'Top 5 Buildings of 2008'.

"The building's minimal interiors combine attractive design with eco-consciousness in a way that's right at home in the Pacific Northwest," wrote Cool Hunting's Doug Black. 

The other four winners were all European architects or firms: Englishmen Nicholas Grimshaw (for an experimental media center at Rensselear Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York)  and Thomas Heatherwick (a cafe in Littlehampton, England), Dutch architect Trude Hooykaas (for the Kraanspor dock-to-office development), and the French company Abilmo (for their 'Pop-up Hotel' rooms).

This award also feels like somewhat of a vindication for the Randy Rapaport-developed Clinton condos. There has been some hostility from neighbors who feel the bold modern look doesn't fit its context, or that the project turns a blind eye to Division Street, or regret the historic home displaced from the site. And to extent, there's some validity in those claims. Nevertheless, I marvel at the Clinton Condos every time I see the building, particularly its jewel-like front facade and its sumptuous mahogany trim at ground level.