Portland Architecture

After a long delay, visiting the new Multnomah County Central Courthouse

Ground-floor lobby at Multnomah County Central Courthouse (Brian Libby)

 

BY BRIAN LIBBY

In autumn of 2020, the new Multnomah County Central Courthouse completed construction. Normally that's when I and other press would have visited. But 2020 was no ordinary year, so it was only a few weeks ago—nine months after the opening and only as people got vaccinated—that any of us without immediate court business have been able to go inside. And because the courthouse has been encircled with protective plywood boards since last summer's protests, even as it's become totally open it hasn't looked that way.

Thankfully there were two really memorable architectural experiences awaiting inside this new courthouse by SRG Partnership: the soaring little lobby, and the views from its upper floors.

There's actually something to be said for living with a building like this for a while—seeing its presence on the skyline—before forming an opinion about its design. And with its prominent place in the front row of Portland's downtown skyline along the Willamette River, the MCCC is hard to miss. That's especially true for me living just off Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard. It's the first building I pass after crossing the Hawthorne Bridge into downtown.

As it overlooks both the bridge and Tom McCall Waterfront Park, there's nothing to obstruct a view of the courthouse's east-facing facade. Which, as it happens, is the back of the building. But without question, as it faces the waterfront, the building has a striking presence.

Façade

Even if it weren't so prominently sited, I think the building's asymmetrical limestone and glass façade patterning would still cause it to stand out against most other nearby downtown buildings on the skyline: nearly all of which, the courthouse makes you realize, are all uniformly symmetrical and, in most cases, pretty banal.

When I interviewed SRG Partnership's Steve Simpson about the Multnomah County Central Courthouse design in the spring of 2016, the architect cited three previous buildings as influences: the neoclassical US Supreme Court building from 1935, designed by architect Cass Gilbert; the more contemporary styled Lindsey-Flanagan courthouse in Denver, completed in 2010 and designed by SRG's Multnomah County Central Courthouse partner, CGL Ricci Greene; and the great Rafael Moneo’s Murcia City Hall in Spain, opened in 1998.

 

The courthouse as seen along the riverfront (Motoya Nakamura, Multnomah County)

 

“The US Supreme Court has a strength to it," said Simpson, who has since departed SRG. "It evokes this order, permanence and strength. And the Lindsey-Flanagan courthouse in Denver, it’s very transparent,” he explained. “Can we take the best of these attributes and invest them into how this east façade is made? The thing that gives the Supreme Court its power is its columns, its exposed structure. We’re looking at doing that on the east façade of the new building, to give it that sense of order."

"But we also feel the building should have a lyrical quality as well. It is a public building," Simpson added. "We feel as though the elevation needs to have that vitality. You can see the figurines in the pediment of the Supreme Court that remind us it’s a public building. And in a more abstract way the Murcia City Hall in Spain by Rafael Moneo. The random patterning gives it that lyrical quality. It’s random but it has order to it. We feel like the eyes should move around it. I think it will be compelling. That’s more evocative of the human condition: diversity, complexity, and it’s ever changing. Those two superimposed on each other is what we’re after."

He also explained the use of limestone. “It’s for that sense of permanence, but it’s also light,” Simpson said. “I think some of the best buildings in Portland have a real light quality to them. It’s overcast nine months out of the year. But also this sense of transparency: modern buildings should reveal the activity inside them, especially courthouses, because of that sense of transparency and justice.”

If you're the kind of person who reads a lot of design press, this asymmetrical façade look has been around for a while. Moneo's building is 23 years old. And I think of local buildings like the 937 condominium building by Holst Architecture, in the Pearl District, completed in 2008. So it's an odd sensation, but the look of the Multnomah County Central Courthouse exterior is to me both fresh and stale. Or rather, it's fresh compared to the buildings around it, but maybe a bit derivative in the broader context.

But what I think saves the exterior facade, as it faces the river, is that it's executed with clarity. It's just the limestone and the glass: a simple, elegant composition. I can't say for sure, but I think despite the very millennial style of the patterning, the building may indeed be simple enough to remain timeless.

 

Lobby staircase leading to jury duty, etc. (Brian Libby)

Entry and Lobby

When I wrote about this building for a recent Portland Tribune column, the first thing I mentioned was that the building's improved functionality becomes apparent before one even enters the building. Instead of waiting outside on the sidewalk in a long security line stretching from inside, accommodation was made inside the lobby of the Multnomah County Central Courthouse for an airport-style snaking-line path that will keep people out of the elements when it's busy.

Once through the security scanners, the lobby is arguably the best part of the whole building. It's a multi-story volume made possible by tall, relatively thin board-formed concrete columns and an upward sloping wood-clad ceiling that forms a canopy outside, and accentuated with a huge work of colorful glass art by Lynn Basa.

Those columns I found gorgeous. Tall and slender yet with a cool trapezoidal shape, they felt almost like a contemporary nod to Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic Johnson Wax Building. The combination of concrete columns and wood ceiling, especially amidst the multi-story volume of the lobby, also faintly recalled to me the great Louis Kahn. Only in the work of those masters, that DNA carries through to the entire building. Here the lobby feels a bit different from the rest.

 

Concrete, wood and glass, inside and outside the MCCC lobby (Brian Libby)

I guess this lobby is really SRG Partnership's moment to shine. The venerable Portland firm (for which, in full disclosure, I have done some freelance work in the past), though offering a broad portfolio with decades of public experience, won this commission somewhat against the odds, given that some other large, prestigious local firms were competing for the commission, as were internationally-renowned architects and firms like Rem Koolhaas and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, both of which applied for the job. But SRG is on a roll, with two very prominent projects—this courthouse and the reconstructed Hayward Field in Eugene, at the University of Oregon—coming into use and getting plenty of attention this year, in coming-out parties delayed by the pandemic. Hayward in particular looks to be an instant landmark.

Just as Hayward's huge wood columns look striking, the Multnomah County Central lobby is so wonderful that it inevitably makes me wish it weren't just on one corner of the ground floor. Not only is the square footage relatively small, but the lobby faces the northwest side of the building, on SW First Avenue, essentially turning away from the river. Why not extend that lobby across the whole northern side of the building, allowing it to acknowledge and take in the Hawthorne Bridge and the Willamette?

My understanding is that Multnomah County was committed to keeping a holding cell on the ground floor, which necessitated a smaller lobby. I'm sure that's the most convenient thing for the client, and an architect has to respect the client's wishes and functional requirements. Even so, could they really not have budged? Were they really that stymied or unnerved by the task of moving prisoners up or down a floor? And could a bigger firm with more courthouse experiences like, say, SOM, have had more success in convincing the client to bend?

Relegating the lobby to one corner for this particular programmatic reason seems to say something symbolic: that open public space is at odds with and at times even overridden by security concerns. I can't help but think of Simpson's own words: "modern buildings should reveal the activity inside them, especially courthouses, because of that sense of transparency and justice." It makes me wonder: what if instead of moving the holding cell up or down a floor, they just made the walls between them and the lobby transparent? I suppose it would have violated prisoners' privacy or made those in uniform uneasy, being on display. But especially in recent times, added transparency might prove to be useful.

And let's not get carried away here, because the building seems to function and flow well enough that perhaps I'm overstating the importance of the lobby only occupying one corner. After all, the reason those lines were so long at the entrance to the old Multnomah County Courthouse was largely because of people coming and going for jury duty. And now, not only will jurors not have to line up outside to enter the courthouse, but once through security they'll pass up a two-story staircase leading to a vastly improved juror waiting area on the third floor that even offers something the lobby doesn't: views of the river. With an in-house cafe, waiting in the jury room becomes a little less of a confining chore and something to at least partially enjoy. I could easily stare out at that view all day. The stairway SRG does a good job of making a presence unto itself. But I still wonder if the ideal would have been to keep jurors on the ground floor.

Jefferson Station and (the) Niles Crane

Although the Multnomah County Central Courthouse is principally a new, L-shaped building, the project also retained the historic Jefferson Station building that's long occupied the southwest corner of the block. Dating to 1909, this former Portland General Electric substation now houses high-volume courts instead of high-voltage equipment. A massive crane inside was left in place, as was the original brick interior cladding, making this a handsome preservation win.

The crane, it's worth mentioning as a kind of pop-cultural aside, made me do a double-take. Affixed to this massive piece of steel just below the ceiling is a large painted label: 20 TON NILES CRANE. As many of you certainly already know, Niles Crane happened to be the name of a character on 1990s sitcom Frasier. As soon as I saw the label on the crane, I wondered if the TV character played by David Hyde Pierce had been named by the show's writers after this piece of industrial infrastructure, as some kind of obscure building-industry inside joke.

 

Jefferson Station and its ceiling crane (Brian Libby)

I'm really glad Jefferson Station was preserved. Inside, it's full of light and the brick gives it the best material ambiance in the entire building (or at least second only to that glorious wood lobby ceiling and the board-formed concrete columns). I've wrestled a bit, however, with how I think the two buildings fit together, or if they really do.

I guess, if you'll pardon the pun, the jury is still out on this one. I need to experience the old and new structures more than once to say for sure. But I guess what nags me is that an L-shaped building in some ways does not feel ideal, and so the tall new building that wraps around Jefferson Station pays a certain price for Jefferson Station's existence, especially when the two don't seem to have much of any overlap. At least on my first visit, they felt like two distinct things.

I think of the joy of visiting certain buildings that truly seemed to combine new and old architecture, like the King's Cross and Liverpool Street rail stations in London (the foreign city I've visited more than any other): how the texture of the old architecture made the new architecture better. Here, the old and new don't seem to embrace each other at all but instead are like friendly step-siblings.

What's more, what I experienced of the Jefferson Station building—those high-volume courts—was on the second floor. The first floor of that building, too, is part of a mostly closed-off first floor, a kind of shadow space at the base of the building, that the dramatic-yet-small lobby helps distract from.

Of course the Multnomah County Central Courthouse arrives in a time when its sister building a block away, the Multnomah County Justice Center, has for much of the past year and a half been the target of protests. Last summer, in the wake of George Floyd's murder, those protesters numbered in the thousands. This new building is for courts, not jails, but the fact that so much of the ground floor seems to have apparently been designated for handling prisoners, some of the DNA of the Justice Center seems to have been grafted to this Central Courthouse building.

The Courtrooms and Views

I can't talk about this new building without talking a little more about the breathtaking views of the Willamette River and the east side (and beyond) from its courtroom lobbies stacked along the east facade.

Visiting the courthouse and stopping on several different floors to both take in the view out and see different courtrooms, I was reminded of visiting the Mark Hatfield United States Courthouse back when it opened in 1997. At the time, I had just moved back to Oregon and was living in Portland for the first time. One evening there was an open-house at the courthouse (this was pre-9/11), and the public was invited to come inside. Looking out from the Hatfield's upper floors, the view of our new city was such a delight.

 

Views north and east from the MCCC (Brian Libby)

I got much of that same sensation looking out from the Multnomah County Central Courthouse a few weeks ago. I was even luckier on this private tour, because I got to go all the way to the rooftop, where the building's photovoltaic panels were a sight unto themselves and the view was 360 degrees. But even from just the ordinary public lobbies in front of each courtroom, it feels like one of the best and most panoramic views that have ever been available in Portland.

Perhaps because of the new building's L shape, the elevator core is not in the middle of the structure, where you'd find it in most downtown buildings. Instead, it's place along the north wall. On the ground floor it's adjacent to the lobby, while on the upper floors it basically forms the end of the L, so that you walk east, around the corner, to reach the courtroom lobbies, taking in views to the north and east in those few dozen steps. That leaves the entire floor plate on the eastern side available to stack courtrooms.

 Because this building is bigger than all other waterfront structures, I particularly enjoyed the unobstructed view north, taking in Mt. Saint Helens as well as the river's bend at the Burnside Bridge, and many downtown buildings like the US Bancorp tower (Big Pink). But of course Mt. Hood to the east is really always the star attraction. It's our Mt. Fuji.

 

Rooftop solar panels and Mt. Hood (Brian Libby)

 

One substantial difference between the Multnomah County Central Courthouse and the Hatfield U.S. Courthouse, though, is that the county was working with a more modest per-square-foot budget. The Hatfield, with a design lead by New York's Kohn Pedersen Fox in collaboration with local firm Bora as architect of record, has been called opulent for its comparatively lavish budget. It also was built at the beginning of the federal government's Design Excellence program, which awarded commissions to many of the nation's top architects in the years ahead. There was clear ambition in every way.

Multnomah County is not the federal government. This client had more modest aims: hire a local firm, deliver a better-functioning courthouse on time and on budget. Opulence would risk backlash against proper use of public funds, and a starchitect might be hard to control.

It's not to say the new Central Courthouse is bare-bones. As mentioned, the lobby is great. And the courtrooms themselves, stacked on each upper floor, offer with clerestory windows bringing in natural light and almost concert-hall-level interior acoustics that make it easy to hear someone across the room (a witness, for example). It's just not quite the same level of high-budget detail and materials you'd find at the Hatfield. That's not a criticism, though. And SRG's team of designers seems to have stretched that budget smartly. Maybe I was a bit surprised at the amount of plain white drywall I saw inside the courthouse, but always in conjunction with other materials.

 

Upstairs courtrooms (Motoya Nakamura, Multnomah County)

Overall, I find this a county courthouse to be one with moments where light, materials, volume and transparency come together to wonderful effect. Other times it seems a bit more utilitarian: a series of hallways and closed rooms next to a wall and a half of glass. I also think it's worth mentioning that the courthouse Multnomah County vacated is being restored into private-sector offices, because had that building been demolished, I would have, however unfairly, held this new building and its benefactor partially responsible. And, of course, I'll always wonder what SOM and OMA might have done. All that said, after visiting the Multnomah County Central Courthouse, my sense is of a job well done and a building that is poised to endure.

The courthouse is a reminder of the old curse may you live in interesting times. It was conceived in 2015 and early 2016, with SRG's first renderings released that spring. It was under construction during the Trump administration and then finished just as the pandemic and protests were at their zenith, millions of forest acreage burned and the air outside wasn't safe to breath. Now, it begins life in a new era, where for a time the skies are figuratively and literally clearer, but perhaps not for long. In all these times, we need justice: a series of principles that, at least in pre-2016 theory, don't bend. "The first duty of society is justice," wrote Alexander Hamilton.

And we need architecture that best represents and serves that process. Even the best building can't make up for human failures and tragedies, be it from civilians or within the government itself. Much as I love old buildings like the old Multnomah County Courthouse, that was a building with ghosts, just as the Multnomah County Justice Center has become. It's a fair argument that we could have spent the money for a new courthouse on, say, affordable housing. Even so, I like the idea of Portland's home county leaving those ghosts behind, and starting a new chapter in this courthouse.

 

 

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Reviewing design review

Pearl District and Fremont Bridge (photo by Brian Libby)

BY NATHAN DAY

Last week, the City of Portland’s Design Commission gave its annual State of the City Design Report to City Council, a relatively overlooked event that is usually seen as more of a formality than one of great public interest. This go around it seemed different, more important than in years past, as the city is undergoing a massive construction boom which has brought a record number of cases in front of the Design Review panel.

The intended limitations of the Commission has caused delays in the review process, and has resulted in a general slowing in the development pipeline as individual cases all vie to be seen as quickly as possible in this time of economic upswing. Over the last year, the Design Commission has made improvements, mostly relating to maintaining an effective schedule (e.g. getting a proper timer) that has reduced delays and overruns. But the task force still sees room for improvement. The Commission and the local American Institute of Architects chapter as well as numerous others in the design profession and the public at large would like to see more review, not less, as the city continues to develop at its perceived rapid pace.

As noted during the report, the Comprehensive Plan Update will address many of the issues that are currently challenging the city's built environment, but that plan will not fully take effect for years as the details are still being hashed out in a willingly arduous, all-inclusive manner.

The Design Commission was created with the goal of improving architecture and urban design in the central city. It aimed at reducing the vast number of blank walls and lifeless streets that the automobile age had unintentionally and haphazardly created. In the past, the State of the City Design Report has been focused on the importance of design review, design appropriateness, long-term planning, and inequality issues regarding new development in the city's downtown core and immediate surrounding neighborhoods.

Now, however, the Design Commission is seeing more proposals than ever before, and the city is receiving pressure from neighborhood activists and associations to include the "d" design overlay (designating areas where projects fall under Design Commission review, mostly in the central city) across the entire city as a means to rein in what is perceived as the uncontrolled and inappropriate growth. The review process is something that is unfamiliar and commonly misunderstood by many, but it is generally regarded as valuable and increasingly important as the city grows.

Portland is not alone in this influx of new developments, as many American cities are currently experiencing similar construction booms, created by a combination of repressed supply and the fear of the impending increase in Federal Reserve interest rates. As an example, our neighbor to the north, Seattle, has the equivalent of one quarter of Portland's downtown office space (6 million square feet) currently under construction, with even more proposed to start in the coming years.

Portland's boom is primarily residential in nature, with a sharp increase in apartment building and an unprecedented number of new hotel units, over 2000, currently proposed or under construction. The city's growing pains are exacerbated by the wholesale condominium conversions that took place during the last housing boom that greatly reduced the city's inventory of existing rental apartments. Additionally, Portland's strict zoning code unintentionally prices most residents out of their own homes by limiting the housing supply in the guise of preserving neighborhood character, a duality that inadvertently pits the preservation of forest and farmland against existing neighborhood aesthetics and density.

Ross Island and South Waterfront (photo by Brian Libby)

In the State of the City Design Report, the Design Commission recommend five changes: (1) make design review mandatory throughout the city based on the scope of new development projects; (2) create an additional design review team to oversee this inclusion; (3) update the Community Design Standards as an alternative to design review; (4) rethink the housing bonus to include affordable and low-income units; and (5) remove residential as an acceptable ground floor use along commercial corridors. As with the nature of recommendations, none of these action items were immediately accepted, but the first three changes were welcomed by the City Council and the event's commentators.

Generally, expanding design review was seen as a potential means of addressing the current neighborhood and design community's concerns without encroaching on the ongoing revision process of the Comprehensive Plan. But updating the Community Design Standards would be an onerous process in itself and probably implausible at this time. What the new design overlay would look like, what initiates a review, and how it would be orchestrated are currently unknown, but the mayor, Charlie Hales, was keen on the idea, which means these changes could be explored sooner rather than later. The recommendation to change the language of the automatic housing bonus is an interesting idea, especially since the original intent was to increase the housing supply in the city's core, a goal that no longer needs incentive due to market conditions. Rewriting that particular bonus would be premature however, as any new housing policy would be reliant on the outcome of the Comprehensive Plan Update.

The most interesting change to be recommended, and one that could be implemented immediately, is a moratorium on residential ground uses for commercial corridors. The Design Commission ran through numerous examples on Burnside Street, Hawthorne Boulevard, and Martin Luther King Boulevard where such 'active' uses have actually broken up contiguous retail storefronts with dead space. The original intent was to create a mix of ground floor spaces, dynamic and interactive, but instead of the porches and stoops dreamed up by city planners, reality tends to repetitiously repeat closed doors painted the same color as the walls flush around them accompanied by a permanent set of adjacent window blinds. As currently written, code allows for residential uses in any commercial zone, regardless if it’s a high rise or a main street storefront, which means that the review team cannot object even if they deem it inappropriate for the location. That does not mean that the reviewers have been silent on this issue, as many times their advice has led to ground floor changes that were ultimately beneficial to the developer. In cases where ground floor commercial uses are unfeasible due to market conditions, the Design Commission recommends having the discretion to allow residential uses with the caveat that it could be adaptable to future retail uses with higher ceilings, open layouts, and ADA accessibility. Live/work units, such as those in the Pearl District or on upper Hawthorne, are a good example of how to accomplish successful adaptable ground floor spaces. The end goal is not to have commercial on every street, the goal is to maintain active uses along specific corridors where they are already thriving.

Regardless of whether any of these proposed changes actually come to fruition or not, the Design Commission is proving to be incredibly successful in positively impacting our built environment. There was ample testimony that reiterated the importance and benefits of the commission, and what their efforts have meant to the city.

With the current polarization of neighborhood associations, which is directly related to the prevalent anti-density groundswell, it is more important than ever to have a team of professionals who understand all sides of development to help bridge the emotionally-charged divide between growth and preservation. The coming Comprehensive Plan Update will hopefully address many of the issues currently in debate across the city, but the grand narrative of a sustainable Portland, the one with 20-minute neighborhoods and easy access to healthy foods and healthy places, must be heeded by developers and neighbors alike.

 

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Designing the city: three design commissioners discuss its past and future

Downtown Portland (photo by Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Since it was first created in the 1980s, the Portland Design Commission has weighed in on hundreds of buildings across downtown, the Pearl District, and a select few historic and close-in neighborhoods. It's a way of ensuring architectural quality not just in individual buildings, but across the city fabric.

The Design Commission has always had critics. You can't legislate or negotiate good design, they argue: you can only hope to prevent the worst designs. It costs building owners and developers lots of time and many thousands of dollars to go through the process, bringing uncertainty to an already often-risky venture. And can you really judge and arbitrate aesthetics? Isn't one person's eyesore another's masterpiece?

Yet for all these concerns, the Design Commission is arguably a big component of what makes Portland's urban design world-renowned.

"I think this process and the fabric of Portland is in fact our brand," architect and former Design Commission chair Mike McCulloch said in a May 31 City Club talk. "The number of groups that we all have toured around, that come from all over the planet and ask, ‘How did you do this? This is such a wonderful city. How did you get it to be this way?’ Well, it’s through all these difficult negotiation processes, and the connection of planning with individual design, with urban design."

McCulloch was part of a trio that spoke with writer/editor Randy Gragg as part of the City Club talk, which explored both the past and future of the commission. Developer John Russell, another panelist, was instrumental in its founding, while strategic planning consultant, Guenevere Millius, currently serves as chair.

"It has long been said that the city’s design review process can’t mandate great buildings, but it can prevent truly bad ones. But as I survey Portland’s current boom, particularly in the neighborhoods, I’m not so sure the latter is true anymore," Gragg said in his opening remarks. "One only need stroll to the Pearl district to see how well design review can work, where the sum has become greater than its parts. But more recently elsewhere in the city we’re seeing additions I think are subtracting from the city. And never before in history have there been so many building permits released."

Russell talked about the genesis of the Design Commission, which was inspired by the construction of the Congress Center (downtown between Fifth, Sixth, Main and Salmon). The office tower is oppressive at the street level, with no storefronts along busy Sixth Avenue and massive granite slabs at its corners. "We need some ability to get a subjective judgment, not a prescription but a subjective judgment, about how these buildings should work at the ground floor," Russell said. "The ground floor is what separates urban buildings from suburban buildings: they’re a pleasure to walk by."

McCulloch, who was part of the Design Commission from 1996-2007 and spent five years as its chair, said he came to Oregon as an architect "because this kind of discussion was going on, and because it wasn’t a place in which you had to wait forever in a back room somewhere to be given the opportunity to say something about the built environment. We participate here. We talk about it at the neighborhood level. We talk about it between professionals. And we work our planners and politicians pretty hard about how this city is made. I came to Portland to join that. Design review seemed to me to be the perfect place in which to participate in this discussion, and for me as a designer to affect that discussion a little bit."

The biggest change in the Design Commission under McCulloch's watch was the creation of Design Advice Review, which enables architects and their clients to receive guidance earlier in the process. He realized that if the Commission rejected a design, "then the team who had spent all this time and effort was kind of back to square one. What we tried to do was to make the review process work more the way the architectural design process works, which is starting with concepts."

South Waterfront (photo by Brian Libby)

Millius, who serves as the body's current chair, has been on the Commission in times of boom, bust, and boom again. Her first hearing was in 2006, an eight-hour marathon that was common during this time of real-estate speculation. "We were just flattened by the load. One night in 2007 we reviewed a million square feet of real estate," she recalls. "So it was pretty different when the crash came. Things really slowed down. We went from two hearings a month to sometimes one. I remember one month when there was none. And it was frankly difficult to be the stand bearer for quality and permanence when you knew that every project that came in was hanging on by its fingernails. Everyone was having a hard time. "

"What you realize when you’ve been through a boom and a bust and a boom again," Millius added, "is that the pressures don’t really change. Every project is in a hurry to get out of the ground. Every developer-and-architecture wants to get it done as fast as they can. Every developer team really feels like they’ve done everything they can. In some cases they have and in other cases you have to push them a little harder. But the truth is as a design commission we have to pay attention not just to the problems and issues of today. What’s this building going to be like in 50 or 100 years?"

But the point of this City Club talk was supposed to be how to solve its problems, which were alternately described as "heartburn" (by Gragg) and "clogging" (by McCulloch), and to look at its jurisdictions of the future, including possible expansion.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given his private-sector experience, Russell was the first to address the Commission's inefficiency. In redeveloping the 200 Market building downtown, he recalled wanting to move a ground floor glass wall out 18 inches for a restaurant. "Design review staff said, 'The rules are that will take us 8 weeks to give you an answer, because we have to write a report, we have to mail it to all the neighbors, we have to wait for them to appeal or not, and then we’ll write another report,'" Russell recalled. "There needs to be some way that some obviously de minimis issue can get resolved by the staff. These are people with master’s degrees or PhDs. They ought to be able to resolve that in a much more expeditious way."

McCulloch also believes that city planning and urban design staff have become separated from the Design Commission discussions. "As chair I was always looking for the Planning staff to come in and say, ‘This is what we’re trying to achieve in the neighborhood,’ and give us some guidelines," he explained. "If you don’t have that context as a commissioner, you have to make it up. You can tell that the applicants are chafing over that, and then the discussions go on and on conversely if you have these really clear objectives and stay within the discussion boundaries, design commission is going to work much better."

The trio of current and past commissioners also addressed the intent of design review: it should be goal-oriented, they agreed, and not prescriptive. "A prescriptive design review regulation doesn’t force good buildings as much as it eliminates creativity," Russell said.

"If a development-and-design team does something that is so cool but doesn’t meet the present guidelines—just this total end run—we will all stand up and salute," McCulloch said of his attitude while on the Design Commission. "I think we have to encourage the really creative out-there thinking. To do that, I think we have to reinforce the DAR."

The biggest issue facing the Design Commission, though, may be that in a time of transformation in our neighborhoods its jurisdiction does not extend to some of the Portland neighborhoods where  cheap duplexes and apartments are trampling historic single family homes.

"Certainly city planners look at buildings outside design districts to make sure they conform to code, and I think design and development teams are encouraged to talk to neighborhood associations," Millius said, "but I understand that what happens is that it’s a perfunctory visit. It’s an ‘I just had to come talk to you, I don’t have to listen to you” kind of visit. There’s actually a number of neighborhoods that are seeing a boom right now that don’t have design review. And buildings are just going up. People are squawking about it, of course. There’s just no say in the quality of those projects."

Yet to expand the Design Commission's jurisdiction beyond the central city and a few select areas like the Williams-Vancouver corridor or the Sellwood-Moreland neighborhood would also require a substantial expansion of volunteer commissioners and city staff, Millius says.

"My commission is doing two six to eight-hour hearings every month and the reading that goes along with that, sometimes a third hearing," she explained. "I know the city staff is busier than they’ve ever been. We are beyond capacity.  I think that we would need to look at the entire system and think about how we could build more activism in our architecture community on these question and more citizen activism, more people like me who are not trained architects but have an interest in the fabric of their neighborhoods and protecting them."

Host Randy Gragg played devil's advocate for developers, who face under-appreciated risk in going through the process. "One of the complaints is the amount of effort that it takes to get through design review necessitates a huge expenditure of money. That process is not graduated in a way that yields a certainty that you’re making it through that process. More firm critique at the start of the process would make a lot more sense -- giving the DAR (Design Advice Review) process a lot more teeth."

By the end of the discussion, it came to seem like many criticisms of the Design Commission are solvable: streamline the process and the time it takes; provide more feedback in the conceptual stage. But the unanswered question seemed to be whether and how we might expand design review beyond downtown, the Pearl, Northwest and a few east side neighborhoods. It would require more staff, and many more knowledgeable volunteer commissioners, but it would help the city better keep on top of the current boom in construction, most of which is happening outside of Design Commission jurisdiction.

Yet many of the design-related issues that have citizens most up in arms are about aspects of design that even the Design Commission can't control, like how tall a building is allowed to go in particular neighborhoods, or whether multi-family housing projects should come with a certain amount of on-site parking. In areas like the Williams-Vancouver corridor, for example, apartment and condo buildings are routinely appealed by neighbors because they are more than three stories tall, even though it's something zoning allows. That's something for the city's planners to address, not the Design Commission. Same goes for parking. But McCulloch and Millius both argued that this is all the more reason that city decision-makers should be talking more than they should.

"We’ve had less and less liaison between the people actually deciding what we do with parking and the major moves being decided at the Planning Commission level," Millius said. "We get to enforce happens in design. It’s awkward when there isn’t a lot of talk between these two bodies."

Whatever fine-tuning needs to be done, though, McCulloch is right that design review and the Design Commission have helped make Portland the well-designed city it is. "A building has to be of quality and permanence," Millius added. "It’s not quality and permanence when the economy is good or when the developer isn’t in a hurry. And so we have to keep reminding ourselves of that, that we have this responsibility to be stewards of the public realm."

This is a time when I think a lot of us have been slow to wake up just how much the real estate economy has begun to explode again. And while no one wants to go back to the economically dark days of, say, 2009, dealing with an explosion of new projects around town comes with its own challenges. And while design review can help prevent or diminish architectural eyesores, it may come with its own set of potential problems from inefficiency and red tape to  stifling creativity with over-prescriptiveness.

And yet, there's no mistaking that design review is a fundamental part of what makes the fabric of Portland's urban core, as well as districts like the Pearl, the Alphabet District and Sellwood, a collective success story that leaders from other cities continuously come to for inspiration. I think we have to look at expanding the Design Commission's jurisdiction, though, even if it's just a select few additional neighborhoods or transit corridors.

Back at the beginning of the City Club talk, Gragg told a story about the days prior 1999 when Design Commission meetings were held in the Portland Building, in a room that included a large Douglas Fir model of the downtown. "Every developer and architect had to bring a proposed scale model of their building and place it into the Doug fir model. ‘How will your building fit into our city?’" Gragg remembered as the essential question of design review.

If one were to build a new model of the Portland core today, I think it would have to be a much larger model. More than ever, ours is a city of neighborhoods: places like the Hawthorne District, North Mississippi, Alberta, Beaumont-Wilshire and Belmont, where density is starting to coalesce. Nobody is looking to overtax developers or city government and volunteers, but the alternative is to lose the essence of what makes these places special.

 

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Mayor Hales talks design and planning with local architects

Mayor Hales (image courtesy eastpdxnews.com)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Last week Portland mayor Charlie Hales, in his first year on the job after a successful City Council tenure in the 1990s, stopped by AIA/Portland's Center For Architecture to talk about the state of our built environment and his priorities for planning and designing the city.

The mayor began by reflecting on where Portland is today, including its breadth of creative-class workers and industries.

"If you look at Portland’s place in the world, there are strengths that have been with us for some time and may be on the rise at the moment. One is local talent," Hales said." We have a lot of home grown talent in our design and development community. I’ve tried to explain Portland to other cities many times: most developers look out and say, ‘How do I get around city hall and make some money?’ In Portland, it’s, ‘How do I make some money by implementing the city’s plan?’ It’s not quite that bad, but there is a congruity between the local talent and entrepreneurs in our city. It’s also true in tech and in the creative industry."

Hales also said the central city's education system is improved. "We have a great k-12 education system in the central city. That’s not true in most large American cities lately," the mayor said. "We’ve been at some risk for some time since passage of Measure 5 and the anemic property tax system on which it depends. But thanks to the last legislature and voters’ generosity, and great work in the schools themselves, they’re on the rise. Roosevelt looked like the classic school in decline. Attendance, student performance and graduation rates are all up by double digits. They’ve risen to over 1,000 students again."

Placemaking

To his credit, "placemaking" has long been one of Hales' favorite words, and he seemed eager to communicate to the assembled audience of architects that he spoke their language. "In a world where capital and talent are mobile, quality of place is huge, and we have it," he explained. "We have a lot of work to do on it, but it’s real. It’s not hard to get me in a conversation about architecture and design. The questions of how the city grows and the importance of design are crucial to me. We have a great record of deliberate placemaking, all the way back to Lovejoy and Pettygrove after the coin toss, who laid down a city grid with a city green down the middle that reflected their New England roots. The Olmsted plan, we brag about the fact that we’re still working off a 1901 Olmsted plan for the park system. And in the private sector, developers like William Ladd did great work. And the housing stock, from that 1905-45 era, is magnificent. I live in one. The downtown plan is a great accomplishment. The pearl and river district that took an old neighborhood and envisioned it as a neighborhood with streetcar brought it to life in a way that the whole country looks at."

Next the mayor delved into a set of issues that "vex us a little bit and have us looking for ideas."

Taking Success East

One is the challenge of creating complete communities throughout the city. "We have the great old neighborhoods, which are old streetcar streets. The challenge that Susan [Anderson, who heads the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability] and the PDC and others are grappling with today is how do we deliberately transplant that urbanism into places that were developed without it, or half without it. The PDC is trying out the Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative, which tries to create a there there. I’m not sure how that experiment is working yet. But we  a city have to be able to make the promise of living in a great Portland neighborhood true to the areas east of I-205. We’re not there yet in terms of that Portland image and quality of life. That challenge is one that will require money, ideas, partnerships, and perseverance to get anywhere. I’m very interested in your ideas."

Apartment Parking

Hales then moved on to infill development and parking requierments, lately a controversial issue.

"We’ve had quite a bit of controversy on the City Council about apartments on main streets and whether they should have parking or not: whether they’re good neighbors or durable buildings. We also have outbreaks of nimbyism in neighborhoods like mine in Eastmoreland. Achieving one more residential unit pisses off thousands of people. I don’t think that’s defensible," Hales said.

But later, taking a question from architect Dave Otte of Holst Architecture, the mayor added: "I should confess the decision was to some extent an emergency retreat rather than thoughtful planning and policymaking. The tipping point for me was the people on Fremont telling me there was no Sunday bus service. People are going to live a transit lifestyle? Oops."

Bureau of Public Plazas?

Hales also introduced the idea of creating more plaz-like public space in the city, even suggesting a new bureau to make it happen.

"By that I don’t mean parks," the mayor cautioned. "We have precisely two public squares. They’re a block from one other: Pioneer Courthouse Square and Director Park. Places like Jamison Quare are not public squares. And yet go to the street fairs or last Thursday or Old Town on a Saturday night, if you dare, and you will find thousands of people on the street. We have this human hunger for people watching. We don’t have any deliberate program as a city to create that. We don’t have a department of public squares. The planning bureau and the parks bureau, none of them conceive of that as a primary responsibility. I think we need a deliberate effort to create public space in which civic life takes place. And if you don’t fund it, it doesn’t happen."

Livability vs. Liberty

When Hales concluded his remarks to open the floor for questioning, the first query took a conservative tone, asking how "dirt people with pit bulls" could be eschewed from loitering in the central city.

"We have to do more on the services side for people who find themselves on the street. They’re there for all kinds of reasons, and there’s not one kind of homeless people," Hales said. "There are economic refugees. There are people suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction. Then there are people who are wanderers or travelers who have essentially dropped out of society and would rather travel than settle. Some of those people have issues of their own. You can’t characterize it as one type of person."

"What do we do? More services, and pick the services that are really making a difference for those who are ready to get help. We can’t check their residency and send them back to where they came from. Let’s deal with it and help them try to transition back into society. But others are resistant to services. The sit/lie ordinance is not a good deal for anyone, including those who have a right to a peaceful downtown. We need to increase the enforcement of public spaces. At city hall we used the ordinance to say, that’s a high traffic street and you can’t camp there. And we put down tables and chairs and tried the Bryant park experiment….Each of us with a planning and management responsibility needs to be good stewards. We have to do more on the services side and the enforcement side. Commissioner Saltzman is going to bring a budget proposal forth to bring over $1 million to enforcement, which I support."

Improving Budgets

The mayor took this moment to express optimism about budgeting, a drastic change even since last November's election.

"We had a $21 million deficit in January. We had some tough decisions to make in cutting budgets. We’ve bounced out of that hole and now have a 14 million dollar surplus," he explained. "That’s going to go to pay off debt and support housing services."

Appetite for Construction

A member of AIA/Portland's Urban Design Committee, Brian Campbell, asked Hales, "If we come up with great ideas, what’s the political appetite to make some changes in how we look as east Portland as a whole?"

"My sense is the attitude is good," the mayor said. "My sense is no one is dug in to things as they stand. I don’t think political resistance to change on the city council is our blocking force. One effect is always money, but we’re heading into better circumstances. We need to figure out how much PDC has to spend."

From answering that question, Hales went on to cite development opportunities in areas such as the Central Eastside near the new MAX stations. "It's waterfront property with a spectacular new bridge with no freeway along the river, within walking distance of Ladd’s addition," he said. "A lot of Trimet’s staging areas are freed up for redevelopment. There’s Burnside bridgehead: I think it could be a great place, especially since we’ve got great outbreaks of urbanism from there to 12^th."

Further out from the central city, "Lents is in a state of arrested development, but PDC owns 30 pieces of land," he said. "Maybe we’re land rich and idea poor. But we’re looking at proposals for four or five of those right now. I think we need bold ideas."

Abandoned Couplet

Mary Vogel of the Portland Downtown Neighborhood Asssociation asked Mayor Hales about the continuation of Mayor Adams' plan to split Burnside and Couch Street into a couplet, as had been done a few years ago on the east side.

"I’m not inclined to follow through with the couplet," he said. "It’s expensive and seemed to be fixing one problem in exchange for another one."

Rose Quarter and Memorial Coliseum

In his boldest challenge to architects, Hales at first seemed critical of the city's proposed $31 million Memorial Coliseum restoration plan. "We have a plan that leaves me cold: to spend money to put duct tape around that building, because it needs $70 million," he said.

The mayor seemed to be implying that the Coliseum should not be restored, but in private remarks after the talk, Hales cautioned that he is opposed to letting the buiding be demolished. Rather than opposing the MC's restoration, he seems to believe that it doesn't go far enough. He also acknowledged that perhaps the most pressing redevelopment opportunity in the Rose Quarter is not Memorial Coliseum, but transforming the city's two adjacent above-ground parking garages into high-density architecture with parking buried underground. It's "not a low-rise commercial and employment district," the city needs in the Rose Quarter, Mayor Hales explained, "but a higher intensity mostly residential district."

"Homer [Williams] and Al Solheim were right," he added, referring to the two Portland developers most responsible for transforming Portland's Pearl District from an industrial zone and railyard into the city's next high-density neighborhood.

Perhaps more than Mayor Sam Adams and certainly more than Mayor Tom Potter, Charlie Hales has an inherent sense of how the mix of architecture, planning, public space and transit can achieve transformative results. His mayoral tenure began amidst difficult budget realities that may now be improving. What will be his legacy? The close-in East Side may be the place to start.

During his late-90s and early-00s tenure on City Council, Hales was the elected official most associated with developing the Portland Streetcar. Now, as the newest streetcar line winds along the Rose Quarter's northern edge and down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, winding through the Lloyd District and past the Convention Center and continuing to OMSI, the mayor can help affect positive change along that line. The key may be to unify these areas, particularly the Convention Center/Rose Quarter/Lloyd District cluster, into transit-oriented, high-density development. The way to do that is to harness the power of under-utilized land, particularly vacant lots and parking garages such as those at the Rose Quarter, as well as soon to be vacated parcels like the Portland Public Schools lot fronting NE Broadway. Hales must also harness the existing architecture there, especially National Register-protected landmarks like the Coliseum, and take advantage of the opportunity the Rose Quarter and Convention Center areas present for creating new public space.

Indeed, Hales is all about placemaking, and now is his chance to show that he supports not only transit-oriented development, but also the broader balance with economic development and historic preservation. More than a decade ago Hales first showed he's a man with vision, helping to set in motion the streetcar and other key parts of Portland's renaissance. Now is his chance to prove it.

 

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Hits and misses eradicating local homelessness

Right 2 Dream Too homeless camp (photo by Israel Bayer for Street Roots)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Today's Oregonian includes two stories about the struggle against homelessness that together say a lot about the up-and-down nature of the problem and how we approach it.

First, there was a Mike Francis interview with the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Eric Shinseki, in which the secretary says the country remains on track to end homelessness among military veterans in 2015. Shinseki told reporters Monday there has been "clear and remarkable" progress in the federal government efforts to reduce such homelessness.

Next year, Francis reports, the VA will triple its community grants addressing homelessness among veterans and their families. The agency will also spend $300 million awarding competitive grants under the agency's Supportive Services for Veteran Families program, which provides homeless beds in Portland and beyond. Shinseki spoke as part of the just-released Department of Housing and Urban Development 2012 Point-in-Time Estimate of homeless people.

"The numbers are drawn from an intensive effort to count the homeless on a single night last January," Francis explains. "Overall, the survey showed that overall U.S. homelessness remained roughly constant, with an estimated 633,782 people sleeping outdoors or in a shelter. But the homeless veterans component of that total declined to 62,619, about 7.2 percent lower than in 2011."

This kind of study is by nature imperfect, providing only a snapshot of the homeless population on one evening. But if the picture is accurate, it's worth celebrating that homeless veterans are living on the streets less often. A major factor in this progress has been Portland VA's Community Resource and Referral Center in downtown Portland. "The center, which opened in April, is one of the nation's first in a program the VA has rolled out to address homelessness and other problems, such as substance abuse and unemployment," Francis writes.

However, today's Oregonian also included a report by Rebecca Koffman that supporters of the Right 2 Dream Too homeless camp at SW Fourth and Burnside marched on City Hall Monday to protest the monthly city fines that are placing the camp in jeopardy. The camp, which sits on private property, is charged only $1 per year by landlords Michael Wright, Linda, Daniel and Donna Cossette. But the city's development bureau is imposing fines of $1,346 per month for violating recreational campground codes.

Nevermind that Right 2 Dream Too is decidedly not a recreational campground. More importantly, Oregon law allows for two such sites within a city, and Portland only has one: Dignity Village.

In other words, for all its efforts to build homeless resource centers and take other steps to curb homelessness in Portland, the city is playing hardball with Right 2 Dream Too.

Why? I think it's because of location. Dignity Village is tucked away in the Sunderland neighborhood of Northeast Portland, about seven miles from downtown near the airport. Not only is it allowed by the city, but City Council has even taken steps repeatedly from efforts to have it closed. But Right 2 Dream Too sits on the city's most unifying street, Burnside, right where downtown meets Old Town. It sits blocks away from restaurants, condos and art galleries. Thus, it's not just a homeless encampment, the thinking seems to go, but an embarrassing eyesore.

There are legitimate concerns on both sides.

The Holst Architecture-designed Bud Clark Commons (photo by Brian Libby)

From the city's perspective, Old Town has been a destitute, crime-ridden area for many decades, yet big strides have been made in recent years. It's not at all to say that homeless people and their camps should be swept out of view from the rest of us frequenting restaurants, galleries, offices and condos. But the city just invested in the award-winning Bud Clark Commons(designed by Portland's Holst Architecture), a resource center for the homeless, and it has made numerous other investments to provide alternatives to such DIY homeless camps. Places like Right 2 Dream Too, stitched together with canvass, string and plastic, are precisely what Bud Clark Commons seeks to render unnecessary.

Yet it's never so simple. Homelessness is too much of a wicked problem to imagine that any amount of investment by the public or private sectors can be truly eradicated. If Right 2 Dream Too is emblematic of that, we should endeavor not simply enable or disable that effort with how we interpret city regulations, but to learn from it. If Right 2 Dream Too needs to go away, what's the alternative for these people? What does it say about the location of Dignity Village? And if state law allows for two such camps, where might we move R2DT if it must leave Old Town? Assessing fines is just a passive-aggressive bureaucratic move. It doesn't solve the problem or address its root causes.

Furthermore, why can't design solve this? Right 2 Dream Too has even worked with architects to create more of a permanent settlement. As Street Roots' Joanne Zuhl has argued, does it have to be brick and mortar and institutionally driven or nothing?

Coincidentally, not long after reading the two Oregonian stories today, I received a press release from the nonprofit Dill Pickle Club about a poster sale this Saturday that's part of a fundraising effort and awareness campaign about resisting foreclosures. The poster, by comic artist Jesse Reklaw, is being sold at a special release party held by the Dill Pickle Club and fellow nonprofit We Are Oregon at the Northeast Portland home of Alicia Jackson, who is featured in the poster, moved back into her home with community support on May 1st of this year, and remains in her home resisting foreclosure.

"Don't Move Out" illustrations (courtesy Dill Pickle Club)

"When people hear about folks fighting foreclosure, sometimes their reaction is to blame the victim and place responsibility for the crisis on the individual borrowers" said Angus Maguire, of WAO, in the press release. "This poster is a great tool because it shows clearly how it isn't so cut and dry. Banks and developers bear responsibility for the ongoing crisis, and this poster will help us reach more folks as we organize to hold banks and developers accountable."

Considering the three stories together - the homeless vet housing, the fines mounting against a homeless camp, the resistance against bank foreclosures - I was struck by the fact that the military in this case, is coming out as the more progressively humane institution than either Portland city government or the financial institutions holding most of our money and retirement accounts. This is just a one-time snapshot and not the rule, of course. The military has often been criticized for its spotty record taking care of veterans' health once they return from the battlefield. But it goes to show that, if the reduced homeless-vet numbers cited in Francis's Oregonian story are accurate, that progress can be made.

Hopefully, though, both the military and the city understand that this isn't a conflict we can parachute into, quickly win, and then forget about. This isn't Grenada. Homelessness is like Vietnam, something we're capable of winning but requires a nimbleness and persistence we may not have the coordination or stomach for.

 

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The shame of Portland's West Hayden Island land grab

Map of West Hayden Island (courtesy Port of Portland)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

It's a plan the mayor's own handpicked experts have expressed reservations about. It's on an accelerated pace that even its tentative supporters question. And it may be a case of the haves taking from the have-nots that demonstrates Portland isn't as different and progressive as one might hope.

Last night, watching a hearing of the Portland Planning & Sustainability Commission about annexing West Hayden Island's wildlife sanctuary for an expanded deep-water industrial port, I thought of a moment from The Simpsons.

In an episode called "Mr. Lisa Goes To Washington," the family travels to Washington, DC for Lisa to compete in an essay contest. Tasked to write about America's greatness, Lisa begins enthusiastically but, after witnessing a senator accepting a bribe in order for a forest to be clear-cut, instead unleashes a diatribe of bitter commentary. The episode has a happy ending: because of Lisa's essay, the senator is arrested for bribery. I'm not sure the same fate awaits those pressing forward with annexation of West Hayden Island, nor should it. I don't think these are outright villains, but instead people who believe job and industry growth is priority number one. Given the recession of recent years, one can't blame that kind of thinking. Yet we shouldn't sacrifice values to choose a few potential jobs twenty years down the road.

The Portland metro area is said to have a shortage of deep-water ports, the kind that can service today's super-sized ships and barges. (Never mind that Vancouver can help solve that shortage - we're not allowed to think of the two cities on either side of the river as the same, or even having shared interests.) West Hayden Island has admittedly been eyed for decades as a place of industrial expansion. It was first brought into the Urban Growth Boundary in 1983, when the Port of Portland bought the land from PGE. In 1994 it was designated a Regionally Significant Industrial Area.

But West Hayden has also long since been identified as a critical natural area, both as it relates to wildlife and as a crucially important flood plain protecting the city from increasingly likely floods in the new era of climate change. Its more than 800 acres of forest, wetlands, meadows, and shallow water habitat near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers provide irreplaceable habitat for federally listed salmon and imperiled bird, bat and amphibian species. Bald eagles' nests are a common site there. Quite simply, West Hayden is the largest wildlife sanctuary in our Portland metro region.

Couple that with the fact that West Hayden is home to Oregon's largest manufactured home community, and you have a case of the Powers That Be making an appalling dual-front attack on both the environment and on a poor community.

And here I thought Republicans were in the minority of our city's political leadership.

Scenes from "Mr. Lisa Goes To Washington"

Last night's hearing before the Planning and Sustainability Commission, the only opportunity for public comment, was practically a caricature of self-serving moneyed interests pitted against community members fighting only for values and their homes.

Whenever someone testified in favor of industrial annexation, he or she came from an organization that would directly benefit from the environmental usurpation. A union representative whose colleagues would be hired for the construction on West Hayden spoke of "family-wage jobs," implying that trying to save endangered species directly resulted in his babies going unfed. A series of business and port alliance representatives, neckties removed from their black suits, sung the praises of industrial development and finished their remarks to the sound of silence from the packed audience or some poor unironic single clap. Whenever a homeowner about to be displaced or choked by diesel fumes pleaded with the council for mercy, or an environmental group leader pleaded for the accelerated timetable to be slowed down, a chorus of applause rang out from the commission chamber and its filled overflow-room.

The annexation of West Hayden Island would be troubling enough in its own right, but now Mayor Sam Adams is attempting to skip the unfolding process and bring about a City Council vote by the end of the year. Even those at last night's hearing tentatively willing to support the annexation admitted they felt blindsided and disappointed by the mayor's effort to seal the deal before he leaves office at year's end. Most of the community groups at the hearing, such as a group of Native American tribes with ancestral connections to the Columbia and to West Hayden, told the Planning and Sustainability Commission they had never been brought to the negotiating table until the deal was already done.

Adams argues that the process of annexing West Hayden has taken some thirty years, and that he's merely taking the needle off a skipping record. But the thirty years of gridlock on this issue ought to tell us something.

Consider the fact that in 2009, after the City of Portland initiated planning for annexation of West Hayden Island, the mayor's handpicked Community Working Group, charged with poring through studies and data to deliver a recommendation on Hayden, could not come up with one. The Community Working Group reported to Adams that it could not resolve the inherent conflict between industry and the environment.

The reason this has taken 30 years is that the city can't seem to accept the inherently incestuous, greedy nature of its actions. We keep revisiting the issue in hopes that the bald eagles won't be in the way, or that the flood plain isn't an ideal way to protect us from floods, and then blame the process itself for stifling the industrial invasion.

The West Hayden Island annexation plan is to take 300 of the remaining 800 acres for Port of Portland expansion. That may sound like a fair trade-off at first: wildlife still gets more than half. But think of those 800 total acres as the last toothpaste in a tube already squeezed to the limit. Aside from a few tiny parcels here and there, the city has already taken virtually all of the wildlife area that ever existed in the Portland area. If we take 300 of 800 acres remaining on West Hayden Island, we're not leaving more than half to wildlife and the floodplain. We're going from 98 percent of local wild areas claimed for development to 99 percent. We're squeezing the very last remnants out of the toothpaste tube and expecting no future cavities to form.

Today people from all over America are turning their attention to Portland as an example of the future of cities: a place where, unlike in Phoenix or Houston or Atlanta, we really do consider what ecologists call the "triple bottom line" of people, planet and profit. But here is a case where people and profit are ganging up on planet, and the charge is being led by leaders of our city. I pity the good people in the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, or the Planning and Sustainability  Commission, whose jobs depend on carrying out the mayor's plan even though the very names of their institutions call this into question.

It's not to say that Portland shouldn't be concerned about competing in a global economy. Today's world is far too interconnected economically for us not to make international trade, and the shipping that enables it, a high priority. But Portland may not even be able to attract the new generation of giant vessels to a deep-water West Hayden Island facility; its construction is being hyped as a risk-free endeavor enabling business that is guaranteed to come. But it's really a case of economic speculating. We can look to the real estate market of the past four years to see how speculation can be catastrophic. We can also look across the Columbia river for a solution here: Vancouver has additional space for deep-water ports, yet the city is seen as a competitor rather than a collaborator. Here millions of dollars and countless peoples' homes and livelihoods are at stake, and we're legally obligating ourselves to act deaf to the solutions around us.

The city talks of mitigation for West Hayden Island: the idea that the acreage and wildlife sanctuary lost here can simply be given back somewhere else. But as Audubon Society conservation director Bob Sallinger told the commission at last night's hearing, "Little pieces do not make a whole." We can't set aside thin strips of riverbank, or stitch together patches of trees here and there, and call it proper wildlife protection.

Then there's the mitigation offered to low-income homeowners. Asked by a commission member what could be done to compensate her and her disabled-veteran husband, a resident told last night's audience tearfully that mitigation was never truly possible, only partial compensation for condemning their home against their will. The resident explained how one of her ancestors was executed in Salem, Massachusetts in 1610 for suspicion of witchcraft - and how now, with West Hayden probably doomed, she could understand the feeling of being persecuted.

 

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Metro revives headquarters hotel proposal...again

Oregon Convention Center (photo by Nancy Erz)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

If one searches on OregonLive for news stories tagged with the phrase "Portland headquarters hotel," the list of stories published since 2008 says it all: "Convention center hotel back on life support," one story reads. A few weeks later, the headline is reversed: "HQ hotel lives on," it says. But a few months later the story flipflops again with the headline, "Portland convention center hotel is dead." (Long live the convention center hotel!)

Once the local and national economies tanked, it seemed this long-proposed, long-defeated idea, championed by Mayor Sam Adams after other mayors before him, was finally...well, put to bed. It wasn't that an additional 500 rooms around the Oregon Convention Center-Rose Quarter-Memorial Coliseum cluster wouldn't be needed. Everybody pretty much agrees that all of these venues would be able to generate more frequent, larger events and generate more economic activity if there were a greater number of rooms within easy walking distance. Have you ever noticed, for example, that the NBA All-Star Game has been played in almost every city in the league except Portland? It's becuase of having too few hotel rooms nearby.

Rather than demand, the sticking point was always public subsidy. Can Portland afford to commit funds that could go to any number of needs - education, transportation - towards subsidizing large corporate hoteliers who would then stand to make a substantial profit? Is it right for Portland to subsidize a large hotel with public funds even as it takes business away from the local hotels? After all, Portland prides itself on being a shopkeeper economy: a patchwork of small businesses more than a few giant corporations. To subsidize a headquarters hotel seemed to be a step Houston or Phoenix or even Seattle would make, but not the home of Portlandia.

Now, as the Business Journal and Willamette Week have reported, the headquarters hotel is once again being promoted by Metro, the regional government overseeing Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties.  But this time around, using large public subsitdies is supposedly off the table.

Metro told the Business Journal's Wendy Culverwell that "ongoing interest from unidentified hotel developers signaled private-sector interest in such a project." She quotes Metro venue manager Teri Dresler saying a request for proposal to developers "will be crafted after Metro builds consensus about the project with its counterparts at the city of Portland and Multnomah County, both of which are partners." Though there may not be taxpayer money going toward development of a convention center hotel, "The city, county or Metro could provide the site for the project, or there could be small subsidies to encourage development." Culverwell also reports that Metro could select a developer and plan by the end of 2012.

There are still few details about such a plan. Where would it be located, for example? Two years ago, a site directly across from the Oregon Convention Center, between Grand Avenue and MLK Boulevard, was planned: a 600-room Westin hotel with a more than $200 million budget, designed by ZGF Architects. But it was shelved when the economy collapsed. Since then, a public plaza has been built on the site.

There have also been proposals for other nearby sites, such as the west side of MLK directly north of the convention center, or even the Portland Public Schools site north of the Rose Garden and Memorial Coliseum. I'd also suggest the city and private developers consider using the site of the Rose Quarter's massive above-ground parking garages. It would still be a less than five-minute walk to the OCC and would help transform the moribound, disastrously designed RQ property, which the public avoids like plague during non-event days.

The mere fact that this project is often called a convention-center hotel may speak to difficulties in the past with thinking about this area of town holistically. After all, this is an intersection of the convention center not only with the city's two largest arenas, but its largest shopping mall. Today the Portland Development Commission's Convention Center Urban Renewal Area includes all of these parcels, but for much of the city's recent history, these areas have been planned and considered separately. As the city and private developers have sought to re-imagine the Rose Quarter, for example, there has been little thinking about how it relates to Lloyd Center or vice-versa, even though Multnomah Boulevard leads straight from one to the other.

Regardless, a convention center hotel is just one of this area's needs. So far, despite a few modest gains, this area of town sorely lacks housing. A large hotel or two may attract larger conventions and events to the OCC and the two arenas, but this area still feels more suburban than urban. We can't put craftsman bungalows on major boulevards, but high-density condos and apartments will do a lot to address the dichotomy of business (on event days) and emptiness (on non-event days). Nobody claims the Lloyd District, the OCC or the arenas as their own, as their homes - not since the original African American neighborhoods were removed in the mid-20th Century. If more people lived there, we'd have a smaller ratio of surface parking lots and chain stores because business would cater less to short-term visitors and commuters from the suburbs and outside the Portland area.

Thankfully streetcar service is on its way, which will act as a development tool for any number of projects along Broadway, Grand and MLK. That may be the reason private hotel developers are looking to resurrect the headquarters hotel without much of any public subsidy. It goes to show: some types of subsidies are more effective than others. Maybe the right mix never was to massively subsidize one headquarters hotel, but to devote public funds to the mass transit that will transform this sea of multi-lane boulevards and chintzy chains into a true Portland neighborhood. It's not just about public funding, but about building the right mix of transit and pedestrian friendliness so they (in this case private hotel developers) will come.

Cosmopolitan Tower (rendering by LRS Architects, via DJC)

The funny thing about Metro's renewed headquarters hotel proposal is that a giant hotel may be already coming to this area, but because it would be about 300 rooms instead of 500, Metro doesn't consider it a headquarters hotel. As Lee Fehrenbacher reported in a February Daily Journal of Commerce story, developer Joe Weston has proposed what was originally a 31-story condo project before the economy's collapse, called the Cosmopolitan Tower, is now being proposed as a hotel on Grand Avenue, just a few blocks from the Oregon Convention Center. The design, by LRS Architects, is modeled on the point tower condos of Vancouver, British Columbia, although it also looks like a sibling of the Weston-developed Fox Tower (designed by TVA Architects) of the late 1990s. Regardless, the new Cosmopolitan as a hotel would be a major step towards having the 500 or so rooms said to be needed to attract major conventions.

Here's another thought, though: Portland will never be a major attractor of conventions. Its competitors, the cities that attract the most conventions - Las Vegas, Phoenix, Orlando - are all sprawled cities desperate to bring convention business with as many subsidies as it takes. Those cities are also in warm weather climates that have a leg up in attracting wintertime conventions. Perhaps massive convention center hotels are like Fortune 500 companies in Portland, or buildings by starchitects: it might be a nice boon to the economy or the culture to have more of them, or maybe what's special about the Rose City is borne from a lack of them: a smaller-scaled but more sustainable place to live, a shopkeeper economy where you chase not the biggest bucks but where you realize the smaller offerings are much more plentiful.

 

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Screened gem: Edith Green Wendell Wyatt federal building's transformation nears completion

Wyatt federal building (photo by Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

For most of its history, the Edith Green Wendell Wyatt federal building has been hiding in plain sight: a bland, nondescript office building across Chapman Square from City Hall. But for the past year, a remarkable transformation has been taking place as the building has had its entire facade removed and a new one of glass with metal screens (and eventually vegetation) taking its place.

Traveling regularly from home in Southeast Portland to downtown, I've watched the Wyatt for the past year with curiosity and, as of late, excitement. The new Wyatt building may be turning out as something special and exceptional, at least if the shading devices on its west facade are any indication.

The modernization of the circa-1974 Wyatt, which was funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and fashioned in a partnership between James Cutler (of Cutler Anderson) and SERA Architects, is part of the Government Service Administration's design excellence program for federal buildings, which used to favor sculptural excellence but has in recent times come to focus more on sustainable design innovation. It's set to achieve LEED Platinum certification from the US Green Building Council and is expected to achieve a 55-60 percent reduction in energy use compared to a normal code-designed building as well as a 65 percent reduction in potable water consumption.

Wyatt federal building and its west-facade sun screens (photos by Brian Libby)

The 18-story, 512,474-square-foot building is not only a rebirth of the original Wyatt, but the renovation itself is flourishing today near completion after initially being left for dead. It was originally commissioned in 2005, but lost its initial funding. The project was on hold for much of 2007 and 2008 before receiving the aforementioned ARRA funds in 2009.

Originally, Cutler and SERA designed a series of vegetative fins for the west facade, but in the renewed post-2009 project, it was revamped into clusters of slender metal rods going up to the 18th floor. The architects felt they couldn't afford the risk of the vegetative facade failing. The metal shading devices, though, will have vegetation growing on them, initially just the first three floors but, as the plants grow, stretching up the rest of the facade.

Although there are also shading devices on the buidings additional exterior surfaces, it's really the west facade that is the bold gesture (to address afternoon solar orientation and the lack of a building directly across the street), resembling a gigantic succession of icycles moving up and down the building. Cutler also endeavored to ensure that the rest of the glassy walls were as simple and uncluttered as possible, which draws ones eyes all the more to the west facade.

Wyatt federal building (photos by Brian Libby)

At the same time, the signature shading devices are not the only energy-efficient or visually arresting design move at the Wyatt. For example, a new solar array on the roof will offset up to six percent of the building’s energy consumption. The rooftop is tilted to point toward optimal solar orientation, giving this boxy building an angular top. An innovative elevator system will actually generate energy as it moves downward. The design also peels back, at selected intervals, the bones of the original building to reveal its original steel and concrete. One senses that this is a building with multiple stages of history. And as if its bold look and efficient performance weren't enough, SERA led a collaborative construction effort with builder Howard S. Wright that has reduced a 27-month construction period to only 14 months. Even the most reactionary, tin-hatted critics of government spending ought to offer applause.

Just down the street from the Edith Green Wendell Wyatt building, another landmark sustainable project SERA has co-designed, the Oregon Sustainability Center (in collaboration with GBD Architects) has faced difficulty. Its funding mechanism is in question after the state declined to offer up its share of the cost, and while the OSC may be even more impressive than the Wyatt in its sustainable performance (the project is designed to meet rigid Living Building Challenge strictures for net-zero energy and water consumption), renderings show something not nearly as visually compelling as the Wyatt despite considerable improvement over its original conceptual designs.

The Wyatt, in this way, may come to symbolize a relatively rare alchemy in the architecture of Portland or beyond: a leading-edge sustainable building project that also possesses, through its innovations, a striking beauty.

 

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A conversation with mayoral candidate Charlie Hales

Charlie Hales (image provided by the Hales campaign)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Continuing our series of interviews with Portland mayoral candidates, this installment features Charlie Hales, whose experience includes two terms on the City Council from 1993-2002. Hales, a University of Virginia graduate, has also spent the last decade consulting a variety of American cities on light rail projects; he was a major force in the creation of the Portland Streetcar line in the 1990s. Local nonprofits Hales has volunteered with include Friends of the Trees, SMART, the Portland Public Market Committee

PORTLAND ARCHITECTURE: You’ve spent several years away from elected office and public service after being a Portland City Council member. How have you changed in that time?

CHARLIE HALES: I’ve always been a leader, all the way back to when I was a student. I organized a recycling program in high school to raise money for band uniforms. I was the rabble-rouser who got people together and made it happen. In college I ended up running the student union, basically an entertainment venue. Then whether it’s Friends of the Trees or REACH Community Development, or as a businessperson or on City Council, I’ve been a leader. That’s been consistent. That means hearing the good idea, not necessarily from your own lips, and then overcoming the opposition. So that hasn’t changed. I am, I have been, I will be, a leader.

But I think working in the private sector for the last ten years has informed that in a couple ways. One, I’ve worked all over the country, and that’s given me a chance to calibrate that against Portland: both the things that are unique, and some ideas from other places we would be wise to adopt. And in that work, which has been managing the planning and design of streetcar and light rail projects, I’ve been operating in a team environment. On one project, I might be the project manager. On the next, we might switch roles and you might be my boss. That’s been a very healthy experience for me. It’s reinforced my belief in collaborative leadership, and getting things done by being a good partner.

The streetcar was in many ways your baby when it was unrolled in the late 1990s. How would you evaluate the streetcar and MAX lines and the decisions made about them.

First, we should be very proud of what we’ve done. We’ve made a much more livable city with everything we’ve done in transportation and transit. That’s not just something pretty to look at. It’s a huge improvement in the quality of people’s lives. I’ve met so many people living a car-free or low-car lifestyle here. They’re happy with their choices and the environment is better for their choices. At an even more human level, there are a lot of elderly and disabled people who are living independent lives in Portland, and people who are getting back into the economy from being homeless, in Portland, because they’re not chained to a car. You look at the number of wheelchairs on the streetcar – those people can live an independent, dignified life: get to the grocery store, to their job, to everything, simply by rolling onto this moving sidewalk that shows up every twelve minutes. So I think sometimes when we look at this in terms of systems and policy, we might not notice the impact on people and their lives, which is really good and lasting.

Where are we going with MAX and streetcar, and what should be the future priorities?

In the near term the challenge is to make sure every neighborhood has good transit service, and that Tri-Met can meet that basic service. As much as I want to continue the progress with new projects, I think job one is that basic service of transit availability across the city and the region. Obviously there’s a challenge there with Tri-Met’s budget difficulties. Over time I think the streetcar can have its magical effect on more places that would benefit. We might do bus rapid transit out Powell, but we might also do a streetcar. That’s an important conversation we need to have. With a streetcar up MLK and to PCC help us fulfill the vision of the MLK corridor as a great urban boulevard and PCC as a more and more important community resource. Certainly light rail to Vancouver has been a great idea, is a great idea. It is a part of the CRC controversy that is an unquestionably good idea. An expansion of light rail from Hillsboro to Forest Grove might be the most important.

And the mayor of Portland needs to be a leader in the region, not just within city limits. I understand that and have that experience as well, having been involved in regional planning. I think there’s more interest now from the governor in trying to advance inter-city rail.

My vision for the future comprises really three things. In the city itself I want to see everyone working, and every kid graduating, and every neighborhood a complete community. That includes all these talented people moving here who want to be entrepreneurs. That includes a public school system that parents can rely on, and that equips kids to do a variety of work in a city that actually makes things from software to barges. The challenge is the 20-minute neighborhoods we have on paper need to be a reality: a grocery store you can walk to, and transit you can catch every 15 minutes. At a Cascadia level, we should have 10 trains a day at 125 miles an hour between Eugene and Vancouver. It won’t just be Portland’s project obviously. But we did that putting Amtrak cascades together. I was a part of that. We proved that for this region of Cascadia; those two states and BC all worked together to put that in place. It wasn’t the federal government’s idea. It was this region’s idea.

You mentioned the Columbia River Crossing. What’s your take on that controversial project?

I was on an interview show, Think Out Loud, back in February. My timing turned out either prophetic or lucky. I said there are three projects that will be downsized, dead or under construction by the time a new mayor takes office: the Oregon Sustainability Center, the streetcar to Lake Oswego, and the Columbia River Crossing. Since I said that, the Oregon Sustainability Center and the streetcar have both cratered. It’s clear the region is going to need to modify its plan for the CRC. I believe there’s a doable version of that project that we can move forward on and actually move to construction, one that conforms with our values and that we could pay for. That’s obviously not the version of the project that’s on the table now. It’s unbuildable and we don’t have any money to build it.

One of the strengths I bring to this office is…talking about issues is really not the important skill for a mayor. Any politician can talk about issues. An important skill is to be able to negotiate forward motion out of a planning process. That’s what I’m good at, and what I’ve been doing for the last ten years, consulting mayors all over the country. That’s what this issue needs. You’ve got two states, two DOTs, more agencies that you can name, that all have to work in concert for a viable project.

You suggest that a smaller Columbia Crossing should be built and that you can shepherd the process. But what if it’s not right to build it at all? Why replace a functional bridge, for example, when we can build a local bridge to Vancouver for half the cost and accomplish the same congestion-reduction goals on Interstate 5? Why not address the greater freeway congestion at the Rose Quarter instead?

There’s still people who believe the CRC is fundamentally not a good idea. I think a main span that doesn’t have to lift is a good idea. Light rail to Vancouver is a very good idea. Bike and pedestrian connection that doesn’t feel scary is a very good idea. I believe there’s a version that fits our values and can be done, within the bulk.

The Vancouver local bridge is an interesting and creative idea. Given where the project is stuck now, some creative ideas might come in handy.

What’s your take on the Oregon Sustainability Center? Can it go forward? Should it?

That project is on ice. Instead I think we should look at projects like the June Key Delta House [a private-sector project achieving Living Building Challenge standards] and what’s been accomplished there. Let’s create a few neighborhood scale examples like that if we’re not building ones downtown.

What are some of your arts and culture favorites?

Nancy and I are pretty omnivorous in our choice of arts and entertainment. A couple of the most memorable things we’ve squeezed in lately were the Oregon symphony’s performance of Haydn’s Creation, which is a monumental choral piece that just blew us away. And Portland Center Stage’s production of Red, with my favorite actor, Daniel Benzali—we were in the second row and it’s a great show. We went to the Rothko show at the Portland Art Museum before the play and it deepened it. As you can see [pointing to the art hanging in the campaign office], there’s a strong interest in the visual arts. There’s art in our home, in our campaign office. There’s artists involved in the campain. The Latino art collective is going to come in here and hang a show on April 2nd.

Architects have been among the hardest hit by the recession, but they also represent the kind of creative-class industry Portland and other cities seek to attract. What’s your message to the profession?

We export architects’ services to the world. The Portland nameplate carries some cache. I would say the architecture community can count on me to know the value of design and good urban design. They can also count on me to make things happen here in Portland, both public and private, because we have work to do to accommodate more people moving here and to build a great city. We’re not done building a great city in Portland. Far from it. This downturn has been tough on everyone, but I know Portland has a story to tell about talent and understanding of place-making that will help our architects and designers and engineers sell our services to the world. As someone who has been in the architecture and engineering profession for the last 10 years, I’m eager to help my colleagues do that. I know there’s a lot of talent here and we have a lot to teach to the rest of the country. So I’m bullish about our prospects as a center of excellence for design. I’ve been meeting with a lot of A&E firms in the course of the campaign. There’s stunning stuff being done by the architects of Portland. It’s impressive.

A conversation with mayoral candidate Jefferson Smith

Jefferson Smith (image courtesy of the Smith campaign)
 

BY BRIAN LIBBY

In the weeks ahead, Portlanders will decide between three main candidates to succeed Sam Adams as mayor of the city: former City Council member Charlie Hales, New Seasons Market co-founder Eileen Brady, and state legislator Jefferson Smith. Design is only one of numerous issues each candidate will weigh in on, but it affects a wide variety of causes and concerns, from economic development to livability to arts and culture. The following conversation with Smith is intended as the first in a series of talks with each the three candidates.

A descendant of Mormonism founder Joseph Smith, Jefferson Smith, 39, was born in Portland and graduated from Grant High School. After earning his bachelor's degree from the University of Oregon, Smith graduated at the top of his Harvard Law School class. He only lasted a few days at the prestigious New York law firm that hired him - because when Smith was assigned the case of a tobacco company, he quit rather than represent them. Returning to Oregon, he became best known as the founder of The Bus Project, a nonprofit effort to register young voters. He now represents East Portland in Oregon's House of Representatives. But Smith may be best known for culling comments from his fellow Oregon legislators on the floor of the House into an alternate version of Rick Astley's 1987 hit "Never Gonna Give You Up":

PORTLAND ARCHITECTURE: Architects have been particularly hard hit by the recession, but they also embody the creative class that city leaders often seek to attract. What’s your message to the profession?

JEFFERSON SMITH: I’d say a few things. This city’s success as well as its national and global relevance would be largely linked to our ability to compete in the knowledge economy. Architecture and design are one of the best places for us to be able to compete. 

I’d have two messages in addition to that obvious one. We should figure out how to lead the field in retrofits and rehabilitations, in a cost constrained environment. New edifice can be harder to sell. In a cost constrained environment, even our most ambitious plans, even those where aesthetics are deeply important, are strengthened if they can also make a long-term cost savings case. We need stretch projects. I think we need to demonstrate we are on the leading edge of retrofit and rehabilitation.

One thing that occurred to me a few days ago during the candidates’ forum on historic preservation was something Hanna Arendt wrote in a book, The Edges of Totalitarianism: that engineering can do a lot to help us figure out how and can do less to help us figure out why. Over the last 30 to 40 years, this city has become among the best and has become renowned for thinking about the how and even the what. We have to re-commit to our why. We have to re-establish the motivating energy behind what makes Portland special, and not merely rely upon the energy of decades past.

You were born in east Portland, spent your elementary school years in South Pasadena, returned to Portland for high school (Grant), then attended the University of Oregon and Harvard Law School. How does that variety of urban experiences shape your perspective on cities and particularly Portland? 

Portland is more human. So much of our city has neighborhoods that work, that are nearly self-sufficient. So many people can live here without not operating an automobile. There are various elements that make it more comfortable for middle class people. In LA and New York, my guess is if you want to live there you want to be rich.

What’s your take on the Oregon Sustainability Center: can it go forward, and should it?

I think the Sustainability Center had two challenges, either of which could have been overcome, but the combination of which appears insurmountable. The best arguments for the OSC are that if PSU is going to grow, it needs to grow up. And if it’s going to grow up, it shouldn’t be a concrete slab. It should be interesting. The other best argument is that for the city to build upon its global reputation for sustainable development, it needs to have reach projects, so we can show what we’ve learned and have people pay us for the privilege. The challenge I have is it did not sufficiently, at least in public communications, make the cost adjustments. Having a Sustainability Center with so many questions about financial sustainability is a significant challenge. That’s all the first challenge: it failed to make the cost case. The second challenge is a bad economy, Tea Party Congress, grumpy taxpayers, and green jobs backlash. And either one of those might have been overcome. But the combination seems to be proving fatal. The case I would make to designers and architects and planners is to think yes, how can we get reach projects, and how can we do that while showing our costs consciousness? 

What are some of your favorite buildings or spaces in Portland? 

I think so little about preference, I really do, in terms of my own enjoyment. I love Grant High School. I love the front of Grant. I’m biased - not only because I went there but also because I have a granite quote on the ground there. I’m inspired by the story of Waterfront Park. I’m inspired by Johnson Creek and salmon returning. I was proud the first time I rode to the top of Rocky Butte as a kid. I proposed to my wife in the Rose Test Garden at Washington Park. Pioneer Square’s too obvious but I’m glad it exists. I like the Concordia business district. It is a small business district that works. It’s humble and cool at the same time. 

The proposed Columbia Crossing has been the most controversial major building project of our time. Is it surprising that you’re the only one of the three major candidates to oppose it? 

I was not shocked, but I was disappointed. The story of this city was shaped, almost launched, by the decision to replace a freeway plan with parks and transit. But today this city and region have been spending the bulk of discretionary transportation lobbying clout on a highway mega-project for Clark County commuters. I simply don’t see how the current project gets built now, even to comport with height requirements, let alone with financial reality.

I’ve been disappointed that it has been treated as a yes or no question, when it is in reality a priority question. And it’s not just a bridge. A bridge would be $700-900 million. Retrofitting the current bridge would be $200 million. I’m disappointed that the project seems to access so little of our imagination. It seems we’ve learned almost nothing in 40 years. And I am surprised that after 40 years of debate between Robert Moses and Portland, Oregon, we’re somehow letting Moses win.

I think an early watershed decision that was apparently a very close call and a bad one, it turns out, was committing ourselves to a single-pipe solution. Because that asks all sorts of unswered question about the Rose Quarter, about I—84. If you want seismic safety, don’t commit yourself to one thing. I’ve sat through more presentations on this than more than almost any policy maker I know. I’ve sat through them as an interested human being, as a member of the Trans & Econ Development Committee in the House, and as a candidate for mayor, wanting very much to have the support of the construction trades who want to build the project. And I remain befuddled and confused. 

I was a bit surprised when, as confused as I’ve been, when one candidate said, “let’s build it, you guys,” and the other says, “we’re going to do it in the first year of my administration.’ I think we need to approach it skeptically and humbly. 

What about the Rose Quarter and Memorial Coliseum, where a plan is being put in place to restore the Coliseum and revitalize the district?

That’s another place I’m befuddled by, and passively and actively looking for advice. It is where my historic preservation instincts run up against my economic hunchery. I have more of an emotional connection to Memorial Coliseum than I have to the Rose Garden, as somebody who went to Blazer games as a kid. My challenge is I’m not aware of many places that have two sports arenas enclosed adjacent, and one major league team and one professional team between them, that play in roughly the same season. While I have had some criticism of what has seemed like a meandering process, I also want to be humble in recognizing that they’re facing a challenging question. I am interested in an elegant solution, but also recognizing that it is not clear to me what decision will still be there. 

The question is, is the fact that there aren’t too many places of that nature with two arenas a lesson that that can’t work a lesson that that can’t work, or that we have something special

What do you think?

Well, I'm biased on this question, but: Portland is the only US city with this two-arena configuration, and it’s already proven financially viable. Both arenas are full over 150 nights a year, and events like the Dew Sports tour came here specifically because of the double venue. Great cities don’t tear down world-class architecture, and besides, the Rose Quarter needs density, and that should come from converting its surface parking lots and parking garages.

That makes a lot of sense. 

What are some of your arts & culture favorites? 

I range between having pedestrian tastes and liking things that shake me up. If I just pull up a list of songs or albums on my ipod, I’ve got Neil Young, Counting Crows, Jay-Z, Bruce Springsteen, Harry Belefonte, Pavarotti, Ice Cube, Joan Baez, Elliott Smith, Guns N’ Roses, Garth Brooks.

The art form that has captured my attention most over the last years has been high-quality episodic television, from The Wire to Deadwood to Mad Men to The Sopranos to Downton Abbey. I grew up going as a kid to plays and musicals. I sang ‘Old Man River’ word for word by the time I was nine. My grandpa was a patron. So we would go and eat prime rib and then catch a show.

For movies I’m largely a sucker. I love Hoosiers. With the campaign, unfortunately I’ve never watched so little March Madness. In terms of classical and traditional art, what’s interesting is as a younger guy I had less appreciation for what was known as modern art, people like Picasso and Mark Rothko. It was actually going to Italy and being knocked off my shoes by Rome and by Florence and by Venice and the museums. After that, I appreciated abstract art and modern art more than ever in my life, and the appreciation remained. I think it was from seeing the progression of art. After seeing my upteenth chuch, I had a sense of how refreshing it must have been to see paint without obviously intentional angles, and seeing free form and free color. 

You mention cities of the Italian renaissance like Florence and Venice. They became great cities for art and culture after becoming robust commercial centers. Is there a lesson for Portland there? 

My impression is that the great artistic periods in these Italian city-states were largely driven by wealthy patrons who could fund the art. Without being a historian, my rough sense is that artistic greatness followed economic greatness. Which to some degree followed military greatness. Today, in a globally competitive knowledge economy, when design itself is among the most valued elements, it might be that great economies follow great art. It might be the other way around. 

What might be your priorities for running the city?

There’s an argument about whether this city should continue to be weird and creative and cutting edge, or whether we should get down to the basics and take care of the essentials: whether we should have a tram or whether we should pave roads. The case I want to make to Portland is that we embrace and leverage our creativity and our innovation to address the basics, to do the essentials, to do what must be done. And it isn’t what I want to say to the architecture community, it’s what I want to ask them: how can we do that together? 

Any chance I get I need to make the case I can lead this city. It is valuable to have a mix of entrepreneurial, executive and legislative and budgetary experience. We can improve some of the budgeting practices of the city. We can take a page from the state in taking the head of the office of management and finance and make that person essentially the chief operating officer of the city. We can prioritize money better by focusing on front-line services and saving on management. We can focus on projects we can get done and are good investments. And we can focus on doing those things very well that only government can do.

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Jefferson Smith only mayoral candidate to question Columbia Crossing boondoggle

Jefferson Smith (image courtesy Street Roots)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Earlier this month, the three major candidates for mayor - Eileen Brady, Charlie Hales and Jefferson Smith - gathered for the race's first debate. Although the trio showed little disagreement on issues like jobs and the economy, the difference came in the Columbia River Crossing, the proposed Interstate 5 bridge.

Despite this being a project that would cost billions, has been vehemently criticized for its design (think flat slabs of concrete), is not supported by a majority of the community and is not even sure to reduce traffic congestion, two of three candidates expressed support for its going forward.

As reported by Beth Slovic in The Oregonian, both Brady and Hales called for immediate action on the bridge, perhaps seeking support from trade unions eager to have the bridge's construction jobs. "We need to build that bridge, you guys," Brady told the crowd of 150. Hales even declared that he would start construction in his first year in office.

Eileen Brady (image courtesy EileenBrady.com)

Only Jefferson Smith, the state legislator representing east Portland, showed a sane degree of skepticism about this poster-child for pork and the highway-industrial complex. "I know I'm supposed to just say build baby, build," Smith told the debate audience. "We need a Plan B."

Perhaps it's fitting, then, that Smith shares his name with the James Stewart character in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, the classic movie about a principled young legislator fighting corruption.

New electoral candidates are usually full of policy ideas, as evidenced by the trio's proposals for other aspects of city government. Hales, for example, suggested cutting mayor's office staff and creating a capital fund for sidewalk construction. Brady vowed to accelerate the permitting process and to bulldoze the remaining natural portions of Hayden Island for industrial purposes.

But not one of the three candidates suggested or even addressed the natural solution for the Columbia Crossing: building a local bridge to Vancouver instead, which would drastically reduce I-5 traffic by creating non-freeway alternative and also cost about half. Not one of the candidates admitted there's another elephant in the room: the fact that the Rose Quarter is the true bottleneck of this stretch of Interstate, not the Interstate Bridge over the Columbia. It's the Rose Quarter where the freeway shrinks down to two lanes in each direction precisely as it interchanges with I-84 (multi-freeway intersections always make for the worst congestion), not on the existing Interstate Bridge with twice as many lanes as as at the Rose Quarter. But perhaps for Brady and Hales, the "Plan B" that Smith spoke of us too far of a diversion from their talking points and sound bytes. It's a messy problem requiring a thoughtful solution, something that doesn't play well to what Shakespeare called "the rabble in the pit".

Charlie Hales (image courtesy Willamette Week)

Let's ask the trio of Hales, Smith and Brady what they'd do if the Marquam Bridge carrying Interstate 5 travelers were the only bridge over the Willamette River. Would they tear down the Marquam and build a replacement Marquam, or would they build a local bridge like the Hawthorne or the Morrison? On this question, it's probable that these candidates as well as other Columbia Crossing supporters would argue that it's all about federal funding, which would be possible for the CC but not for a local bridge. But in this time of Great Recession, the federal funds are far from guaranteed. Hales' promise to build in Year One of his administration, for example, is a somewhat empty one: in this political climate, and in this budget-cutting economy, a major federal commitment of funds is unlikely, especially if Das Republicans take the White House and/or Congress in 2012.

One can see Brady following the wishes of construction and trade unionists who see the Columbia Crossing as a way to go from unemployment to a job. But Hales' enthusiastic commitment to the bridge is particularly disappointing. While a member of Portland's City Council in the 1990s and early 2000s, Hales spearheaded construction of the streetcar system. After leaving office, he helped several other cities build streetcars as well. He has an established record as a leader when it comes to transportation. But if Hales is an unequivocal supporter of a woefully designed, oversized, automobile-oriented bridge that doesn't even solve the problem it heavy-handedly is being built for, it casts his past record in a different light. Supporting the streetcar seemed to indicate that Hales was a proponent of progressive, smart mass-transit-oriented development. But when you take away all but the transit part, and Hales is still cheerleading, it makes one wonder if he's quite as discriminating about what transit projects to support as it seemed when he was in City Council.

This is not necessarily an endorsement for Jefferson Smith as mayor. Over the course of the campaign in the next five and a half months, he and the other two major candidates will articulate their visions on a number of policy fronts. If Brady and Hales have disappointed and induced cringes in their embrace of the Columbia Crossing like football players running towards the wrong end zone, it's still possible they will be out in front on other issues facing the city.

In the years ahead, leadership will be needed to jump-start the building industry, to maintain Portland's role as a sustainability capitol, to bring jobs, and to prudently oversee crises like Occupy Portland or weather emergencies. And any of the candidates may be qualified in that regard. Although Smith is the Harvard graduate, Brady (a grad of Evergreen State, a top regional school) has an impressive record building New Seasons and a family history of public service (her mother was a city councilor in Illinois) and Hales (University of Virginia, also tops academically) has an impressive record as a neighborhood leader even before he became a Portland city councilor.

Still, the Columbia Crossing is not only a huge issue concerning the Portland metro area, but also a kind of litmus test. There's no question that action needs to be taken to address the bottleneck plaguing I-5 day after day from the Rose Quarter to the Columbia. It's just that taking the right action matters here - not just any action.

 

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Apps and evolution: assessing how the city works

Screen shot of Portland Smarter Cities app (courtesy IBM)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

In Wednesday's New York Times, Mark Oppenheimer reviews a new book about applying evolutionary biology thinking and techniques to a small city: Binghamton, New York.

In "The Neighborhood Project," author and evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson describes his efforts and those of colleagues at Binghamton University to use evolutionary theory, along with data collection, to improve the quality of life in this economically challenged area. "The Project’s activities included surveys of students, old people and members of religious groups; attempts to empower neighborhood activists; and competitions to design new parks for vacant lots," Oppenheimer reports.

For example, schoolchildren were given a Development Assessment Profile, which measures sociability, citizenship skills and the conditions that promote them. The project then connected the most trusting, socially-inclined students with a map of the city to see which neighborhoods, as Oppenheimer adds, "seemed to be breeding the most social capital."

“If every neighborhood had exactly the same mix” of “knaves and solid citizens,” Mr. Wilson writes, “then the..map of the city would look like a flat plain. Instead, it looked like the Himalayas.”

Most of the tools we use to measure societal behavior are relatively crude and are oriented towards crime or income levels. In addition, many of the conclusions we draw about which neighborhoods are safe, are entertaining or possess other qualities are based on stereotypes. Yet some obvious indicators were surprisingly accurate.

For example, Wilson and his team canvassed Binghamton neighborhoods on Halloween and Christmas to see which ones had the most most decorative lights. “On a clear night,” Wilson writes, “I could probably measure it from an aerial photograph: the more nurturing neighborhoods actually glowed more brightly during the holiday season.”

The central idea here, the one that makes this relevant for Portland as much as Binghamton, is that any habitat, be it of animals or humans, can survive and flourish when one sees its framework and interrelationships. Wilson, Oppenheimer writes, intends for his data to help the city address issues from prenatal and early-childhood care to high school graduation rates to stress-related diseases and more.

Reading the article, it reminded me of a similar, if more technical than social, framework study currently underway in a partnership between the City of Portland and IBM. The tech company often known as "Big Blue" is fashioning what it calls an "app" but is actually a complex interactive model and simulation containing 3,000 equations to measure and identify relationships among the city's economy, housing, education, public safety, transportation, healthcare, utilities and government services. "The resulting computer simulation," IBM explains on its website, "allowed Portland's leaders to see how city systems work together, and in turn identify opportunities to become a smarter city." The model was built to support the development of metrics for the Portland Plan, the City's roadmap for the next 25 years.

Today our society has become more sophisticated than ever at turning what seem to be elusive, ephemeral bits of social data and arranging them into equations that determine what advertisements to place on our Facebook pages and Google searches. Just a tree's leaf reveals a pattern of veins identical to the pattern of branches emanating from the tree itself (otherwise known as fractal geometry), contemporary technology is awakening us to some of the interconnections amongst different segments of communites, professions, governments and cultures that we always intuitively knew existed but never could completely quantify. That a progressive city like Portland would be the first to sign up for IBM's Smarter Cities initiative is no surprise.

Even so, we must be minfdful not to place to much importance on the results. As any pollster knows, answers often vary according to questions and assumptions. As Greg Lindsay writes in a recent Fast Company article about the IBM-Portland collaboration, not every problem or issue can be measured. For example, the program finds Corvallis to be one of the most innovative cities in America. But that's probably because Hewlett Packard’s Advanced Products Division is based there, and produces many patents. In the IBM algorhythm, patents equal innovation. But is this city of 55,000 people and almost as many fast-food franchises, one centered around a university that US News & World Report has routinely ranked in the lower tiers of America's higher education system, really innovative in the broader sense?

"West’s conclusions are only as good as the data and the models (patents equal innovation) he has to work with," Lindsay writes. Even so, he adds, "This problem--if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it--combined with the impulse to improve cities by models, is driving both IBM’s 'smarter city' strategy and the nascent 'urban systems' movement, which seek to apply complexity science to cities."

Luckily the city is modest in its goals, seeking not so much one chart highlighting every connection perfectly, but to “shine a light on the biggest drivers of change,” said Joe Zehnder, the city’s chief planner, in Lindsay's article. The biggest area of application is sustainability, because of the city’s commitment to a 40 percent decrease in carbon emissions by 2030. This necessitates fewer people in cars, and more walking and biking. This, however - as common sense tells us and the IBM program makes more definitive - can lead to faling obesity rates and, in turn, better overall health.  Even so, Zehnder cautions, “the whole act of choosing variables is a political one, a value-laden one.”

What we're ultimately talking about, be it in IBM's data or amongst the populace, is a kind of awareness. And to assist that effort, the nonprofit Dill Pickle Club may be as useful as Big Blue. Starting this Saturday and continuing through November are six ours examining public
policy in the City of Portland, in order to foster civic engagement in a fun, interactive learning environment while providing a behind-the-scenes exploration of the vital functions that enable our city to operate.

The first such tour, slated for tomorrow (September 3) is called "Where Does Water Come From?" and is a daylong tour of the city's water supply including everything from the Bull Run watershed to the Bull Run vodka distillery. Upcoming tours include "How Is Justice Served?" on October 7, "How Is The City Planned?" on September 18, "How Is News Made" on October 28, "Where Does The Garbage Go?" on November 4, and "How Does The River Work?" on November 19. In each cse, a variety of experts will be along for the ride to answer questions and explain what they do. It's not going to give any one visitor a comprehensive sense of the overall urban system and ecology in Portland, yet each person will have an arguably more nuanced, human sense then Big Blue, for all the impressiveness of its algorhythms, can still provide. After all, that's how we've evolved.

Metro city halls photo project: Tigard and Tualatin

Tigard Civic Center (photo by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

BY MATTHEW GINN AND BRIAN LIBBY

Continuing a photographic tour of each city hall in the Portland Metropolitan area brings these adjoining suburbs to the southwest of the Rose City. Tigard and Tualatin are home to 74,000 people collectively, but still dwarfed by larger suburbs like Gresham and Hillsboro.

Tigard Civic Center opened in 1986. It initially housed the library, city offices and police station; the library moved out in 2004, and the city offices expanded into that space. The police station is still there as well. The city was founded in 1961 but only had its first mayor in 1974. 

The area, earlier known as East Butte, was first settled by farmers like Wilson M. Tigard and his family, who arrived in 1852 and became involved in organizing and building a school, general store and post office in the 1880s, around which time East Butte was renamed "Tigardville". Within a decade, the community saw a large influx of German settlers. By 1910, Main Street had emerged with several community buildings and even railway service. Which, in turn, grew the town (known as Tigard since 1907) even more. By the 1930s, Main Street was even paved.

Tigard Civic Center (photos by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images) 

In the 1970s, the Tigard Development Corporation (a group of business leaders) pushed for a relocation of Tigard City Hall to a shopping center at the end of Main Street where Value Village and Rite Aid sit now, but the measure was rejected by voter referendum.

The current Civic Center is on SW Hall Boulevard is faintly postmodern looking, not in that it features much in terms of ornamentation but in its almost whimsical shapes, recalling renowned civic center building in Mississauga, Ontario outside Toronto, designed by Jones and Kirkland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississauga_Civic_Centre), which opened a year later. Tigard Civic Center’s terra cotta and copper-green color palette also may suggest a southwest influence in the design.

Then there is Tualatin, which was originally called Galbreath in the 1850s after the settlement’s founder, Samuel Galbreath, who built the first bridge over the Tualatin river. It was also known later as Bridgeport.

Tualatin City Hall (photos by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

According to Oregon Geographic Names, its first post office was established there in 1869. Interestingly, it initially had the spelling "Tualitin" but changed to "Tualatin" in 1915.  It was incorporated in 1913. According to the Tualatin Historical Society piece written by its president, Yvonne Addington, a previous city hall built in 1928 never opened for business until 1967.

Tualatin’s city hall is part of a complex built in 1984 from a design by Portland firm SRG Partnership. It was renovated in 2008. The firm explains: "SRG renovated and expanded the existing Tualatin Public Library, built in 1984, as well as performed a minor expansion and renovation of the city offices it houses. The new entrance and circulation spine, sloped to allow natural light deep into the interior and articulated from the exterior, emphasized the building’s distinct civic identity; an adjacent pedestrian plaza provides an inviting outdoor space directly off the Community Room."

Tualatin City Hall (photos by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

The library looks quite nice, simple in its form and combining the sense of permanence that comes from brick with the openness of glass. Having said that, since the focus of this project is on city halls (not libraries), the photos here concentrate on the city offices portion of the building. This portion is, at least on the outside, strikingly ordinary. One can't help but feel curious about the symbolism. We can virtually all agree on the value of libraries in our communities. But politics are by nature divisive, and for all the grandiosity of Roman columns or other architectural expressions of permanence and importance used in larger city government buildings, small towns and suburbs seem to possess a greater sense of modesty about their city halls: not just because they are smaller, but because the role of government is viewed too with an attention to economy: an entity not on your back, to borrow a Ronald Reagan phrase, but quietly facilitating the surrounding community.

 

Matthew Ginn's metro city halls photo project: Gresham

Gresham City Hall (photos by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

BY MATTHEW GINN AND BRIAN LIBBY

Continuing Portland Architecture's photographic tour of metro area city halls large and small, granite edifices and mobile homes, our shutterbug correspondent Matthew Ginn ventured to the end of the MAX light rail line.

This eastern suburb had a somewhat lengthy journey to becoming a city in its own right. For several decades before it was incorporated as a city in 1905, it was known as Campground, because it was a routine stop for pioneers during the Great Migration, who stopped to spend the night before moving on to intended settlements in Portland and the Willamette Valley.

Perhaps similarly, Gresham - named for the US Postmaster General at the time of its incorporation - has had a bit of a scattershot history when it comes to its city hall. Or rather, city halls.

First a city hall was erected in 1912 on one site. But by 1951, according to a Gresham Outlook article, the building was "in ruins". Voters were asked to approve a levy of $50,000 to build a new City Hall, which was combined with funds provided by veterans groups to give Gresham would have the money for a new $120,000 facility.

Gresham City Hall (photos by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

In 1979, City Hall moved to a circa-1961 building across the street from the current location According to the signage, at least, it still hosts the council chambers (as well as Police, Fire, and Gresham-Barlow School District offices.

The current city hall, three stories and totaling just over 85,000 square feet, was built in 1996 from a design by Portland's Yost Grube Hall, a venerable firm with an impressive portfolio that includes work across the world as well as Oregon projects like the award-winning, LEED Gold-rated Kelly Engineering Center at Oregon State University and Portland State University's Academic and Student Recreation Center.

PSU Recreation Center, Kelly Engineering Center (image courtesy Yost Grube Hall)

Gresham City Hall was a cornerstone in the Civic Neighborhood Plan, a transit-oriented development plan adopted by Gresham in 1995 which called for 885 residential units, 390,000 square feet of office space and 332,000 square feet of retail centered around the City Hall MAX station. However, it appears to have been partially executed. Gresham Station was opened in 2003 and some residential units have been built, but large tracts in the center of the district are undeveloped, and the northeast corner is occupied by a large department store.

In fact, this area remains dotted large surface parking areas and buildings set back on huge lots between Eastman Parkway, Division and Burnside streets. It makes the area feel anything but the dense, pedestrian friendly quarter envisioned in the Civic Neighborhood Plan.

Gresham City Hall (photos by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

The current city hall was used as a study point for University of Oregon architecture students in 2009, who noted a series of challenges to the architecture: 

• Dreary and unwelcoming exterior, does not present the image of a city hall

• Poor use of space (Daylight access in storage room but not mail/process work room)

• Long corridors in upper levels

• Inefficient building layout. Plan need to be reversed to function and serve the public more efficiently

• Lack of open, central, gathering space

• Lack of visual access to the outside that would help employees mark the time of day

• Empty, unused concrete plaza

• Long winding, confusing access to large conference center

• An 8am-5pm building on weekdays and deserted on weeknights and weekends 

UO students also working on solutions to another problem: Gresham City Hall's substantial summer overheating problem on its west-facing offices. Among their solutions were a living wall similar to what SERA Architects designed for Portland's Edith Green Wendell Wyatt Federal Building downtown.

UO student Bill Kirkwood's proposal for Gresham City Hall

Another unfortunate fact about Gresham City Hall is that the south entrance to the building—the one facing the MAX station—is closed to the public. City Hall visitors arriving by rail have to walk the entire length of the building to get to the front entrance.

In terms of the structure, perhaps the buiding reflects Gresham in the mid-1990s. Then, as now, Gresham sought to assert itself as an independent, modern, important city in its own right, and shake off the image of being a bedroom community to Portland: the modern day "Campground" mentality of pass-through space.

To some, the building may come across as something a suburban office building, albeit an impressive one: perhaps something a mid-size dot-com company might have built. In fact, with its off-white and blue color palette the building is vaguely reminiscent of the desktop computers of the era. It has a sleek, clean, corporate look, particularly on the north, east, and south faces where the long banks of blue glass give it just enough distinction to be, well, distinct. In contrast, the uniform rows of windows on the west elevation seem less corporate and more institutional. Combined with a main entryway that is small relative to the rest of the building, the structure is a bit more fortress-like than the designers probably intended.

Gresham City Hall (photos by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

Even so, from certain vantage points there is a subtle poetry at work here too. The building rests on a series of columns, so it appears to hover over its foundation - not unlike the work of legendary Swiss architect Le Corbusier. Its billowing facade can give the impression of ripples on the Columbia River nearby. Yet, at 15 years old, Gresham City Hall is nevertheless somewhat clearly a product of the 1990s. Some may feel that makes it dated, but at least it takes a specific statement of style. Fifty years from now, those qualities might make the difference between a distinctive historic structure and just another old building.

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Making it more: Holst Architecture's Dave Otte, John Holmes and Jeff Stuhr discuss Bud Clark Commons

Bud Clark Commons (photo by Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

When Holst Architecture was designing the Bud Clark Commons, the new homeless day center, shelter and transitional housing facility that opened last week, the firm faced a challenging moment that could have severely curtailed the chance for architectural excellence: the lost of $4 million from the budget. Instead, the architects say, it made for a better building.

“We originally had a whole block site,” recalls Holst’s Dave Otte. “But we came up with the idea to stack it all on a half-block. Instead of doing a five-story and a three-story building abutting each other, we did one eight-story building. We’re maximizing the efficiency of the site, creating a tighter and more urban building. We had to give up about 20 units, and about 15,000 square feet of retail space. But it’s a better building.”

This theme seems to recur when talking about Clark Commons: what could have been a mediocre work of architecture, burdened by a small budget, numerous stakeholder-clients and a complex program instead became an impressive design that acts as a gateway into Old Town and downtown.

So why was this project successful when so many other city and nonprofit-sponsored projects end up achieving something less? Talking with Holst, it seems a point of emphasis was that Bud Clark Commons was a point of emphasis.

“One factor was our sort of fresh take, not having done many public buildings, questioning assumptions and working really hard to find better solutions than the norm,” Otte explains.

Bud Clark Commons (photo by Brian Libby)

But also, explains Holst’s John Homes, the client was ambitious. “The aspirations for the building were pretty high,” he says. “This was kind of a showcase for the Housing Authority of Portland. The aspirations around homelessness and the whole mission for the project: I think it made them take a step back and make sure they hired a strong design team. One of the ways to get around the stickiness of putting more homeless people in this neighborhood was to do a good strong building. I think it helps people get past that. Good design can maybe solve some of those concerns.”

Former city councilor Erik Sten had initially been a champion of the project, which is part of the city’s broader goal of ending homelessness in Portland. “There was a lot of support from city hall. Erik wanted to make sure it was a beautiful building,” Otte says. “We kept hearing that over and over again: ‘We want to give dignity to folks who don’t ordinarily have it.’ There were a lot of practical needs that had to be met, but beauty was a big part of it. When [Commissioner] Nick fish took over, I think he embraced that same ethos.”

"I think if you read a lot of RFPs, it really does come down to the client pushing that agenda," agrees Jeff Stuhr, who co-founded Holst with Holmes. "TPI (Transition Projects, Inc.) and HAP (the Housing Authority of Portland) were interested in that, and behind them was Nick Fish, who was adamant about it. We were going in and presenting designs to him as we went along. He took an active role, down to the point where we had to sell ideas to him. He’s thrilled with the outcome but took a great interest all the way through."

“Without the steadfast political will throughout the course of the project, especially through the crash of ’08,” Otte adds, “it wouldn’t have happened.”

Before embarking on the design, architects from Holst traveled to different American cities such as Austin, Los Angeles and Seattle to see how they address homelessness. “We didn’t find any projects that combined all three of these elements, trying to take a day center, the temporary shelter, and the permanent housing, and condense that onto a half block,” Otte adds.” It took a lot of creative geometry and taking advantage of a sloping site, and let those elements start to inform the architecture.

As described in last week’s post, Bud Clark Commons features a glassy first floor hosting public areas such as the day center. Then above, there are two volumes of light and dark brick, respectively. A key feature attached to the day center is an outdoor courtyard, which not only gives visitors and occupants a chance to enjoy the outdoors, but eliminates the common site in Old Town of people lined up along the sidewalk waiting for a soup kitchen or other services.

Yet it may at first seem counterintuitive to have the day center and courtyard at the north end of the building, away from downtown and up the sloping site toward the Broadway Bridge. The decision was made in part by the desire for natural light to reach the ground floor public areas and the courtyard amidst the changing dynamics of zoning and adjacent parcels. The lot across Irving Street to the north, beside Union Station, has a 75-foot height limit, so there is less risk of a future building shading the Clark Commons courtyard and day center. On the other side, at Hoyt Street, the adjacent parcel is zoned for up to 350 feet, so it’s more likely this side of the site would have eventually been shaded.

Bud Clark Commons (photo by Brian Libby)

The site is sloped enough that the ground-floor entrance on the north side is actually the second floor. Having the day center on this side allowed it to be at ground level and to bury sleeping areas for the temporary shelter underground. “In LA at the shelter we visited, they had this big sleeping room with all these windows blacked out with curtains,” Holmes says. “People’s schedules are such that some people are sleeping during the day. It needs to be a place to sleep at all times. With our site have Irving above and Hoyt below, shoving the sleeping areas underground at that end of the site, that was an obvious thing to do.The other issue was the proximity of the building to the bridge, and the notion that this building has a kind of gateway quality to it. As you come down you have this sense of arrival. That was one of the key ideas we had: How do we give this building a kind of presence?” 

The Bud Clark Commons is admirably sustainable, with a coveted Platinum LEED rating expected from the US Green Building Council, yet it doesn’t wear its green credentials on its sleeve.

“They’re all based on making the building cheaper to operate,” Otte says of the sustainable features. “Everything was based on what is going to have the cheapest payback. We approach sustainability the way we approach everything else: it’s not additive, and it’s not about marketing. For example, this building has a ton of plumbing: 130 apartments, 90 guys living downstairs. It made more sense to do graywater harvesting than rainwater harvesting. We’re going to be the first multifamily project in the state to do that. The stuff we’re doing on Bud Clark will save an estimated $60K a year over a base code building. It pays for two caseworkers. You’re connecting the triple bottom line instead of whiz-bang."

Upper floors of the Bud Clark commons are deisgned with concepts in mind similar to rigid Passivhaus standards, reflecting an overall focus on insulation. Because the upstaira units are  small, there is enough waste heat from refrigerators and lights and people to heat the building up. The heater shouldn’t have to turn on unless it’s 5 degrees Fahrenheit outside. "Rather than fancy systems that need a lot of commissioning and balancing, it’s about adding better skin and windows," Otte adds. "You don’t need the fancy systems if you’ve got a good skin.

Also of note, and perhaps even a symbolic quality of this building, is the multicolored window frames on the upper façade. On another nearby building Holst designed, the 937 condos in the Pearl District, the architects used random-seeming patterning of windows to create a web-like composition. Here, the patterning is more tame but color enlivens what would otherwise be a blank façade. “The big challenge when you’re dealing with 130 units, exactly the same, is how do you get away from the uniformity of that,” explains Holmes. “There were certain constraints. We couldn’t have windows flor to ceiling because people needed to be able to put their furniture there against all four walls. So you’re winding up with a five-foot window punched into the skin. The patterning and the color kind of de-institutionalizes it.”

Bud Clark Commons (photo by Brian Libby)

Despite touches like the multicolored window mullions, ultimately Holst’s buildings are successful compositionally because of the inherent restraint the architects show. “I think one of the things we do really well in this firm, and I’m sort of baffled by in other buildings, is getting the material palette right,” Holmes says. Indeed, the clarity evident in the Clark Commons, from its brick facades to the wood-trimmed glass fronting the ground floor, helps this building transcend the sum of its parts. Ending homelessness in Portland or anywhere is a difficult, perhaps even impossible challenge. But the clarity and dignity of this building’s design, even with a variety of programs and uses inside, helps symbolize the orchestration necessary to lift the lives of the less fortunate.

Situated between the tony Pearl District and gritty Old Town, between public building and private-sector nonprofit project, between being a homeless shelter and a sender of street people to better lives, the Bud Clark Commons nimbly walks a design tightrope. That it is Holst’s first social-services project yet so completely meets its goals is a testament to why overall design excellence, and not just experience or green-design acumen, should be a foundational force in how the city selects architects.

Holst has two other interesting projects in the works. One is the Glisan Commons, a mixed-use project in the Gateway district of outer Northeast that will provide a headquarters for the nonprofit organization Ride Connection (along with housing above). The other is a single-family house in Yamhill County that is set to become the first in North America designed to the Swiss Minergie green building standard - similar to the better known Passivhaus standard, both of which place emphasis on tightly sealed building envelopes.

Meanwhile, the firm can take pride in the fact that they've retained Holst's trademark blend of restrained yet expressive architecture while moving from the realm of high-end condos and hotels to a public building of admirable dignity and simple elegance.

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City rescinds riverfront Fire Station 21 commission, admits flawed selection process [updated]

Portland Fire & Rescue Station 21 site (image courtesy Whelton Architecture)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Last month, the City of Portland announced that Whelton Architecture had been selected to design its newest fire station and one of its most prominent: Station 21 at the east end of the Hawthorn Bridge along the Willamette River. The contract was to include a new 10,000 square foot boathouse for the fire bureau. Whelton Architecture had previously won the commission to design the David Campbell memorial outside the station.

But this week, as reported by Angela Webber in the Daily Journal of Commerce, the city announced it was rescinding that award to re-interview and reconsider the four short-listed candidates. (Ten firms responded to the initial request for proposals issued by the city.)

The decision to retract the commision follows a a letter of protest sent by William Hart, a principal at Carleton Hart Architecture, one of the four shortlisted firms.

David Whelton memorial design rendering (courtesy Whelton Architecture)

In his letter, Hart said the selection process did not follow the one outlined in the city’s request for proposals. Once a short list of four firms was selected (including Hennebery Eddy Architects and Peck Smiley Ettlin Architects along with Whelton and Carleton Hart), the city had stipulated the four firms would “start from zero” at the interview phase. But, as Webber explains, "documents from the selection process showed that proposal-phase scores relating to diversity and cost were carried through to the interview phase and adjusted for some firms, though those issues were not even discussed in Carleton Hart’s interview."

The city acknowledged its mistake by rescinding the award. “We’re going back to where (the process) deviated from the process outlined in the RFP,”  Abby Coppock, management analyst for the city’s Office and Management and Finance, told Webber.

On the surface, this is simply the discovery of a procedural error that may either lead to Carleton Hart winning the job, Whelton being re-commissioned, or perhaps another firm. Yet it's tempting to consider the larger meaning here, or at least the surrounding set of conditions.

First, there is the added importance of and emphasis on public commissions during and beyond the Great Recession. According to the American Institute of Architects' latest Architecture Billings Index, released yesterday, demand for architectural design fell to a new yearly low in May. The Index, which indicates construction volume, decreased slightly to 47.2 last month from 47.6 in April. The benchmark for the index is 50, so any number above that indicates an increase in  billings and anything below a decrease.  April was the first month in 2011 that the index moved below 50. The regional buildings index was at it highest in the Northeast at 51.2, followed by the Midwest at 51.1, the South at 48.3, and the West at 47.7. So the West is experiencing the slowest growth in the nation. And most of the lost revenue and commissions in recent years have come from the private sector. It makes jobs like a city fire station all the more important, especially to small firms like Whelton and Carleton Hart.

Second, one may use this confusion over the Fire Station 21 commission to look at the city's RFP process overall. Does Portland have a system that encourages the city's most talented firms to apply for public commissions? Whelton is a talented firm, and part of the city's criteria or goal ought to be to give young architects with talent opportunity to forward their careers. They also did a great job with the winning Campbell memorial that will be built adjacent to Station 21. But most of Whelton's experience consists of single-famiy home additions and design competition entries, and all from approximately the last five years. Carleton Hart has more experience, with projects dating back to the mid-1990s. Carleton Hart designed the renovations of Fire Stations 8, 19 and 20 for the City of Portland in 2003-2004. Yet its last local AIA design award came in 1998.

This question about RFPs and Fire Station 21 also comes after the city's competition for the David Campbell Memorial was criticized for only allowing Portland State University architecture instructors to compete.

It's entirely possible that either Whelton or Carleton Hart would design a superbly beautiful, sustainable fire station. Yet do this RFP process or the city's RFP and RFQ (request for qualifications) processes overall truly reflect a commitment to hiring Portland's most acclaimed and experienced firms?

Besides the Fire Station 21 commission, it's important to assure that opportunities for city buildings, be they through the Portland Development Commission or various city bureaus, meet a variety of design excellence standards. If Portland is to become the international design capitol it seeks as part of a broader effort to establish itself as a souce of creative-class innovation, we've got to make city projects superlative and beyond reproach.

"It's really an amazing site and an amazing opportunity to craft something for the city,"  Aaron Whelton of Whelton Architecture told the DJC's Webber when his firm's Station 21 commission was announced in May. "It's unique in its context. I don't think there are any other buildings nearly as prominent along the east bank."

CORRECTION NOTE: The original version of this post incorrectly stated that Carleton Hart had not designed a fire station before; apologies for the error.

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Matthew Ginn's metro city halls project: Fairview and Wood Village

Wood Village City Hall (photo by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

BY BRIAN LIBBY AND MATTHEW GINN

Our roving photo correspondent, Matthew Ginn, has been at it again, photographing metro area city halls. After first stopping in Vancouver to view its Brutalist home in last month's post, this time Ginn heads to the headquarters of two smaller suburbs: Fairview and Wood Village.

Particularly in Wood Village's case, this is not exactly a landmark public building of Roman columns and marble apointments. Without sounding too much like an elitist city slicker, the City Hall in this little town looks surprisingly like a manufactured home of the 1970s, a place where a child might recline watching Hanna Barberra cartoons or his/her parents put the new Pink Floyd album on their 8-track tape player. But in fairness, the population of this Multnomah County enclave is under 3,000 residents. A modest building probably befits this bucolic burg.

Wood Village was created on 50 acres of farmland around the Arata Estate in 1942 to house workers from the Reynolds Aluminum Factory during World War II.  It was one of the first planned communities in Oregon, complete with single and multi-family housing, streets, stores, a water system, a sewage treatment plant, street lights, and a community building. But decades before the Reynolds plant came, the geographic point from Wood Village arose was markd by the farmhouse of English immigrants George and Hanna Shaw, where the corner of 238th Drive and NE Halsey Street now exists. The shaws came to Oregon to help build the transcontinental railroad through the Columbia Gorge. Their house still stands, serving as the Wood Village Manor Nursing Home.

Wood Village City Hall (photo by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

What is now the City Hall was built as a community center for the Reynolds development. Some sources suggest it was built in 1942, while others say 1944. It became City Hall when Wood Village was incorporated in 1951. The building was renovated in 2009, most notably moving the public entrance to the west side of the building. Steve Winstead was the architect for the renovations.

Fairview's City Hall is a bit more substantial. Designed by Group Mackenzie and completed in 2000, it was designed to provide a strong civic presence for the community and to reinforce the pedestrian scale of development surrounding the 21,400 square foot facility. The building houses the City Council Chambers, the City Manager's office, and the Departments of Engineering, Public Safety, and Police.

Fairview City Hall (photo by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

"In the Northwest tradition of designing civic buildings to look like large houses, deep red brick was selected for the City Hall exterior with a sweeping archway dominating the public side of the building facing Village Lane," a member of Group Mackenzie said of the Fairview project (in a statement of qualifications for building another city hall in Medina, Washington). With just over a decade of hindsight, one can see the design seeking to walk a line between modern architecture and neo-historicism.

Fairview has a long history of settlement. Members of the Multnomah tribe of Chinookan Indians lived here when the Lewis and Clark Expedition visited the area in 1806. By the mid 19th century, it was an agricultural area for hay, grain, and livestock operations. Railroad tracks extended to the area by the 1890s.

Fairview City Hall (photos by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

When it was incorporated in 1908, Fairview’s city hall was near what is now Handy Park (Fairview Ave. (223rd) and Cedar St.). I believe they used this location until 1979, when they moved to another building at Harrison & 3rd (now a community center). That was the city hall until they moved to the current location in 2000. As of 2009, the Fairview population was 9,740. As recently as 1990, however, only 2,300 people called it home. Like many suburbs of the past 30 years, Fairview grew like a weed. In the case of this suburb, through, there is particularly noticeable dichotomy between pedestrian and automobile-oriented development. Fairview has a nicely preserved, human-scaled central business district, but it also is home to a factory outlet mall with a sea of surface parking. Initially Fairview was named for the picturesque site of the Columbia and Mt. Hood, for this is more or less the dividing line where the metro area ends (both its eyesores and its attractions) and the Columbia Gorge scenic area begins.

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Adams to Kitzhaber: cable-stay the course on Columbia bridge

Governor Kitzhaber with Hawthorne Bridge (photo by Rob Finch, The Oregonian)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Last Thursday, Portland mayor Sam Adams sent a letter to Oregon governor John Kitzhaber calling for a cable stay bridge over the deck-truss bridge planned for the Columbia River Crossing. More than ever, Adams has seized on design as a crucial component of the bridge.

"At times in the past, over-reliance on CRC staff assumptions and analysis has proven faulty and caused delay," Adams writes. "At several junctures, both I and the project have benefited from outside perspectives."

First, Adams shoots down the notion that the cable-stay option will require more analysis. "Any new bridge design will require additional National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis," he writes. "Since none of the three proposed bridge types have gone through the NEPA evaluation process, any of the options will likely need additional NEPA evaluation. If the deck truss is chosen without this evaluation, it may be vulnerable to legal challenges and delay the start of the project....Our City Attorney advises us that with diligence, such work could be completed in a matter of months." 

Next, the mayor argues that cable-stay offers greater seismic stability and fewer in-water fish impacts. "These issues need to be analyzed more thoroughly," he tells Kitzhaber.

At the same time, Adams also deflates the incorrect assertion by CRC project staff that proceeding with a cable-stayed bridge could require a multi-year process to obtain a new Biological Opinion (BO) from the National Marine Fisheries Service regarding effects on endangered species. "I have attached a memo from Portland’s City Attorney suggesting that, to the contrary, NMFS will likely be able to complete a supplemental BO in six months or less."

Then there is the issue of quaint little Pearson Field in Vancouver and its air rights, long thought to be a hindrance to a cable-stay or suspension bridge. Turns out it's not.

"FAA review will likely allow for construction of a cable-stayed bridge, and could be completed within months," Adams tells Kitzhaber. "We have been told by CRC staff that analysis of a cable stay design by the Federal Aviation Administration about the effects on Pearson Field flights would be time-consuming. In an effort to better understand the possible barrier presented by FAA review, we hired a nationally-known lawyer, Peter Kirsch, who specializes in FAA processes, to analyze the issue. His memo concludes that FAA review is likely to be much more rapid than previously suggested, and that the existence of the Interstate Bridge, which intrudes into navigation space today, will likely significantly reduce FAA concerns. The cable-stayed bridge towers, while higher than those on the existing bridge, are farther west and south of the existing towers, meaning that they may not intrude as much into Pearson Field airspace limitations." 

"Yo Kitz - build your ugly bridge in Salem!"

Nor would Vancouver zoning restrictions present an insurmountable obstacle. "The real question concerning navigable air space appears, instead, to arise from the City of Vancouver’s land use regulations. Vancouver’s zoning code extends air space height limits out into the Columbia River. However, as a practical matter, none of the Pearson Airfield flights utilize the 'protected' airspace near the bridge due to the existing bridge towers and potential conflicts with Portland International Airport airspace," Adams writes. "There is no reason to assume that the Vancouver code cannot be rewritten to accommodate a cable-stay bridge, given the practical realities that the current bridge violates the code’s provisions and does not interfere with Pearson’s effective operations."  

Most importantly, Adams argues, "The deck truss option lacks strong community support, which presents a different type of schedule risk....The lack of strong community support for the deck truss bridge presents a risk in its own right.  

Last fall, in a September 28, 2010 statement outlining the CRC staff response to the Independent Review Panel recommendations, Washington and Oregon directors of transportation Paula Hammond and Matt Garrett listed issues that would require more detailed work, including selection of bridge type. They stated, “We intend to build on the recent progress that has been made using the Integrated Project Sponsors Council’s Staff (IPS) and the Project Sponsors Council (PSC), to continue to work through and build consensus on each of the these critical efforts.”

In a letter on the same date accompanying the ODOT/WSDOT statement, Governors Gregoire and Kulongoski reiterated the commitment, saying, “We will revisit the analysis completed to date and engage national and international experts as we reevaluate all options with two bridge configurations. The final determination of bridge type will be developed in concert with outside experts, project sponsor staff and PSC members, and members of the CRC Urban Design Advisory Group as final design progresses.”  

Adams tells Kitzhaber that "adequate consensus on the issue of bridge type selection has not been achieved. In fact, the CRC staff decision to recommend the deck truss bridge type runs counter to the written recommendation of five Oregon community groups near or impacted by the CRC design (HiNoon, the Jantzen Beach Moorage, the Bridgeton Neighborhood, the Hayden Island Livability Project, and the East Colombia Neighborhood) as well as the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, the American Institute of Architects, and the Architectural Federation of Oregon. The deck truss choice also  disregards the written recommendation of the CRC Urban Design Advisory Group (UDAG) and the CRC Portland Working Group."

Finally, the mayor argues to the governor, "Cost-effective, good architectural bridge design is an Oregon tradition." He cites ODOT other major freeway bridge projects such as the I-5 bridge currently under construction over the Willamette River in Springfield, Oregon. In fact, the stated goals of that project include the following: 

• “Select a bridge type and design that strikes a balance between design characteristics of highways and bridges within an affordable budget that responsibly uses transportation funding.” 

• “Provide an aesthetically pleasing solution that recognizes the scenic beauty and community significance of the project area.” 

"I believe that in the context of the Columbia River Crossing project, as with the Eugene/Springfield I-5 Willamette River Bridge, the issue of architectural design is not in conflict with building an on-time, cost-effective project," Adams concludes. "In fact, I believe that a bridge type with deeper public consensus will actually be the quickest, most cost-effective bridge to build."

Oregon governor John Kitzhaber recently began his third term, following two consecutive terms that ended eight years ago. Yet for all his years in office, the Columbia Crossing could be the governor's greatest legacy - as well as that of Sam Adams. Let's continue urging them to get this right.

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Columbia Crossing: "Your voice is needed today"

Composite truss (Marquam Bridge style) bridge planned for Columbia

BY THE ARCHITECTURE FOUNDATION OF OREGON

Among many values being passionately voiced in political arenas all over the world at present, if you are invested in the future of the Portland-Vancouver region, you'd better speak up now.

The Oregon and Washington Departments of Transportation just made their recommendations to our governors on February 25 to place “another Marquam Bridge” (composite deck truss bridge type) across the Columbia River at I-5.

We urge you to immediately join us in telling our governors that the public wants a bridge which will embrace our landscape and catalyze opportunities for our communities’ vitality and economic growth via excellence in urban planning and design. Of the three bridge types that the governors will imminently choose among, the cable-stayed bridge type is the one that Portland, Vancouver and the larger region deserve. Furthermore, we advocate that efforts begin immediately for the project to engage a talented and experienced architect to lead the design process of a world-class bridge. This massive investment by our community deserves no less of a return.

The DOTs' recommendation is based on a report by an expert Bridge Review Panel, but it appears to leave out some important information, and has its own takes on other aspects. We would encourage you to read the BRP report.

Some information that may be helpful to you:

The DOTs say their recommended composite deck truss is the most affordable. In truth it is: it would save less than 2% of the total $3.2 to $3.6 billion Columbia River Crossing project over the cost of a cable-stayed bridge. That's less than half of what the CRC Project has spent developing the idea the experts said would not work. Is that enough to make us live with “a Marquam Bridge” over the Columbia forever?

They say their bridge type maintains the project schedule. In fact, the Bridge Review Panel’s study shows an identical ranking for construction schedule for both the composite deck truss and the cable-stayed bridge types.

They completely ignore the fact that the cable-stayed outperforms the composite deck truss seismically.

They say the composite deck truss minimizes environmental impacts. In fact, it does result in an 8,000 square foot smaller footprint in the water; but that footprint lives in 10 piers, as compared with the cable-stayed’s 3 piers. Surely, there will be greater marine disruption in installing all of those piers!

They say the composite deck truss honors commitments that have been made to communities in both states. In fact, the commitments to the City of Vancouver and the residents of Hayden Island were based on the discarded open-web box girder design. With improved landings that consolidate the footprint of the interchanges, the cable-stayed bridge type could provide far greater benefit to both sides of the river.

They completely ignore the Bridge Review Panel’s assessment of public support for the bridge types, which shows Cable-Stayed as number one, and Composite Deck Truss at dead last of all four bridge types. And we thought this was a public project!

Please -- WE URGE YOU -- take a few minutes to write to your elected officials and ask them to BUILD THE RIGHT BRIDGE NOW – one that will bring the greatest return on our investment in the Columbia River Crossing.

We have provided some draft language, below; please adapt it to represent your views or write your own letter, and send it to your governor with copies to the official representatives listed. You may also submit your comments to the CRC online at [email protected].

Also, please plan to attend one of the official CRC Bridge Type Recommendation Listening Sessions on March 10 or another of these events: 

• Tues, Mar 8, 7:30am – CRC Urban Design Advisory Group Meeting ,Vancouver Center Community Room

• Tues, Mar 8, 11am – CRC Community Meeting, American Society of Civil Engineers, Portland State University Engineering Building

• Tues, Mar 8, 1pm – CRC Freight Working Group Meeting , Vancouver Center Community Room

• Wed, Mar 9, 9am – CRC Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee Meeting, Vancouver Center Community Room

• Wed, Mar 9, 4pm – CRC Portland Working Group Meeting, Jantzen Beach SuperCenter Community Room

• Thur, Mar 10, 12noon –CRC Bridge type recommendation listening session, Portland Metropolitan Exposition Center (Expo Center)

• Thur, Mar 10, 6pm - CRC Bridge type recommendation listening session, WSDOT, SW Region Headquarters

• Wed, Mar 23, 6:30pm – CRC Community Meeting, Esther Short Neighborhood Association, Hilton Vancouver Washington Hotel

Cable stay bridge type sought by the AFO & the CRC Design Advisory Group

Here is a sample letter that can be sent to Governor Gregoire or Governor Kitzhaber

Dear Governor:

As your constituent, I urge you to BUILD THE RIGHT BRIDGE NOW at the Columbia River Crossing.

As you are poised to make a crucial decision that will determine the CRC project’s path forward, please consider the communities most affected by that decision, the potential for positive growth in the region, and the legacy that will be left for future generations.

Among the three options, the Cable-Stayed bridge type is the most desirable because it:

• costs $40 million less than the original plan. It is less than 2% of the total $3.2 to $3.6 billion Columbia River Crossing Project more than the composite deck truss. That's less than half of what the CRC project has spent developing the idea the experts said would not work.

• is as fast or faster to build than any other bridge type

• is the most earth quake resistant of any bridge types considered

• is potentially less harmful to the fish that swim the Columbia due to fewer piers in the waters

• can accommodate less intrusive interchanges both in Vancouver and on Hayden Island, leaving space for long-term economic development, not just short-term jobs

• can be designed as a graceful, complementary structure to the river, the City of Vancouver, the gateway to Portland, and the surrounding landscape and view corridors

The Columbia River Crossing will serve as a daily reminder of your leadership to thousands of residents and visitors of this region for decades to come. As a nation, we are in a heated debate about the legacy we will leave our children and grandchildren with respect to many important issues. This bridge will boldly influence the sustainability and future development of the region. Our great responsibility to future generations is to build the best bridge and concurrent transportation infrastructure.

This is a profound opportunity to unite our region, embrace our landscape, and catalyze opportunities for vitality and economic growth on both sides of the Columbia River via excellent urban planning and design. Please don’t disappoint us.

Please select the cable-stayed bridge type and immediately begin the process to engage an experienced and talented architect to lead the design process of a world-class bridge. This massive investment by our community deserves no less of a return.

The Architecture Foundation of Oregon advocates the enhancement of our built environment, the livability of our communities, and preservation of our rich architectural heritage.

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Fishing for public-private greenery, east of the freeway

Map of east Portland park space (courtesy Portland Bureau Parks & Rec)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Ryan Frank reports in Friday's Oregonian on an initiative led by city council member Nick Fish to bring more public greenspace and parks to portions of the city east of Interstate 205 currently underserved. The intent is to do so by leveraging public-private partnerships like the city has done in the central urban core.

This spring, Fish will propose $1 million in seed money be provided for a campaign called E205. "Fish hopes to pair that money with donations from the wealthy West Hills crowd," Frank explains. "Parks planners are still looking at where they would target the spending. But they will most likely focus the projects on land already owned by government agencies, such as schools, or vacant parcels owned by the Bureau of Parks & Recreation. The projects are supposed to be an interim step until the Parks Bureau can get voters to approve a large bond measure, possibly as soon as 2012."

The model here is Director Park, for which two affluent Portland families — the Schnitzers and the Moyers — contributed a total of $9.1 million, which was then paired with $6.4 million in city funds to "tear up a parking lot and replace it with honey-colored granite pavers," as Frank puts it. But it's important to also remember that Director Park was also underwritten by the fact that the garage from the adjacent Moyer-developed Fox Tower could be expanded underneath it. A continuous revenue stream from parking receipts may have helped prompt that philanthropy, admirable as it is.

Even so, it's also a mistake to be cynical about such public-private partnerships. This will likely be a major theme in the upcoming Rose Quarter makeover, for example: how the city can leverage its land surrounding and including Memorial Coliseum and the Rose Garden with high density private development without sacrificing too much in the way of design quality, public benefits and the right cultural fit.

If the E205 effort does succeed in attracting investment from the "wealthy West Hills crowd" mentioned in Frank's story through mere altruism and not as a quasi investment opportunity, it could be a tremendous benefit to a largely lower-income area of the city. There is a substantial difference between the collection of bioswales, fountains, parks and greenspaces in the central city and that in these outer neighborhoods, more so even than in similarly lower income demographic areas of Portland. Much of this territory was only annexed to the Rose City in the 1980s, and they feel like a kind of netherworld between Portland proper and eastern suburbs like Gresham. Sidewalks are shamefully rare here too - not just parks. If I lived in far east Portland, I'd be seeking a commitment from the Portland Department of Transportation as much as from the Bureau of Parks & Recreation. That said, perhaps additions such as the new MAX line extending from Gateway to Clackamas Town Center will begin to make these places more walkable and pedestrian friendly - more like Portland.

Parklane Park, Portland (photo by LukeRedmond1 via Flickr)

Yet there are interesting and sizable opportunities to let the greenery in east Portland sprout, places like Parklane Park at Southeast 155th Avenue and Main Street. It was initially a five-acre land parcel acquired in 1993 as a transfer from Multnomah County and its amenities include basketball courts, walking paths, a playground, soccer field, and softball field. That could just be a start, because three additional parcels, totaling about 20 acres, were purchased from Oregon Asphaltic Paving in 2001 and 2002 and are not yet developed or available for public use. With the right public-private partnership, that could change.

Although it may be naive to assume that individual donors will provide enough private funds, perhaps there is indeed a way to expand that to include corporate fundraising or even trading a small fraction of property for private development rights. It's not always an easy situation to handle. The phrase public-private partnership sounds so nicely cooperative and efficient, yet these endeavors must negotiate a lot of ambiguous decisions about just how to jumpstart and fund the process without something important being lost along the way.

It's all worth figuring out, of course, and doable, if for no other reason than that city dwellers should always be able to feel their feet on grass. The larger and more ultimately relevant conversation here, beyond issues of funding or property or government, is one of breaking down the barriers between urban and natural spaces. It's something architecture can help with, but retaining space and reverence for unpaved, flora and fauna-friendly landscape.

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Van Jones on green jobs, national climate change policy

Van Jones (image courtesy Treehugger.com)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Last week an emerging national star of politics and sustainability, Van Jones, was in Portland to deliver a speech and advocate for green jobs.

After a speech at the University of Oregon's White Stag building, and just hours before President Obama's State of the Union, Jones met with about 30 business leaders, elected officials and renewable energy advocates "to share his perspective on policy and the political environment as it pertains to clean energy," as Christina Williams reported in the Portland Business Journal (which, weirdly, keeps its 'Sustainable Business Oregon' section on an entirely separate website.)

Van Jones, named by Time magazine as one of its "Heroes of the Environment" 2008, was also previously a special adviser to President Obama on green jobs. But resigned in September 2009 when a preposterous controversy arose over his past political activities. Jones had made a public comment disparaging congressional Republicans, who of course do the same thing in reverse from minute to minute. His name appearing on a petition for 911Truth.org, and last time I checked it is perfectly legal to hold conspiracy theories. (President Kennedy's assassination, anyone?) Finally, Jones allegedly had associations Marxist group during the 1990s. This, however, omits one key context: In 1990, Jones was 22 years old. I believe it was Winston Churchill who, rightly or wrongly (or half correct), said a young conservative has no heart and an old liberal has no brain.

More importantly than all this, the Yale Law School-educated Jones is also the author of The Green Collar Economy, which rose at one point to #12 on the New York Times bestseller list - something all but unheard of for a sustainable business book. Here's a short excerpt:

It takes energy to make anything and everything. So when energy costs go up, all prices tend to go up. At the same time, those very same steep energy prices eat into consumer confidence. They depress nonessential pending and discourage hiring. So consumers stop buying, employers hold back on making job offers, and tourists travel much less. As a result, the economy starts to stall—with all the attendant job loss and pain. Yet prices throughout the economy, driven by rising fuel costs, keep going up just the same. The result is that society finds itself stretched on the rack, with soaring costs and punging jobs puling the body of the nation in opposite directions.

The solution for the economy is simple: deliberately cut demand for energy and intelligently increase its supply…But all of that is a lot easier said than done.

So who will do the hard and noble work of actually building the green economy? The answer: millions of ordinary people, many of whom do not have good jobs right now. According to the National Renewable Energy Lab, the major barriers to a more rapid adoption of renewable energy and energy efficiency are not financial, legal, technical or ideological. One big problem is simply that green employers can’t find enough trained, green-collar workers to do all the jobs.

Let’s be clear: the main piece of technology in the green economy is a caulk gun. Hundreds of thousands of green-collar jobs will be weatherizing and energy-retrofitting every building in the United States." 

In his talk last week, Jones was critical of sustainability as boutique endeavor, citing the cost of organic, healthy food at markets like Whole Foods (he cited the "Whole Paycheck" moniker). He also took on the regulation-laden and subsidy supported energy market.

Jones the environmentalist is not to be confused with recording artist Van Jones

"Every American should be able to be an energy producer, should be able to produce energy for themselves or with their community rather than be an energy serf," Jones said.

He also predicted that the likely next steps by the Obama administration would be establishing a national goal for clean energy production and a green bank to finance renewable energy investments. Sure enough, later that night in his SOTU address, the president called for 80 percent of the nation's electricity needs to come from clean sources by 2035. "It's a fight worth having," Jones told the assembled Portlanders. "Clean energy companies have gone down because banks are sitting on their money...We've got to be able to bring the private capital into play."

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PDC elects new officers: is design missing?

The Portland Development Commission (PDC) held its annual election of officers at its June 24 board meeting and chose Scott Andrews, president of Melvin Mark Properties, as the new board chair.

The agency has even prepared this video report on the election, posted to YouTube:

Although Andrews only joined the PDC board in August of 2008, he has a history of civic involvement. He previously served as chair of the Portland Business Alliance and is currently chairman of the Regional Business Plan Steering Committee. For Melvin Mark Companies, one of Oregon’s leading commercial real estate businesses, Andrews supervises all leasing activity.

While Andrews and the other board members may be solid citizens, and deserve kudos for their public service, I've long found it disappointing that the PDC board does not include more members of the design and architecture communities on its board.

Take a look at the rest of the new and outgoing officers and board members. Andrews, the new chair, replaces Charles Wilhoite, who is managing director of Willamette Management Associates, a financial consulting firm. John Mohlis was also elected secretary of the board and Bertha Ferran was elected acting secretary. Mohlis is the secretary/treasurer for the Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council and Ferran is a senior mortgage consultant at Windermere Mortgage Services. Also on the board is Steven Straus, president of Glumac.

So out of that group, you have members of the real estate industry, finance, a labor union, and engineering. Indeed, most all of those fields have something to do with buildings, either their sale, construction or, in the case of engineering, even a bit of design. But no architects.

The nature of an agency like PDC is that it must juggle the competing interests and expertise of many different people. The agency is part developer, part planner; part public, part private. It's rife with politics and has a history of both wonderful successes and second-guessing. Obviously there is no sinister campaign to keep architects out of the board, but might there be some missing contribution to the PDC board that could come from people with design expertise?

Code and urban renewal wars

Two stories from today's Oregonian point to battles over where to build, what funds to do it with, and by what standards they should be kept.

First, Mark Larabee reports that a pair of lawsuits against the city are freezing its ability to go forward with the Resource Access Center, the $48 million homeless shelter and day center designed by Holst Architecture of Portland, as well as redevelopment of the US Post Office building downtown by the city.

One suit is challenging the City Council's vote last summer to spend $19 million in urban renewal funds for the River District on building an elementary school in the David Douglas School District in outer, outer southeast Portland. The other suit is challenging the expansion of the River District approved by the council that increased tax revenue available for projects from $225 to $583 million.

Who is filing these suits? According to Larabee's article, it's an unnamed group of 10 people who call themselves Friends of Urban Renewal. Former Portland Development Commission general counsel Oliver Norville is one of them. He told Larabee the main concern is over the idea of David Douglas as satellite for the River District. But even if the city reverses course on the school, the increased River District funding is still a concern to the Friends group, who see the expansion there as "not proper expenditures of tax increment funds," in Norville's words.

Norville also says the city has been unwilling to negotiate with the Friends of Urban Renewal, and that's why the lawsuits have gone forward. Commissioner Nick Fish, however, had harsh words for the group, saying "they took the River District hostage and poor people are paying the price."

So, who is the good guy and who is the bad guy here? This is not a rhetorical question. I'm still trying to figure it out myself. I lean so far towards being against the lawsuit because of its effects but in at least partial agreement about some of the issues involved. There ought to be a better way to settle this.

The idea of these hardball legal tactics preventing the much-needed Resource Access Center for Portland's homeless from getting built is pretty stinky. So is the idea of freezing other River District renewal funds during this terrible economic downturn. We don't need delays on these project--we need them fast tracked.

Still, I personally agree that it's wrong to give River District urban renewal funds to David Douglas or any place outside the River District. And I at least can't disagree with the Friends' other assertion, that added urban renewal funds for the River District might be better spent elsewhere in the city. On that second point, I'm really still in deliberation mode. I also am still trying to decide if the Friends of Urban Renewal name is apt or if it's ironic.

Meanwhile, firebrand Commissioner Randy Leonard is at it again. As Lisa Grace Lednicer reported today, Leonard has helped create a code-enforcement task force that targets and actively goes after some of the city's worst code violators. Some are complaining because of the secrecy associated with the group, and others because the enforcers don't necessarily just target the worst code offenders uniformly - they pick and choose based in part on anecdotal evidence.

Even so, I had to laugh seeing that they'd put the kibosh on Greek Cusina, the rowdy downtown eatery that continually seems to flip its nose at anyone that would question their way of doing things. Leonard's team found some 50 code violations at Greek Cusina, yet its owner, Ted Pappas, still found the gumption to complain that he was being persecuted. This is the same Pappas who tried to organize a boycott of Willamette Week a few years ago when one of its writers, Caryn Brooks, had the audacity to write a particularly unfavorable review of another eatery.

If Pappas is complaining, others, like those living in fleabag residence hotels downtown, are thankful. (Such as George Rumbley of the Westwind Apartments, pictured above in a fine shot by The Oregonian's Fredrick Joe.) From cockroaches to broken boilers, chipping paint to carpet first lain in the Eisenhower administration, Leonard's bunch has succeeded in improving conditions for those living there, and they've been thankful. Nice work, fellas!

Joslin retires as city land-use honcho

Jeff Joslin, Land Use Manager for Urban Design, Design Review, and Landmarks Review with the City of Portland’s Bureau of Development Services, has announced his retirement after 15 years. Recently Jeff sent out a farewell email that, with his permission, I’ll reprint here:

It's with gratitude and reticence that I announce I'm leaving the employment of the City of Portland.  It's been an imposing responsibility, and genuine privilege, to lead various urban design functions during a period encompassing the most active decade of development and change in Portland's modern history.

I've overseen an evolving and remarkable team that has shepherded billions of dollars of projects through increasingly sophisticated and demanding processes, while additionally being afforded the opportunity to participate in the planning and re-planning of Portland's most successful, new, and evolving areas and districts.

As a manager, I've seen my role as understanding the implications of the relevant overarching policies, and identifying and bringing to bear the appropriate human, technical, political, and financial resources necessary to manifest those policies in the most effective way achievable.  I believe the programs I've contributed to have been an ongoing armature and impetus for advancing good design throughout the city, while promoting an ongoing design dialogue that has helped the city grown well as it's grown rapidly.  It's my hope that I've done so successfully and responsively, forwarding the aspirations established by the citizenry, manifested by city leadership, and given voice and force by our remarkable and sacrificing citizen Design Commission and Landmarks Commission.

Portland 15 years ago was a much smaller city than it is today: its approaches to urban design were evolved for the time, but the program was modest.  A year and a half after entering the Bureau of Planning, I was placed in charge of the urban design program, which consisted of 4 employees, and oversaw detailed design and historic review over about four per cent of the city, while also developing urban design and historic regulation in a rapidly changing environment.

Five years later the size of that group had doubled, prior to being segregated into two urban design functions: one in the Bureau of Planning, one in what is today the Bureau of Development Services.  I'd come to believe deeply in the need to ensure the highest and best manifestation of policy and regulation in on-the-ground projects, and from that point on served principally to administer design review and historic design review programs, and staff the respective commissions.

Today, that program covers about twenty percent of the city, and has expanded to a dozen dedicated planners and architects, who - along with numerous indispensable support staff - also coordinate the multitudinous functions of a Design Commission and Historic Landmarks Commission.  Over three hundred projects a year are reviewed and advanced in the most urbanized and rapidly evolving areas of the city.  Our process is comprehensive and detailed - with nearly two dozen different design districts, over a dozen historic districts, and thousands of landmarks - and we review all new development and modifications to existing development in these areas.  The process, and our successes, have been studied and emulated worldwide.

I've no doubt, based on my extensive experience and investigation, that - in the realm of aesthetic regulation - we in Portland have the most evolved and effective approach and system of any city, in this country or beyond.

I inherited a development review process that, fifteen years ago, was broadly critiqued as being capricious, subjective, unpredictable, and un-attuned to the real needs of both citizens, and developers.  Today, despite the fact that the process, scale and number of projects have all increased enormously, there is nearly universal support politically, publicly, and developmentally.  We've learned together how best to creatively collaborate with designers, architects, developers and neighborhood advocates to push projects as high and far as economics, design capability, and regulatory intent would allow.  The process is today is largely viewed as streamlined, sophisticated, and adding value.  The ultimate testament to that is the fact that our most prominent developers, and leaders in our most rapidly shifting neighborhoods, are our most ardent supporters.  I take much personal pride in this evolution.

Also pertinent - in this economic cycle where other permit-related activity has drastically diminished, the work in the Design Team has expanded due to a concentration of capital and activity in the areas we regulate.  This is further testament to the phenomenal success of the system we've developed together.

Core to our work has been the fundamental belief, that quality development based in sound architectural and urban design principles is fundamental to the economic vitality, livability and sustainability of the city.  I'm hopeful that I've served that mission responsibly, and that the values and processes we've worked together to establish and employ will continue to be built on as we move further into this already challenging 21st century.

I leave behind a skilled and gifted team, and a Design Commission and Landmarks Commission of the highest order.  I look forward to watching and backing their efforts to continue growing well the city we love, and to personally contributing to that effort through other means in the future.

For me, there could have been no better urban design role, in no better city, at no better time.  Thank you, each and all, for the opportunity, and for your collaboration and support.

Adams stays

After initially hearing the news yesterday reported by several media outlets (including Willamette Week, The Portland Mercury and The Oregonian) about Mayor Adams deciding not to resign, I didn't want to write anything more. 

In my previous post, I articulated some of the difficult ambiguity that most of us have felt involving the scandal, and how neither resigning nor staying would feel perfectly right. I've also really appreciated hearing from readers that the post struck a chord and that many felt the same sense of wrestling with the issue.

In the time since the original story broke, it has been interesting to see who has taken what side, or neither. The Oregonian and Just Out (!) were calling for Adams to resign practically before the story even broke. The Oregonian in particular surprised me with how sure they were of themselves. There seemed to be very little deliberation, or deliberation done very rapidly.

At the same time, I had to cringe a little at the spectacle of a press conference supporting Adams with Pink Martini frontman Thomas Lauderdale standing before City Hall in his precious little bowtie, or Storm Large joining him to shout out expletives before belching out Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man". 

But this morning's Oregonian editorial pushes me more into the pro-Adams camp than any of Adams' actions could do to push me away. The Oregonian editorial board not only calls Adams's decision a case of voting "for himself," but their essay also accuses those defending the mayor's right to continue in office as doing so out of fear or self interest. They eschew any notion that Adams staying is in the city's interest and anything other than his own. Which is at least indirectly quite insulting to anyone preferring to greet the mayor with forgiveness.

"Some are from organizations that have benefited financially and politically from Adams' presence in City Hall. Some don't want to land on Adams' bad side by failing to back him. Others...are willing to overlook unprofessional behavior, unethical campaign tactics and perhaps even criminal misconduct if necessary."

In other words, the Oregonian editorial seems to say, if you are standing up for Adams, your own interests and motivations are morally empty as well. This is the key part of what I take issue with (although I mean no disrespect to these editors personally, of course). Apparently only they have strong values - provided, of course, we're not talking about forgiveness or taking the long view of things.

If one of these editors had been George Washington's parent when he chopped down the cherry tree, George would have been doing ten to life in a British stockade for juvenile delinquents.

I can see the board initially calling for Adams to resign. But attacking those who don't assess the situation similarly or draw the same conclusions is as Machiavellian as anything Adams did during his days as Vera Katz's fearsome chief of staff.

If the paper is right and we're all being too gracious in letting our elected Mayor begin his term, then a recall effort will provide means for removing him from office.

But in the meantime, after coming down in the middle with regard to the Adams scandal, I can't help but feel that the righteousness of his critics has pushed me away from their arguments.

UPDATE - additional thoughts after the initial post: While this isn't first and foremost an issue of homosexuality but rather lying to the public (or perhaps now the legality of whether kissing is sexual contact, given the admission that Adams and Breedlove kissed before Breedlove was 18), I wonder if part of what's inspiring the Adams-should-resign camp, along with a strictness about the mistake-free sanctitude of the office itself, stems from the fact that this affair forces us to think more explicitly about Adams' being gay. Ironically, being out can have the effect of making one's orientation a relative non-issue. To many people, myself included, it's still a non-issue. But I think there may be others out there who were only willing to go along with an openly gay mayor as long as he did it relatively discreetly. But in this case, I'm not accusing or explaining; I'm asking. I know I support Adams in not resigning, but the fallout of what it means is something to consider pondering.

Wrestling with the Adams scandal

Since news first broke about newly sworn in mayor Sam Adams admitting he lied about his sexual relationship with a younger man, the chorus of voices calling for his resignation has quickly grown strong. The Oregonian, the state's daily paper of record, and Just Out, the city's premiere publication devoted to the gay community, have both called for Adams to step down. So has the Clackamas Tribune (oops, I mean the Clackamas-based Portland Tribune).

I still feel locked somewhere in the middle: I can't necessarily argue that the mayor shouldn't resign, given the obvious breach of trust that exists between him and the citizens of Portland. At the same time, I am resistant to join in calling for the guillotine.

Steve Duin made an excellent point in an Oregonian column this morning: that as Democrat sex scandals go (as opposed to Republican embezzlement) the Adams affair feels more like the troubles that plagued Bill Clinton than those with Neil Goldschmidt - provided of course that it's true the mayor didn't engage in statutory rape with a minor.

By the way, the Monica Lewinsky figure in this affair is actually named Beau Breedlove. His name practically translates as "beautiful sex." This is a bad joke, right?

I have felt supremely disillusioned about American politics for the last decade, dating back to Bill Clinton's impeachment. I still see that episode as a political witch hunt for the ages. In Adams's case, there isn't a witch hunt. But I hear a similar voice asking, "Who cares?" Part of me wants to forgive Adams as a dutiful commitment to Bill Clinton. Newt Gingrich has nothing to do with Sam Adams, but I see that fool in my head when I come close to calling for the mayor to resign. Did you know Gingrich later admitted to an extra-marital affair he committed during the Clinton impeachment? That's the kind of hypocrisy that can come from these incidents when we are quick to mount our moral high horse. The threat can be found in the title of an Alan Dershowitz book on the Clinton impeachment: Sexual McCarthyism.

Obviously lying to the public as an elected official is not kosher. But if such a leader is ever going to be forgiven for lying, it should be when it comes to his personal life. Not only did I not know much of anything about Sam Adams's sex life before this scandal, but I didn't want to know anything.

I've tried to ask myself a few test questions about Adams and his future. For example, if he were heterosexual and had confessed to an affair with an 18-year-old woman, would he be in this much trouble? I'm not sure, but I know I personally once again would find it somewhat irrelevant. Another question I've asked myself is, if a close friend (gay or straight) confessed to me he/she had lied to cover up a romantic tryst and then apologized, would I forgive that friend? This time the answer is simple: absolutely. And would I be able to trust this friend again? Yeah, I would. It's called being a friend.

Another question I've asked myself: If Adams were a Republican, or otherwise a politician with whom I disagreed on the issues, would I be more likely to call for his resignation? It's possible. In that scenario I'd sense a weakness, and a chance for the politicians I prefer to defeat the one I dislike. I'd be calling for a republican sex-scandal-plagued mayor to step down, but probably with the ulterior motive of wanting him gone anyway.

When we elected Sam Adams a few months ago, it was with tremendous fanfare. This wasn't just a new mayor we were electing, but a young, energetic lifelong policy wonk who had earned a great amount of praise and enthusiasm. I wasn't just thinking about Adams's four year term as mayor, but anticipating the possibility of a two or three-term run like Vera Katz had. Does all that enthusiasm completely disappear when a mistake is made? Not for me. There's no doubt Adams's personal judgment and integrity have taken a massive hit in my mind and in just about every Portlander's. Yet I also don't see Adams as a pariah who now lacks those skills, judgment and passion to lead.

Every time I start to think Adams should resign, I wince at joining the chorus of people on their high horses judging the mayor as if none of us have ever lied about our personal lives. Then if I start to say we should let him continue, I must admittedly pause and wonder what kind of wrong message that might send. After all, even if Breedlove was 18, it was really stupid of Adams to risk his entire political life on this affair.

There is also tremendous symbolism associated with Sam Adams in a way that goes beyond his being the head of the Portland city council. He is the first openly gay elected mayor of a major city in the United States. It would be a terrible shame if that historic breakthrough ended in flames. Clearly it is significant that a publication like Just Out called for the mayor's resignation, but I also think that call was about Just Out as much as it was about what they think is right for the mayor. There's so much discrimination against gays and lesbians anyway that they can't afford to be associated with this kind of ethical lapse. That's hard to question as a motive. But I'm disappointed they'd hang him out to dry so quickly. Where's the loyalty?

And as for The Oregonian editorial board calling for the mayor to step down, that's significant too, and may contribute to Adams resigning. At the same time, let me remind you: this is an editorial board that in 2000 endorsed George W. Bush over Al Gore for president. This may sound a little funny, but even if the paper is correct in calling for Adams to step down, I think they're doing because it would look too questionable for them not to take a hard moral line. The Oregonian also seems to be saying in its call for resignation that the problem isn't just Adams lying, but that he somehow wasn't contrite enough. Which I find silly.

I've also wrestled with the notion of Willamette Week reporter Nigel Janquiss, who broke the story. I freelanced for WW for seven years, and got to know Nigel a little bit during that time. He's a good guy and a very, very skilled reporter. But now that Nigel's two biggest stories have been expose pieces on the sex lives of Neil Goldschmidt and Sam Adams, there's a part of me saying inside, "For what?"

While reading a host of opinions from various local leaders, few of them seemed relevant or insightful - except for the comments of new city commissioner Amanda Fritz: "I've been a psychiatric nurse for 26 years, and people make mistakes....People do things that seem ridiculously wrong, and then lie about it." Oh, and the comments of Leslie Carlson, co-chair of the Sustainable Development Commission: "I think we put leaders on too high of a pedestal. I got his apology, and that's enough for me."

Although I'm not ready to call for Adams to resign, two possible strategies for going forward seem interesting and worth further consideration: that Adams voluntarily support a recall effort, which would begin this summer at the earliest, or that he resign and run for mayor in the ensuing general election. In both cases, Adams would not be walking away so much as giving the people of Portland a referendum on his future. It would be a really tough risk for Adams: he'd essentially be giving in to his adversaries' demands. But if Adams were to leave the mayor's office and somehow regain it, that would be the best of all possible outcomes for him.

This is probably a dangerous post to write simply because I'm still thinking as I type. In an environment where more and more have joined the mob calling for Adams's head, I don't feel comfortable joining in. You know what? I lie sometimes too. Calling out the mayor feels too judgmental. It feels like there is no value in forgiveness, or in the trust that we placed in Adams originally.

Another question I've asked myself recently: Would I vote for Sam Adams over Sho Dozono knowing that Adams lied about a relationship with an 18-year-old? Even as I've wrestled with whether Adams should resign, I've almost surprised myself to realize that the answer is a resounding 'yes'. The mayor's office has tremendous symbolic value, and we have to hold that office to a level of integrity. But is Sam Adams still much better qualified to lead the city than Dozono? I think so. I'd rather have an experienced, driven elected official with an impressive track record who lied when cornered about his sex life to protect his privacy than a travel agency owner with no experience in government.

Regardless of how this turns out, though, the irony of seeing Adams tumble from grace like a skydiver without a parachute, all on the day of Barack Obama's inauguration, one of the most important days in the entire history of the United States of America, is something I and many Portlanders will never forget. It's a big enough moment, therefore, that the only thing I'm sure about is I want to avoid any hasty decisions or judgments.

Right now I'm leaning toward saying that Adams should not step down. There is no perfect solution here, but the forgiveness I feel inclined to give our mayor is the same sentiment I would give to any friend or family member who did the same.

 

UPDATE: After giving this more thought, I've come to believe what we need here is an official mechanism for the city to censure Sam Adams, to put on record that we're not letting this mistake slide. But that action should come in lieu of, and stop short of, actually removing him from office. Does censure exist as an act the City Council can pass? It exists in the US Congress, and would have been the more proper means for punishing Bill Clinton as well. Has anybody read the city charter lately?

Let's welcome Mayor Adams with great ideas for the city

Although I believe he was officially sworn in at midnight on January 1, for the last few days our new mayor, Sam Adams, has been making rounds through the community to listen to ordinary voices about the state of the city.

Obviously the biggest issue right now is the economy. As Adams has visited neighborhoods like St. Johns and Parkrose, he learned of closed businesses and vacant storefronts. He can't make the Dow Jones go up or fix the mortgage crisis. And it's a weak mayoral form of government in which Adams only wields so much power beyond any other city council member. But Adams comes into office with a tremendous amount of excitement. He's smart and energetic and, while not to be crossed, seems very willing to listen.

One of Adams's key mentors, former mayor Vera Katz (under whom he was chief of staff), paid attention to design and architecture. There's reason to believe he'll do the same. Even though one never agrees with any elected official all the time, I'm optimistic and enthusiastic myself about the incoming Adams administration.

In the spirit with which the new mayor has gone on a mini listening tour, I think it's a great time for architects, planners, and other members of the design and building industry to give Adams a few ideas and opinions about how, to put it in simple terms, the city can work better.

Many of you reading this are better able to assess individual line-item issues and broader concerns Mayor Adams should heed. Please leave a comment here about what he should prioritize and appreciate.

As someone writing about architecture here over the last decade and watching city government, I'd like to see more of an official action taken toward assuring design excellence in all city projects, be it the ones public employees occupy or the projects agencies like the Portland Development Commission funds. To me sustainability and energy/resource efficiency are huge parts of this, but just that: parts. At PDC, for example, there is a staff member devoted to coordinating sustainability efforts, but nobody working to assure good design. Particularly when you're coordinating involvement from a lot of neighborhood and community voices, I wish there someone doing at the city level what someone like Ed Finer grew famous for doing at the GSA on the federal level: making great buildings. Vera Katz started the Mayor's Design Initiative and Tom Potter discontinued it. Maybe that's a good place to start. I'm just sayin'.

Also, there is a lot of work to be done on the transportation front, be it bridges for MAX over the Willamette and possibly for I-5 over the Columbia. There may be a Burnside/Couch couplet and almost assuredly new streetcar and MAX lines. There could be a lot of federal dollars available if Portland plays its cards right. And besides these projects, what else might Portland be in line for? I'm not sure how much a mayor can do about this, but I'd love to see Adams advocate for high-speed rail on the west coast. With the mayors of Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles behind such an effort, the chances would improve. And if we're talking about rail, why shouldn't you be able to take a train from Portland to the Oregon Coast? Anybody driving on to Lincoln City or Canon Beach knows traffic is getting ever more clogged.

Then there are long-term issues like the future of Memorial Coliseum and the Rose Quarter, not to mention the Portland Public Schools property just north of there. There's the downtown US post office space on NW Broadway that could be transformed. Centennial Mills could easily fall through if the developer backs out, so that will need mayoral attention to make sure it happens. Same for Burnside Bridgehead. On the other end of the spectrum, there are surely things city government could do better to make creative projects able to happen. As the city continues to add density, people will get more and more clever about maximizing less obvious urban spaces. Are city regulations going to encourage and not hinder that experience?

Sam Adams might also be able to influence important bodies like the Historic Landmarks Commission and the Design Commission, even though I believe those are part of bureaus that commissioner Randy Loenard oversees. Speaking of which, under Leonard's watch there have been laudable efforts like the Living Smart competition for skinny houses. Why not put some local architects to work on some kind of invited design competition brainstorming new ideas for some city projects?

Four years ago, I wrote a Willamette Week article about key issues facing incoming mayor Tom Potter: the transit mall (how to handle MAX, buses and possibly other vehicles together), South Waterfront (forgetting about whether to tram or not to tram and making sure the rest of the neighborhood develops), and Burnside Bridgehead. Today the new transit mall is nearly complete...finally. South Waterfront has developed a great deal from four years ago and, once the economy recovers, will continue growing. Burnside Bridgehead has been on hold for awhile, but may come back. In fact, it has to eventually given the prominence of that site.

But again, I'm not an architect. I don't even play one on TV (to paraphrase an old aspirin commercial). You tell me--no, tell Mayor Adams--what you'd like to see happen in the 4, 8 or perhaps even 12 years he could have ahead running our city.

OSD seeks Green Investment Fund applicants and feedback for new High Performance Green Policy

Yesterday I spoke with Alisa Kane of the city's Office of Sustainable Development about two efforts underway there: the 2009 green Investment Fund and the city's new High Performance Green Building Policy.

In partnership with the Energy Trust of Oregon and other local agencies, the OSD is seeking proposals for its 2009 Green Investment Fund. This year as much as $425,000 will be awarded to individual projects that significantly conserve water and energy, reduce stormwater entering the sewers and recycle or reuse a substantial amount of materials.

The GIF began in 2001 to support innovative and resource-efficient building projects in Portland and has given away over $2.5 million in the last five years to 32 different projects. In 2005, the GIF evolved into a partnership between OSD and the City of Portland's Bureaus of Water and Environmental Services and Energy Trust of Oregon, Inc.

The GIF awards innovative, comprehensive and transferable projects that excel at whole building integration, energy efficiency and on-site renewable power generation; material reduction, recycling, salvage and reuse; potable water conservation; stormwater management and improving watershed health, and community connectivity.

Among the projects previously funded are the design and installation of a bioreactor at OHSU's Center for Health and Healing (designed by GBD Architects) that captures, treats and reuses 15,000 gallons of wastewater daily for toilet flushing, cooling tower make-up and irrigation. The GIF also funded the first permitted structural insulated panel home in Portland, a living wall that captures and filters rainwater, and the restoration of a historic farmhouse and surrounding property into an educational center demonstrating rainwater harvesting and reuse, on-site renewable power generation and advanced energy efficiency upgrades. Research also was supported on methods to reduce air infiltration through historic double hung windows and the feasibility of capturing and reusing excess heat from the coffee roasting process. And the GIF helped bankroll the transformation of a former gas station into a community center constructed with recycled shipping containers, reclaimed glass panels and salvaged building materials that is on track to become one of the first Living Building Challenge projects in Portland.

Deadline for applying for the Green Investment Fund: February 2, 2009.

Meanwhile, since December 4, the OSD has also been seeking public comment on the draft High Performance Green Building policy (the comment period closes January 20, 2009). The proposed policy provides incentives and technical assistance for new construction and existing buildings that incorporate advanced green building measures.  Leveraging a commercial and residential 'feebate' system to promote green building practices for new construction projects and disclosure of building performance measures for existing commercial buildings, the draft policy seeks to cut carbon emissions from buildings, reduce energy costs for tenants and homeowners and accelerate the growth of local green jobs.  The draft green building policy was developed by OSD staff with input from stakeholders in the design, development, construction and real estate sectors. It's also a toned-down version of the policy first announced by Commissioner Dan Saltzman at the Greenbuild conference in Chicago in 2007.

There will be a presentation of the policy proposal to the public on Tuesday, January 6, from 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm, in the Portland Building Auditorium, at 1120 SW Fifth Avenue. 

Of course the OSD is set to transform under the Sam Adams administration into the Bureau of Sustainable Planning and Development. Of that move, the OSD's Kane told me, "I feel very positive about it. I think our initiatives will be better integrated into the planning of the city. I think there'll be some learning on both sides, but it will only strengthen us in the long run."

The city that works

Today as I write this, the sidewalk outside my house has a foot and a half of snow. The only people who have gone by on foot were wearing skis. Practically the only vehicle to drive by in hours was a postal service truck wrapped in tire chains. My dad's restaurant is closed. The steel mill where my mom works is closed. Just about everything in the city is closed. But you know what isn't? The city of Portland.

Here's the official announcement on the city's website:

"City of Portland offices will be open. All city employees are expected to report to work at their regularly scheduled times. If any employee is not able to report to work on time at their regularly scheduled start time, they must use accrued leave (management leave, compensatory time, or vacation leave) to cover their absence or with supervisory approval and consistent with city rules and collective bargaining agreements, work a flex schedule to cover any missed time.  Employees are expected to notify their supervisor if they are unable to report to work or if they are going to be late."

So not only is the city at work today, but if you fear for your safety and want to stay home -- as any reasonable person would today -- you're going to lose vacation time. I have a fair number of friends who work for the City of Portland, and I feel sorry for them having to unnecessarily risk their safety to make it to work.

If my memory serves correctly, a couple years ago someone at Multnomah County tried to give city employees paid time off for not coming in during dangerous blizzard conditions and a bonus if they did come in. That plan received a lot of criticism, which seems ludicrous to me. But is there something I'm not getting about this? Of course those providing essential services for the city need to be there, people like police and firefighters, people driving snowplows. But does an administrator in a city bureau really need to be pushing papers today? It'd be curious to know who decides for city employees what constitutes a snow day. At almost two feet of snow, what threshold have we not yet reached? Just what is this person trying to prove, and what part of Antarctica did this decision maker come from?

In an op-ed published yesterday in The Oregonian, mayor Tom Potter talked about his legacy of "always putting people first." I can't tell you definitively who told city workers to come to work today, but I believe Potter heads the city's human resources office. Hmm.

UPDATE: This just in from the City as of early this afternoon:

"Due to worsening weather conditions and Tri-Met's reduction in transit service, all City offices are closed effective immediately. All non-essential employees are released from work. All employees who reported to work today will be paid for their entire work day. Employees who did not come to work today must follow the City's inclement weather policy and use accrued leave to cover their absence."

So, you're not in trouble if you didn't brave the blizzard unnecessarily this morning, but you still have to take vacation. Achtung, Little Beirut!

Adams announces changes to city bureaus: Kelly out, planning & sustainability offices combined

Asreported by The Oregonian's Mark Larabee, mayor-elect Sam Adams has announced a series of changes in both the makeup and management of several city bureaus.

Most significant to the design and construction community may be that the Office of Sustainable Development and the Bureau of Planning will be combined into the Bureau of Sustainable Planning & Development. Adams told the Oregonian the move is meant to ensure sustainable principles are at the center of all city planning and building. The bureau will be headed by Susan Anderson, who has heretofore headed the Sustainable Development office. Planning director Gil Kelly is being laid off.

What do the rest of you think of Kelly being gone and the merger of bureaus? According to various reports, his departure had been rumored for awhile. Anderson is a very capable manager, but in a city famed for its planning, should there be concern that the new planning bureau is not being run by a planner? It's natural (if you'll pardon the pun) to want sustainable principles to inform every planning decision, but did sustainability just eat planning? Perhaps I'm over-reacting. But just as with architecture itself, I worry that the very necessary sustainable movement has the fervor to overtake previous concerns. Not every aspect of design and planning has to do with ecology and energy efficiency. You tell me: will we still have strong planning in Portland in addition to strong sustainability leadership?

In other changes and assignments announced by Adams, the Bureau of Housing and Community Development will be split up, creating a new Bureau of Housing and moving development functions to the Portland Development Commission. This seems like a more than reasonable consolidation. At the same time, PDC takes a lot of flak sometimes, and they are now the city's only development force. Also new will be an independent Office of Healthy Working Rivers, staffed by members of the Bureau of Environmental Services and Planning.

As many readers here already know, the city has had a fairly convoluted permitting process. Requests for development can sometimes go through seven different bureaus before finally approval - way too slow. Adams announced that all permitting will now go through the Bureau of Development Services. There will also be a feasibility study conducted regarding establishment of a one-stop customer service center where all city services can be accessed.

Bridge Over Troubled Potter

It's a funny, audacious idea: take the old Sauvie Island Bridge that was recently replaced by a new span, and recycle the structure into a new bike and pedestrian bridge over I-405. It also may be an indication of the risk and reward of Commissioner and mayoral candidate Sam Adams, a proponent of the idea, versus current/outgoing mayor Tom Potter.

The bridge has been discussed for a few years, but originally the idea was to make it a simple, cheap concrete crossing. That's what Mayor Potter still supports, according to an article in today's Oregonian, because it's about $1.5 million cheaper than recycling the Sauvie Island Bridge. But $1.5 million is practically pocket change to a major metropolitan city like Portland, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who wouldn't choose, money aside, the Sauvie span for its superior aesthetics and the message it sends about Portland's values.

Potter has every right to oppose an extra budget outlay, but when I read that he opposes Adams on this matter, I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Tom Potter is a good man, no question about it. But this is the latest case where, at least when it comes to the built environment, he just doesn't get it. Adams does.

I mean, a long ugly concrete slab in the central city, to save a million and a half? That's like choosing a kiddie burger over a Big Mac to save a nickel.

At the same time, the fact that Adams, as head of the city's transportation department, may be able to push this through, also may show his danger, or at least the irony of this whole thing. The original discussion about a bike/pedestrian bridge was born of talk about the Burnside couplet, which Adams has pushed hard. The bridge itself is just the kind of project that Adams ought to champion, but the couplet is a rogue project that is about much, much more than transportation; a change this big really ought to come as part of a larger central city planning process coming from...city planners. So in other words, I think the bike bridge battle shows Adams at his best, but it's also inextricably tied to a bad idea.

Adams and Potter are like the eager son and the fatigued father. I'd rather have the son leading in this case, but he could perhaps use just a little of the father's restraint. In the case of this proposed bike/pedestrian bridge, though, I think the island is Potter, not Sauvie.

As always, though, I say this as a conversation starter, not an ending. What do the rest of you think?

Potholes, On the Road and In the Head

In Friday's Daily Journal of Commerce, Tyler Graf writes, "Sam Adams' road-maintenance fee continues to make political enemies. No surprises there."

Huh? Actually, there is a surprise here.

Graf is referring the plan hatched by Sam Adams and Randy Leonard to put through a road maintenance plan for Portland that breaks the intended fee into a three-part affair so it doesn't have to be referred to voters. He quotes Jason Williams of Oregon Taxpayers United, a reactionary anti-tax organization that seems to favor anarchy, closed schools, laid-off police and firefighters, and of course pothole-strewn roads, all in the name of protecting the masses from the evil specter of paying their fair share to keep our civilized society stitched together. Williams is supposed to stand as the voice of reason in this story.

Williams calls the Adams-Leonard move to stave off a referendum, which would probably be voted down because pretty much any tax measure gets voted down, "sleazy". Maybe it's sleazy like allowing the lifeblood of our economy--our public roads and infrastructure--to crumble.

Graf does point out at the end that some of Williams' points are psychotically off base. Like saying both the tram and even MAX are failures. Or that Oregon already has the highest fees for automobiles in the region when it has the lowest.

Maybe it's just me, but I think finding a way to fix Portland's roads is exactly the kind of thing we as a city should step up and do. And if city councilors like Randy Leonard and Sam Adams can find a creative way to get this deal done, then that's great. I'm all for democracy, but Oregon already has way, way, way too many initiatives referred to the voters. I expect my leaders to lead some of the time, not to patronize us with having to get a rubber stamp for the tough decisions we'll vote down if it saves us half a nickel. I doubt Adams and Leonard are making many political enemies out of this road fee, but if they are, perhaps this is the chance for the voting public to be heard without actually voting. Let's tell the naysayers that an enemy of decent roads is an enemy of ours.

Considering the State Renewables Credit

The State of Oregon's increased tax breaks for renewable energy businesses has been a subject of debate in and out of Salem lately because of a proposal to double the already sizable credit. As reported by several outlets, The Oregon House Revenue Committee has voted to forward an energy tax credit proposal for the full Legislature's consideration next month.

More than 170 projects worth around $200 million won preliminary go-ahead for renewable energy tax credits last year. Tax credits were boosted to as much as 50 percent of a project's cost. PPM energy alone received $33 million in tax credits for its Klondike III wind farm in eastern Sherman County. That's a lot of money that could have been allocated for schools, health care, and other budget strapped coffers.

Being a political lefty, I also don't always feel great about the huge tax breaks that are routinely used to attract companies. Why should they get it so easy when individual households and our essential institutions pay the price?

Still, I'm reminded of the examples in Germany, Denmark and other European countries that have attracted many millions of dollars in economic benefit thanks to the large number of companies in solar power, wind and various other alternative energy companies. If you remove it, they will come. And it's already begun here in Oregon, too.

Ideally, there would be as much tax revenue as ever being generated for Oregon, just coming at a lower rate from a wider volume of sources. It makes total sense. I just feel a little funny because it sounds a lot like the argument made for trickle-down, Reaganomics, the Laffer Curve and all that stuff from the 80s, which is not something I'm philosophically not onboard with, despite growing up in a household where it was gospel.

"The truth is Oregon's tax breaks for renewable energy businesses are working," an editorial from last Friday's Oregonian read. "How else to explain the glut of companies seeking these benefits?" Renewable energy businesses also tend to create family-wage jobs, the editors also wrote. "By accepting lower than possible tax revenues today, Oregon is investing in its place in tomorrow's greener economy."

In the end I find it hard to argue with the green energy tax credits. I'm not sure yet if it's changing times or a special case. How do the rest of you feel?

New Landmarks Commission Officers Elected With Little Debate

As Fred Leeson reported in a small blurb from today's Oregonian, last week the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission elected its new officers.

Member Carrie Richter nominated fellow member and developer Art DeMuro as chairman, and DeMuro nominated Richter as vice chairwoman. They won approval in a unanimous vote.

For a commission that has perhaps been the most controversial entity in Portland design and construction, I was surprised to see that this vote happened with so little advance notice and public participation.

For all I know, the City probably went through due diligence to give public notice of the meeting. But given that the Historic Landmarks Commission has made some very controversial decisions all over the city, particularly in the last year--the Apple store in Northwest, the Kurisu project on Mississippi, various small projects throughout the neighborhoods--I'd have expected at least some talk about possibly changing the Commission's makeup or at least having some kind of roundtable on its mission and process.

This is not an attempt to badmouth the current Landmarks commission membership. I don't know Carrie Richter, but I've interviewed Art DeMuro before, and found him to be very nice and reasonable. Even so, there increasingly seems to be a disconnect or at least a lack of consensus in Portland on the tenets that comprise the Landmarks Commission's efforts.

How about some kind of public forum to take a new look at the group and its mission?

Delivering New Life to Post Office Site, and More from the City's Wish List

As reported in Tuesday's Portland Tribune, a realignment of downtown urban renewal districts may be in the works that could have a few significant effects. The plans are being drafted by a Portland Development Commission advisory committee.

This is also tied, I believe, to a drafted wish list for about $53 million in federal funds for eight projects from Congress as part of the "2008 Federal Agenda" that Andy Dworkin reported in The Oregonian a couple weeks ago.

One idea being considered is to River District to include up to 61 acres in Old Town/Chinatown area to go with the existing Pearl District portions. This would also guarantee millions of property tax dollars to help redevelop the main U.S. Post Office site. It's something that has been talked about for a long time, and I've long felt this property seemed like a sleeping giant.

What's more, I hope some of the existing post office building could be incorporated into a new structure. It's somewhat shabby now as a post office -- I really have to struggle to think of a post office that isn't shabby in one way or another -- but there are aspects of its mid-century modern design that are very handsome. If it could be done, I'd love to see a kind of hybrid of old and new architecture there. Why not make this a home for a public market, but a lot more as well? Then again, how about a new concert hall for the Oregon Symphony? Or a new contemporary art center? Even just a well executed mixed use project with housing or offices above retail would possibly suffice. If PDC were handling the allocation of that work, though, I'd like to see a revamping of the process to better empower great design as a priority, and not just something that meets livability and sustainability parameters. It doesn't have to be fancy, just good.

Another project included in the advisory committee plans, says the Tribune article, is a possible streetcar line for West Burnside. This, of course, is additionally tied to a re-routing of Burnside and Couch as one-way streets between I-405 to the West and 12th Street to the east.

Plenty of reasonable and intelligent people think this is a good idea, the couplet (pictured at left and below). There's an argument out there that it would foster development and more efficiently move traffic. Maybe so. But I'm still skeptical.  As I've said, it seems like a suburban solution, meant more to move cars than to be good urbanism. I think it'd make an island of blocks between Burnside and Couch like that between Northeast Broadway and Weidler, and between Grand and MLK. Perhaps it's warranted in those cases, but Burnside, I think, is different. It's the only street in the city touching SW, SE, NE and NW -- both literally and symbolically a unifying street. I think it needs to be two-way.

It also seems like the City Council is supporting this idea largely because of the attached streetcar proposal. Regardless, I also don't see how you can make such a major rupture to the traffic pattern on and around Burnside without looking at it in relation to the whole central city.

But, if you have a cool new post office project on Broadway, across from a renovated Union Station with a MAX train going by, a renovated 511 Broadway building occupied by PNCA, the Customs House remade as a boutique hotel (or its developers conceding interest to some type of arts program), and maybe even a completed Burnside Bridge construction project, and that sounds like an exciting transformation.

Hopefully it won't get lost in the mail like the last "Priority" package I sent to my sister.

Beyond the Bowtie: Blumenauer on Architecture

In case you didn't happen to pick up a copy at the newsstand, this month's AIArchitect magazine includes a fairly extensive interview with Congressman Earl Blumenauer, whose district is comprised largely of east Portland and Multnomah County.

"A staunch advocate of the architecture profession and built environment, the congressman is committed to promoting livable communities at the federal level," the intro goes. "Dubbed the “Johnny Appleseed of Livability,” he has authored and co-sponsored legislation to preserve and protect public lands, shift U.S. energy policy towards renewable energy and energy efficiency, curb global warming, and restore America’s lakes and rivers. In the past 12 years, he has visited more than 100 U.S. communities to help local governments, citizens, and civic organizations build effective partnerships to manage growth, improve the environment, and provide transportation choices."

As it happens, one of the first articles I ever wrote, back in about 1997 for the now defunct Our Town, included an interview with Blumenauer. The piece was about faith-based charities and the question of whether federal social-service funding could be allocated to them without violating the separation of church and state (a nice fluff piece to get started with). Why he wanted to talk to a free downtown weekly I'm not sure, but press not involving scandal or gaffes never hurts an elected official.

Blumenauer is practically a lifer as a politician, but he has used that time to steadily win greater influence not only for his Portland-area district, but also to advance the idea of Portland: the way we put together our built environment and transportation matrix.

Asked a relatively softball question in the interview, about what the architecture community "is doing well" to enhance communities, the Congressman--apparently the owner of many, many frequent flier miles--had this to say:

I try to be in a different community every month. Two weekends ago, we were in Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico. I’m struck by how everywhere, the architecture community is increasingly effective in being part of the community planning process. The [AIA] 2030 Challenge that deals with energy conservation has been seized upon and is being used both in new architectural commissions and in local policies dealing with energy conservation. The architecture community is at the right place at the right time with the right solutions, and they’re being more vocal about it.

Asked about asked architects and political advocacy, he went on:

"I think there’s no better advocate than an architect for tying these pieces together. They understand the role that design principles play, but they also interact with code requirements and comprehensive plan elements. They’re the master weavers and the communicators who talk to the clients, local authorities, and oftentimes people in the community who have concerns about the impact a project will have. The architectural community needs to be willing to engage more broadly in what they do nationally with the AIA and other organizations, including being more aggressive locally and raising the profile of these issues, spotlighting the good stuff, and being constructively critical about outmoded policies and practices. The architect is right in the middle of the most important public policy considerations in any community. The more they understand, appreciate, and act that role, the better off we’ll all be."

Asked later in the interview about what he likes to do in his free time, Blumenauer turns out to be an avid marathoner, completing his 36th earlier this fall. For those politicians able to stay more or less continually in office over the years and (in some cases) decades, without succumbing to scandal or other reasons for backlash, and surviving the ebbs and flows of one party and then another grabbing ahold of the majority, an elected official's career really is a kind of marathon. He's never really the hottest commodity in the cult-of-personality that drives large national media outlets, and he doesn't wield the kind of power that would warrant it anyway. But slowly over time, by consistently carrying his message back and forth between Portland and DC, and to all the other cities he visits, there's no question Earl Blumenauer has had a big effect on Portland's built environment and transportation network.

Now, the bow tie is another matter altogether. But then again, this is not exactly a formally dressing city, and there's probably something appropriate to Blumenauer's look, especially amid the sameness of probably all 544 other elected leaders on Capitol Hill wearing regular ties. (An exception would have been the former Illinois senator and 1988 presidential candidate Paul Simon, but he's no longer in Congress...or alive.) Maybe I'm just jealous that the congressman is being inherently more Portland than I will ever dare.

Notes on Design Competitions, Permeable Pavement (and Tyler Durden)

It seems like a host of design competitions, both actual ones and those merely in the talking stage, have come up a lot lately.

In today’s Oregonian, Eric Mortenson reports on a new competition sponsored by Metro, “Integrating Habitats”, to generate ideas and designs that result in green clusters of development, not just green buildings. The competition has already attracted 234 entries from 10 countries, Mortenson reports, with a respected jury that includes local developer Jim Winkler, German architect Stefan Behnisch, and Metropolis magazine editor Susan Szenasy.

The Metro competition likely won’t ever be a high-profile one because it’s more of an ideas-based competition, rather than one resulting in tangible built work. But it’s a logical next step for the Portland area’s efforts to truly build green in a world-leading way.

Incidentally, the idea of green urban design got me wondering: what's to stop the Portland Department of Transportation from having its road-paving crews from now on use nothing but permeable pavement material?

Speaking of high-profile, today a reader forwarded me a New York Times article about a design competition co-sponsored by actor Brad Pitt to generate houses for the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Several star architects and firms like Thom Mayne and Pugh + Scarpa of Los Angeles, David Adjaye of London, and Japan’s Shigeru Ban. (Incidentally, If Pitt's Tyler Durden was the ringleader of Fight Club, what does it make these guys--The Magnificent Several? Charge of the Black Mock-Turtleneck Brigade?)

As I understand it, Pitt’s was an invited competition, as compared to the completely open-ended housing competitions we’ve had here, such as Living Smart to generate skinny-lot houses, and the city’s more recent competition to generate courtyard-style housing. I certainly like the idea of an open competition in that it allows young firms to compete on an even playing field and, theoretically, for the best design to win. But it’s probably no coincidence that the New Orleans designs in the Times today seem a little sexier and more interesting than the work our two competitions generated. But of course it also depends on what you're looking for; in a city competition, pure functionality understandably carries more weight.

Finally, there’s the matter of two local bridges set to be constructed. Recently on this site we talked about the planned new Sellwood Bridge, which is not using a competition. I’d questioned at the time whether a competition would have fostered more originality, but perhaps this particular project is not the right one for such a format because of its modest size. A lot of people seem to think something that functions well will suffice, and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong. However, what is enticing about a competition is the chance to get something better than sufficient—although of course it’s not guaranteed, either.

Where a design competition might be a lot more appropriate is for the new span planned for the I-5 Columbia River crossing. In case you missed it last week, the panel of experts looking at options for the span—particularly whether to expand/repair the existing bridge or build a new one—have recommended an entirely new structure.

The Columbia River bridge has a lot of function to attend to every day (moving thousands of cars efficiently without so much congestion), as well as a lot of red tape to clear (state, federal and local officials). However, this is a bridge that could and arguably should be a real landmark for the state. What’s more uniquely Portland than its rivers and the bridges that cross them? And this isn’t any river; it’s the Columbia, a particularly big, significant one. It's calling out for something not only functional, but beautiful. It doesn't have to be as showy as a Santiago Calatrava bridge like the one pictured here; maybe in the Northwest it should tend to be more like the land bridge being completed in Vancouver as part of the Maya Lin-overseen Confluence Project. I guess I'd be happy with something kind of in between. But, to borrow from the language of my fellow blogger Mike Merrill, it really needs to be awesome.

If one were to advocate for a design competition for the Columbia crossing, what are the chances of making it happen? Who needs to sign off? Many have credited the media and particularly former Oregonian architecture critic Randy Gragg (including Randy) for jump-starting the idea of a competition for the aerial tram. It really seems like the Columbia bridge is the next big public works transportation project that needs a competition.

But just as these projects are different, so too are the competitions themselves. I love design competitions, and have long advocated for them in Portland. But clearly they are no panacea, especially when executed or set up poorly. What would we need to do to ensure a Columbia bridge competition not only happens, but happens correctly? I’m thinking it should be an invited competition, for example, with only certain top firms and designers selected. But in the meantime, getting to that point is the vastly greater challenge. Are we ready to cross that span?

Courtyard Competition Winners and Family Housing in the Central City

On Wednesday night at 7PM, winners of the Portland Courtyard Housing Design Competition will to be announced to the public from city offices at 1900 SW Fourth Avenue, Room 2500A. The announcement follows a day of deliberation by the competition's jury panel. The competition has attracted over 250 submittals from around the country and the world. As the press release goes on to explain...

"Participants were invited to submit innovative designs demonstrating how higher-density courtyard housing can serve as an attractive option for families with children, while also contributing to environmental sustainability, providing an affordable housing option, and responding to neighborhood context.

The competition is part of city efforts to foster design excellence and the creation of new family-friendly housing in Portland's neighborhoods.  During the announcement event, the winning designs will be on display and competition jurors will be on hand to comment on the competition and their choices.  Following this event, the public will be invited to choose their favorite designs as part of "People's Choice" balloting to take place later in November and in December."

Having been in Beijing the week before last, I was interested in that country's traditional hutong housing, which is similarly inwardly oriented, only without much of a real open-space courtyard - just a well, really. But courtyard housing has a rich and very diverse history in places like the Middle East as well as in Europe.

What's interesting about Portland having a go at courtyard housing is that ours is a city that's decidedly oriented to the pedestrian, which in theory can be the opposite of courtyard oriented architecture. Obviously it doesn't have to be one or the other, though, and that's why it will be cool to see what the winners come up with - particularly when you remember that this stuff should ultimately get built here.

Meanwhile, on Thursday from 6-8pm at the Ecotrust Conference Center  (721 NW Ninth Avenue, Second Floor), a lecture and discussion will focus on how Portland continue to provide new housing options for families as the city continues to grow and densify, and how can this be done in ways that are environmentally sustainable.  Presentations will be made by two authorities on child-friendly housing and sustainable community design, Clare Cooper Marcus and Cynthia Girling, who served as jurors for the Portland Courtyard Housing Design Competition. Clare Cooper Marcus is co-author of Housing as if People Mattered and People Places: Design Guidelines for Urban Open Spaces. Cynthia Girling is co-author of Skinny Streets and Green Neighborhoods: Design for Environment and Community and Yard, Street, Park: The Design of Suburban Open Space.

Sounds like these two events go together. Courtyard housing is an ideal way to densify while still maintaining open space for children and families to play or (if your family was like mine) escape each other now and then. Just remember to curb your dog, people.

I recently read a statistic looking at Portland's number of persons per square mile (4,199.17 according to Wikipedia) versus other American cities like Boston (12,327) and Chicago (12,470), which is to say nothing, of course, of New York (27,083). Portland has such a long way to go in terms of real densification. And if the figures are correct, with millions moving here in the decades ahead, I don't think any of us have really completely wrapped our heads around how much the fabric of the city is going to change. But, considering how few hutongs are really left in Beijing when they once comprised virtually its entire fabric, perhaps such things are largely inevitable.

Saltzman Announces New City Green Building Standard

Tonight at PDX Lounge, the Portland showcase at the USGBC's Greenbuild Conference, Commissioner Dan Saltzman announced a new incentive and fee program for all new buildings based on their carbon footprint and energy usage profile.

The standard is still just in the talking stage - it hasn't been approved. But it seems very likely to pass in this city council.

As I understand it, the standard would break down like this: If your building is 45% more efficient than energy code stipulations, you'll actually get a rebate check from the city. If your project is 30% better, there'll be no rebate, but also no fee. If your building is less than 30% more efficient than code, you'll be charged what's called a "carbon fee".

As a point of reference, the OHSU Center for Health & Healing by GBD Architects is about 50% more efficient than code, and it attained a 'Platinum' LEED rating from the US Green Building Council. So even if they wouldn't have to attain high LEED ratings, the City is more or less saying that every building built in Portland will need to either meet that range of greenness (the only way to get those kind of efficiencies) or pay the cost in a very literal sense.

This would be the first carbon fee issued by an American city for new buildings.

I'm sure architects and green building enthusiasts would be quite jazzed about this plan. But there also is probably going to be some fear and trepidation. What do the rest of you think?

Katz Back on the Prowl

Friday's Portland Tribune had an encouraging feature by Jennifer Anderson on former mayor Vera Katz. For three years since leaving office, she's kept a relatively low profile while battling cancer. But now, after finally receiving a clean bill of health, Katz is starting to become a little more active.

Currently Katz is chairing a committee of property owners to decide the placement of a new Willamette River bridge for bikes and pedestrians from the South Waterfront area to near OMSI. (Hopefully it will be as far north as possible to benefit downtowners and not just SoWa.)  The ex-mayor is also a member of the "creative capacity" group that her former chief of staff, commissioner Sam Adams, has created to find permanent funding for the arts. (How about some of that money for design?)

Katz also said this: “I’m thinking of asking Sam, when he’s mayor, if I can serve on the planning or design commission. I’d love that.”

During her tenure as mayor, Vera Katz was more of a friend to the design community than her successor has been. She started the Mayor's Design Initiative and used her office to help shepherd through projects like the Brewery Blocks, the restored Meier & Frank building, the aerial tram, and the East Bank Esplanade that now is named for her.

The best thing about Katz's re-emergence is the fact that there is one -- that she's in good health. But as it happens, the architecture community could also benefit from a reinvigorated ex mayor. If Sam Adams does indeed become mayor, it's not difficult to imagine Katz in some kind of emeritus role like she suggested. What could she do as head of the design commission, or the historic landmarks commission? The latter group could certainly use some help.  Maybe she could even talk Adams out of the ill-advised Burnside couplet. I'd like to see her head a new Mayor's Design Initiative under Adams that not only hands out awards, but seeks to reform various bureaus and commissions to make design excellence, and not just planning and development and sustainability, a top city priority.

Neighbors vs. Developers vs. City, and Properly Framing The Debate

The cover-story headline from today's In Portland section of The Oregonian is a provocative one: "Score One For The Neighbors."

"Tired of infil that doesn't fit," Erin Hoover Barnett's story goes, "residents are fighting back -- and winning."

There are definitely reasons to cheer for the neighborhood in this particular case. The focus of Barnett's story is a project in the Foster-Powell neighborhood near SE 74th Avenue. Developers wanted to put 19 row houses on a site near many single-family homes. On September 13, residents succeeded in winning a City Council vote that rejected developer Jeremy Osterholm's plans. Osterholm had even met with neighbors there about the plan. But, in Barnett's words, "he failed the earnestness test." It's not enough to just pay a lip service to neigbhors, listening and conceding little. In a way, that's very good. But it also can be very dangerous.

Barnett's story (or at least the big-font headline and subhead) casts this largely as a classic David-Goliath story, with the neighborhoods as good-guy crusaders and the developers as bad-guy wreckers of Livable Portland. In reality, of course, every project is different.

It's not at all wrong to look at this case as an indicator of the city council's increasing willingness to side with neighborhoods. There's more urban infill happening all the time, and some of it seems out of scale with nearby houses. And the neighbors have their community's health as motivation, while many developers are swooping into these neighborhoods for a short time driven by financial gain.

However, I also don't think the system is blameless here, nor are the intentions of the neighborhood organizations. First, we have to look to zoning for cues about what's allowable and what's not. That's what developers do. Who wants to gamble on a project that might get rejected? But there's also a lot of wiggle room about height and scale, so more and more often it seems to come down to some kind of fight. I'm not saying I want to cozy up with developers, especially the ones who build ugly, cheap stuff. But this is the same profession that empowers designers. It's a two-way street.

In many cases, it isn't David and Goliath. Instead, it's often a local small business person, maybe a builder or an architect, trying their hand at a small project in order to meet with the city's explicitly stated density goal by filling a market need, and doing so with very little if any profit margin. And with a lot of the people I talk to, like Sum Design Studio, the goal is to express and demonstrate their design talents, which happen to be impressive. But then their project gets stuck in limbo for weeks or months, sometimes even when the neighborhood association favors the design when a few dissenting voices file an appeal that stretches out the process some more.

What I'm saying, I guess, is it's great that neighborhood organizations and various design review mechanisms in Portland are strong, and it's an entirely proper use of their collective power to stop oversized, cheap and ugly developments from happening. But good design can also be undermined by those same efforts, and that's why I read a story like Barnett's and feel a sense of unfairness in the characterization. I felt this same way when Fred Leeson wrote in the In Portland section a few weeks ago about a neighbor's weeping at a hearing when her appeal of William Kaven's fine but modern and flat-roofed design was rejected.

I'm all for power to the people, but they have to earn the moral high ground, which can't be taken by shooting down good projects along with bad ones. We need to fine tune this process to ensure that good design is sorted out from bad. And no neighborhood organization should be entitled to change the design of a project simply for its own sake. With due respect to all involved, it can be a treacherously fine line between the collective little guy fighting for their voice to be heard and ensuingly becoming a localized mob.

I'm thinking now of another story I read in the paper recently, about a suburban resident's battle with her neigbors over her right to hang laundry outside to dry. I'm just sayin', let's not let ourselves do the same with buildings.

When the Levee Breaks (With Sanity)

Spencer Heinz was able to catchup in today's Oregonian with a ridiculous "scorched earth" policy being carried out along the Columbia under the auspices of FEMA emergency management. It makes things painfully clear how things went so wrong on the government's part after Hurricane Katrina.

Along the Columbia beside Marine drive between Interstate 5 and the Portland Yacht Club, nearly 500 full-size birch trees have already been cut down. Wednesday sawing began on another 120 trees. But late afternoon yesterday, a Multnomah County Circuit Court judge issued a temporary restraining order to stop the tree cutting until a hearing on September 28. The injunction was requested by the Bridgeton Neighborhood Association and Columbia Riverkeepers.

The problem, though, is if the trees are left and not cut, FEMA will decertify the levee from its ability to garner flood insurance. And that, in turn, means no federal assistance if the levee were to become breached in a flood. "FEMA and the US Army Corps of Engineers have argued that storms could blow over bigger trees and tear out roots and theireby loosen and weaken levee soils." You know, cut off your nose before it has a chance to spite your face.

It's bad enough the clearcutting we see driving through the Coast Range - like Sampson after getting his head shaved. But when it happens here in Portland, and out of reasoning that is illogical and arguably even bad ecological science, it makes one want to tip over with anger. Cutting trees makes a river levee safer? Who decided that - Weyerhaeuser? Dick Cheney?

In Spencer's story, a Bridgetown resident named Alise Goforth but it best: "That's what led to the failure of the levees in New Orleans. And it's the same policy that's being applied in Portland."

Potter Heads Out to Pasture

As first reported last night by the Portland Mercury's website (I looked all over Oregon Live and only found a vote about the mayor's beard), Tom Potter announced he will not seek a second term as mayor.

Regardless of what any of us think of Potter's performance when it comes to tangible initiatives, you've got to love this guy: a man with record-high approval ratings who shrugs off running again so he can go camping and hang out with his grandchildren.

As Anna Griffin wrote in this morning's Oregonian, though, it would be a mistake to be dismissive of Tom Potter and his four years in office - especially for those of us living near downtown and focused on wonky policy issues. That's how most people in Portland think. Griffin quoted Erik Sten, who may have had the best summation of the soon to be outgoing mayor:

"In a lot of ways, Tom Potter is Portland. He's sincere, he's respectful, he's focused on values rather than specific projects. All the things the political classes want him to be more of, most people don't care about. That's why he's so popular."

Looking ahead, prognosticators identify three probable candidates: city commissioner Sam Adams, developer Rob Ball, and African American Chamber of Commerce founder Roy Jay. Ball would assumedly be favorable to the local building industry; maybe he'd even bring back the Mayor's Design Initiative that Katz started and Potter dropped. Jay is a well respected community leader who, like Potter, would encourage participation from people across the city who've felt left out of civic debate in the past.

One thing that occurred to me immediately about Ball and Jay: if they really do want to get involved in city politics, why are they talking about the mayor's office but never considered a city council run? With the biggest complaint against Potter having been the inexperience of him and his staff at getting legislative and policy measures accomplished, why in the world would we want to choose one of two more political neophytes? Or better yet, if these guys are really interested in public service, why haven't they run for city council or some lesser office?

With the mayoral election still more than a year away, there will probably be a lot more to shake down in the meantime. A few years ago, for example, Erik Sten was the boy wonder of Portland politics. Does he really have no ambition for the mayor's office? There is also former councilor Charlie Hales in the background somewhere; he was instrumental in bringing the streetcar to Portland. There is also Kate Brown, who recently retired from the Oregon Legislature. Hell, why not John Kitzhaber?

Whomever becomes mayor next time around, let's all work hard to make sure design and planning are on his or her agenda.

Historic vs. Modern in TVA's Saturday Market Design For Waterfront Park

After shooting down a proposed Apple store in Portland and successfully getting the impressive Kurisu mixed-use project in the North Mississippi neighborhood dumbed down, the curmudgeonly power of Portland Historic Landmarks Commission has risen once again.

As Fred Leeson reported in last Thursday's Oregonian, a design by TVA Architects and Walker Macy Landscape Architecture for the new covered Saturday Market space along Waterfront Park and the Burnside Bridge, which "earned favorable comments from a a citizen advisory committee" and received approval from the Parks & Recreation bureau after months of study and public comment.

The project also has ramifications far beyond Saturday Market (for those of us not needing hemp necklaces). It's a very prominent site along the Willamette and provides a much-needed covered space for enjoying the park during the rainy months. I'd love to see more of these winter garden-like, indoor-outdoor public spaces in our city.

But because Waterfront Park lies in the Skidmore-Old Town Historic District, the Historic Landmarks Commission also weighed in. And they didn't like the design.

There's no doubt the light steel frame and boxy, diagonal form is pretty modern.  TVA more than most firms seems unapologetically modern in that way. The design consists of two adjacent sloping pieces that mimic the slope of the adjacent bridge. I don't want to say I'm in love with this design, but I feel far more reticent about being lumped in with the opposing viewpoint.

According to commission member Carrie Richter, "It looks like it belongs at the airport." Instead, Leeson reports, the commission wants the design to "reflect historical references by acknowledging street patterns, warehouse shapes or maritime themes."

It seems like this is a debate that keeps happening as it extends from project to project. A modern structure is planned for a historic neighborhood and seeks to establish a contemporary identity of its own. But we have reason to feel protective of historic architecture, districts and neighborhoods. It's hard to argue either of those basic principles. So what's the answer?

I personally feel that if the design is good, modern and historic structures can stand next to each other and actually both benefit from their disparate looks. One usually doesn't want any one structure to stand out incongruously if it harms the surrounding historic architectural fabric, but who benefits when a modern building's design is changed to fit in at the expense of the integrity of the design?

Regardless of whether TVA and Walker Macy's design here survives or is changed, I think the design community and city government need to take a look at how the design review, historic resources and other city agencies can benefit the design community and the urban fabric without taking away from it. Because a sizable portion of interested parties (myself included) worry the latter may be happening too often.

Email From A Frustrated Architect

A few weeks ago I wrote about the small Portland firm William Kaven Architecture and its various housing projects. This week I received a follow-up email from co-principal Daniel Kaven expressing some major frustration at the apparently lengthy process of making his firm’s latest design, a multi-family project in North Portland called the North House, a reality.

The City of Portland actually recently approved the Kaven design on North Albina Vancouver (sorry, I originally wrote the incorrect street - it's in the Albina neighborhood), but it has been appealed by a neighbor near the property. "The proposed development is in a residential zone and therefore should be designed to enhance these existing and predominant features," the appeal argues. "The design is not compatible with the existing structures and neighborhood."

A design review commission hearing this Thursday, August 2 (1900 SW Fourth Ave., Room 2500A) will allow public testimony, and the architects asked me to appeal to the design community to come and support their efforts. It’s not just about the North House, Daniel argues, but the ability of contemporary architecture to get approved in a timely fashion that doesn't let good projects die on the vine.

“The City of Portland has made it excruciatingly difficult to make the most simple changes to its own community-design standards,” he goes on. “I have been sucked into the BDS [Bureau of Development Services] bureaucracy for months now based solely on my attempt to have flat roofs, which exist in order to have more urban space and foster green roof development.”

“The manner in which the City of Portland and neighbors can hold your design hostage has really gotten out of control.  There needs to be major changes in the "community design standards" in order to accommodate modern design. Modern housing, which might only slightly deviate from the standards, is slathered in red tape, while awful track housing still gets the green light.”

I present Daniel’s experience not as gospel, because to be honest I hear varying things about city design review and have never been through this process myself. Anyone I’ve ever talked to at the City seems pretty reasonable about crafting a balance between unchecked design freedom and rigid guidelines. But proof is in the project, of course. What do other architects and developers trying to generate contemporary urban infill projects in historic neighborhoods have to say about their experiences?

It seems tempting to cast this, as Daniel has, as evidence of civic growing pains, wherein residents who love their Craftsman bungalows, Tudors and other pitched-roof single family homes see the arrival of contemporary architecture as out of character. I and many others have argued that, done properly, modern buildings and homes fit in easily with historic styles, and the diversity enriches the entire neighborhood. However, with any project there can be a lot of subtle but important details regarding scale and material that can and should be worked out in order to help a modern structure fit into a more historic context or accentuate the pedestrian experience. One of the appeal's other complaints other than the contemporary style had to do with public access and pedestrian integration, which I think may have been better served as a stand-alone argument rather than this "the world is flat" mentality about the place of contemporary architecture.

The city may have certain legitimate concerns about certain details regarding the North House they want to take time to resolve, and quite often the timetables of public and private concerns can be different ones - like two cars on the freeway who belong in the far-left and far-right lanes but have to somehow ride together. But I know William Kaven is not the only architecture firm to express frustration about red-tape. The very term "red tape" is a cliche, after all, because so many people have reached for such shorthand terms over time for government slowness and time-wasting. Does the BDS need more resources to do its job, or are these architects just Kaven to the pressure?

Progressive Garbage

In today's Portland Tribune, Toby Van Fleet reports on Metro's plan to place a garbage tax on November's ballot that would fund improvements and restoration of natural areas around the region as well as outdoor school for kids and conservation programs.

The tax increase would amount to between 75 cents and $1.25 per month. The comments section on the web version of the article is dominated by people (all four of them) saying they won't support them thar Democrats' latest tax-and-spend initiative, but Metro polling indicates a majority of voters in the region would support spending less than a cup of coffee per household per month on inarguably worthy green-oriented efforts.

Aside from the money involved, this would also be a progressive tax that, however subtly, encourages people to contribute less garbage and more recyclable refuse. Tax-phobics don't like that either, but I've always approved of pulling the tax strings to help society.

It's funny to put it this way, but while we're on the topic of garbage, what other changes could or should Metro make to garbage and recycling collection? I, for example, would like to be able to leave my food waste at the curb for composting pickup. Either that, or maybe we could all stop composting and recycling and, just for fun, make a new mountain in the Cascades out of our trash.