SW Oregon Architect Emeritus
Architecture and urban design in Oregon's southern Willamette Valley
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Reimagining the PeaceHealth University District Campus
Sunday, March 23, 2025
Victoria, B.C.
Sunday, March 16, 2025
Exciting Career Opportunities at Robertson/Sherwood/Architects pc
Project Architect/Project Manager
- Demonstrable design talent and critical thinking skills
- Strong communication skills and enthusiasm for teamwork
- Minimum of 3 years of professional experience
- Proficiency with Revit, InDesign, Adobe Creative Suite, and Office 365 is highly desirable
Key Qualifications:
- Demonstrable design talent and
critical thinking skills
- Strong communication skills and
enthusiasm for teamwork
- Architecture degree from a NAAB
accredited program or equivalent
- Proficiency with Revit, InDesign,
Adobe Creative Suite, and Office 365 is highly desirable
RSA’s diverse portfolio of project types provides exciting opportunities for professional growth. The firm offers a comprehensive benefits package, including a 401k plan, company-paid medical insurance, short-term/long-term disability insurance, transit/parking passes, and more.
Interested?
Sunday, March 9, 2025
Designing for Experience
When I first studied architecture, human experience was not at the forefront of my design thinking. Instead, I was drawn to the conceptual abstraction found in the work of certain architects I admired. These practitioners seemingly focused more on abstract theories than principles founded on experientiality or sensory engagement. Their designs distilled complex ideas into seductive forms, while emphasizing intellectual rigor over emotional or physical resonance. I found their cerebral and aesthetic approaches captivating.
This perspective shifted during my studies at the University of Oregon under Professor Bill Kleinsasser. His course, Experiential Considerations in Architecture, introduced a transformative lens, emphasizing a design approach that prioritizes human needs and contextual harmony over theoretical abstraction. Bill highlighted the dynamic, subjective nature of existence, a view I later recognized as aligned with phenomenology.
Martin Heidegger’s 1951 essay Building, Dwelling, Thinking provided a profound framework for phenomenology and understanding architecture’s role in human existence. He shifted the focus from buildings as static objects to environments that facilitate meaningful dwelling, fostering a deeper connection between people and place. This concept of dwelling, grounded in physical and existential experience, influenced later thinkers and architects who have built on the idea of engaging all the senses in design.
In his book The Eyes of the Skin (1996), Juhani Pallasmaa critiqued architecture’s tendency to overemphasize the visual, advocating for a more holistic, multisensory approach to design. In this regard, Pallasmaa’s critique builds on Heidegger’s notion of dwelling, further expanding the architectural experience beyond sight to include other senses that foster a more holistic engagement with space.
Similarly, Steven Holl’s Chapel of St. Ignatius (1997) in Seattle prioritizes spatial experience over visual dominance. The sequence of intimate, textured volumes—rough concrete meeting smooth wood—combined with acoustic stillness, fosters contemplation and creates an atmosphere that is felt as much as seen.
Architectural taxonomists categorize Charles W. Moore as another well-known architectural phenomenologist. Charles, whom I had the privilege of working with and knowing during my years in Los Angeles, applied an experiential approach to his work, fully embracing playfulness and narrative. The Oceanside Civic Center (1986) exemplifies this approach. Rather than adhering to rigid modernist formulas, the Civic Center creates a dynamic and engaging experience. Vibrant colors, layered references, and an interplay between interior and exterior spaces make the environment feel both engaging and accessible, fostering a strong civic identity while being inviting. The design underscores the idea that spaces should evoke emotional connections, as an environment that fosters community and well-being.
Christopher Alexander’s theories strongly support design with experiential considerations in mind. He championed intuitive, emotionally resonant, and contextually grounded design processes, opposing mechanistic approaches that prioritize abstraction over lived experience. In A Pattern Language (1977), Alexander and his co-authors, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein, identified intuitive patterns that contribute to livable, meaningful spaces. The enduring appeal of these patterns lies in their ability to form a bridge between past experiences and the design of new environments.
Alexander asserted that certain spatial arrangements—such as small public squares that encourage gathering or window seats that invite reflection—resonate with people on an elemental level. His book The Timeless Way of Building (1979) introduced the concept of the “quality without a name,” an indefinable yet deeply felt essence that makes spaces feel alive and meaningful. This essence aligns with Heidegger’s notion of dwelling and Pallasmaa’s multisensory focus.
An experiential approach to design is clear in the Gamble House (1908), designed by Greene and Greene. The house features rich, tactile materials like wood, stone, and copper, creating an intimate and sensory experience. The design incorporates carefully crafted details that invite touch, such as handcrafted furniture and textured surfaces. Carefully placed openings frame views to the surrounding landscape. The Gamble House emphasizes comfort, warmth, and an organic sense of dwelling—qualities that resonate with Heidegger’s notion of place and belonging (despite predating Heidegger's ideas).
More contemporary applications of these principles extend this legacy. Frank Gehry’s Maggie’s Centre Dundee (2003) in Scotland, a cancer care facility, features an undulating roof, warm timber interiors, and garden views, offering solace through tactile comfort and natural soundscapes. Tadao Ando’s Church of Light in Japan is a minimalist example, a simple yet profound exploration of concrete, light, and shadow. The meditative space encourages introspection and spiritual engagement. The experience of moving through the space and encountering natural light is both physical and emotional, making it a deeply phenomenological.
The spaces we occupy shape our emotions, memories, and sense of identity, deepening the significance of place. The patina of weathered materials or the rhythm of spatial transitions can deepen these connections, making a place feel lived-in and meaningful.
Buildings are not static; they are shaped by human life and interactions,
evolving through experience and adaptation to new needs and contexts. In an era
when globalized design tends toward uniformity, phenomenology offers a vital
framework to prioritize the human dimension, crafting spaces that resonate
deeply with their inhabitants.
Sunday, March 2, 2025
Jane Jacobs, Eugene, and the Evolution of Cities
- Smart Growth America (SGA) backs walkable, equitable development through zoning reforms and transit-oriented planning, an approach that has informed Eugene’s compact urban vision.
- Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) builds on Jacobs’s legacy by advancing human-scale, mixed-use design, while providing resources, education, and technical assistance to create socially just, economically robust, environmentally resilient, and people-centered places.
- Project for Public Spaces (PPS) transforms public spaces into community hubs, bringing them to life by planning and designing them with the people who use them every day. PPS did exactly this when it contracted with the City of Eugene back in 2016 to identify a series of recommendations for immediate improvements that would transform the public’s perception of the downtown core.
- Strong Towns critiques car-centric sprawl and promotes financially sustainable urbanism, actions that support Eugene’s current emphasis on infill as the means to increase density and affordability.
- Better Eugene-Springfield Transportation(BEST) advocates for improvements to public transit and other transportation options, safe streets, walkable neighborhoods, accessible bicycle infrastructure, and more. Notably, BEST served as a civic vanguard in support of the 2017 EmX bus rapid transit system expansion. That expansion boosted ridership by 14% and has added more than 43,000 riders annually.
- Greater Eugene Area Riders (GEARS) is a non-profit with the mission to promote and encourage bicycle riding for transportation and recreation. GEARS works to enhance the bicycle culture in Eugene and promote the ongoing expansion of Eugene’s bike path network.
- Walkable Eugene Citizens Advisory Network(WE CAN) is an ad hoc group of homeowners, renters, and property owners who support successful, diverse, and community-supportable walkable, 20-minute neighborhoods in Eugene, and who believe that all Eugene residents should have choices for housing that fit their lifestyle and budget. Note: WE CAN doesn’t appear to be as active as it once was, but its efforts did help push the implementation of such pedestrian-friendly policies as the reduction of parking minimums in the (now withdrawn) South Willamette Area Plan.
- Better Housing Together champions housing diversity and walkability, and supports the development of denser, mixed-use neighborhoods. The group’s efforts contributed toward the passage of House Bill 2001 (HB 2001), which then-governor Kate Brown signed into law on August 8, 2019, taking effect in 2020. The bill allows for alternative and more affordable types of housing to be built, such as duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and cottage clusters. This legislative change will be particularly impactful in Eugene, where the need for increased housing diversity is acute.