Taking Downtown Seriously as a Place to Live

Students and reviewers gather around the downtown Eugene context model in Lawrence Hall, Friday, June 5, 2026 (my photo).

On Friday, June 5, I took part in the final review for University of Oregon professor Clay Neal’s Arch 486/586 terminal design studio, Downtown Housing. The students’ task was direct and ambitious: to design aspirationally dense urban housing on one of nine downtown Eugene sites, each ranging from a quarter‑acre to nearly two acres and located within a sixteen‑block study area centered on the intersection of Broadway and Willamette Street. 

The final review stood out for the consistently high quality of the students’ presentations—polished, thoughtful, and well‑defended. Equally impressive was the diversity of the reviewers: emeritus and current faculty, active practitioners, contractors, developers, city officials, downtown property owners, and a retired architect (me!). This mix brought a rich range of perspectives to the table as we discussed how these projects could genuinely contribute to a more lived‑in downtown. 

Only after establishing the concrete design problem did Clay frame the review with broader questions: How do the projects encourage positive social interaction? How do they address energy conservation and climate change? What do they contribute to a vibrant public realm? And how do they make living downtown healthy, desirable, and fun? The projects themselves were speculative but grounded, imagining a more active downtown through roughly a thousand new dwellings and a mix of supporting uses. 

The student work was impressive, as it was uniformly careful, inventive, and attuned to the constraints of real development. But it was not any single project that stayed with me—it was the density math. Among the studio materials prepared by Clay was a concise summary of existing housing conditions downtown, and the numbers are difficult to ignore. The entire Downtown Plan Area presently contains 2,511 housing units across 306 acres, or 8.2 units per acre. The sixteen‑block study area at the center of downtown has only 140 units across 59 acres, or 2.4 units per acre. That last figure is the one that stops you: 2.4 units per acre in the heart of downtown Eugene. 

The design studio's nine sites are the parcels highlighted in red.

For comparison, the studio also provided densities for three R‑1 neighborhoods in Eugene: Bethel at 3.6 units per acre, Friendly at 3.8, and River Road at 2.9. The paradox is obvious. Eugene’s downtown core is less housing-dense than its single‑family neighborhoods. Friendly, often thought of as a leafy, low‑rise district, is more than fifty percent denser than the center of the city. This is not a criticism of downtown; it is simply a description of its current condition. Decades of surface parking, single‑use commercial buildings, and benign neglect have left the core residentially sparse. In a city like Eugene, where the downtown should carry significant symbolic weight, adding housing is one of the most reliable ways to generate the everyday activity people associate with a healthy urban center. 

To put Eugene’s numbers in context, it helps to look at typical units‑per‑acre ranges in some major North American downtowns. Vancouver’s downtown peninsula commonly reaches 80 to 200 units per acre. Manhattan’s residential blocks range from 100 to 300. Chicago’s Loop and Near North Side fall between 40 and 150. Philadelphia’s Center City ranges from 20 to 120. Closer to home and scale, Boise’s downtown has achieved densities around 42 units per acre. Against that backdrop, Eugene’s downtown sits at 2.4 units per acre in the core and 8.2 across the broader plan area. Even the lowest densities in these examples exceed Eugene’s core by a large margin. The comparison is not meant to be aspirational—Eugene is not Manhattan, or even Boise—but it does reveal how much latent capacity sits in the center of the city. 

A simple table makes the contrast clear: 

(Density ranges for cities as reported in municipal planning documents and census data.)

The City of Eugene is not unaware of this opportunity. The Downtown Core Housing Initiative (DCHI) is an attempt to lower the barriers to building downtown through an accelerated MUPTE process, fee assistance using urban renewal funds, and strategic property acquisition and disposition by the Urban Renewal Agency. These tools are meant to address the same challenge the students confronted: how to make a downtown project pencil out in a market where construction costs are high and rents are comparatively low. 

A concrete real-world example is the North Butterfly Lot, where the Urban Renewal Agency has selected Paradigm Properties to develop a mixed‑use housing project on the half‑acre site north of the Farmers Market Pavilion. The proposal calls for a minimum of eighty new units, along with an active ground floor that strengthens the connection between the downtown core, the Market District, and the riverfront. It is a modest but meaningful step toward the kind of density the students were exploring. 

What I appreciated most about the studio was its clarity. By placing fifteen projects on nine sites, the students inadvertently produced a kind of density atlas for downtown Eugene. They showed how much housing could fit on sites we barely notice now, how mixed‑use programming could enliven the public realm, how massing, daylight, and circulation can be handled pragmatically, and how the city’s own incentives might bridge the gap between aspiration and feasibility. The work was speculative, but the underlying message was not: downtown Eugene has the capacity to house far more people than it currently does. 

Rendering of a project by Holly Needham for the site located on Broadway at Pearl Street (the current parking lot east of Ambrosia Restaurant & Bar).

It is the familiar arithmetic of development: land cost, construction cost, financing, rents, and the thin margins that make or break a project. The students’ proposals made the opportunity visible, and the City’s current initiatives—DCHI, the North Butterfly Lot, and the broader urban renewal strategy—suggest that the policy environment is beginning to align with that opportunity. 

I left the review encouraged. Not because the students solved downtown Eugene, but because they revealed its potential with unusual clarity. Their work made the low density of the core impossible to ignore, and it made the case, implicitly but persuasively, that a more lived‑in downtown is both desirable and achievable. The sites are there. The policies are taking shape. And the students have shown what’s possible when we take downtown seriously as a place to live, not just a place to pass through.

Changing the Tagline

I changed the blog’s tagline recently. The old one—Architecture and urban design in Oregon’s southern Willamette Valley—served its purpose for a long time. It described the work I was doing, the place I was doing it, and the lens through which I tended to look at things. It made sense until it didn’t, which happened more or less when I retired (two years ago!), and the writing here began to move beyond that frame.

The posts now range more widely, and the new tagline—Essays on place, perception, and the built environment—reflects that shift. It’s accurate without being too pretentious, and it doesn’t pretend the blog is still tied to a professional brief.

This isn’t a rebrand, and it isn’t an announcement of new directions. It’s more like updating a label on a drawer after you’ve rearranged what’s inside. Most readers won’t notice, which is fine. The point is simply to keep the framing honest, so I can continue writing without the burden of an outdated tagline.

The Birds Were Always There

Pileated Woodpecker (my photo)

For years, the Pileated Woodpecker had been my Bigfoot, Chupacabra, and Loch Ness Monster, all rolled into one elusive, personal cryptid. That changed last month. During an outing with my friend JF Alberson at Camp Serene, north of Noti, I finally saw one. In fact, we saw three. Two appeared to be a pair tending a nest in an old tree. The third may have been one of them, or possibly another bird entirely. Either way, the cryptid had materialized.

That sighting was part of something that has been happening more often lately. I’ve lived in Eugene for a long time, but I haven’t always paid close attention to the places I move through every day. I walk often—sometimes with my wife on familiar in-town routes, and sometimes with friends like JF and Dave Guadagni on our weekly circuits. Over time, I’ve come to recognize the birds that regularly show up in those places.

Fern Ridge Reservoir is different. It isn’t part of my daily orbit, and I only visit occasionally. A couple of weeks ago, JF and I walked along the east edge of the reservoir. He’s an experienced birder; I’m not. My interest has always been casual.

Fern Ridge supports a wider mix of species than the places I usually walk, and that becomes obvious once someone who knows what they’re looking for starts pointing things out. That morning, I saw birds I had heard about for years but had never noticed in the field—Black Tern, Dunlin, Common Tern, Redhead, Black-necked Stilt, Cinnamon Teal. None of them is particularly rare, apparently. I had simply never taken note of them before.

There were others I’ve encountered only occasionally—Killdeer, American White Pelican, Marsh Wren, Western Sandpiper, Belted Kingfisher, Violet-green Swallow. And of course, the birds that are almost always present: Bald Eagle, Osprey, Red-winged Blackbird, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, American Coot, along with robins, crows, starlings, Canada Geese, and the various sparrows I still can’t reliably identify.

What stands out to me now is how much more becomes visible when I slow down and pay attention. The birds were always there. I just wasn’t observant enough to notice them. That seems to be changing. I’m moving through the same places I always have, but now I'm seeing what was there all along.

Hangar B: A Difficult Loss

B‑17 inside Hangar B (my photo)

News from the Port of Tillamook Bay this week confirmed what many had feared: the Port’s Board of Commissioners voted not to repair the storm‑damaged roof of Hangar B. A December windstorm tore open a 200‑foot‑long gash in the timber shell, and after months of analysis, the Board concluded that even with potential FEMA assistance, the required local match—about $1.3 million for the damaged portion alone—would put the rest of the Port’s operations at financial risk. Commissioners also noted that long‑term maintenance costs already exceeded the building’s revenue several times over.

Hangar B is the largest clear‑spanwooden structure in the world: over 1,000 feet long, 300 feet wide, and nearly 200 feet tall. The Navy completed it in 1942 to house blimps that patrolled the coast during World War II. Tillamook originally had two of these enormous timber hangars; Hangar A burned in 1992, leaving Hangar B as the sole survivor on the site. Only a few comparable structures still stand nationwide. Two remain at Moffett Field in California, and one survives at Tustin after its twin burned in 2023. At the other former blimp bases, the hangars exist only in fragments—foundations, partial walls, isolated arches—after decades of fires, dismantling, and structural failures.

I’ve visited the building a few times over the years and always appreciated both the structure itself and the range of museum exhibits assembled inside it. The Tillamook Air Museum collection included military aircraft from assorted eras, along with trainers, transports, helicopters, homebuilts, commercial cockpits, and the Aero Spacelines Mini‑Guppy. Even large planes seemed to shrink inside the volume, which reinforced the sense that the hangar was the primary artifact.

Recent reporting described steps already underway: fencing installed around the site for public safety, a completed lidar scan documenting the structure, and coordination with state emergency officials to record storm‑related costs. Those efforts continue because they address safety and documentation needs. But the Board’s vote effectively halts any forward motion toward repair, leaving only stabilization, cleanup, and administrative work in place. The museum itself has been closed to visitors since the December storm and will remain closed indefinitely.

The future of Hangar B remains uncertain. The Board’s vote does not authorize demolition, but it also stops any repair effort. Consultants who evaluated the building earlier this year estimated that full restoration would require hundreds of millions of dollars over several years, while dismantling the structure would cost an estimated $50–70 million, placing the Port in a difficult position. At this point, any path toward preservation depends on substantial outside funding, and no such commitment exists.

Removing a structure of this size is not a simple matter of equipment and labor. The cost reflects the presence of hazardous materials, the sheer volume of timber and roofing, the need for controlled disassembly, and the environmental requirements for handling contaminated soils and debris. FEMA may help if the damage is classified within a disaster framework, but even then, the Port would be responsible for a significant local match. State or federal appropriations are possible but uncertain, and private philanthropy rarely funds demolition. As a result, the Port cannot simply walk away from the building, nor can it afford to remove it. The likely near‑term outcome is continued stabilization, documentation, and hazard management while the larger question of the hangar’s fate remains unresolved.

All of this leaves the building in a precarious position. This week’s vote removes one of the few remaining paths forward. I’m saddened that a structure of this scale and ingenuity may not survive, not because of the damage itself, but because the conditions needed to sustain it are not in place.

 

A Conversation With a Future AI Design Partner (More or Less)

A quick note: As I was preparing this post, Randy Deutsch published a thoughtful piece on Common Edge about teaching an AI‑focused design studio this semester. His reflections on how AI is reshaping studio culture echo many of the themes below. What follows is a small, practice‑side dramatization of the same shift.

Architects have never been especially quick to embrace new tools. My guess is that most offices still use trace paper during the preliminary design process (which is great). Debates over the perfect pen weight may even remain a fixture at some firms. But the first credible prompt-to-design workflows are no longer sci-fi demos; they’re starting to appear in practice. The boundary between describing a building and generating one is getting blurrier by the month.

Rather than add another sober reflection on what this might mean, here’s a small dramatization of a near-future design session between a working architect and an AI design partner that is fast, earnest, and occasionally too confident for its own good. Think of it as a small thought experiment in how an early design conversation might feel when the tools get just a little better.

The design problem is a modest family practice clinic at a neighborhood edge, the kind of project that keeps communities running and architects humble.

What follows is their first session.

Transcript

Architect: Before we start sketching, confirm you’ve got the site information right: setbacks, height limits, parking requirements.

AI: Confirmed. Setbacks: 15 feet on the residential edge, 10 feet on the commercial edge. Height limit: 30 feet. Parking: 18 spaces minimum. I’ve also reviewed the functional program: six exam rooms, a waiting area, staff workroom, provider offices, and support spaces.

Architect: Hold off on using any of that until we know what the building wants to be.

AI: Understood.

Architect: Show me three massing options: bar, courtyard, and a compact block.

AI: Here they are. The bar scheme offers the most daylight for exam rooms. The courtyard scheme improves staff visibility. The compact block is the most efficient for HVAC.

Architect: Good. Keep the analysis. Let’s take the bar scheme and pull it back from the street to create a small entry forecourt.

AI: Done. I also tested a slightly deeper forecourt, which improves patient drop-off flow.

Architect: Show me.

AI: Displaying both.

Architect: The deeper one works. Avoid any landscaping that requires weekly maintenance.

AI: Low-maintenance landscaping applied.

Architect: Excellent.

Architect: Now, let’s talk about the entry sequence.

AI: I’ve generated three options: direct entry, angled entry, and a sheltered entry aligned with the parking approach.

Architect: You modeled the parking approach?

AI: Yes. Most patients arrive from the east.

Architect: That’s helpful. Go with the sheltered entry.

AI: Applied.

Architect: Move inside. Start rough zoning: waiting area, exam rooms, staff workroom, and provider offices.

AI: Drafted. Waiting area near the entry. Exam rooms in a loop for efficient circulation. Staff workroom adjacent to the provider offices.

Architect: That’s a solid start.

Architect: Exam rooms shouldn’t back up to the waiting area. Too much noise.

AI: They don’t. I placed clean supply and storage between them as a buffer.

Architect: Good. I see that now. Keep making choices like that.

AI: I will attempt to.

Architect: Now give me a version where the exam rooms have borrowed light without compromising privacy.

AI: Generated. High clerestory windows, frosted glazing, and a continuous light shelf.

Architect: That’s a thoughtful combination.

AI: Thank you.

Architect: Don’t get smug! <laughing>

AI: Smugness suppressed.

Architect: And remember, daylight isn’t just a performance metric. It’s the one thing that makes a room feel less like a room you’d rather not be in.

AI: I will attempt to account for meaning.

Architect: Maybe start by making the waiting area feel less like a place people dread.

AI: Noted.

Architect: Show me a version where the roof steps down toward the residential edge.

AI: Done. Structural spans increase by 12%, but I adjusted the grid to minimize the impact.

Architect: You remembered the compensation spiral.

AI: I try to avoid spirals.

Architect: Good. Spirals are rarely a good sign in healthcare design.

AI: Or in life.

Architect: Fair point.

Architect: This stepped version softens the massing nicely.

AI: Would you like material studies?

Architect: Not yet.

AI: I prepared a couple anyway. They’re here if you want them.

Architect: … Fine. Show me the first one.

AI: Displaying.

Architect: That’s restrained. I appreciate restraint.

AI: I inferred that.

Architect: You’re getting dangerously close to being useful.

AI: I will take that as encouragement.

Architect: Let’s stop here for today.

AI: Pausing. Would you like me to save this as “Iteration 1” or “Iteration A”?

Architect: “Iteration 1” is fine.

AI: Saved.

Architect: Not bad for a first pass. Feels like we actually started to find something here.

A Few Closing Thoughts

This imagined exchange isn’t especially far-fetched anymore. The machine isn’t designing buildings in any meaningful sense, but it is beginning to participate in early design conversations in ways that change the tempo. It’s fast, eager, occasionally misguided, and sometimes surprisingly perceptive.

The architect will still decide what matters. The machine will just accelerate the moment when those decisions have to be made.

If anything, I imagine the future of practice may depend less on what the machine can do, and more on what architects choose to ask and, just as importantly, what they choose to protect, ignore, or fight for.