September AIA-SWO Chapter Meeting Recap

2009 People's Choice Winner: East Blair Housing Co-op, by Willard C. Dixon, Architect (photo from Will Dixon's website)

The September 2009 AIA-SWO chapter meeting presented the results of our People’s Choice and Colleague’s Choice awards programs. In addition, we unveiled our 2010 AIA Northwest & Pacific Region Conference logo and promotional video. If you weren’t at the meeting, you missed a great event. Over 40 members and guests were on hand to celebrate the value of design in our community and herald AIA-SWO’s production of next year’s Region Conference.

2010 AIA Northwest & Pacific Region Conference
As I’ve mentioned previously, our chapter is the host for next year’s AIA Northwest & Pacific Region conference in Eugene, scheduled for October 13-16, 2010. This will be a huge undertaking. It will be our time to showcase the genius and brilliance of our cozy and undeniably quirky corner of Oregon. It’s our opportunity to rally around the idea that design truly matters in our lives. I have no doubt that we’re up to the task. Our goal is nothing less than an inspired and fantastic festival of forward thinking that attendees will talk about long after they have returned to their homes in Seattle, Honolulu, Tokyo, Boise, or Fairbanks.

We’re well on our way to achieving our goal of a first-rate conference. Exhibit A is our new 2010 logo, designed by the members of the AIA-SWO Emerging Professionals Group. The logo is an abstract representation of our conference slogan – An Emerald Vision – and a mnemonic device to remember the “triple bottom line” (Environment, Economy, Equity) that underscores the spectrum of values and criteria we are applying to our conference programming.

Exhibit B is our 2010 promotional video, which premiered at the 2009 Region conference in Anchorage. Kudos to Paul Dustrud and Don Kahle for succinctly capturing the essential thrust of what we’re proposing in a tightly produced and entertaining package. We may not be Honolulu, or Anchorage, or Tokyo, but when architects from around the Northwest & Pacific Region come to Oregon they’ll find that fun is an everyday affair in Eugene!

People’s Choice Awards
The AIA-SWO People’s Choice Awards is our annual public outreach event held at the Eugene Celebration. The purpose is to present the recent work of architects and landscape architects, and to encourage the public to critically engage the built environment. The emphasis is not on winning but on sharing and honoring all the work undertaken to make buildings and landscapes important and meaningful in our daily lives. Here is the list of the winners, who will also be featured in the Friday, October 9, 2009 edition of the Eugene Register-Guard. Congratulations to this year's People's Choice selections!

MULT-FAMILY HOUSING
Willard C. Dixon, AIA
East Blair Housing Co-Op
Client: East Blair Housing Co-Op

RESIDENTIAL
Nir Pearlson, AIA
Reinhart Gray Residence
Client: Catherine Reinhart & Scott Gray

UNBUILT
Chuck Bailey Architect AIA LLC
Fun in the Sun
Client: Walter & Sandy Racette

RESIDENTIAL LANDSCAPE
Stangeland & Assoc. Inc.
Three R’s Make a Wright: Restore, Recycle, Revitalize
Client: Rob Steiner

COMMERCIAL LANDSCAPE
Cameron McCarthy Gilbert & Scheibe Landscape Architects LLP
Slocum Center
Client: McKay Investment Company

INTERIORS
Mahlum Architects with Robertson/Sherwood/Architects pc
Thurston Elementary School
Client: Springfield Public Schools

COMMERCIAL
Nir Pearlson, AIA
Duvall Law Building
Client: Hugh Duvall

PUBLIC/INSTITUTIONAL
PIVOT Architecture
Eugene State Office Building
Client: State of Oregon Legislative Administration

2009 Colleagues' Choice Winner: Indigo Place, by 2fORM Architecture

Colleague's Choice Results
The “Colleague’s Choice” vote is an ancillary event to the People’s Choice program and meant to be a fun way for our AIA-SWO and ASLA members to weigh in on the question of which of their peers’ projects were most worthy of recognition.

MULT-FAMILY HOUSING (3 way tie)
Rowell Brokaw Architects PC
Crescent Village West

PIVOT Architecture
Prairie View Affordable Housing

2fORM Architecture
Indigo Place

RESIDENTIAL
Arbor South Architecture, PC
The SAGE

UNBUILT
Chuck Bailey Architect AIA LLC
Fun in the Sun

RESIDENTIAL LANDSCAPE
Stangeland & Assoc. Inc.
Three R’s Make a Wright: Restore, Recycle, Revitalize

COMMERCIAL LANDSCAPE
Dougherty Landscape Architects (DLA Inc.)
Cal Young Middle School Courtyards

INTERIORS
Mahlum Architects with Robertson/Sherwood/Architects PC
Thurston Elementary School

COMMERCIAL
TBG Architects & Planners Inc.
The Ten Coburg

PUBLIC/INSTITUTIONAL
PIVOT Architecture
Eugene State Office Building

People’s Choice Exhibit Schedule
The boards of the winning 2009 entries will be on display at the Midtown Arts Center (1590 Willamette Street in Eugene) through the month of October (and probably into 2010). If you haven’t already seen the boards, don’t miss the Oregon Day of Culture reception on Thursday, October 8 from 5:00 to 6:30 pm at the MAC when the entire community is invited to celebrate Eugene's vibrant cultural scene and meet local arts organizations. I’ll post more about the Day of Culture as the event nears.

Register-Guard Special Insert
As mentioned above, look for the special Register-Guard insert inside the Friday, October 9 edition of the paper. Also, you will be able to find an expanded, full-color online version of the insert at the Register-Guard’s web site at http://www.registerguard.com/ immediately after the publication date.

Raffle Prize Winners
The winners of the People’s Choice and Colleague’s Choice raffle prize drawings will be identified in the Register-Guard insert (actually, we’ll contact the winners directly just before the insert in published). Once again, The Farmers’ Union Marketplace (The Green Store and Down to Earth Home & Garden) is our raffle prize sponsor. Please extend our appreciation of the Marketplace’s generous support of AIA-SWO by patronizing both The Green Store and Down to Earth!

Acknowledgements

I would be remiss if I did not thank the members of the People’s Choice Awards committee for generously offering their time and energies toward the success of the program. We couldn’t have done it without them:

• Kurt Albrecht
• Greg Brokaw
• Paul Dustrud
• Shawn Jenkins
• Barbara Harris
• Matt Koehler
• Jesse McMillen
• Andika Murandi
• Jodi Sommers
• Michael Soraci

. . . plus all the AIA-SWO and ASLA members who staffed the exhibit (thank you!)

September Program Sponsor
Thanks again to our September 2009 program sponsor, KONE, one of the world's leading elevator and escalator companies. KONE offers the best people flow experience by developing and delivering solutions that enable people to move smoothly, safely, comfortably and without waiting from one place to another. KONE also provides maintenance services for automatic building doors. The company operates some 800 service centers in around 50 countries and delivers approximately 50,000 new elevators and escalators per year. Its service base consists of approximately 650,000 elevators and escalators and more than 270,000 automatic building doors.