Tempus Fugit

 
Photo by Matt Barrett on Unsplash

The flight of time never seems as fast as when we prepare to turn the calendar at each year’s end. Despite passing in what seems a blink of an eye, 2021 bore more than its fair share of virus angst, fear, division, fire, and flooding. The past twelve months have been strange, disorienting, and full of monumental events with global repercussions. 2022 will undoubtedly bring us more. My profession, like every other segment of society, can only hope to adapt to an unpredictable and constantly evolving “new normal.”

Blogging encourages me to think about the way architects can work toward building places and communities that help people live healthy and productive lives in the face of an increasingly uncertain future. By nature, I am resistant to change. Stasis is my default condition, so forcing myself to occasionally engage provocative topics is a good thing.

Below are links to one blog post from each month this past year. I chose to highlight these entries because they either directly respond to topical events or reflect the constant of change in our lives and the practice of architecture. Click on a link if you find the excerpted tease at all intriguing and if you haven't previously read the post (or read it again!).

January: The extent to which our treasured symbols endure and withstand the efforts of those who wish to undo the institutions that bind our society is important. Architecture matters for this and so many other reasons. [link]

February: Team bonding is a critical ingredient for any organization but is especially so in the creative culture of architecture. [link]

March: The fact Glenwood has laid fallow for so long is remarkable given its prime location between Eugene and Springfield, proximity to I-5, situation along the already established EmX BRT corridor, not to mention its immediate adjacency to and scenic promise of the Willamette River. [link]

April: The hallmarks of good architecture should be an attentiveness to the essence and uniqueness of each project, design intentions that translate those unique needs in a synthesized and comprehensive manner, and responsiveness to the natural, historical, and physical context of which it is a part. [link]

May: The intent of renaming is not to gloss over the historical record by imposing a fraught set of current beliefs and worldviews but to acknowledge the past forthrightly. [link]

June: While many employers are eager to get their employees back on-site full-time, it is true a substantial number of others are considering extending remote work indefinitely or the possibility of shifting to a hybrid model combining in-person and at-home work. [link]

July: Rather than designing prescriptively, we should tackle every design problem holistically, in a balanced fashion tailored to the specifics of each project and site. [link]

August: Despite the sophistication of today’s parametric tools, the level of analysis enabled by computer technology does not yet approach that which the human mind is instinctively capable of processing, nor can a limited set of primitive algorithms fully account for the profundity of our interactions with the places in which we dwell. [link]

September: The moral imperative to act has existed throughout the entirety of my professional career and yet here we are, confronted by a situation more dire than ever. [link]

October: The architectural profession and the schools of architecture that turn out its future practitioners will have come of age when an appreciation for diversity, equity, justice, and social well-being are ingrained and institutionalized. [link]

November: The value of reminiscing is its ability to strengthen our sense of identity, help us move forward with optimism, and provide inspiration. [link]

December: Fundamentally, architects bring to the project an understanding that a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. [link]

Let’s end 2021 and start the new year by building upon the lessons we have learned. Let us look ahead to 2022 with courage and optimism. Time is too short for all of us not to.

Architecture w/Stewart

 

YouTube’s algorithm is unnervingly effective at suggesting which videos I am most likely to find interesting. My viewing history and preferences include a healthy dose of architectural content, so it isn’t surprising when YouTube occasionally introduces me to new channels devoted to architecture. Such was the case just yesterday, when several videos with the tagline of Architecture w/Stewart suddenly popped up on my YouTube list of recommendations for the first time.   
 
Stewart Hicks is an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Additionally, he and Allison Newmeyer are the cofounders of Design With Company, whose work “explores the territory between the architectural and the literary, real and unreal, mundane and fantastic.” I was previously familiar with the firm because of its playful Porch Parade project in my hometown of Vancouver, B.C. Stewart began his YouTube journey just a little over a year ago. Since then, his weekly entries have attracted an impressive 102,000 subscribers (as of this writing) to the Architecture w/Stewart channel.  
 

Porch Parade (photo from Design With Company)

 
Stewart describes Architecture w/Stewart as an exploration of “architecture’s deep and enduring stories in all their bewildering glory.” His goal is to increase the general understanding of architecture and its importance in shaping the world we inhabit.   
 
I quickly recognized the reasons for Stewart’s success with his channel. The production values are high. Stewart himself is a genial and well-spoken host. Most importantly, the channel’s content is at once both wide-ranging and in-depth. A quick scan of the entire Architecture w/Stewart playlist, you can find videos on subjects as diverse as why it is architects insist on using flat roofs, how buildings are making people sick, what kind of architect George Costanza would be, and the lessons to be learned from the architecture of LEGO.
 
So far, I’ve watched the following videos:

• What’s it Like Being an Architect? Here’s a Typical Day. - YouTube
• The Architecture of Liminal Space - YouTube
• Exploring Louis Kahn's LOST Unbuilt Masterpiece [Goldenberg House] - YouTube
• Architectural Design Starts with a TIC TAC TOE BOARD - YouTube

Stewart is obviously an instructor and designer immersed in the culture of architecture, design, and building, not simply in terms of how architecture simultaneously reflects and influences our ways of life but also how the discipline comes with its own peculiar rigor, sets of rules, and traditions. I especially appreciate Stewart’s attentiveness to topics related to how architecture is conceived and perceived.      
 
As I mentioned above, the cadence of new Architecture w/Stewart videos seems to be one per week, which, given the obvious thoughtfulness, quality, and effort required by each, is prodigious. Stewart enlists the assistance of several people, which helps to explain how this is possible. I suspect he may also receive support from UIC’s College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts.
 
It’s true YouTube can be an enormous waste of time, but I allow myself this indulgence when the content is very good and there is something new to learn. I watch very little television anymore, aside from live sporting events and news, as the variety and quality of YouTube videos is the increasingly attractive alternative. I’m pleased to add Architecture w/Stewart to my roster of favorite YouTube channels for architects.  
 

The Farmers Market Pavilion and Plaza

 
Farmers Market Pavilion - view from 8th looking north (this and other renderings by FFA Architecture + Interiors)

Just a brief blog entry this week, as seasonal obligations and work demands compete for my limited time: I recently stumbled across the renderings for the new Lane County Farmers Market pavilion by FFA Architecture + Interiors. Construction of the pavilion is poised to take a big leap forward in the coming weeks, as the glulam framing and CLT (cross-laminated timber) panels are on site awaiting their imminent assembly. The construction manager/general contractor for the project is Lease CrutcherLewis.

The construction site as of December 12, 2021.

For FFA, the design challenge was how to accommodate a longstanding agricultural tradition within an urban setting. The firm looked to greenhouses for inspiration, settling upon “a simple form that is open and transparent, allowing the activity inside to be the primary focus.” The design’s simplicity kept costs in check, ensuring the biggest bang for the available bucks. When completed before next year’s market season, the pavilion will provide a commodious, all-season shelter for vendors while being a deferential backdrop to the Farmer’s Market Plaza and a future Eugene City Hall.

FFA designed the pavilion to open to the surrounding plaza and streets as much as possible. Visitors and vendors will move easily between indoor and outdoor spaces.

View through Polycarbonate Facade to Mass Timber Structure

Indoor-Outdoor Connection to West Park Street

The old Eugene Producers’ Public Market originally occupied this same site more than a century ago, so the current Farmers Market Pavilion and Market Plaza project is a return to its roots. As part of the greater Eugene Town Square project designed by Cameron McCarthy Landscape Architecture & Planning, it promises to help rejuvenate the city’s historic center. The overall concept is an organic outcome of a multiplicity of factors, not the least of which was a serendipitous share of dumb luck. The Town Square project promises to unify the Park Blocks, the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza, and the new City Hall & Farmers Market Block in a way that is synergistic. The whole will certainly be much more than the sum of its parts. 

 
First dedicated for public use in 1853 by the city’s founding families, Eugene’s erstwhile civic center deserves a vibrant future. If successful, Eugene Town Square will attract high-value downtown development, jobs, residents, and a concomitant boost to the tax base. Building the new Farmers Market Pavilion is an important first step.

I’m a Jack of All Trades and a Master of None

Tools of the trade from a simpler time.

One of the reasons I enjoy being an architect is because what I do is so multifaceted. Every project presents unique challenges rooted in specific circumstances. My responsibility is to connect multiple and complex fields of knowledge and engage in multidisciplinary thinking to help the design team arrive at the most cost-effective, sustainable, and attractive design solution possible. Having a very good, broad knowledge about design and construction is obviously helpful, but being a generalist rather than a specialist means I am a Jack of All Trades and a master of none.

 
I’m probably wearing my rose-colored glasses as I look back, but I’m pretty sure life was simpler and the world a little less complex and hurried when I started in architecture than it is today. I’ve seen building codes become more voluminous, expectations grow unreasonably, and litigiousness rise to worrisome levels. The decisions we’re compelled to make on every design project have multiplied exponentially: What type of weather-proof barrier should we specify for the rainscreen assembly in our project? Should it be breathable? Liquid-applied or a self-adhering membrane? What thickness? Back in the day, we didn’t detail our exterior wall assemblies as rainscreens, and our weather barriers were often simply “building paper.” The scope of many other concerns has expanded as well. We worry now about a building material’s carbon footprint and whether its constituent elements are on “red lists”; such concepts didn’t even exist at the start of my career. 
 
Accordingly, it is not unusual these days for the demands of a project to require a large and diverse group of specialists to complement the architect’s limited skillset. This group may include consultants to address many or all the following areas of concern:

• Accessibility
• Acoustics
• Audiovisual Systems
• Building Envelopes
• Civil Engineering
• Cost Estimating and Value Analysis
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
• Electrical Engineering
• Environmental Graphics & Branding
• Historic Preservation
• Interior Design
• Landscape Architecture
• Lighting
• Low-Voltage Systems
• Mechanical Engineering
• Plumbing
• Programming
• Project Management
• Security
• Specifications
• Structural Engineering
• Sustainability

. . . and more.

The mounting burden of knowledge is pushing the architectural profession increasingly toward reliance upon specialists and a willingness to outsource more and more of its responsibilities. The underlying objective is to reduce immensely complex design problems to calculable and more easily comprehended packets. This goal-oriented focus favors traditional scientific processes—the gathering and measurement of empirical evidence—to achieve neatly categorized and reliable outcomes. This is scientific reductionism—silo thinking.

By breaking down complex interactions and entities into the sum of their constituent parts, the silo mentality effectively isolates disciplines. Those ensconced within their silos too often fail to see the promise inherent in a bigger picture.
 

Photo by D-M Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Some architects lament a diminishing of their control over the process of design and construction as the trend toward increased specialization accelerates. They believe this trend is inexorable and signals an end to the role of the architect as the “master builder.” I disagree. Mastering specific skills or focusing upon a single, narrow field of expertise is necessary to achieve success in many endeavors, but the advantage of being a generalist is the ability to see things in an integrated way. While the specialist can boast a great depth of knowledge in a specific area, the generalist can see the interconnectedness of everything demanded by a project. Generalists may sacrifice some depth of knowledge for breadth, but they also know where to seek specific knowledge when it is required. Importantly, generalists know what they don’t know.
 
The enormous value architects bring to projects is the ability to oversee the integration of the full range of design considerations. Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things influence one another. It emphasizes the interconnections between disciplines rather than what distinguishes them. In so doing, it more adequately addresses the infinite complexity of the problems at hand. Systems thinking leaps the barriers erected by specialization. The systems perspective is the antithesis of the silo mentality. Integrated processes and multidisciplinary collaboration are now principal tenets of designing for sustainability and resilience. Those dedicated to the development of sustainable communities increasingly recognize that the component parts of a system can best be understood in the context of relationships with other systems, rather than in isolation.
 
Fundamentally, architects bring to the project an understanding that a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Effective generalists are strategists who visualize the big picture and approach solving problems from that perspective. Architects with significant design or project management duties still possess a considerable depth of expertise; however, that depth of expertise is necessary across the full range of concerns for which they are responsible.
 
During my career, I’ve acquired a remarkably broad range of professional experiences. I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to work on interesting projects of all types and sizes. As a child, I knew early on I wanted to be an architect. I may have thought I had chosen to be one thing, but I came to learn this meant being someone who assumes a broad range of duties, someone who is a generalist but not necessarily a specialist. I absolutely have no regrets about my career choice and its trajectory. I wear my Jack of All Trades label as a badge of honor.

Architecture is Awesome #23: Walls

“Architecture appears for the first time when the sunlight hits a wall. The sunlight did not know what it was before it hit a wall.” Louis Kahn.

(Photo of the National Parliament House of Bangladesh by Rossi101 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

This is another in my series of posts inspired by 1000 Awesome Things, the Webby Award winning blog written by Neil Pasricha. The series is my meditation on the awesome reasons why I was and continue to be attracted to the art of architecture. 

Walls keep us safe from dangers or threats and help shelter us from the elements. Along with the roof, walls give form to buildings. They enclose and make rooms useful. They secure our privacy and shape our behavior. Since ancient times, walls have kept out others we fear or find undesirable (examples of such barriers include the Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Wall in the UK, and the former guy’s notorious southern border wall), or have enforced control within (for example, inside the perimeter of a penitentiary or between the separated parts of Cold War-era Berlin). The idea and realization of walls can be architectural, functional, historical, and political.

Though primarily intended to keep the exterior at bay, walls can draw exterior space in or interior space out.

Some walls, being load-bearing, support the roof and any floors above the outside grade. Many of these walls are massive, both literally in the sense of the materials from which they are built and as we perceive them (as they may be visually imposing and solid). Others rely on framing—posts, beams, studs, and the like—to transfer loads to the foundation. Framed walls permit large openings, such as porticos, doors, or windows. Framed walls can be mutable; think of the sliding paper shoji screens of traditional sukiya-zukuri style Japanese houses. Twentieth-century technology permitted walls entirely of glass—transparent, translucent, or mirrored—the apotheosis of a dematerialized, incorporeal architecture envisioned by the Modernists.

John E. Jaqua Academic Center for Student Athletes, University of Oregon (my photo)

You can be on one side or the other of a wall. You can rest against or move alongside it, experience its aural and haptic properties, and appreciate its design and detailing. If a door is available, you can pass through a wall, its presence marking a transition between two states of being. In existential terms, that moment is of expressive importance, which is why architects have often lavished so much attention to the matter of walls and the openings in them. 

Wall House #2

(Photo by Wenkbrauwalbatros, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)\

John Hejduk (1929-2000) is one architect who regarded the wall as the original architectural device, one that figured prominently is his poetic distillation of architecture’s first principles. “The wall is a neutral condition,” he said. “It is the greatest moment of repose, and at the same time the greatest tension. It is a moment of passage. The wall heightens that sense of passage, and by the same token, its thinness heightens the sense of it being just a momentary condition . . . what I call the moment of the present." Hejduk’s design for Wall House #2, built posthumously in Groningen, the Netherlands, is an essay on the nature of the wall. In this design, the two-dimensional plane at once both divides—because one must pass through it on leaving or entering a room—and unifies the disparate functional spaces.

West façade of St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice (photo by Zairon, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Walls are backdrops in front of which we play out our daily lives. They are canvases, desirous for embellishment. The walls inside our homes collect photos, paintings, or posters that remind us of fond memories and the people we know and knew. At the scale of the city, the architectonics of prominent walls—their breadth, height, materiality, detailing, the pattern of openings, and the occasional murals rendered upon them—considerably impact our perception of the places in which they occur. They line the streets and shape the outdoor rooms that comprise our shared public realm. 

Walls are fundamental components of architecture, with correlations between their form and meaning. On the one hand, their construction must follow sets of rules (to ensure they perform as intended). On the other, we “read” walls because we are conditioned to look for how their constituent parts combine and interact to produce meaningful totalities. Accordingly, there is so much about their design and construction that is essential to the art and science of architecture. Walls are vital and AWESOME expressions of how we build and relate to the world around us. 

Next Architecture is Awesome: #24 The Act of Building

Compensatory Response Families

Bryant Park, New York (my photo)

Once again, my weekend obligations preclude me from dedicating time to an original blog post. Thankfully, sharing an excerpt from Bill Kleinsasser’s self-published textbook SYNTHESIS remains a reliable alternative, one I’m always happy to exercise when I’ve got too much on my plate.

With characteristic pithiness in the following excerpt from the 1981 edition of SYNTHESIS, Bill catalogued some of the negative traits found among impoverished built environments and specified corresponding design strategies we can employ to avoid the shortcomings of such places and spaces. He referred to these strategies as compensatory response families. I have linked other posts from my SYNTHESIS series that expand upon each of these families; check them out if you haven’t done so previously.

Compensatory Response Families

Dilemma: Missing essentials (needed facilities and relationships among facilities are simply not present).

• Response: Inclusive analysis of “life space” requirements (identification of needed facilities, needed groupings, critical distances, needed density or facilities, many scales).

Dilemma: Lack of choice (the feeling that we have little or no opportunity to realize, use, and enjoy diversity and variation in the built-environment).

• Response: Consolidation of facilities (density), attention to spatial variation for its own sake, establishment of changeability (for future adjusting).

Dilemma: Lack of openness (the feeling that a place offers little opportunity for spontaneous, innovative use.

• Response: Establishment of “precise-generality,” “undesignated-ness,” diversity.

Dilemma: Fear and confusion about what we are getting into (as brought on by overwhelming size of buildings, disorientation, too-sudden changes, too much at once, etc.).

• Response: Attention to considerations of scale (viewpoints of users, character of surroundings, user’s previous experience), establishment of previews and transitions, establishment of appropriate organizational structure.

Dilemma: Lack of control over the places we use (little or no chance to imprint, change, adjust, choose).

• Response: Establishment of imprintable and changeable parts, establishment of appropriate spatial variety.

Dilemma: Loneliness (the feeling that we cannot make adequate contact with others, the feeling that a place is uninviting).

• Response: Establishment of supports for interaction.

Dilemma: Unwanted exposure (the feeling that we are unable to withdraw when we wish to do so . . . or that the places we may withdraw to are unsatisfactory).

• Response: Establishment of supports for retreat and withdrawal.

Dilemma: Disconnection from other experience (the feeling of unreality).

• Response: Establishment of physical and historical continuity (making places a part of what exists rather than separated from).

Dilemma: Lack of sensory stimulation and richness (the feeling that our surroundings are bleak, boring, sterile, impersonal).

• Response: Establishment of appropriate complexity, imprintability/changeability, multi-functioning parts, many levels of meaning.

Dilemma: The feeling that a built place (or the built environment generally) is not the best we can do . . . not inspiring.

• Response: Eloquence in regard to realization of all the above responses. Poetic impact.

WK / 1977

Eugene/Architecture/Alphabet: H

 

The Hult Center for the Performing Arts (photo by Cacophony via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1692766)

 

This is the next in my Eugene/Architecture/Alphabet series of blog posts, the focus of each being a landmark building here in Eugene. Many of these will be familiar to most who live here but there are likely to be a few buildings that are less so. My selection criteria for each will be threefold: 

1. The building must be of architectural interest, local importance, or historically significant.
2. The building must be extant so you or I can visit it in person. 
3. Each building’s name will begin with a particular letter of the alphabet, and I must select one (and only one) for each of the twenty-six letters. This is easier said than done for some letters, whereas for other characters there is a surfeit of worthy candidates (so I’ll be discriminating and explain my choice in those instances). 

This week’s selection begins with the letter H, for which my choice is the Hult Center for the Performing Arts.

The Hult Center

The City of Eugene envisioned the Hult Center for the Performing Arts as part of a larger urban renewal development that also included a Hilton Hotel next door (now The Graduate hotel), a conference center, and a 515-car parking garage. Built using funds approved by voters in 1978, the cost of construction for the entire project was $51.8 million. In retrospect, this must have seemed a remarkably ambitious sum (in today’s dollars, more than $173 million) for what was then (and remains today) a relatively small community. In realizing the project, Eugene was punching well above its weight.  

Without question, the Hult Center has more than repaid Eugene’s investment. The Center provides a "home field" for its resident companies, which include the Eugene Ballet, Ballet Fantastique, the Eugene Concert Choir, and the Eugene Symphony. It comfortably accommodates more than 700 events each year, including shows from across the entire spectrum of the performing arts by world-class and locally grown talent, lectures by some of the leading thinkers of our time, high school graduation ceremonies, and more. These events draw visitors to downtown Eugene, contributing to the vibrancy of our city core. The economic spin-offs include the multiplier effects of entertainment spending, job creation, and expansion of the tax base. 

Less tangible but equally significant has been the Center’s role in boosting Eugene’s civic pride. The Hult Center thrives as the city’s premier performance venue (that is, when not necessarily limited by pandemic mandates). It consistently ranks among Eugene’s top-rated tourist attractions. Today, almost forty years since it first opened, the technical sophistication of its design continues to garner accolades from performers and audience-members alike, many of whom still regard it as “modern” and “state-of-the-art.”  

Unsurprisingly, the commission to design a major performance arts hub for Eugene attracted a who’s who of architects from around the country. Twenty-seven firms formally vied for the opportunity to design the Hult Center. Ultimately, the Eugene City Council approved selection of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates (HHPA) (2), a New York firm that had by the late 1970s established a reputation for attention-grabbing and successful concert halls.(3) Lutes/Sanetel/Architects (the predecessor firm to my office, Robertson/Sherwood/Architects) served as the affiliated local firm for the project. HHPA’s architect responsible for construction contract administration was the late Jerry McDonnell, who eventually settled in Eugene with his family and founded Brockmeyer McDonnell Architects (now GMA Architects). 

During its heyday, architecture critics regarded the partnership of Hugh Hardy, Malcom Holzman, and Norman Pfeiffer as among the design vanguard that sought to enrich contemporary architecture through a more inclusive and eclectic architectural approach. For HHPA, this often translated to jarring juxtapositions of multiple styles in a single project. Paul Goldberger described the firm’s work as “rather brash, often irreverent, more a collage of interesting elements than a pure statement.” Indeed, the best of HHPA’s work exemplified this freewheeling mindset, often combining banal or kitschy elements in a pop art manner. The Hult Center is no exception, as HHPA playfully mixed allusions to neo-Baroque precedents in the 2,448-seat Silva Concert Hall with abstract references to Eugene’s silviculture and geography (the lobby) and the matter-of-fact industrial aesthetic of the intimate, 496-seat Soreng Theater. 

Lobby (this and the following two images from the Hult Center website) 

It’s hard to adequately describe one’s feelings upon entering the Silva Concert Hall for the first time (as I did during a behind-the-scenes construction tour as the facility’s completion neared in 1982). It is a truly remarkable space, at once reminiscent of a 19th century opera house and yet shockingly original. The hall’s tour de force is its ceiling, which looks like nothing if not an inverted peach basket of Brobdingnagian proportions. The ceiling consists of dozens of convex arcs with plaster centers and wire mesh borders that either absorb or reflect sound depending upon their position within the hall. The panels were the handiwork of the Benny Bartel Company; Benny's son and my good friend Gary Bartel served as the project manager, overseeing their execution. According to Gary, though many of the panels may appear to be of equal size and shape, each one proved to be unique, with laborious adjustments required in the field to facilitate their fitting and installation.  

The Silva Concert Hall 

The Soreng Theater

Another aspect of the Hult Center that has always been a source of delight are the many works of art the City commissioned for the project. Though not truly integrated with the architecture, the pieces (many crafted by Eugene-area artists) are invariably inspired, whimsical, and often only found serendipitously. Their contribution to the experience of attending an event in the facility is not inconsiderable. 

Hult Center viewed from Sixth Avenue (Google Street View)

When confronted by tight budgets, HHPA often resorted to concentrating resources on the auditoriums and other principal interiors, relegating the buildings’ exteriors to the status of “dumb” containers. Though strategic and understandable, in the instance of the Hult Center this choice—compounded by the need to acoustically isolate the performance halls from noise outside—largely resulted in the building resembling a concrete bunker. This is even true on the building’s primary entrance side, which additionally suffers the indignity of being depressed in elevation relative to the adjoining public sidewalk along Sixth Avenue and isolated from it by a moat of a drop-off lane. The net effect is an impoverished streetscape in the immediate vicinity of the building; not exactly what urbanists imagine for a cultural magnet in the heart of the city.

Despite its shortcomings as a work of urban design, the Hult Center for the Performing Arts is very much a landmark building by virtue of its function and importance to the community. It is likely to remain a focal point of Eugene’s mainstream cultural scene for many, many years to come.       

(1)  HHPA disbanded in August 2004; each of the partners subsequently established his own successor firm.

(2)  Two earlier HHPA projects—Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis (1974) and the Boettcher Concert Hall in Denver (1978)—are among the Hult Center’s clearest progenitors. Like the Hult Center, both projects enclose superb auditorium spaces within unremarkable containers, relying upon illumination of activities and color within at night for animation.

 

Nostalgia

The Glenwood Restaurant (Google Street View screen capture)

Our sentimentality for the past, particularly for times with happy personal associations, tends to increase as we grow older. We fondly remember relationships, places, and significant experiences, reflecting upon how they shaped us and provided our lives with meaning. It’s not surprising then that we lament the loss of things we associate with those happy moments. We long for the “good old days,” times when life somehow seemed more joyful. Our memories are part of our identity, reminding us of who we have been. They connect us with those we shared our lives with. They become bittersweet when we realize there’s no going back. Such is the paradox of life.

I was saddened this past week when I learned the Glenwood Restaurant on Alder Street near the University of Oregon campus (and the 7-Eleven convenience store next door—no great loss from an urban design perspective) will be razed to make way for the construction of yet another massive student-oriented housing project. “Say it isn’t so,” was my first thought. The Glenwood (and the cozy old house it has occupied for the past 43 years) has been a fixture of the West University neighborhood ever since I first arrived in Eugene. Its scale, appearance, and connections to specific events in my life are indelibly mapped in my mind’s image of the area.

Though I can’t count myself as a truly devoted patron, it hasn’t been uncommon for me to occasionally enjoy one of the hearty plates from the Glenwood's breakfast and brunch menu. Without a doubt, a huge part of the restaurant’s appeal are the unique quirks of occupying an amiably repurposed little building. Corporate chain restaurants are fine when you’re looking for predictable prices and food quality, but their soulless ubiquity and uniformity are the reasons why they rarely figure prominently in our mental maps. A one-of-a-kind eatery like the campus Glenwood contributes legibility to our perception of the urban environment in a way a chain restaurant (say an Applebee’s or Panera Bread franchise) cannot.

Likewise, another 12-story, student apartment block on the landscape will contribute less to the imageability of the neighborhood in the mind’s eye of many. Despite their bulk, I suspect most people will ultimately perceive the recent crop of mega-sized, luxury student housing projects as background elements, part of the fabric from which our mental maps are formed as opposed to being memorable landmarks in their own right. The key to the success of any new development will thus be the degree to which it provides us with accommodating backdrops or stages against or upon which the memorable moments of our lives are played out.

The loss of the Glenwood does beg the question: What is sustaining the proliferation of all these new amenity-laden luxury student housing projects? With so many built in recent years or currently under construction in Eugene, surely the demand is about to be filled, right? The fact is it has yet to be sated. There are several reasons why this is so.

Notwithstanding 2020’s pandemic-induced drop, enrollment at the University of Oregon has steadily increased over the years. Current enrollment tops 22,000, of which more than 18,000 are undergraduate students (the student body population when I was in school four decades ago was around 13,000). The UO says it received nearly 33,000 applications for fall 2021 admission, so the university can afford to be choosy. While providing opportunities for in-state students is a mandate, international and out-of-state students who pay full fare are attractive targets as their attendance offsets reduced state support for higher education.

International and out-of-state students tend to come from wealthier families more capable of paying the expensive rents associated with newer buildings. To compete for their dollars, developers are providing private bedrooms and bathrooms, fitness centers, fast wi-fi, on-site entertainment, secure parking, and other de rigueur amenities, all wrapped in the trappings of high-end packages. Generally, affluent parents want a higher level of student living for their children than they and past generations endured.

Student rentals are attractive because landlords can charge more per square foot than they can for other sectors of the residential market. And if the market dictates, they can raise rents annually because students typically sign one-year leases.

Moreover, much of the off-campus housing stock is aging. Owners are reluctant to invest in maintaining their deteriorating facilities, or simply cannot afford to compete with the new projects. The upshot is these older properties are liabilities, while the land they sit upon is increasingly valuable. This creates pressures to redevelop in an effort to maximize that value and generate positive revenue streams for investors.

The bottom line is the student housing market is one of the most profitable segments of real estate development, one that market analysts suggest remains underserved.

A considerable downside of the high-priced new developments is how they further exacerbate the socioeconomic divide between the wealthy and the less well-to-do. Increasingly, they will segregate rich students from their poorer classmates, while pushing up other off-campus rents. This trend is counter to our community’s goals for enhancing equity, diversity, and inclusion.

I get why the Glenwood’s owner, Jacqui Willey, sold her restaurant. As she said when speaking with Eugene Weekly, the challenges of doing business at the location have grown over the years, compounded by the stresses of COVID-19 closures and restrictions. She wants to retire, and the campus location was a valuable part of her retirement portfolio. I would almost certainly have done the same if I was in her position. Conversely, the property is worth a lot to the California developer who bought it from her. Putting myself in the developer’s shoes, I would have likewise recognized the site’s potential and the logic of replacing the Glenwood with a lucrative new student apartment building.

This doesn’t make the news of the Glenwood’s demise easy to accept. Am I simply being nostalgic? Perhaps. Nostalgia for fond memories or familiar things we have lost or are about to lose is natural. Acknowledging that nostalgia and how it relates to the present can help us better understand the current condition, who we are, and what we want to be. We shouldn’t attempt to replicate the Glenwood, even in spirit. Its time is now done. Instead, we can look forward to remembering it with affection. The value of reminiscing is its ability to strengthen our sense of identity, help us move forward with optimism, and provide inspiration.