Special Parts

 
Saloon windows, Fonthill Castle; design by Henry Chapman Mercer (photo from the Mercer Museum & Fonthill Castle website). Fonthill has over two hundred windows of varying sizes.

My weekend schedule precludes producing an original blog entry, so I am happy to share an excerpt once again from SYNTHESIS, the foundational textbook written, self-published, and oft revised by my college professor, Bill Kleinsasser. As I have said before, I feel compelled to feature Bill’s writings on my blog because his legacy is otherwise non-existent online and risks being lost to time. The audience for SYNTHESIS was essentially limited to his immediate students. An increasing number of us are moving toward the back half of our careers or are already retired, so the opportunities to directly apply the principles he espoused in our work are dwindling. My hope is by publishing his words here that some among the newer generations of designers will also come to appreciate the value base he embraced.

Though brief, the selection below from SYNTHESIS is noteworthy because of how succinctly and concretely Bill uses the examples of Henry Chapman Mercer’s design of his home (Fonthill Castle), the Mercer Museum, and the Moravian Tileworks to illustrate how we acquire spatial cognition through the organization and utilization of special parts in buildings and places.

Special Parts

To know the places we experience, we construct mental maps of them, first assembling the outstanding features as a sort of outline, then gradually filling in the details. For this process to work, a building or place obviously must have some outstanding features. And the more complex the place, the more essential they are. Even a city can be understood more easily with such features but, without them, small places can be confusing.

Special parts also contribute to the richness and expressiveness of places.

Mercer’s buildings contained many special parts. In Fonthill, there are tiles, vaults, ceilings, fireplaces, and columns that stand out. There are also special rooms, a Russian stove, and many special relics of travel. In the Museum, many parts of the collection are markers. The whale boat, the sleigh, the Conestoga wagon are all memorable, and again certain rooms, ceilings, fireplaces, and columns. In the Tileworks, the huge kilns, chimneys, and the immense fireplace in the “Indian House” are unforgettable. Mercer deliberately established all these features. All are seen repeatedly from many vantage points. Together, they provide accentuation, orientation, and variety.

Mercer often used natural light to create special places. By letting lots of it in, by controlling it, and by using spatial organization and surfaces to dramatize it, he enlivened his spaces with its shades, shadows, and highlights.

WK / 1981  

 

Active Design

The Shipyards, North Vancouver's mixed-use waterfront neighborhood (my photo).

 
I just returned to Eugene following an extended visit to Vancouver, B.C. While the purpose of my stay there was primarily to be with my family following the death of my father, it was also a much-needed personal break and mental reset.
 
I actually spent most of my time in North Vancouver, which is a compact city located directly across Burrard Inlet from Vancouver. Though I was born and raised in Vancouver, I seldom frequented the “North Shore” during my youth. Seeing it now through an architect’s eyes was a revelation. Despite its modest population of just over 58,000 residents, the City of North Vancouver is highly urbanized, with a significant industrial base (including shipping, chemical production, and film studios) and a highly educated and demographically diverse population.
 
According to the most recent census figures, North Vancouver’s population density is 12,720 residents per square mile, close to Vancouver’s heralded density of 14,892 people per square mile. By way of comparison, Eugene’s population density is 3,911 per square mile, while Portland’s current figure is 4,890.
 
For urban designers, North Vancouver offers lessons relevant and applicable to communities across the continent, including my adopted home of Eugene, Oregon. Certainly, one such lesson is North Vancouver’s beneficial commitment to the development of a dense built environment that supports the physical well-being of its residents.

North Vancouver as seen across Burrard Inlet from Vancouver (photo by Michelle Maria, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

 
Active Design is an approach to the development of buildings that uses architecture and urban design to make daily physical activity more inviting and to promote social interaction, particularly in new multi-family projects. The City of North Vancouver upholds Active Design as a key policy area in its official community plan. Its land use objectives include encouraging active, healthy lifestyles through planning and active design principles that support physical activity and contribute to enhanced walkability and active streets, sidewalks, and public spaces. The city changed its zoning bylaws expressly to incentivize Active Design in new developments.
 
North Vancouver is organized around a logical street network oriented to outstanding views, preserving natural features that bound and contain the city and its neighborhoods. The street network includes the Green Necklace, a 4.66 mile urban greenway that forms a scenic loop around the city center, linking historic parks and buildings, public spaces and commercial areas by means of an off-street, multi-use path.
 

The North Shore Spirit Trail (purple) and the Green Necklace).

Most errands do not require a car in North Vancouver. My brother and sister-in-law, who reside on the 18th floor of the CentreView condominium tower in the Central Lonsdale neighborhood (a “walker’s paradise” with a Walk Score of 90), have everything they need on a daily basis mere steps from the building’s front door. Countless small shops, restaurants, and personal services establishments line the surrounding streets. A Whole Foods supermarket, a Home Hardware store, and their dentist’s office are literally downstairs, while Lions Gate Hospital (North Vancouver’s principal emergency medical facility) is one block away. Increased density shortens distances between destinations and fosters a mixture of convenient uses within a manageable radius.
 
Because of its high walkability, an embarrassment of urban and natural riches, steep topography, and extensive web of bike and pedestrian trails, most able-bodied North Vancouverites are in great shape. Indeed, according to Statistics Canada, the population of North Vancouver boasts the highest level of fitness of any city in Canada. I took numerous walks during my visit, averaging between 12,000 and 16,000 steps per day (which included invigorating strolls along the North Shore Spirit Trail and hiking the Lynn Loop Trail), roughly twice my daily average here in Eugene. My brother and sister-in-law, both retirees, do even more. It is a challenge not to get your steps in during one’s daily routine while living in the Central Lonsdale neighborhood.
 

Examples of North Vancouver's mixed-use urbanism. Note the street-level retail shops, housing or offices on upper floors, and the gradient of the streets (my photos).

The City of North Vancouver recognized the importance of creating opportunities for physical activity in a dense urban setting, and of the synergies of fitness with sustainable and universal design. The city noted that historic planning and building design standards indirectly resulted in environments that failed to promote physical activity and social interaction. North Vancouver’s Active Design project engaged architects and building code consultants to resolve design and code issues to reduce regulatory barriers that discourage healthy habits. The City of North Vancouver now uses its Active Design Guidelines in the review of all rezoning applications for new developments with greater than 10 residential units and/or more than 1,000 square meters of commercial, industrial, or institutional floor area.
 
Some of the enacted policies include stipulations incentivizing use of primary and secondary stairs rather than elevators or escalators, excluding external corridors from gross floor area calculations, and likewise excluding recreational and amenity areas provided for common use from floor area calculations. Developers see monetary benefits, but additionally are rewarded for creating buildings buyers and renters find desirable.
 
The City of New York pioneered the Active Design planning approach with the 2010 publication of its Active Design Guidelines. The New York program documented many of the strategies the City of North Vancouver incorporated into its own health-promoting design and operation practices. New York’s then-mayor Michael Bloomberg launched the Center for Active Design in 2012, which today manages the Fitwel Certification System.
 
What is Eugene doing to likewise encourage healthy lifestyles? The City of Eugene’s Community Design Handbook does include aspirational statements advocating creation of a well-connected network of parks and public spaces, prioritization of open spaces as central organizing elements, and the development of complete, walkable neighborhoods. The handbook advocates locating dense housing near existing services and amenities, cultivating under-represented “missing middle” housing types, creating opportunities for businesses and services in neighborhood centers, encouraging a mix of compatible and complementary uses at the neighborhood, block, and building scales, and providing active uses on the ground level of buildings. The handbook additionally promotes restoration of traditional, pedestrian-scaled block patterns, creation of pedestrian and bike connections, prioritization of pedestrian safety, and designing buildings with visual transparency to interact with public streets and paths.
 
Beyond the design principles listed in the Community Design Handbook, I am not immediately aware of any set of City of Eugene building and planning principles that expressly address Active Design. Through its various current projects, the city is actively working toward fulfilling the Handbook’s principles, so in a sense they are doing so; however, to the best of my knowledge, an enforceable and consistently applied codification of those principles does not yet exist.
 

Strollers enjoying Waterfront Park along North Vancouver's esplanade (my photo).

Environmental design is an essential tool for combating pressing public health problems, including obesity and chronic diseases such as heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, for which the leading risk factors include physical inactivity. Changes to urban and building design can influence how people engage with their neighbors and increase the availability of physical fitness at work, school, home, and during leisure time. Creating an active city by developing and maintaining a mix of land uses in all neighborhoods, improving access to transit and transit facilities, designing accessible, pedestrian-friendly streets, and providing opportunities for daily physical activity through Active Design can significantly improve the health and well-being of our population.
 

An Architect’s Father

 

A very young me with Dad.

My father—Shiro Nishimura—passed away on Wednesday at the age of 94. He died peacefully, in his sleep, following years of ailing health. He was a very good man who lived through much, particularly early in his life—the Great Depression, relocation and internment during World War II, and adjustment in the aftermath—events that undoubtedly shaped him. He would become a devoted husband to my mother (dying the day after their 64th wedding anniversary), and a strong father to me and my brothers Garry and Jeff. We will miss him dearly.
 
I’ll forever be grateful to my father for instilling in me a thirst for learning and encouraging me to pursue my ambitions. I enjoy a rewarding career as an architect in part because he indulged the earliest hints of my interest in the field. Thanks to him, the staples in my childhood toy box would be Lego bricks, Meccano, and Tinkertoy construction sets. After I had grown, he would never fail to ask me about my work during our visits together or when I would telephone him. I like to think my father vicariously enjoyed my architectural journey and may have pursued one himself if the circumstances during his life were more favorable.
 
It grieves me that he passed the day before I arrived in Vancouver to see him—before I had a chance to say goodbye. I am consoled by the memories I have of him, and by knowing he is in a better place now.   
 
Below is the eulogy I will deliver at his funeral service:
 
Hello everyone. Thank you so much for coming out today to celebrate my father. I know some of you travelled from afar to be here today on short notice, so we thank you for being with us.
 
You all knew him, and you—his siblings—shared many of the same experiences when you were children. I know some of those experiences were challenging and in respects unthinkable today. They undoubtedly shaped you and him in profound ways. They did make him the man and father I knew.
 
Dad was always stoic, prudent, thoughtful, and not given to overtly displaying emotion. He was, when necessary, a stern disciplinarian who ensured my brothers and I kept to the straight and narrow. But he could also be playful, and we know he loved us even if he could never bring himself to speak those words.
 
During his long working career at Pacific Produce Company, and especially while my brothers and I were young and still at home, my father and my mother did everything they could to provide us with the best possible upbringing and education. I know they scrimped and saved for many years so that we could have every advantage they did not have the opportunity to enjoy when they were young. My brothers and I never wanted and lacked for anything. Upon my father’s retirement, I was so happy to see my parents finally treat themselves by traveling the world, a deserved reward after decades of hard work and raising a family.

My parents during one of their trips abroad (I'm not sure where exactly. Hong Kong maybe?)

 
Dad was sentimental and enjoyed the rituals and traditions of the holidays. He loved playing seasonal music on our old RCA Victor console stereo at Christmastime. We always had a big, beautiful tree. And on Christmas morning, “Santa” would overwhelm my brothers and me with the bounty he delivered. The same was true each Easter Sunday, when we would discover the Easter Bunny had brought us more chocolate and candy than was healthy for us. My parents managed to spoil us rotten, even though I am sure it severely stretched the family budget.
 
Breakfast each Sunday morning was his time, when he would joyfully prepare waffles or pancakes for the entire family. The early morning on the other six days of the week were not an opportunity for us to spend time with him since his schedule demanded that he was off to work before the rest of us had even gotten up.
 
Following sports was something Garry, Jeff and I also had in common with our father since we were children, whether it was B.C. Lions football, Vancouver Canucks hockey, or, back in the day, Vancouver Mounties baseball. None of us were athletes, but we shared a rooting interest in the local teams that brought us together. When I proposed enrolling at the University of Oregon, his first reaction was “Oregon? They’re the Ducks. What kind of a team is named after ducks?!!” Regardless, we would occasionally talk about Oregon Ducks football over the years, and I would encourage him to watch the Ducks play if they were in a bowl game so we might share that experience even though hundreds of miles separated us.
 
My father watched the news—a lot. For better or worse, watching the news was a fixture of his daily routine following retirement:  BC1 on Global, CTV News, the National, or CNN; it did not matter. He likewise always read the newspaper, right up to the end. Dad always wanted to know what was happening, both locally and around the world.
 
On the lighter side, he loved watching the game show Jeopardy! Our appreciation for the show was something he and I had in common.
 
In recent years, Garry and Donna often would bring their dog Bella with them on visits to my parents' apartment. Bella always brought my father joy, made him smile, and put a sparkle in his eyes. He loved that dog.
 

Bella (and my mother) keeping Dad company.

He loved seeing his granddaughter Kristin grow up to become the woman, wife, and mother she is today. We are all happy he stayed with us long enough to see his great grandchildren Avery and Aiden, though, due to COVID, he never got to chance to meet Aiden in person.
 
Because Garry and Jeff deferred the task of delivering our father’s eulogy to me, I will take the opportunity now to be selfish and recount a couple of my personal memories of him.
 
I was fortunate enough to spend one summer between school years working alongside my father when he was at Pacific Produce. It was a chance to see him perform his job, to see how hard he worked, and, though we were never the best at communicating openly with one another, to spend precious one-on-one time with him during our lunch breaks. I saw firsthand the respect his coworkers had for him, and the camaraderie they shared.
 
My father’s working career was decidedly blue collar. Though not in the cards, he had the intellect to have excelled at the university level if he had chosen to pursue higher education.
 
After I graduated from university and became an architect, Dad was always interested in the projects at my work with which I was currently involved. Once I left for Oregon, he never had a chance to visit any of the buildings I had a hand in designing, but I would share with him photographs or renderings of the projects so he could see what I was working on. Years ago, during one of my too infrequent visits, my mother took me aside to tell me “You know, he’ll never say this to you directly, but he is very proud of you.” Hearing that meant so much to me.

Christmas 2021

Life is full of regrets, and I regret not spending more time with Dad since leaving for my life in Oregon. I regret never getting to know him better as a person. As I said earlier, we never were the best at communicating openly with one another. Toward the end though, he very clearly wished he could see me more, as he feared his time was short. I am most saddened by missing the opportunity to see him just one last time.
 
I will never be able to say enough in appreciation to my brothers Garry and Jeff, Garry’s wife Donna, and my niece Kristin and her husband Kevin, for taking such loving care of Dad (and Mom now) in my absence. I forever will be indebted to them. I am thankful to my wife Lynne, who is at our home in Eugene, for her support and comfort. I am also thankful to the staff at Sunrise Senior Living for making Dad’s last days as comfortable as possible. Finally, thank you all again for being here to pay respect to my father.
 

The Worrying Absence of Housing Choice

 

I worry about a lot of things. Unfortunately, there is little I can do about many of them. For example, there is not much I can contribute toward ending the war in Ukraine, not to mention all the other regional conflicts around the world. I cannot control the current inflation in prices for goods and services. I do not have an answer to the opioid crisis, nor do I know how to erase food insecurity. On the other hand, by being vaccinated and committed to following measures to protect myself and others, I am doing my part to limit the spread of COVID-19. As an architect, I can reduce negative environmental impacts by designing with sustainability in mind. I can also walk the talk and personally reduce my carbon footprint by living modestly and lightly on the planet.
 
Because I write on topics related to the built environment, I feel pressed to occasionally weigh in on the greatest challenges architects and planners face today. One of these challenges is the housing affordability crisis here in Lane County and elsewhere. The vast and widening disparity between the median home price in Lane County and the price a median-income household can afford is eye-opening.
 

Of course, the problem of housing affordability is global in scope and hardly unique to our community. According to Reuters, home prices in the U.S. rose 17% in 2021 alone (and as I mentioned previously, housing costs in general have risen by 45% over the past five years in Eugene). Redfin’s market tracking analysts report that Portland recorded a shocking 39% year-over-year increase in average monthly asking rents. Such a trajectory in housing costs is unsustainable. Despite this reality, developers build to turn a profit first rather than to supply housing for people who need it; larger, more expensive, and less affordable homes are the result. Even with the recent and projected interest rate hikes, pundits believe the costs of housing are unlikely to be reigned-in anytime soon.  
 
Part of the problem is rooted in supply and demand:  There simply is a shortage of enough housing of the right types. Not every buyer or renter needs or is looking for a 2,500 SF home with four bedrooms, three baths, and a two-car garage in the suburbs. Paradoxically, the average number of people in American households has declined even as the median size of a new home has doubled since the 1970s. That real estate escalation incentivized purchases of the biggest homes possible only exacerbated this trend. Money naturally flowed and continues to flow toward constructing projects promising the greatest profit potential.
 
Local zoning and land use policies have also contributed to the present dilemma. Euclidean, exclusionary zoning can help preserve historic neighborhoods, protect open space and environmentally sensitive land, manage new development, and maintain property values; however, exclusionary zoning is fundamentally inflexible and organized around an outdated model that prioritizes regulation and segregation of uses over good urban design and performance outcomes. It has perpetuated prioritization of detached, single-family homes to the exclusion of alternative, needed types of housing. Overlay districts and Special Area Zones are not the silver bullet. They can mitigate some shortcomings of Euclidean zoning, but they also add a layer of complexity to regulations most people already have difficulty understanding.
 
These facts are well-known to anyone who has been paying attention. The upshot is a failure to do something about the problem is indefensible and untenable. Doing nothing is not a solution.
 

So, what is the answer? Providing a variety of housing options better suited to our community’s changing demographics is clearly one response. The nuclear family consisting of a married couple and their 2.5 children no longer dominates the composition of households, so neither should the real estate market tailor its offerings to that notional paradigm.
 
To its credit, in 2019 the State of Oregon Legislature passed House Bill 2001, which expands the ability of property owners to build certain traditional housing types—so-called “missing middle” housing—in zones presently restricted to single-family, detached homes. These housing types already exist in most cities, but predominant post-war zoning regulations rendered them illegal for decades in single-detached home residential neighborhoods. HB 2001 requires Oregon cities, including Eugene, to amend their land-use codes by June 30 of this year to allow duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, cottage clusters, and townhouses in residential areas.
 
The State Minimum Standards are a set of administrative rules adopted by the State of Oregon that outlines the minimum cities must do to comply with House Bill 2001. The State Model Code meets those minimum requirements. Cities can choose to adopt the Model Code in full or amend their existing codes to satisfy compliance with the Minimum Standards. If a city does not amend its code by June 30, the Model Code will apply to the development of middle housing in that city.
 
The Eugene Planning Commission presented its recommendation for Middle Housing Code Amendments to the city council on January 25, 2022. The Commission’s recommended amendments differ from the State Model Code by providing incentives for smaller housing units and lot size & parking reductions (for example, the proposed code reduces requirements for off-street parking if middle housing is within .25 miles of a frequent transit route). In keeping with the Model Code, the Commission’s recommendation includes standards for tree preservation and solar access. Standards for driveways, parking configuration, and landscaping either match existing R-1 standards or are aligned with the Model Code.
 
In arriving at its recommendation, the Eugene Planning Commission followed eight guiding values and principles:

• Equity and Access to Housing
• Broad Dispersal of Middle Housing
• House Options of All Shapes and Sizes
• Compact, Efficient Housing
• Sense of Belonging
• Opportunities to Build Wealth
• Interconnectedness of Housing Solutions
• Vibrant Neighborhoods

A home is a home regardless of the number of dwelling units. Our neighborhoods are better if they inclusively reflect the full diversity of our community: people of all colors, of all ages and abilities, renters, homeowners, families, childless couples, and singles. The housing needs of such a varied population warrant the introduction of a correspondingly diverse range of housing options.
 
The lack of housing affordability and choice is increasingly a generational dilemma. I fully recognize my privilege as a baby boomer who comfortably occupies a mortgage-free (albeit very humble) home, now worth seven times more than the 1989 price my wife and I paid for it. Most younger persons and families of average means simply cannot afford to buy a house like the one we own. I do worry for their future, and the future of our society if the financial chasm between the haves and have nots continues to widen and the range of housing options remains discouragingly narrow.
  

*    *    *    *    *    *

The next public hearing regarding the proposed Middle Housing Amendment will take place on Monday, April 18 at 7:30 PM. You can watch and provide public testimony at the meeting via Zoom (the Zoom link is on the meeting agenda, found on the City of Eugene website). You can also provide written testimony to MiddleHousingTestimony@eugene-or.gov or by mail to: Planning Division, 99 W. 10^th Avenue, Eugene, OR 97401.

Farmers Market Pavilion and Plaza Tour

 

Interior of the Farmers Market Pavilion (all photos by me).

Another week, another well-attended tour of a noteworthy project in Eugene. This time, the Willamette Valley Chapter of the Construction Specifications Institute, AIA Eugene, and the Willamette Valley Section of ASLA Oregon teamed to provide an insider’s look at the Farmers Market Pavilion and Plaza, which are rapidly approaching completion. During the tour, key members of the design and construction team provided a wealth of background information, greatly enhancing tour-goers’ understanding about what is destined to become a transformative project for downtown Eugene.
 
Our tour guides included Tanner Perrine, Senior Project Manager with Lease Crutcher Lewis (and current CSI Willamette Valley Chapter president) and Assistant Project Manager Riley Allen. Tanner and Riley described unique aspects of the construction process, including the decision to procure the pavilion’s cross-laminated timber panels from nearby D.R. Johnson Lumber Co. rather than a lower-cost Canadian source. This decision reflected Lewis’ commitment to sourcing products locally and minimizing the project’s carbon footprint, but also the challenges and uncertainties associated with cross-border commerce.

(l to r): Matt Koehler, Riley Allen, and Tanner Perrine.

Farmers Market Pavilion

 
Matt Koehler, ASLA, LEED AP, principal with Cameron McCarthy Landscape Architecture & Planning, and Christine Rumi, RA, LEED AP, associate partner with FFA Architecture & Interiors, ably presented the design team’s perspective. As I reported previously, the Farmer’s Market Pavilion and Market Plaza comprise just the initial phase of the greater Eugene Town Square redevelopment of Eugene’s historic park blocks. Matt addressed the challenges posed by the necessity of anticipating the Town Square’s phased development in the project’s design, as well as the Lane County Farmers Market mandate to utilize “hard” surfaces to accommodate as many vendor’s booths as possible (disqualifying the incorporation of lawn areas). Christine highlighted FFA’s strategic use of a simple, luminous form that not only alludes to agricultural greenhouses, but also wrings the biggest possible bang out of a very limited budget.

Interior view looking north.

Cross section of CLT wall panel.

 

What impressed me most during the tour is the spaciousness of both the pavilion interior and the plaza outside, which isn’t immediately evident if you only view the design while passing by the site in a car. Vendors and shoppers alike will enjoy a more interconnected, shared experience and sense of place than offered by any of the market’s previous incarnations. I suspect the combination of interior and exterior space for vendor booths will lead to the participation of more growers, enhancing the selection and variety of produce offerings.

View looking west across the Market Plaza toward the Pavilion. Note the pattern of different types of concrete paving. The areas around the trees will be infilled with tightly compacted decomposed granite.

 

When completed, Cameron McCarthy’s assertive patterning of colored and hand-seeded aggregate concrete panels, and decomposed granite will complement the relative plainness of the Market Pavilion. Matt said the composition of the concrete and DG panels alludes to the modernist design for the two Park Blocks to the south across 8th avenue, for which the art of painter Piet Mondrian inspired Wilmsen Endicott Architects and Lloyd Bond Landscape Architect’s 1958 design. The quality of the Market Plaza concrete already in place is outstanding, with nary a cracked panel in sight. 

I did find the 8,500 sf pavilion perhaps a tad too refined and crystalline in character. The board and batten lower walls will be painted white, further reinforcing its iceberg-like appearance. The polycarbonate panels that clad its upper surfaces aren’t as transparent as FFA’s renderings suggested they would be. On the other hand, the building’s simple form will function as a backdrop for the bustle of activities on the Market Plaza and suitably defer to a future Eugene City Hall, to be constructed at the north end of the plaza.  

West wall of the market hall. The metal straps toward the top of the wall are structural and will be concealed behind acoustical wall panels.

 
Whereas the exterior of the pavilion is icily cool, the exposed mass timber framing and CLT panels inside are warm and inviting. Most of the wood will remain exposed, but the upper portion of the west wall that separates the market hall from support spaces will be covered by acoustical panels to dampen reverberant noise. That surface will additionally host a specially commissioned piece of art. Likewise, the City of Eugene selected an artist to paint a mural on a portion of the building’s exterior facing West Park Street. I expect the art pieces to add a desirable touch of color to the building.
 

West side of the Pavilion, facing West Park Street. The area of yellow panels will receive a painted mural.

The Lane County Farmers Market intends to move in and welcome the community to the new Market Pavilion and Plaza on Memorial Day weekend, less than two short months from now. I’m looking forward to seeing the design come alive, bringing active uses back to what historically had been part of Eugene’s most important civic open space.