Stellar Apartments

Stellar Apartments (rendering courtesy of Bergsund DeLaney Architecture & Planning)

The Eugene branch of the Cascadia Green Building Council(1) invites everyone to a presentation on Thursday, September 20 about the innovative Stellar Apartments, an affordable housing project designed for St. Vincent de Paul by Bergsund DeLaney Architecture & Planning. Now under construction, the project is comprised of twelve buildings housing a total of 54 apartments. BDA designed one of the buildings to meet Passive House standards, whereas the remaining eleven buildings conform to Earth Advantage requirements. This distinction presents an opportunity to evaluate the environmental and financial tradeoffs of these different approaches. 

The research team of University of Oregon Assistant Professor Erin Moore, Solarc A-E Senior Energy Analyst Peter Reppe, and UO Graduate Research Fellow Brook Waldman performed a life-cycle assessment (LCA) of the project to evaluate whether the environmental impacts from the added insulation and materials required for Passive House are outweighed by the long-term operational energy efficiency and climate benefits.(2)  Along with Nora Cronin of St. Vincent de Paul, Sara Bergsund of BDA, and Win Swofford of the Ecobuilding Collaborative of Oregon, they will provide an overview of the project, discuss the key results from the LCA, and the lessons they’ve learned so far. 

What:  Cascadia Green Building Council presentation

When:   Noon-1:00 PM – Thursday, September 20th, 2012 

Where:   Tykeson Room, Eugene Public Library, 100 W. 10th Ave., Eugene OR
                        Please walk, bike, carpool or take a bus. 

Cost:    Free 

RSVP:  Space is limited! Phone: (541) 682-5541 or email eugene@cascadiagbc.org
 

(1) The Eugene Branch of Cascadia generates momentum towards a sustainable built environment by facilitating education and connections. The organization hosts monthly lunchtime presentations, tours, and quarterly evening events on the latest green building topics.

(2) Funding for the study came from University of Oregon School of Architecture & Allied Arts, the UO Green Product Design Network, the City of Eugene Green Building Services, and the Eugene Water & Electric Board.

 

Doubling Down on Trickle Up

“Good design trickles up,” proclaimed architect/landscape architect/UO emeritus faculty member Jerry Diethelm as first questioner during the City Club of Eugene’s September 7 meeting highlighting the winners of the 2012 AIA-Southwestern Oregon People’s & Mayor’s Choice Awards. “How do we double down on trickle up?” 

The timely allusion to Bill Clinton’s 2012 DNC speech aside, Jerry’s question elicited insightful responses from the distinguished panelists assembled to consider how well-designed built environments improve our lives. Michael Fifield, Robin Hostick, and Kaarin Knudsen praised the People’s Choice Awards program for bringing the best work produced by AIA-SWO firms(1) to the public for its consideration. The display at the Eugene Celebration engages visitors, develops their design vocabulary, and showcases design excellence. It’s apparent many of the annual street party celebrants relished the opportunity to vote for their favorite projects as over 800 submitted ballots. 

AIA-SWO and Architects Building Community definitely consider the People’s Choice Awards to be an excellent means to educate the public about architecture and urban design. It’s always a challenge for government, academia, or the design professions to impose “top-down” standards for design excellence. It’s much better for the future of our communities if all citizens develop an understanding of, recognize, and support good design (and the effort and investment necessary to realize it). Empowering non-designers with the skills to evaluate and make choices is a “trickle up” strategy. 

This year’s People’s Choice program drew 33 entrants across seven categories. The 2012 winners are as follows: 

COMMERCIAL DESIGN:
Nir Pearlson Architect, Inc. - The Hummingbird 

The Hummingbird - Nir Pearlson Architect, Inc.

INTERIORS:
Robertson/Sherwood/Architects pc - Barnhart Dining Center Renovation
  

Barnhart Dining Center Renovation - Robertson/Sherwood/Architects pc (photo by Jamie Forsythe) 

LANDSCAPE DESIGN:
Stangeland & Associates, Inc. - The Finishing Touch 

The Finishing Touch  - Stangeland & Associates, Inc.

MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING:
Dustrud Architecture pc - The Pearl

The Pearl - Dustrud Architecture pc (photo by Peter Dustrud) 

PUBLIC/INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN:
Rowell Brokaw Architects with Opsis Architecture - LCC Building 10 Adaptive Reuse

LCC Building 10 Adaptive Reuse - Rowell Brokaw Architects (photo by Eleni Tsivitzi) 

SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL:
Nir Pearlson Architect, Inc. - River Road Mini-Home 

River Road Mini-Home - Nir Pearlson Architect, Inc. (photo by Mike Dean) 

UN-BUILT PROJECTS:
Rowell Brokaw Architects - First on Broadway 

First On Broadway - Rowell Brokaw Architects

For the third year in a row, Eugene mayor Kitty Piercy presented her “Mayor’s Choice” awards. An enthusiastic public advocate for design excellence, sustainability, and smart growth, Kitty is a great friend of the local design community. The mayor made three selections: 

MAYOR'S CHOICE AWARDS:
2fORM Architecture - Pacific NW Publishing

Pacific NW Publishing - 2fORM Architecture (photo by Richard Shugar, AIA, LEED-AP) 

Nir Pearlson Architect, Inc. - The Hummingbird 

The Hummingbird - Nir Pearslon Architect, Inc.

PIVOT Architecture - Willakenzie Crossing

Willakenzie Crossing - PIVOT Architecture (photo by Jeff Amram) 

Despite the occasion to recognize the PCA and MCA winners, much of the panel discussion focused on the importance of the entirety of the built environment at the scale of the city rather than upon the merits of individual projects. As Michael Fifield questioned, “how do we weave the fabric that ties everything together?” He, Robin, and Kaarin identified their favorite cities and why they chose them. Notably, they observed that the features distinguishing their favorites occur at different scales and densities, suggesting that factors other than density (and the coming together of people it engenders) are also in play. Some cities are fortunate by circumstance of their natural setting and history; others are great because of deliberate intent. Ultimately, buildings are part of the fabric that makes great places, not apart from it. 

So, what’s the takeaway from the awards presentations and the City Club panel discussion? I’d say it’s simply that local architects, landscape architects, and urban designers are doing just a bit more, year by year, to raise the public’s awareness about design excellence. Perhaps the City Club of Eugene will make a panel discussion like the one at this past Friday’s meeting a fixture on its annual calendar. If we’re smart about it, we can make everyone care about architecture in our communities. We can nurture a grassroots level of expectation for good design. We can double down on trickle up and all win. 

(1) As well as work produced by members of the Willamette Valley Section of the American Institute of Landscape Architects Oregon Chapter.

Building Community Vision

If your calendar is open at lunch this coming Friday, September 7, plan on attending the inaugural City Club of Eugene meeting for 2012-13. The meeting will feature a presentation of the winners of the 24th annual AIA-Southwestern Oregon People's Choice Awards, as well as attempt to answer the question why good design should matter to our community. Voting for the People's Choice Awards took place during last month's Eugene Celebration.

For those unfamiliar with City Club, its mission is to “build community vision through open inquiry.” The Club explores a wide range of significant local, state, and national issues and helps to formulate new approaches and solutions to problems. Club members have a direct influence on public policy by discussing issues of concern with elected officials and other policy makers. Membership is open to all.

Given City Club’s mission, its regular Friday forums are a natural fit for the promotion of design excellence. Accordingly, AIA-SWO and Architects Building Community (ABC) recognize the value of forging a cooperative and lasting relationship with City Club. 

In addition to the announcement of the People’s Choice Award winners, Mayor Kitty Piercy will announce her three favorite projects of the past year, winners of the Mayor’s Choice Award.  

Rounding out the program will be a panel discussion about how well-designed buildings improve the lives of everyone. The scheduled panelists are: Michael Fifield, FAIA, interim head of the UO’s Department of Architecture; Robin Hostick, urban planner for the City of Eugene; and Kaarin Knudsen, Associate AIA from Rowell Brokaw Architects. Following the panel's discussion will be City Club's famously robust Q & A period. 

City Club meets at noon for lunch on the top floor of the Eugene Hilton. City Club is offering AIA members the same rate that its own members enjoy: $14 for lunch or beverage and dessert for $5. Guest/Gallery admission is $5 (free for City Club members). 

If you can't make the meeting, listen to it on KLCC (89.7 FM) next Monday evening at 6:30 PM.

What: City Club of Eugene meeting: 24th ANNUAL PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS…And Why it Matters to People Like You

When: Friday, September 7, 2012  11:50 am to 1:30 pm

Where: Eugene Hilton, 12th Floor Vistas Ballroom, 66 East 6th Avenue in downtown Eugene

AIA-SWO’s New Website

AIA-Southwestern Oregon executive director Don Kahle and webmaster Erik Bishoff have taken the wraps off the chapter’s shiny new website. You can find it at www.aiaswo.com. 

 

Improving AIA-SWO’s online presence had been a chapter priority for the last few years. Don would be the first to admit that the path to the unveiling of the new website was bumpy at times. Among other things, attempts to link it with the national AIA database proved frustratingly difficult. 

 

So, Don and Erik have instead rebuilt the AIA-SWO website upon a user-friendly WordPress platform. As reported in the latest Thursday at Three e-newsletter, this is more “stable and solid” than the static html engine that powers the now obsolete www.aiaswo.org site. The bottom line is a “superior look and feel,” along with “greatly improved” usability. 

 

As enumerated in the Thursday at Three news article, the features of the new site that are notably improved include the following:

• Featured news items are now front-and-center on the index page slider. No more hunting through text links for the latest news and events.
• A new calendar feature keeps members apprised of the latest chapter events, including updates from AIA-SWO and DesignSpring. You’re now able to conveniently check out what meetings, Lunch & Learns, and tours are taking place.
• The Thursday at Three AIA-SWO weekly newsletter will continue to be distributed to all members by email, but is also now archived to the AIA-SWO website.
• AIA-SWO members can sign up for email notices that announce when new information hits the website. This will be a great way to know about updates as they happen.
• Have something for sale? Looking for a job? Do you have an office to rent? Request a posting on the AIA-SWO bulletin board.
• Social media links—Twitter and Facebook now; Pinterest and LinkedIn soon to come—are featured prominently on the home page.
• Most importantly, the new AIA-SWO website incorporates a direct feed from my blog! My latest posts now appear simultaneously on both SW Oregon Architect and the AIA-SWO website. I’m honored to have my blog featured so prominently.

At the moment, the old site at www.aiaswo.org remains live even though the new site at www.aiaswo.com is ready for primetime. Don and Erik will soon consolidate the two such that the new site takes over the .org URL.

 

Don and Erik are justly proud of their achievement. Check out the new and most definitely improved AIA-SWO website yourself. I really like the changes and I think you will as well.

Whither City Hall?

Eugene City Hall (all photos by me)

We all knew the day was coming. The City of Eugene has abandoned and shuttered its City Hall, the event passing with little fanfare or sadness. A victim of institutional neglect and community indifference, the once celebrated building suffered a protracted decline.(1) It now sits vacant and forlorn, its fate all but sealed. 

City of Eugene administrators and politicians have pondered that fate for the better part of the past two decades. Something needed (and still needs) to be done. While the realities of City Hall’s physical shortcomings and the costs to remediate them took precedence in the discussions, its critical role as a symbol of civic government and community identity also figured prominently. The abandonment of City Hall leaves Eugene wanting for a new building emblematic of its citizenry and culture. It would be a shame if Eugene’s residents found themselves in future years without a city hall they could readily identify and point to with pride. 

It’s unlikely the now abandoned City Hall will ever be revived in a form that adequately preserves the qualities that made it an important example of mid-century public architecture.(2) As for a completely new building worthy of serving as the visible seat of municipal government for Eugene, I’m afraid the writing is on the wall. City officials realized taxpayers would not support the estimated $174 million boondoggle envisioned in 2008 by THA Architecture. The modestly scaled scenarios painted more recently by Rowell Brokaw Architects would do little to adequately consolidate the city’s far-flung administrative functions or ensure a structure befitting the civic stature that is associated with the institution of city halls. 

 

Not surprisingly, there’s been plenty of community debate about what Eugene can afford and deserves when it comes to a new city hall. Two individuals I know well and greatly respect recently contributed their voices to the conversation, both sharing their thoughts about converting the current Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB) headquarters into Eugene’s next City Hall. 

Tom Santee wrote a guest commentary in the August 19 edition of the Register-Guard in which he championed the idea of adapting the EWEB headquarters as City Hall. Tom served as EWEB’s public relations professional during the late 1980s when its current headquarters was designed and built.(3) He believes the highly visible landmark’s prime riverfront location and iconic form are ideally suited for repurposing as the city’s symbolic seat of government.(4) 

In last Friday’s edition of his weekly column for the Register-Guard, AIA-SWO executive director Don Kahle countered (indirectly) Tom Santee’s enthusiasm for consolidating city services in the EWEB building. Don’s principal objection to Tom’s plan is that the EWEB headquarters isn’t where a city hall should be. In Don’s mind, the building is literally and figuratively on the wrong side of the tracks, outside of Eugene’s downtown core. He also believes that, while attractive, the EWEB headquarters blocks views and access to the river. 

What do I think? With only mild reservations, I find myself in the camp of those who advocate transforming the EWEB headquarters into Eugene’s next City Hall. If EWEB is looking to relocate its administrative functions, I can’t think of a better and more sustainable outcome for its current home than to extend its life in civic service. 

By virtue of its physical prominence, visibility, and architectural quality, the dominant reading of the EWEB headquarters is of an important public facility. The community-inspired master plan for the redevelopment of EWEB’s riverfront property and Willamette River Greenway restrictions effectively would guarantee its distinction as the only major building near downtown to be located so close to the river. Its future within a park-like setting along the river’s edge is assured. Contrary to Don’s assertions, the EWEB headquarters does not block access to the riverfront but rather marks a point of access and extends the urban grid to it. The headquarters is one of the few buildings in the city that overtly acknowledge the river and its importance to Eugene. 

The headquarters is admittedly smaller than necessary to house all of City Hall’s functions. However, it could accommodate the majority of those associated with citizen contact, providing one-stop convenience for as many services as possible. Departments with less of a need for direct contact with patrons could remain located elsewhere.(5) The EWEB building already does feature generously proportioned public meeting facilities, an attractive atrium, and convenient parking. 

EWEB Headquarters viewed from Alton Baker Park across the Willamette River.

Some functions might necessitate construction of new spaces. For example the municipal court requires facilities tailored to security and other functional demands associated with the judiciary; I imagine these would be difficult to create from within the current fabric of the EWEB headquarters. Likewise, it might be desirable to construct a grand new council chamber, perhaps similar in character to the old one. Any new addition to the EWEB headquarters could occur as an annex to the west, away from river, in keeping with the riverfront redevelopment master plan.  

Don’s criticism of the EWEB headquarters being too far removed from the center of downtown is valid. Yes, it will forever be separated from what should be our community’s center of gravity by the Southern Pacific rail lines. Then again, the nearby Federal Courthouse is similarly isolated from downtown by the Franklin Boulevard/Mill Street approach to the Ferry Street Bridge. Eugene’s downtown is lamentably diffuse but shouldn’t be circumscribed to exclude EWEB or the Federal Courthouse. If anything, we should embrace connecting downtown with the Willamette River and restoring historic ties between the city and the waterway it was founded upon. 

Like Tom Santee, I believe converting the EWEB headquarters into Eugene’s new city hall can be a win-win scenario. EWEB could entrust its prominent, uniquely situated, structurally sound, and energy-efficient building to the City of Eugene rather than to a private enterprise that might permanently remove it and its riverfront prospect from the public realm. The City would secure an attractive new home for itself at a considerable discount compared to the cost of constructing equivalent space from scratch. Moreover, it would demonstrate its commitment to sustainability by highly valuing the energy embodied in the original construction of the EWEB headquarters. Rather than expending increasingly scarce resources and funds on a new building, the City would walk the talk and lead by example. 

I suspect I might be missing an important point here, a shortcoming which would bring into question the very underpinning of this concept. I have not studied the entire issue in detail. Perhaps Tom and I are mistaken and the idea of converting the EWEB headquarters into City Hall is a terrible one. 

What are your thoughts? What form should a new city hall for Eugene assume?
 

(1) The 1960 design by Stafford, Morin & Longwood was a winner of a juried, two-stage design competition. Regardless, murmurs about replacing the facility would begin all too soon as its deficiencies became apparent. These deficiencies include its vulnerability to collapse in an earthquake, and reliance upon an antiquated steam heating infrastructure, which the Eugene Water & Electric Board terminated this summer. 

 

(2) Otto Poticha is a fan of Eugene’s former City Hall. "With its unpretentious look and courtyard design, the building” he has said (it) "has a warm, friendly and inviting atmosphere... Our City Hall is a very special and unique architectural achievement... It is unique in the world as a city hall." 

 

(3) WEGroup Architects & Planners designed the EWEB’s headquarters. The cost of construction totaled $23.8 million in 1988. The headquarters is comprised of a four-story building with an open, atrium-style lobby that is connected by a skywalk to a two-story building to the north. EWEB’s plaza and fountain are well known to residents who walk or bike along the riverbank path between the buildings and the river. 

 

(4) City Council member Mike Clark also is a strong proponent in favor of converting the EWEB headquarters to become Eugene City Hall. 

 

(5) It needn’t include the Eugene Police Department, which recently moved its offices to a building on Country Club Road, across the river from downtown.