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Portland State University design professor Nora Wendl finds the city’s built environment beautiful, pleasurable and exciting. But she also believes it has problems that are worth exploring.

Some are tied to urban development and design. A new PSU initiative, , set up by Wendl and two fellow professors, will encourage students to approach these problems in new and creative ways apart from a bureaucratic agenda.

In other words, it’s urban design without the red tape, Wendl said.

鈥淯rban design is usually tied up with policy and money,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here are many great (architectural) centers that look at policies and strategies for approaching urban design, but no one was really talking about the human scale in the built environment. That was something that seemed to be an opportunity.鈥�

Seminars, group discussions, exhibits and eventually classes will tackle various topics. Most will involve how people engage in the city’s urban environment. For example, the group will examine how the city’s low-income population has been pushed to its suburbs, and students will study ways to improve transportation. The group also will look at the food cart culture and how it could be adopted into the city more efficiently.

It’s about approaching design from the perspective of a Portlander rather than a developer or a government official, Wendl said.

鈥淔rom our perspective, an unconventional way to talk about the urban environment is to pose questions about its actual engagement,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e’re talking about the urban environment from a scale of a human being.鈥�

The collective will try to collaborate with other university disciplines, such as English and history, to further examine how people interact with urban environments. Literature, specifically by local authors like Chuck Palahniuk, could inspire new urban design strategies, Wendl said.

The initiative is all about creativity and thinking outside the box, which makes it unique, said Clive Knights, chairman of PSU’s Department of Architecture.

鈥淥ur goal is to bring new imagination to the common and classic questions of how to live in the contemporary city,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t certainly is an opportunity (to express the) knowledge we have, but also to look into the speculative trajectory of our work.鈥�

Its uniqueness goes beyond its purpose, Wendl said. The fact that the initiative is being started without a grant or a donation is rare for a new architecture program, she said. It furthers the idea that there are no restrictions and it is being built from the ground up.

The idea came about when Wendl and two other PSU architecture professors, Rudy Barton and Jeff Schnabel, decided they needed a new outlet to channel their urban design ideas. Wendl, for instance, helped start Pruitt Igoe Now, an international design competition examining the future of a 33-acre vacant site that formerly held a housing project in St. Louis.

鈥淚t’s a way to draw attention to the expertise the department has in that area, having been working in the city for collectively too many years to count,鈥� Knights said. 鈥淎nd it’s a way to focus attention on the how the university is so research oriented.鈥�

The overall goal of the program is to influence city policy. The seminars and classes often will involve proposed city projects. Students and faculty members will try to think of new ways to approach these projects and potentially propose them to city officials.

鈥淚t seems to us that a laboratory is sort of a space for experimentation and speculation and in many ways public,鈥� Wendl said. 鈥淥ur goal is to actually begin engaging with urban agencies and municipal agencies to actually see some of these projections, ideas and speculations eventually come to life in the built environment in Portland.鈥�

Portland is the perfect place to set up this type of initiative, Wendl added.

鈥淲e are all interested in using this urban environment as a catalyst for new research, design and experimentation,鈥� she said.

The first seminar will take place today at the Pied Cow Coffeehouse on Southeast Belmont Street. Representatives from ZGF Architects will examine the issue of artificial lighting being used at night in the city.