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We called ourselves “The Wanderers.”

Our group trekked all over the Portland State University campus looking for buildings that matched the clues in the Construction Specifications Institute Portland chapter’s third annual architectural scavenger hunt on Tuesday.

I joined architecture students as well as design and building industry professionals on the hunt for 12 buildings on the PSU campus. My six-member group took third place, and earned a book about Portland architecture.

The scavenger hunt is among regular networking activities hosted by CSI Portland. Others include a chili cook-off, a golf tournament and tours of prominent projects.

Participating in the scavenger hunt was quite enlightening. I occasionally go to the PSU campus, mostly to visit the architecture and engineering departments, but knew hardly anything about the history or design of the buildings.

I’d never noticed the Egyptian-style sculptures on the facade of the Blackstone, a 1931 apartment building converted to university housing, or that a 1989 addition to the Branford Price Millar Library was designed to curve around and preserve a large copper birch tree.

Each team was provided with clues about a building’s exterior and interior features, the year of construction and a historic tidbit. We then used that information to find and name the building and mark its location on a map.

My team was particularly stumped by this clue: “This building has a long life of renovation, starting as a carriage house (1926) and was rebuilt as the Bassist Building (1965). After acquisition by PSU, the building underwent two further renovations in 1998 (EDMC) and 2009 (GBD). It is noted for its Bauhaus style stucco and glass exterior construction, considered by some to be quite ‘artistic.’ ”

We walked all over campus looking for a stucco and glass building when we should have paid attention to the last word in the clue. The correct answer was the Art Building.

The great part about the event was that it got us talking and debating about which building best matched each clue. It was less intimidating than networking at a dinner or cocktail hour, and provided teamwork – an excellent way to make connections in an industry where that’s increasingly important.