91ÊÓƵ

Portland State University’s School of Business unveiled its new building – part renovation, part new construction – during a ribbon-cutting event on Tuesday. Michael Kocher, project leader with Behnisch Architekten, which worked with SRG Partnership on the project, spoke with the 91ÊÓƵ Monday afternoon. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

91ÊÓƵ: How did Behnisch Architekten get involved with the project?

Michael Kocher: A couple different threads, I would say. One was (firm partner) Stefan Behnisch met one of the principals at SRG Partnership at a meeting one time and said if there is ever a good project, a good fit, maybe we could team up and do a project together. So they were kind of keeping us in the loop for this one.

The president (of PSU) at the time said we’d like somebody with a bit more international flair, somebody that brings something a little different here. And so that is when SRG saw the opportunity and said let’s team up with Behnisch and maybe that will make a very interesting team for the RFP.

91ÊÓƵ: What was breakdown of duties?

Kocher: Being here for all the construction demands on a daily basis is just something we are not capable of doing, so (SRG) definitely took the lead in that realm. In the early phases, our team – Stefan Behnisch, Matt Noblett, who is a partner in the Boston office, and myself – made trips out here. We were more in on the front end and towards the middle, and detailing it was more of a collaborative process.

91ÊÓƵ: What does a firm like yours, with an international profile, bring?

Kocher: It is different perspective. We just finished projects in the Ukraine, France and all these different countries. So, obviously, you build up a lot of different experience and knowledge of working with different cultures and different ways of doing things. I think what we bring is we take that shared knowledge from all those different cultures and it informs our architecture in a way.

91ÊÓƵ: What project had the most impact on the design?

Kocher: (PSU) saw our law school (the Angelos Law Center) in Baltimore and they said, ‘We want something like that in Portland.’ Every site is different. We get the idea that we like that building, we like that feeling. How do we achieve that in our project?

91ÊÓƵ: What are you most proud of?

Kocher: This space (the pavilion) is pretty amazing. Everybody is raving about it. The faculty and staff love coming through here.

91ÊÓƵ: What was most challenging?

Kocher: The renovation. You never know what you are going to find when you start taking walls down and seeing exposed structure. There were some challenges there.

91ÊÓƵ: What did you do to increase energy efficiency?

Kocher: We were going for the highest (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) status you can get, but we wanted to go beyond that and I think that is what our office brings. We saw an opportunity, with the climate, to not use air conditioning in the new building. (The new construction) is passively cooled. How we did that was to utilize a certain percentage of concrete slabs, ceiling fans and operable windows. They automatically open up in the night time to night flush, allow cool air in.

91ÊÓƵ: What will you use from this project in others?

Kocher: The cooling. It will be a metric. I wouldn’t say that we pluck and say we want to reuse this. It’s like we get into the design of the next project and when something comes up, a detail or how we resolve this color or that color, it will be like, ‘What did we do on the Portland job again?’

91ÊÓƵ: Did the end result meet your vision?

Kocher: I would say we are all very happy with the end result.