The long-planned project to build a massive hotel near the Oregon Convention Center is close to gaining approval. But the Portland Design Commission last week had some lingering details to discuss with the design team during a two-hour meeting.

ESG Architects of Minneapolis is designing the project, which calls for a 600-room hotel and a six-story parking garage with more than 400 spaces. The development is planned for property bounded by Northeast First Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and Northeast Holladay and Multnomah streets.

The design team has been very responsive to many areas of concern, city planner Tim Heron said. He plans to meet with team members several times to refine project details before the next hearing on Oct. 20, when he expects the Design Commission to give its approval.

Heron mentioned three major areas of concern: architectural coherency in response to the Lloyd District; street-level activation for both the hotel and garage along Northeast Holladay Street; and frontage and corner activation along Northeast Second Avenue.

Staffers took issue with the dark appearance of the hotel tower and need for more glazing along storefronts. They also had questions about proposed screening of the garage and street-level pedestrian coverage, as well as use of open slatting over entrances that allow for landscaping but provide no rain protection for people walking by.

Trace Jacques, a principal at ESG Architects, went over each point and explained that the color of the tower would be lightened, as requested by the Design Commission. The metal panels and glass tower will be in three shades of gray, with the darkest shade only for accents.

The metal skin will also be very bright, Jacques said, with a “very silvery, bright finish” and be made of Galvalume, a carbon steel sheet coated with aluminum-zinc alloy.

“That skin is meant to change with different atmospheric and lighting conditions, and it literally does change moment by moment,” he said. “The colors are the same, but the distribution and use are very different than it was before. The metallic finish catches light differently than just painted surfaces.”

Also, in following commissioners’ advice, Jacques said, a prominent stairwell has been moved from the garage corner so that elevator lobbies instead offer views at the corner.

The updated design also includes a new ornamental screening system for the garage and in front of the hotel’s restaurant, with more glazing added, increased retail space at the corners and intimate wood accents at entrances and portals.

One big change in the design to reflect advice of commissioners and staffers was to introduce retail space at the hotel’s southwest corner, Jacques said. The open trellis design could be closed, he added.

“It would allow for some planting below it but is at odds with this desire to have more shelter,” he said. “But it could be just clean hardscape and glazing.”

Retail space was also expanded at the northeast corner, and open bike parking was changed to a fully-enclosed retail space while the street-level generator room was dropped down one level.

The project has been through three design advice hearings and two design reviews since 2014.

Architect Paddy Tillet, a board member of the Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architects, said he has now seen the design three times and believes it has come a long way.

“The greatest challenge in working with a big building of this sort is to find an engagement between the building and the folks on the street,” he said. “The challenge of making scale work at such extremes is a great one, but what we’ve seen is a progression toward what we think is a very good solution.”

Stephanie Soden, chief of staff for Metro Council President Tom Hughes, told the commission that many public agencies – including the city, the state, Multnomah County and Metro – have invested “significant resources” to see the hotel built. It will create thousands of jobs and bring millions of tourist dollars into Portland, she said. Prompt approval is vital, she added.

“The project has experienced delays, which have increased costs,” Soden said. “Any further delays will put the project at risk, and final approval is needed as soon as possible.”

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A new 10-story office building planned in downtown now has the Portland Design Commission‘s approval, but not without regrets that the existing building on the site cannot be saved.

Demolition is looming for the 124-year-old Ancient Order of United Workmen Temple at Southwest Third Avenue and Taylor Street. The building formerly was on the city’s Historic Resource Inventory, but was removed to allow development of the new tower designed by Ankrom Moisan Architects. The Design Commission approved the project with a 3-0 vote on Thursday.

Commissioner Tad Savinar stated before the vote that he intended to abstain and wished he had done more to save the old building.

“This is a hard job, and I failed when the project came in the first time,” he said. “I think I could have done more in the interest of saving the Temple Building. If I had known then what I know now, I think we would have pushed harder. I feel that I let folks down.”

Commission Chairman David Wark hinted that he had regrets as well.

“I don’t mean to admonish, but I hope in the future in the same situation we can find a new path – it’s a very good building,” he said.

Ankrom Moisan Executive Vice President Murray Jenkins said he too was sad that the historic building couldn’t be saved, but explained that demolition is as much about risk of collapse as about the cost of a retrofit. The six-story structure is one of the tallest unreinforced masonry buildings in the city. It has multiple floor structures – some made of wood and some of steel.

“There’s a risk of actually doing construction to save it,” he said. “We’ve tried for a year to save it. We wanted to make sure it wouldn’t bring down the adjacent development.”

The Temple Building was designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque Revival style by Justus F. Krumbein, who was the architect of Oregon’s second state capitol building. Restore Oregon, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving historic places, led the charge to save the Temple Building.

Peggy Moretti, Restore Oregon’s executive director, testified before the Design Commission in August that the building is a “prominent resource” and that the design of its replacement “does not accomplish the goal of creating a new landmark.” Restore Oregon board member Matthew Davis repeated that message to the commission on Thursday.

“It is supposed to be replaced by a landmark, but I’m not seeing a future landmark in these latest designs,” he said. “We are asking you to deny the project.”

Downtown Neighborhood Association board member Grant Higginson agreed. He cited the restoration of the Brewery Blocks as an example of retaining historic character, and said the new office building design doesn’t meet that standard.

“City guidelines say to preserve, and the current proposal preserves nothing,” he said.

Although demolition of the Temple Building was a foregone conclusion, according to Jenkins, the design team plans to contact the Bosco-Milligan Foundation to determine which items can be salvaged. The plan is to create an inventory of reusable pieces.

Once discussion turned to the new building, it became clear that commissioners were pleased with the way the design team had responded to their suggestions.

Michael Great, managing principal at Ankrom Moisan, told commissioners he agreed with their previous comments that the first design had “too much architecture for a half-block.” So, the team moved the loading zone and garage entrance from Southwest Third Avenue to Second Avenue, and recessed the northeast corner to direct more attention to the historic Auditorium Building next door.

“We want to let it be the star of Third Avenue,” he said.

Frameless glass retail entries at the ground level will give emphasis to what’s happening on the inside, Great said. Instead of being offset, the two-story glazed main entrance will be centered in the middle of the block of Taylor Street, with a secondary entrance nearby leading to 100 bike spaces.

The new design also pushed back the 10th floor to make room for a rooftop terrace at the ninth level at the southeast corner.

Commissioners praised the updated design.

“I like the way it defers to the Auditorium Building, and the notch at the northeast corner is a nice move, and I like the way you moved the entrance,” Commissioner Don Vallaster said.

Commissioner Andrew Clarke agreed and said he was glad the new design moved the loading docks.

“The (loss of) the Temple is a little disappointing, but I like the (new) building,” he said.

Commissioner Julie Livingston said she liked the way terra cotta accents were pulled down to grade, and Commissioner Jessica Molinar said she appreciated that the new design now has canopies all the way around for pedestrians.

“That’s great and I don’t find any issues that don’t comply with (city design) guidelines,” Molinar said.

Clarke, Livingston and Molinar voted to approve the design, while Savinar and Wark abstained.

Also on Thursday, the Design Commission reviewed:

Headquarters hotel

The first request for design advice for a new, massive hotel near the Oregon Convention Center was issued two years ago. As such, Thursday’s hearing was expected to be “more like a design advice request hearing,” city planner Tim Heron said in his report on the project.

Now, the design should have a better chance of gaining approval when it comes back before the commission in a few weeks, Heron said.

“We hope to have a really successful Oct. 20 hearing,” he said.

The 14-story, 600-room hotel will be on a superblock, Heron said. On the block next to it, a six-story garage will hold more than 400 parking spaces.

Design commissioners and the applicant, ESG Architects of Minneapolis, spent two hours discussing staff concerns. Among them were unresolved issues involving architectural coherency in respect to the Lloyd District as well as activation of ground floors and corners.

Southwest 11th Avenue and Alder Street hotel

A 15-story, 220-room hotel is proposed for the corner of Southwest Alder and 11th Avenue in Portland’s West End. A design advice hearing had not been requested for this project, city planner Grace Jeffreys said, and Thursday’s hearing was its first design review.

The building is designed by SERA Architects to reach a height of 150 feet. City staffers have several concerns, Jeffreys said, about the design and quantity of canopies, the quantity of columns, other details such as ground-floor setbacks and accessibility of the hotel restaurant’s entrance to disabled individuals.

The project is scheduled to return for a second design review on Nov. 17.

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Before Bora Architects could refine the design for a new middle school, it had to find suitable land to accommodate it. The firm studied about a dozen locations before they discovered an old publishing warehouse in an industrial park – it was the right site.

“It happened to be a spectacular site on the canyon,” said Chris Linn, a Bora Architects partner. “And they saw a synergy with their school program focused on sustainability and nature.”

The new Crystal Springs Uplands Middle School is now being built on a cliff overlooking Water Dog Lake Park in Belmont, California. The site is about a 10-minute drive from the original high school campus in Hillsborough, California. The college prep school for grades 6-12 had become overcrowded, and had no room for expansion.

The high school will remain in the Uplands Mansion, which was designed by Willis Polk for the Crocker family in 1917 and later donated to the school. An ornate ballroom in the middle of the mansion provides space for students to gather for daily morning assemblies, Linn said. A similar space, the great hall, will be included in the new middle school. That space in the central Academic Center will have two floors of classrooms on each side, an art studio, three science labs and a media center. The Academic Center will be surrounded by a freestanding gym, a multipurpose building able to serve as a cafeteria and a storage structure.

The buildings will fan out to allow views of the lake below, Linn said.

“No matter where you are you can see between the fingers of the buildings,” he said.

With a strong connection to Silicon Valley, the school will be very high tech, Linn said. All students will have iPads, and flat-screen monitors will be “everywhere in the building,” he added. The library will have fewer books than usual, he said, because so many are e-textbooks.

“The monitors are used for instruction and some rooms have two or three,” he said. “They have totally taken the place of blackboard, and most rooms have floor-to-ceiling white board on the walls.”

The palette for the new school will be “restrained and timeless,” Linn said, with exposed steel on the interior and exterior cedar cladding along with areas of concrete and large expanses of glass.

Stormwater will be treated on site through landscaping, Linn said. The new school will feature rooftop solar panels and radiant heating in floors.

“It will have a lot of natural ventilation and a tremendous amount of natural daylight,” he said.

Construction of the 48,000-square-foot project began about two months ago, Linn said, and completion is due by July 2017. But planning began several years ago.

Several factors contributed to the delay. First, the search for buildable land in the San Francisco Bay Area took a couple of years. And by the time a suitable piece of property was located, construction costs had escalated so much that the Crystal Springs Uplands School had to launch another fundraising effort. On top of that, the effort to rezone the industrial land was slow.

“It took a long time to find land and took a long time to get it rezoned, plus several years of public hearings,” Linn said. “So here we are in 2016 after six years of planning, public hearing and zone changes to get this under construction.”

Crystal Springs Uplands Middle School

Location: Belmont, California

Construction start: July 2016

Anticipated construction completion: July 2017

Owner and developer: Crystal Springs Uplands School

Architect: Bora Architects

General contractor: Turner Construction Co. (Sacramento, California)

Electrical engineer: Sprig Electric (San Jose, California)

Mechanical engineer: Therma Corp. (San Jose)

Structural engineer: Tipping Structural Engineers (Berkeley, California)

Landscape architect: Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture (San Francisco)

Commissioning: Integral Group (Oakland, California)

Design Beyond Borders is a 91��Ƶ feature offering a look at the projects outside of Oregon being tackled by local architecture firms. To have your firm’s projects considered, contact 91��Ƶ architecture and engineering reporter Beverly Corbell at 503-802-7224 or beverly.corbell@djcOregon.com.

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Amy Donohue, a Bora Architects principal since 2007, for the past 20 years has focused mostly on designing higher education spaces, but also performing arts venues and collaborative work environments. She also has taught at the University of Oregon and serves on the board of the nonprofit Literary Arts.

Donohue, a 91��Ƶ Woman of Vision last year, recently spoke with the 91��Ƶ. She shared how a $40 million grant from Microsoft will benefit students here and in China, how an innovative classroom design improves learning, why Northwest designers take more risks than others and how her volunteer work was inspired by a love of literature.

91��Ƶ: You were a speaker this week at InProcess, a quarterly lecture series of the Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architects where you talked about your latest projects. Can you bring us up to date?

Amy Donohue: I spoke about a partnership between the University of Washington’s Computer Science and Engineering School and Tsinghau University in Beijing and Microsoft. Microsoft is making a large donation for a graduate degree program where students can graduate with a master’s in science and technology that combines technology and entrepreneurship and design.

It’s a unique program with a design thread running through it. Technology and entrepreneurship often overlap, but this one has design as part of it. It’s all a project-based curriculum and is team-oriented.

Wright Runstad & Company is developing the base building (in Bellevue, Washington) and we have been asked to develop the interior 100,000 square feet that will include a maker space for making objects as well as advancing technology and the overlap of those two. It’s a groundbreaking project with a total donation from Microsoft of $40 million, though half will go to operational costs over the next number of years.

Students will be working in teams in the massive maker space, where you can make almost anything. It will have a large (metal) laser cutter, a full wood shop, 3-D printers, sewing machines, and from the lowest to highest tech, anything else you can think of. We had the ground-breaking (event) this week.

91��Ƶ: As Bora’s leader in designing academic environments, what are the latest trends in designing for education?

Donohue: There’s been a great deal of interest in the design of alternative large, round classrooms, and campuses from all over the country are taking note. The focus in the past has been on the best new housing and best new amenities (for students) and now, because of lack of attention, the emphasis is on learning environments to capture students. It’s not just the social side of the campus, and this (concept) has not been done anywhere else.

91��Ƶ: How was the round classroom concept used in your interior design of the new Learning Innovation Center at Oregon State University in Corvallis?

Donohue: Rather than starting with a typical classroom and adjusting to allow that interaction to take place, we wrapped the design around the activity based on fundamentals of that human interaction, a bit like theater in the round, with the instructor in the middle. In a 600-seat auditorium you can have 14 rows (between a student and the instructor), but with the instructor in the middle, students are only eight rows away. Eye contact is much better and students have the sense that they’ll be noticed in class because students can see one another and there’s a little bit of peer pressure to pay attention and get engaged. Round rooms do ask more of students and faculty, but it’s all in the service of increasing interaction. You can’t sit in that room and look at Facebook – you’re front and center.

91��Ƶ: How has the new classroom design affected learning at the Learning Innovation Center?

Donohue: After it was completed last fall we had a colloquium and invited faculty there to talk to other faculty about teaching in the round. We heard that students really enjoyed the interaction, and the learning outcome is better: grades, attendance, test scores were all better and students were asking more questions. Instructors are also enjoying the interaction and obviously pleased that students are doing better. They’re energized by the new space and how easily they can get out in the audience. It does require them to move more, and if they ask any questions they have to turn 360 (degrees) to make sure they haven’t missed anyone.

91��Ƶ: When you were chosen as a 91��Ƶ Woman of Vision last year, you said after working in New York early in your career you concluded that Northwest architects are more “open to pushing the boundaries” in design. Can you elaborate on that?

Donohue: There’s a certain freedom being on the West Coast in general, in art and design and history. The West doesn’t have as much history, so we feel a bit lighter and do a bit more and experiment a bit more. We do a lot of work with tech companies, and it’s no accident that most of the big tech powerhouses are located on the West Coast. That goes back decades because of many factors, but it’s a little bit because of that West Coast renegade attitude and always looking forward. We’re not so entrenched in what has been done and we’re always looking for new ways things can be done.

91��Ƶ: In addition to your design work, you’ve also been a longtime community volunteer and currently serve on the board of Portland’s Literary Arts nonprofit. Why is that important to you?

Donohue: They are working to make sure that everyone has a voice and everyone can tell their story, from the most experienced to the least experienced. Everyone has a story. Literary Arts is a major force in Portland and nationally in terms of literary organizations. We bring artists here every year and pack the (Arlene) Schnitzer Concert Hall to hear writers talk about their work. We also bring the Moth Radio Hour, which sells out super-fast and is such a great evening for Portland. We also have been very involved in a program to bring writers into high schools. We hire the writers and they work with students to teach them to write and tell their own stories. It really connects students to people who can help them find their voice and that makes a meaningful difference to lives in this town and in this state.

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The design of the Multnomah County Health Department‘s new headquarters will require changes. The Portland Design Commission denied a bid for approval on Thursday, though it will take another look at the project next month.

Construction of the nine-story, 157,000-square-foot building, designed by ZGF Architects, is set for a vacant lot at Northwest Hoyt Street and Sixth Avenue, next to Bud Clark Commons and near Union Station.

The building’s ground floor will house a pharmacy, a lobby, work space and a loading area. Upper levels will hold medical clinics, offices and administrative work areas. Other details include a precast concrete exterior with a glazed window wall system, acrylic stucco and painted metal panels for window projections and box rib metal panel for the ninth-floor walls and rooftop mechanical screen.

Joanne Fuller, director of the Multnomah County Health Department, told the Design Commission that the building will accommodate “500 living-wage jobs.” The neighborhood is expected to gain approximately 300 people per day, so programming will account for activity on nights and weekends.

But the building’s light color bothered Commissioner Don Vallaster, who said it should respond more to other buildings in the neighborhood.

“A lot of buildings use red brick, but this is a very cool, almost austere white building,” he said.

Gene Sandoval, a ZGF partner, said the color, which he called light gray, is in accordance with other civic buildings in town.

Another concern expressed by Vallaster was the lack of canopies, but Sandoval said they would block views from the street of an 8-foot-by-10-foot piece of art in the building’s lobby.

City staffers did not recommend approval and said the applicant needs to submit a plan for stormwater management and certify the size of the eco-roof with the Bureau of Environmental Services before bonus floor area can be granted. A maximum floor area ratio of 9:1 is possible because of bonuses from the bike locker room and affordable housing replacement fund.

City planner Puja Bhutani said the building also needs a larger entrance on Northwest Sixth Avenue. Staffers had concerns about coherence, materials and other details, such as metal sills with stucco surrounds on the windows. They also said a recess of four to six inches at the ground level should be shallower to prevent trash accumulation.

Commissioner Tad Savinar praised the ZGF team for giving a “very clear and illustrative presentation,” but also criticized the design.

“I would not approve because it’s a cage keeping the animals out and it’s not doing the neighborhood any good or the building any good,” he said. “For me, the canopies and east facade are stumbling blocks.”

The project is slated to return before the Design Commission on Oct. 27.

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The Portland Design Commission on Thursday gave its approval for a 12-story mixed-use project (including affordable units), but the decision may be appealed to Portland City Council because of two conditions the commission imposed.

The planned building at Northwest Raleigh Street and 14th Avenue was approved unanimously after about two hours of discussion, but Sarah Stevenson, executive director of developer Innovative Housing Inc., said she and her team will decide this week whether to appeal the conditions.

One condition concerns the design team’s groupings of oriel windows at the fifth and sixth floors with another grouping at the top three floors. City planner Grace Jeffreys said that staffers recommended moving all of the oriel windows to the top five floors.

As submitted, the design by Salazar Architect and LRS Architects shows a gray and white checkerboard pattern on one side of the building with the oriel windows on the other side. The groupings of oriel windows would be orange and the spaces between them, at levels two through four and levels seven through nine, would be white.

But in addition to lumping the oriel windows at the top of the building, city staffers also recommended bringing the checkerboard pattern around the building to fill in all the white spaces.

After the meeting, Stevenson said she was surprised that city staffers created a new rendering showing the changes they recommended. She said she would meet today with her staff and the design team to decide whether to appeal the two conditions to City Council.

The conditions attached to the approval could make a big difference in what happens next, Stevenson said.

“If their changes were purely aesthetic, we could move forward,” she said. “But these changes aren’t purely aesthetic and we need to talk about what’s the cost and impact of doing that redesign.”

The building’s design calls for 93 affordable units at the top 11 levels, ground-floor retail space, a lobby connected to bike parking and ground-level parking for 16 vehicles. Exterior materials include metal siding and vinyl windows over ground-floor brick and aluminum storefronts.

The redesign required by the city could impact costs and construction schedules.

“For me, it comes down to time,” she said. “We need to get started on this project and I’m feeling a lot of pressure to not delay on new affordable housing.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify the roles of the architecture firms involved in the project.

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“Daring, obsessive, experimental and boundless.” That’s how Ankrom Moisan Architects Executive Vice President Karen Bowery describes The Society, a new venture in “audaciously independent” hospitality design.

The Society was set up as an independent business this month, Bowery said. It’s working under the Ankrom Moisan umbrella, but soliciting work from other architecture firms as well to create unique designs for hotels, resorts and restaurants.

The hospitality business is hot in the Northwest, Bowery said, and her group will be able to meet demand for individual, eclectic and unusual interior design. Team members have experience working on such projects, and have wanted for some time to do more apart from the firm, she said.

“We’re an independent LLC (limited liability corporation), and we’re interior design driven,” she said. “We think smaller is better and we are people who live and breathe design, so it’s kind of a dream come true.”

Discussions about setting up a separate hospitality group started last year, Bowery said, and progress was made possible by her firm’s openness.

“It speaks to the culture of Ankrom Moisan, which allows people to seek their own path and be entrepreneurs,” she said.

Five team members of The Society are from the Portland office and five are from the Seattle office, Bowery said. Their freewheeling individuality is expected to be expressed in their designs; it’s already evident in their unique job titles.

Bowery, the Duchess of Mischief, is leader of the group that includes four architects, four interior designers and two branding strategists. Others’ job titles include: Hot Air Balloon Captain, Tour Guide of the Universe, International Man of Conspicuousness, Secret Agent and Resident Disc Jockey of Jupiter.

Each member of the “audaciously independent” team has a strong personality and a seasoned sense of design, Bowery said.

“Audacious means we are quite a group of characters and independent means we wanted to make a mark about being on our own,” she said. “Many well-known firms have a figurehead, but we are a collective that brings our individual voices and talents, which is why we have personalities to start with.”

Bowery said she doesn’t know why, but developers tend to not work with the same firm for both architecture and interior design; many seem to prefer smaller groups like The Society. She hopes that a more intimate and individualized approach will not only give her group a chance to branch out but also bring more work to Ankrom Moisan.

“I think it will help us get the hospitality work for sure,” she said, “but it needs not to be under the architecture and stand on its own two legs. If it leads to other stuff, then wow, that’d be great.”

The Society team has already worked on projects for Ankrom Moisan. One is the Moxy Phoenix Tempe, a Marriott-owned hotel that captures Tempe’s vibrant art scene through an evocative art display in the lobby and off-the-wall features. For instance, an elevator doubles as a photo booth, and each room has a record player and vinyl records.

This week, Bowery visited the opening of another unusual project handled by team members: two tree houses created for Skamania Lodge in Stevenson, Washington. The rooms, which sleep up to four, are elevated to overlook the forest and the Columbia River. Each one has a large, outdoor deck and an indoor/outdoor fireplace.

The Society is working on interior hospitality design projects in Seattle and San Francisco for other architecture firms. Though the group is split between Portland and Seattle, Portland-based Bowery visits Seattle every week. Also, members connect electronically on a daily basis.

“With technology you can really work anywhere, and everybody collaborates now and it’s expected,” she said. “And it brings the two offices together.”

Other Portland members include interior designers Brad Criswell and Stacey Clifton as well as brand strategists Sarah Bartlett and Willy Dang. Seattle team members are interior designers Gina Leone, Casey Scalf and Heather Hayes and architects Jason Lamb and Jenny Chapman.

Bowery said the new business’ name stems from the notion that all great societies start with a simple idea, which the name is meant to convey.

“It holds the imprint of luxury and exclusivity in one hand with the creatively mischievous personalities of its members in the other,” she said. “It started small, but has aspirations to evolve into a movement, with clients, designers and great ideas all invited to join in.”

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The late Kelly Edwards just couldn’t stop working. After retiring as principal of Scott | Edwards Architecture in 2013, he continued his involvement with the Portland firm.

“He was active pretty much to the end, and he loved to work on projects,” Scott | Edwards principal Sid Scott said. “He was the best all-around architect I’ve ever known, period. A very talented individual.”

Edwards died Sept. 1 at age 62. His real passion, Scott said, was for the technical aspects of architecture.

“He had his hands in most of our projects we’ve done over the years, especially from the technical side,” he said.

Edwards’ designs were “very technically sound, very well-crafted and built to last,” Scott said. “He was the most amazing problem-solver, and as the years went on he was literally a legend in our shop. If anyone had a perplexing problem that seemed hopeless, he’d grab a cup (of coffee) and they’d figure it out.”

Edwards also was a master at solving building code issues and an excellent planner, Scott said. Edwards performed planning as well as designs for several projects in Pacific City, including Shorepine Village, Pelican Pub and Brewery and the Inn at Cape Kiwanda. Two of his best-known projects in Portland were the Portland City Grill and Henry’s 12th Street Tavern, Scott said.

Edwards’ legacy will last, Scott noted, because he invested in the futures of many young architects at Scott | Edwards.

“He was very passionate about what he was doing and has been a fantastic mentor to all the folks who worked with him,” Scott said.

Scott | Edwards Architecture on Friday will pay tribute to Edwards with an open house at its office, at 2525 E. Burnside St., from 2 to 5 p.m. An informational presentation is scheduled for 3 p.m.

“We’re going to have stories and photos and whiskey,” Scott said, adding that Jack Daniels was Edwards’ favorite brand.

Edwards grew up in Junction City and received a degree in architecture from the University of Oregon in 1977. He began his career with the Van Lom-Kraxberger Partnership, and became a partner in 1988. Ten years later, he joined Scott Architecture, which soon was renamed Scott | Edwards Architecture.

“He was a fantastic business partner and when he joined us, my wife and I were running the firm,” Scott said. “His wife also joined us, and the four of us did everything and we laughed about being a mom-and-pop organization.”

Scott said Edwards was instrumental in the firm earning numerous industry and design awards, and growing to its present size of 65 employees.

Funeral arrangements and obituary information for Edwards are being kept private, Scott said.

People who want to honor his memory are invited to make a donation to , a metro-area furniture bank. The nonprofit provides individuals and families in need with basic and essential household furnishings.

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A virtual reality experience is out of this world.

With a unique headset strapped on and a controller in hand, a viewer can walk into a virtual apartment, and check out furniture, plants, carpet, art and décor. Of course, a grid pops up on the screen if the viewer is about to walk into a wall in the real world. That is helpful because the virtual scene can seem so real that the urge to want to reach out and feel something like an overstuffed sofa can be difficult to overcome.

“You can walk through the furniture if you want ’cause it’s not really there,” said Jared Hobbs, executive creative director of Portland software design firm Giant Astronaut.

Such experiences have attracted the attention of the architecture industry in Portland. Some firms are already using virtual reality, while others are studying it for future use. With hardware use now more comfortable, many professionals are exploring practical applications.

Technology isn’t new, but it’s better

Virtual reality is a video game technology. Software designers and others use or build onto that technology to create their own apps and interfaces so that individual designs can be explored.

Previously, virtual reality hardware development lagged the software, said Seth Chaffee, head of immersive production at Giant Astronaut. Use of early hardware produced by Oculus, for instance, often made viewers nauseous.

But now headsets such as the HTC Vive offer tracking devices to keep experiences more stable and real-looking. Now that hardware is comfortable to use, the industrial possibilities are much broader, according to SERA Architects associate Brian Stevens.

“The experience (formerly) was terrible and the hardware made the user feel sick – not a good thing for a presentation,” he said. “But with the release of HTC Vive, you can forget about the hardware.”

Virtual reality offers many advantages for designers. For instance, they can use it to show colleagues and clients exactly how it feels to be inside, outside or on top of a finished project, long before it’s built. Design details can be experienced in ways impossible via a rendering.

Also, virtual reality can save time and money, ZGF Architects associate Jonah Ross said, because the technology can take the place of a full-scale model when required.

“I think we’re on the cusp of a revolution and virtual reality is absolutely in its infancy,” he said. “But there’s so much potential.”

The real value of virtual reality is as a design tool, Stevens said. SERA Architects is currently using the technology for a few projects, he said, including a new student union for the University of Oregon.

“It’s a complicated space with three different buildings and we’re trying to create a new common space between all of them,” he said.

For a streetscape project in McMinnville, SERA’s team tweaked its design after using virtual reality. Designers learned through viewing that hangers for artwork would be at the wrong height – a detail that couldn’t be detected in a rendering.

“It was a perfect opportunity to use it, to actually ‘walk’ down the street before the construction documents got submitted,” Stevens said. “We actually changed parts of the design based on what it felt like to be in this space, and with it we can make a lot better design decisions.”

Through hand-drawn or computer-generated renderings (the most common visual tools for architects), arbitrary decisions are made about elements such as field of view, Stevens said. But that isn’t the way people actually see the world, he said, and virtual reality can accurately simulate any design and put it in human scale.

“Everyone knows it’s the next technology and we’re trying to figure out how to best use it,” he said. “It will completely change the way we do design.”

Cautious optimism and more study

Others aren’t quite so sure. Ankrom Moisan Architects is studying virtual reality, but executive vice president Murray Jenkins isn’t convinced it will live up to its growing reputation.

“Whether the hype materializes is yet to be seen,” he said. “I think it will have a role in our profession but don’t know if it will be transformative.”

Ankrom Moisan associate Ryan McCullough spends most of his time looking at possible applications. He is testing several virtual reality systems, including HDC Vive and Oculus Rift. He’s also checking out related hardware, like the augmented reality system Microsoft HoloLens, which looks like a pair of thick sunglasses.

The device can project a hologram into the viewer’s real world, McCullough said.

“I can have a building sitting on my desk,” he said. “And I can walk around it and make design changes and then watch it change.”

To further illustrate, McCullough gave the example of a project that has a complex hip and gable roof. A detailed look from the inside would not be possible without virtual reality.

“Now we have the ability to put on a headset and look up at that and say, ‘OK, this soffit needs to be moved over a little bit,” he said.

Although Bora Architects isn’t using virtual reality much at this point, architect Kyle Altman said the firm has discussed its potential and is studying it.

“We’re looking for ways to intertwine our design process, and I think it will be used a lot more in terms of clientele,” he said.

After seeing a recent demonstration, Altman believes Bora will use virtual reality more in the design process.

“We’re really looking into being able to look at a building before it’s built and get a general idea about proportion and scale and in terms of dimensions and materials and volume,” he said.

Denise Fornberg, a spokeswoman for Mahlum Architects, said the firm hasn’t ventured into virtual reality yet. However, she sees how it could be used to secure a lease for a condominium or an office space still under construction.

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When Mahlum Architects team members took on the design of a new 145,000-square-foot residence hall for freshmen at the University of Oregon in Eugene, they encountered a particular challenge: preventing the building from casting a shadow on a specific area.

Construction of the five-story, 531-bed, not-yet-named building is under way near the Many Nations Longhouse on the UO campus. The longhouse, dedicated in 2005, is used as a gathering place for Native American students at the university and for ceremonies by area tribes. The facility’s planned Expression Place, an outdoor circular courtyard, will be used for tribal observances and celebrations; openness to let in sunlight will be essential, particularly during the winter solstice.

To respect those cultural traditions, Mahlum principal Kurt Haapala said, the design team used 3-D modeling software to pinpoint the planned location of the Expression Place and then developed a “solar net” to test multiple building configurations. By overlaying this information on the site plan, he said, Mahlum was able to create a unique building form that fell beneath the path of the sun during the winter solstice. It wasn’t easy, he said.

“It was an unusual design and took an unusual approach,” he said. “That added to the complexity and character (of the project) – kind of fun and hair-pulling at the same time.”

The whole idea behind the design was to ensure that the residence hall would be a good neighbor, Haapala said, to not only the longhouse, but also two campus child care centers and the adjacent Fairmount neighborhood.

But there was one problem: the Expression Place wasn’t built yet, he said.

“We had to take all of our best guesses to pinpoint where it would be,” he said.

In addition, the Mahlum team had to consider the aspect of the sun on the horizon and even factor in the future growth of a hillside’s trees that could block sunlight, Haapala said.

Designing a five-story building with shadow constraints was a significant undertaking, he said. The design team performed dozens of siting studies for the building massing before they could even use the 3-D tool.

“We almost boxed ourselves into it,” he said. “But the building form became a product of constraints and also added to the richness of the layout.”

The term “solar net” is one that Mahlum used to describe a virtual net that was placed over the building with the 3-D software to show where shadows would be cast, Haapala said.

“This 3-D model sort of draped a net over our building and said you can’t go above this net in any space we’ve created,” he said.

In the final design, the residence hall’s three wings will have glassed-in lounge areas over a 10,000-square-foot ground floor featuring classrooms, lecture halls, seminar rooms, offices and study spaces. The first floor will also have an open lounge, an open hearth kitchen and a maker space.

Landscaped areas and green zones between the new building and the child care centers helped soften the building’s scale, Haapala said, and created shareable outdoor areas. Also, a walkway between the residence hall and the child care centers will help keep children safe.

Being a good neighbor to Fairmount residents meant carefully considering the building’s size, scale and street plantings to meet both city and university goals of promoting green streets and open space, Haapala said. A formal street entry will be located along the building’s south side to greet the neighborhood.

“We used appropriate setbacks and street trees to give a positive face to the Fairmount neighborhood, which also marks the edge of campus,” he said.

UO residence hall

Location: Eugene

Anticipated construction completion: fall 2017

Cost: $32 million

Owner and developer: University of Oregon

General contractor: Walsh Construction Co.

Architect: Mahlum Architects

Landscape architect: Walker Macy

Mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineer: Interface Engineering

Structural engineer: Froelich Engineers

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