As part of the current design/build team, Peter Meijer Architect PC (PMA) would like to comment on the proposed alterations to the Portland Building per the Type III Historic Resource Review to be presented to the Historic Landmarks Commission on Monday.

Our city is investing a lot in the concept to hide the Portland Building’s problems under a new metal skin. The most troubling aspect is that the Portland Building’s new facade would not even meet the intended redesign goals. The proposed “solution” is overly expensive, does not increase daylight, does not improve the work environment, does not meet the standards of preservation, and falls short of improving the urban environment. The solution would solve a single problem: keeping the rain off the original structure.

There are several reasons why covering the Portland Building is highly problematic. Primarily it’s the cost. There is a long-term, watertight solution that costs substantially less money to build and has been vetted by three to four professional firms, including PMA, that agree on the approach. A new metal skin will provide a warranty. A warranty will not keep water out and a warranty does not mean repairs are free. The dollars saved from not wrapping the façade in metal could potentially be invested in other city properties. It is fiscally irresponsible to waste money on a single structure.

Secondly, the window openings would actually deepen due to the application of the over-cladding, so daylighting would not be improved inside the building. This issue is the number one complaint of people who work in the building. And the new solution does not improve this condition even with the proposed new window glazing. You cannot get more daylight into the same size window by making the depth of the window larger. A professional approach would be to provide a full daylight study and software analysis focused on improving the working environment with improved daylight.

Also, in order to maximize the dollars spent, more workstations are being added to each floor. This would manifest into smaller, open workstations in the same amount of space that larger workstations occupy currently. The proposed design misses the opportunity to include implementation of new concepts for work space, new office environments, or accommodations for the changing demographics of the workforce.

Finally, the idea of adding a new exterior skin to a landmark building is disingenuous. City Council has consistently denied private developers the opportunity to demolish or significantly modify historic buildings because those developers were not meeting the intent of the preservation zoning code. When completed, the proposed solution will result in automatic removal of the building from the National Register of Historic Places – akin to demolishing the structure. Why is it OK for the city to support the proposed destruction of a landmark and disregard basic preservation zoning code?

There is widespread acknowledgment that the ground-floor atrium and parking garage entry do not work well in Portland’s urban street realm. Equally, there is widespread agreement that enclosing the atrium, removing the garage door “hole,” and improving the street façade would be an acceptable change to the Portland Building. The project does not provide enough response to the Urban Design Committee’s comments on improving the structure. In another disregard to the city’s own rules, an encroachment on the public realm is being requested. A request by a private developer to encroach on the public realm is routinely and emphatically denied. Why is it OK for an encroachment to be requested for this project?

In an attempt to bolster the misguided solution, our city has secured a current design partner of the original design firm, Michael Graves Architecture & Design, to provide written support on behalf of the sheet metal wrapped proposal. It is a known fact that the late Michael Graves loved the Portland Building, and it is troubling that our city would seek to counter Mr. Graves’ opinion after his death with the opinion of a lesser-known young partner seeking to carry forward the firm. And why is it OK for our city to decide the current colors are wrong and there is a need to refresh the building with new colors?

The proposed new building would no longer be an icon of our collective architectural history. As Karrie Jacobs noted in a 2014 ARCHITECT article on the Portland Building, “it’s a bad idea to do something irreversible when your judgment is clouded by disdain. Not to mention that Portland, despite its reputation as a bastion of alternative everything, is a city where strong regulation tends to prevent anything too flamboyant from being built. It would be foolish for the city to discard a work of architecture stranger than anything that it will probably ever build again.”

There is a way to make the Portland Building work. But in its current form, what is being proposed by the design team, with city support, is a building that will fall far short of the city goals, not improve key interior environments, and cause the potential loss of the most prominent example of postmodern architecture that many visitors from around the world come to experience or admire. Portland does not want to be regarded as a poor steward of the Portland Building. Wrapping the building in metal is the wrong solution.

Peter Meijer is founder and principal of Peter Meijer Architect PC. He has focused his career largely on building envelope science and historic preservation – specifically, historic renovations and condition assessments of existing and historic buildings. Contact him at 503-517-0283 or peterm@pmapdx.com.

The post OP-ED: Proposed metal skin would not be right for Portland Building appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The city of Portland’s proposed residential infill project gets some things right, but ultimately fails to recognize or learn from the varied housing types we already have in many neighborhoods. The city is seeking to create more housing in single-home neighborhoods, but the project’s significant downfall is that the proposed changes are not tailored to the unique character and diversity existing in each neighborhood. Instead, allowed or encouraged housing types are applied across the city regardless of whether they fit in.

As proposed, the residential infill project focuses on three major categories: scale of new infill housing, housing types and narrow lot development. A number of positive ideas within the proposal seek to accommodate the future growth of Portland. One of these is limiting the size of new single-family homes, a proposal that may help to curtail “McMansions” and limit demolition. Another good idea is no longer allowing skinny lot houses to have a front garage, which would fix a policy that created some really sad street fronts. But the infill proposal’s housing type options are applied across the board, with the only requirement being that sites are within a quarter of a mile from transit corridors and gateway nodes, and this is where the proposal loses its focused, thoughtful approach.

Over the past five decades or so, the growth of Portland has led to the development of neighborhoods with their own unique character and vibrancy. There are distinct differences between eastside neighborhoods such as Woodlawn, Ladd’s Addition, Buckman, Cully and Alberta Street. These distinct characteristics attract residents that support each area’s lifestyle and features. Each neighborhood matters as a unique place. The residential infill proposal needs to use the major categories as baseline strategies, but then tailor the application to better fit and match neighborhood dynamics.

Addressing the mass, scale, height and setback of new infill housing will go a long way to ameliorate the pace of demolition within existing neighborhoods. By regulating the scale of infill in direct relation to the surrounding context, new development will more likely be in harmony with the existing neighborhood fabric. Some neighborhoods are in plan districts with greater front setback requirements than proposed by the infill project. Allowing new housing to sit closer to the street than permitted currently under many plan district guidelines would erode the existing streetscape that embodies districts’ unique character.

Currently, R5 residential zones are limited to one dwelling unit per 5,000 square feet of lot area (a typical urban 50-foot-by-100-foot lot), and accessory dwelling units (ADU) are permitted. The infill proposal seeks to overburden R5 lots by allowing more ADUs. There is no proposed regulation on mass, scale and height relative to the existing structure, or regulation on location of the ADU. Would an ADU be allowed in front of a house? There are neighborhoods such as Mississippi Avenue and Alberta that are synonymous with small houses, tiny houses and multiple dwelling units on one lot; the proposal needs to be tailored to allow for multiple new units, but regulated to fit neighborhoods’ appropriate mass and scale. To retain the character of some neighborhoods, a limit of one ADU per lot needs to be retained.

Many neighborhoods (e.g., Alphabet Historic District) have existing older/historic homes that have been converted to duplex rental units. Such conversions are readily apparent because of the multiple entry doors, duplicated balconies and visual division of the street façade. In other neighborhoods, people who don’t live on the street near the duplexes wouldn’t know they exist. Many neighborhoods may support the infill proposal that encourages the conversion of older homes to duplex units, contingent upon inclusion of certain stipulations: the conversion of existing homes should retain a primary single entry on the primary façade in the same location as the original front door; and basement apartments should be accessed from side entries away from the street façade. As much as possible, the city should add stipulations to reward retention of an older house and to discourage demolition.

Triplexes simply don’t belong in some established single-dwelling neighborhoods. The proposal encourages triplexes on corner lots, which tends to create more development closer to the street – not a pattern that fits the neighborhood. There are transition neighborhoods, like the west end of Buckman and west end of Kerns, which already have triplex and quadplex units. Within some older neighborhoods, there are already models for higher density that work well in the context of that neighborhood: courtyard apartments and multi-dwelling units around a shared green space. These historic types as models for new development are far more sympathetic to existing development and more effective in reaching density goals than encouraging triplexes in the wrong locations and scattered without discretion throughout the city.

Density goals should primarily target transit corridors and close-in, underutilized commercial areas. While there certainly is room for increased density in older residential neighborhoods, haphazard development will damage these neighborhoods more than the increase in units will provide affordable development. Major transit roadways like Sandy Boulevard, West Burnside and West Glisan should have minimum height requirements to encourage higher density. Single-story commercial structures or car lots along these corridors add to the development pressures within residential neighborhoods.

The infill project does not recognize that capitalistic market economics drive affordability. Rental rates for apartments in neighborhoods with high real estate values will not be affordable. However, the residential infill proposal is laudable for seeking a broad solution to the need to provide more housing options.

Peter Meijer is founder and principal of Peter Meijer Architect PC. He has focused his career largely on building envelope science and historic preservation – specifically, historic renovations and condition assessments of existing and historic buildings. Contact him at 503-517-0283 or peterm@pmapdx.com.

The post OP-ED: Residential infill: One size does not fit all appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.