Sustainable Building Week was born of recognition that some of the Portland-area building industry organizations had overlapping and in some cases redundant events.

Organizers reasoned: Why not bring them together under one umbrella? So they did.

Next week the conference returns for a second year, bringing together architects, engineers, product manufacturers, builders, subcontractors, developers and others for a series of green-building talks and events.

The conference organizers hope to encourage cross-pollination. For example, landscape architects are welcome to join American Institute of Architects events.

“You’re just kind of breaking down the silos between the professions a little bit more,” said Terry Campbell, co-founder of Sustainable Building Week and one of five volunteers who run it. “This is very much a business professionals’ series of events.”

Most events are open to the general public, although the topics are geared toward building-industry professionals and aspiring professionals. Some of the events are free, while others require a modest fee or donation.

Last year, the inaugural Sustainable Building Week attracted 700 to 800 people to 23 events. This year’s iteration will have about 30 events.

Conference organizers came from professional groups including AIA Portland and the U.S. Green Building Council. The “epicenter” of the conference will be AIA Portland’s Pearl District office. Other events will take place downtown and in North Portland.

The conference will take advantage of some of the landmark projects that are buttressing Portland’s reputation for green building. Among the highlights will be a tour on Tuesday of Multnomah County‘s Central Courthouse (still under construction) before it opens to the public. SRG Partnership is the main architect, with Hoffman Construction serving as general contractor.

PAE will host an interactive presentation on its new headquarters due to rise in the Skidmore/Old Town Historic District. The five-story building, designed by ZGF Architects for developer Gerding Edlen, is expected to attain living building certification.

Also on Tuesday will be a discussion on building with healthy products, how different materials align with certifications such as LEED, WELL and the Living Building Challenge, and where project teams can put their resources and investment for the best performance.

Project teams are being asked to deliver higher-performance materials, Campbell said.

“It’s very much a trend that’s sort of increasing in its intensity,” he said.

On Wednesday, a tour will look at the newly remodeled and expanded Oregon Conservation Center anchored by The Nature Conservancy in Southeast Portland.

Monday’s schedule includes a talk on the financial case for net zero at AIA Oregon.

Many of the discussions will focus on green building through a diversity, equity or inclusion lens. One discussion will center on bringing green technology to affordable housing projects and projects located in diverse neighborhoods.

Unlike many for-profit industry conferences, Sustainable Building Week is organized as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

“This one’s a little bit more grassroots,” Campbell said. “We’re all volunteers.”

The schedule also features happy hour events, a hike and a morning yoga class. For more information, visit .

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In a Portland couple’s backyard, a small cottage looks like it could have been dropped in from Scandinavia.

The accessory dwelling unit, owned by Alex and Monica Seidel, has only 462 square feet of interior space. Large sliding glass doors and windows let in natural light. Cedar is employed extensively on the siding and attached storage, adding warmth.

The ADU was designed by Webster Wilson, one of several Portland architects who has found a niche designing some of the smallest buildings in the city. Wilson’s ADU design recently won a merit award from the American Institute of Architects’ Portland chapter. Local architect Scott Mooney also won a merit award for an ADU design that followed a pinwheel concept, with the floor plan spinning around a series of walls.

Startups are racing to design and build prefabricated ADUs and potentially meet the demand in Portland for several hundred units annually. Yet some homeowners are going the opposite route, paying for boutique designs and high-end materials.

The Seidels’ ADU, on North Fowler Avenue, cost about $325,000 to build.

“We were paying for some more aesthetics and longevity,” Alex Seidel said.

For architects, ADUs present a variety of unique design challenges. The Seidels’ ADU includes space-saving features such as a flip-up bed and California closets.

“You’re squeezing all of the functions of a house – like kitchens and bathrooms – and condensing it down to a small envelope,” Wilson said. “That’s the inherent challenge of ADUs.”

City rules require ADUs to be 800 square feet (or smaller), or 75 percent of the single-family home’s size, whichever is less. Furthermore, ADUs are almost always built on constrained sites so creativity often is required.

“That’s both part of the challenge and part of the excitement of them,” Wilson said. “They’re fun as a design puzzle.”

The projects are typically crafted on tight budgets by middle-class homeowners looking to house relatives or generate extra income. Local architects use ADU designs to demonstrate craft rather than boost earnings, Wilson said.

“They’re not lucrative from a business point of view for architects,” he said. “They’re definitely more of portfolio pieces.”

City leaders have encouraged the development of ADUs as a tool to help solve the city’s housing crisis. The City Council waived system development charges, and the city’s Residential Infill Project would expand the zoning where ADUs are allowed. ADUs can avoid design review if they’re shorter than 15 feet.

ADUs are no longer a new concept in Portland, but that’s not necessarily the case across the country. One of the Philadelphia architects who judged the 2018 Portland Architecture Awards said he’d learned the term ADU from the contest submissions.

Momentum to build ADUs is growing in California, which also faces a historic housing crisis. State legislation cleared the way last year. A pilot program funded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg is beginning, and Los Angeles is among the cities crafting ADU ordinances, according to media reports.

The Seidels’ ADU was completed in May behind their 1920s-era single-family home in the Arbor Lodge neighborhood near the University of Portland. The single-story ADU has numerous design features meant to accommodate Monica Seidel’s parents as they age. These include a deck that links the ADU and the main house, a wide hallway and low-mounted handles.

“It’s meant to be a place where they can age gracefully with beauty,” said Alex Seidel, a therapist.

Until then, the Seidels are renting out the backyard cottage nightly through Airbnb. (The ADU has a short-term rental permit required by the city, public records show). The ADU is rented out approximately 22 nights a month, Alex Seidel said. Pricing varies, but it is typically rented for about $100, although he added he believes it’s underpriced relative to the market.

The backyard cottage replaced a garage that was poorly positioned to store vehicles.

“I never was able to park in it,” Alex Seidel said.

Neighbors did not object to the construction, and the builders even became friends with the Seidels’ children, Alex Seidel said. Structure PDX served as the contractor.

“Everybody’s been supportive,” Alex Seidel said. “It’s a very light impact on the neighborhood.”

Alex Seidel said the process for building an ADU was not the headache he had been told to fear.

“It was – I’ve got to say – smooth,” he said.

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Portland architects gathered Friday night at Revolution Hall to honor the best in the business.

The American Institute of Architects Portland chapter’s annual awards event was at turns celebratory and downbeat. A local band, Soul Vax, kept the proceedings lighthearted, but if there was a theme to the evening, it was the architecture industry’s glaring lack of diversity.

Of all the licensed architects in Oregon, only four are African-American – all in Portland, one speaker noted.

Little progress has been made since civil-rights leader Whitney M. Young Jr. gave a keynote speech to the 1968 AIA National Convention in Portland, said Nkenge Harmon Johnson, president and CEO of the Urban League of Portland.

“If you were actively working to keep black people, to keep Native Americans, out of the profession, could the numbers be any worse?” she said. “I doubt it.”

Johnson urged architecture firms to do more to recruit African-American architects by lobbying alma maters to admit more diverse classes, and by recruiting from historically black colleges and universities.

Meanwhile, the award contenders were judged by a trio of Philadelphia architects: Karen Blanchard, Jeff Goldstein and Jason Smith. They were impressed by the quality of the submissions, which they said were better than those in any other city they had judged. They also noted a few local quirks, including the extensive use of wood in many designs and the proliferation of accessory dwelling units, or ADUs.

The winning projects were in Portland unless otherwise noted. The winners were:

President’s Award: Robert J. Frasca, founding partner, ZGF Architects

Young Architect Award: Jeff Guggenheim, Guggenheim Architecture + Design Studio

Emerging Professional Award: Dristi Manandhar, Carleton Hart Architecture

Honor Awards: Allied Works Architecture, National Music Centre of Canada (Calgary, Alberta, Canada); Waechter Architecture, Furioso Vineyards (Dundee)

Honor Award – Interior Project: ZGF Architects, Expensify Portland office

Honor Awards – Small Projects: Fieldwork Design and Architecture, Forest Park bridges; Fieldwork Design and Architecture, Day Wines (Dundee)

2030 Award: Opsis Architecture, Oregon Zoo Education Center

Merit Awards: Opsis Architecture, University of Oregon Price Science Commons and Research Library (Eugene); PATH Architecture, Carbon12; Skylab Architecture, Sinbin; Hacker, Lents Commons; Hacker, Oregon Episcopal School

Merit Awards – Small Project: Waechter Architecture, Slender House; Webster Wilson Architect, Fowler Avenue ADU; Scott Mooney, Pinwheel ADU

Citation Awards: Holst Architecture, Rockwood Club (Boys & Girls Club); BORA Architects, OSU Cascades Tykeson Hall (Bend); Lever Architecture, FLEX; Mahlum Architects, Umpqua Community College Taphoytha Hall (Roseburg); Woofter Architecture and Sink Combs Dethlefs, PSU Peter Stott Center renovation and Viking Pavilion

Citation Awards – Small Project: Open Studio Collective, El Nido Residence; Beebe Skidmore, Stephens Street Residence

Citation Award – Unbuilt Project: Waechter Architecture, Society Hotel Bingen (Bingen, Washington)

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With the emergence of autonomous motor vehicles and the surge in e-commerce, city planners are starting to ask important questions about how these technologies will impact the future of urban design.

, a University of Oregon initiative exploring these effects, has been awarded $1 million over the next five years. The grant from the Presidential Fund for Excellence will allow Urbanism Next to establish a new center, expanding on the work to examine the changes that could come with the growth of autonomous vehicles, e-commerce and the sharing economy.

Urbanism Next started about two years ago as a project under the Sustainable Cities Initiative (SCI) at UO. The creation of the center will build upon the research and partnerships already established through the initiative.

Urbanism Next lead and SCI co-director Nico Larco said the group started to realize there was research being done on the impacts on transportation, but not on the secondary effects such as street design and city planning.

“When we started looking into this and realizing the impacts these technologies are going to have, this become more of a ‘we need to get everyone thinking about this.’” he said.

With the increase in funding, the program will be able vastly increase its capacity. The center’s primary focus will be on interdisciplinary research and helping to inform public agencies, private firms and collaboration with local and national partners.

“We’re thrilled to have the support from the university,” Larco said. “There’s a strong interest in making real-world change, and it shows a strong commitment to this area of need.”

Earlier this month, more than 500 people from across the country attended the first Urbanism Next Conference. It was created through a partnership between SCI, the Oregon chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the American Institute of Architects – Portland, the Oregon chapter of the American Planning Association and the Urban Land Institute Northwest.

It’s the first time those four organizations have come together to talk about these topics, Urbanism Next program manager Becky Steckler said.

“We thought there was a pent-up demand for this type of thing, and we were absolutely right,” she said. “Even a year ago, this all felt like science fiction and now we’ve quickly made the transition. These are going to affect our communities.”

The new technologies are changing transportation systems and city layouts, Larco said. The work at the center will largely focus on how those changes will affect land use, street design, parking, housing and densification.

With the introduction of autonomous vehicles (AVs), one estimate says the need for parking could be reduced to 10 to 15 percent of current needs, Larco said. With so much land being made available at the same time, there could be a drop in property values with the sudden increase in supply.

On the other hand, curbside management will become an important topic, as vehicles will pick people up and drop them off throughout the day.

Larco has been leading a Portland-based emerging technology group made up of partners such as Metro, the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, the Portland Bureau of Transportation, TriMet, the Oregon Department of Transportation and the governor’s office.

The city of Portland has already been looking into the potential effects of autonomous vehicles. Last year the city launched a (SAVI) – a long-range policy on outcomes the city wants to see, including regulations for AVs.

That initiative will soon be incorporated into the city’s transportation plan, said Art Pearce, manager of Portland Bureau of Transportation policy, planning and projects. He oversees a group that guides transportation ideas through the long-range planning and policy, project development and construction stages – including discussions surrounding AVs.

“What do these new ideas and new technologies mean for creating a great city of the future?” Pearce said. “We’ve been working with (Larco) on developing a better understanding on where our focus should be.”

With the new regulatory policy, officials want to be explicit about the city they’re trying to build. With AVs, Pearce said there tends to be two visions of possible outcomes. In one, it will mean more vehicle miles traveled overall, causing more traffic and congestion and more people sitting in vehicles longer. The second possibility could be a future in which streets are used more efficiently with people in vehicles going to similar destinations and a reduction in parking needs.

“We’re looking at new technologies with open eyes with how they might impact our future city and the people in our city,” Pearce said.

The rise in Uber and Lyft usage could provide insight into how AVs will be used in the future, he added. To help with planning, the city will be funding a study of whether car-sharing networks cause an increase or a decrease of traffic and congestion.

“These emerging technologies are really going to direct the way we’re operating right now, so we’re going to have to (identify) these impacts and how … we respond,” Larco said.

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Projects by Kengo Kuma and Associates and Landry Smith Architect earned top “honor” awards from American Institute of Architects’ Portland chapter Friday night, during the 2017 Portland Architecture Awards event at Revolution Hall.

“This is an annual award program that AIA Portland has hosted for 25 to 30 years,” said Robert Hoffman, executive vice president of the Portland chapter. “It’s sort of a tradition.”

Each year, the AIA chapter recognizes its members’ top projects in four categories: built projects, unbuilt projects, small projects (under $500,000) and interiors. Honor, merit and citation awards are given to projects in each category.

“It’s like a gold, silver and bronze at the Olympics,” Hoffman said.

Also, a committee joined BetterBricks to select an Architecture 2030 award winner. The project had to meet or exceed the Architecture 2030 Challenge advocating for all new buildings, developments and major renovations to be carbon-neutral by 2030. The Yellowstone National Park Youth Campus, by Hennebery Eddy Architects, was chosen.

Kengo Kuma and Associates’ Portland Japanese Garden Cultural Crossing took the honor award in the Built Project category. Hacker was the architect of record on the project. The Cultural Crossing was honored for creating a “serene, pilgrimage-like journey from the city to the forest, drawing each visitor into a fully immersive experience of the traditional arts and culture of Japan,” according to an AIA statement.

Landry Smith Architect won an honor award in the Small Project category for its display framework for the Josef Albers exhibition in Eugene. The AIA chapter recognized the lightweight, flexible framework’s ability to display a wide range of works in galleries at the University of Oregon and other institutions.

This year’s installment of the AIA awards event drew 62 entries from chapter members. That number is down from past years, Hoffman said, in part because many architects have heavy workloads and little time to vet projects for awards.

“We have had as many as 80 to 90 projects in a year,” he said. “There is some great work out there.”

This year projects were judged by a jury of architects from the San Francisco Bay Area. They included: Allison Williams, principal with AGWms studio; William Leddy, principal with Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects; and Zoë Prillinger, principal with Ogrydziak Prillinger Architects.

“A lot of our jurors have roles in academia,” Hoffman said. “That is helpful when they talk about the projects.”

Each winning project was critiqued by the jurors during Friday’s ceremony.

Over the years the chapter has tried to broaden the appeal of the event, Hoffman said, by inviting speakers. This year, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer addressed the attendees.

“We want the public there as well,” Hoffman said. “We have added live music. We want everybody and anybody to attend. We want people to feel like this was something to celebrate.”

Other award winners not mentioned above were:

Built Projects

Merit – The Pavilion, Bend, by Opsis Architecture

Merit – L’Angolo Estate Winery, Newberg, by LEVER Architecture

Citation – Doppelganger, Portland, by Works Progress Architecture

Citation – Olympia Place, Amherst, Mass., by Holst Architecture

Citation – U.S. Embassy Compound, Paramaribo, Suriname, by ZGF Architects

Citation – Jane Sanders Stadium, Eugene, by SRG Partnership

Citation – Pearl West, Portland, by Hacker/GBD Architects

Unbuilt Projects

Citation – Sunnyside Veterinary Hospital, Happy Valley, by Guggenheim Architecture and Design Studio

Small Projects

Merit – Laura’s Place, Portland, by Architecture Building Culture

Citation – Treeline Stage, Happy Valley, by PSU School of Architecture, Diversion Design-Build Studio

Interiors

Citation – Roosevelt Middle School, Eugene, by Mahlum Architects

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The American Institute of Architects’ Portland chapter this month will hold a one-day symposium on “the value of an equitable and inclusive workforce.”

The symposium, scheduled for May 19, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 721 N.W. Ninth Ave., will focus on how Portland design firms can attract and retain the best talent pool and provide equitable conditions where individuals can thrive.

Speakers will discuss how architects, designers and others can recognize people’s differences but still provide everyone fair access to opportunities. The symposium will also address how to promote a sense of collective ownership and vested interest in the worth of the architecture community.

Speakers will include Saskia Dennis-van Dijl, a principal at Cameron MacAllister Group; Hanna Richards-James, an owner and principal consultant at Fantail Collaborative; Amy Donohue, a principal at Bora Architects; and Denise Harrington, owner of DMH Consulting Group.

Richards-James will bring her expertise in marketing and business and organizational effectiveness to the discussion. Donohue has experience in designing spaces for higher education, the performing arts and collaborative work environments. Harrington will speak about women’s leadership trends and ways women are developing stronger leadership voices in the workplace.

The symposium will also include representatives from the Oregon Asian Pacific American Bar Association, Ecotrust and Deschutes Investment Consulting. Participants will also discuss case studies from Ankrom Moisan Architects, Carleton Hart Architecture and Opsis Architecture.

The event will conclude with a networking opportunity on the Ecotrust Building‘s rooftop terrace. For more information, visit .

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The Emerging Professionals Committee of the Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architects will start a new event series this month called “Square Table” to provide a multi-generational forum for discussions about architecture.

Designer Melissa March of the DOWA-IBI Group organized the first event in the series. The forum “How Important is Licensure Anyway?” will be held from 5:30 to 8 p.m., at the Portland State University Shattuck Hall Annex, 1914 S.W. Park Ave., in Portland.

March has a master’s degree in architecture and is pursuing her license. She said the pros and cons of licensure have been a major topic of discussion among young architects. She hopes the forum will attract architects and designers from a range of generations.

“It’s an open forum for discussion, and we titled the event that way to encourage participation. We are interested in all different perspectives,” March said.

March said the forum will have a facilitator but only to introduce a topic and give background information and talking points.

“It is intentionally unmoderated because we felt it important that we didn’t drive the discussion in a particular direction and have (a topic) audience members can explore,” she said.

Robert Hoffman, executive vice president and CEO of AIA Portland, said when he was first approached about the forum he was somewhat thrown off by the title.

“It’s not a flippant subject and is very important,” he said. “We do want to have the sessions talking about it but we don’t want the general public to feel that with AIA it is debatable. It’s a very important part of the public trust in what we do and the complexities of the practice are vast.”

But Hoffman added that he thinks the discussion will be beneficial for all.

“I think it will be good to have us all in the room. AIA doesn’t question licensing and will try to help make the process better,” he said. “It should be an interesting discussion with the generation coming up. We want to understand their perspective and be supportive but explain the reasons licensing is very complex and very needed.”

More information about the forum is available at the .

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Design and construction industry professionals next week will gather for a panel discussion about cross-laminated timber (CLT).

The event, sponsored by the American Institute of Architects‘ Portland chapter, will take place Jan. 20, from noon to 2 p.m., at the Center for Architecture, 403 N.W. 11th Avenue. The cost is $50 for AIA members or $70 for nonmembers. Lunch is included. To register, visit .

The panel discussion was organized by designer Joseph Mayo with Mahlum Architects. He is the author of “Solid Wood: Case Studies in Mass Timber Architecture, Technology and Design,” which examines the rise of mass timber design through historical analysis and contemporary case studies.

Panelists for the discussion, titled “The Evolution and Future of Structural CLT,” will be Mayo, project manager Andy Dykeman of Lease Crutcher Lewis, engineer Eric McConnell of KPFF Consulting Engineers, D.R. Johnson Lumber President Valerie Johnson and D.R. Johnson Lumber Chief Operating Officer John Redfield.

Mayo said there is a lot of excitement about CLT. He constantly receives calls about its use.

“It is the wood product that could do anything and is a great product, but there are ways to use it and take advantage of its capacities,” he said. “There are also some challenges, and the idea is to demystify it and bring in a group of people together who have firsthand experience either making the product or making the building.”

The industry can build 30-story wood buildings if it wants to, Mayo said.

“We need to share information and take it to the next step,” he said. “We can keep building on this early expertise and take the material even farther.”

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Kengo Kuma, the Japanese architect in charge of the redesign of the Portland Japanese Garden, recently was picked to design the future National Stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Japan Times, Kuma’s design was selected after several months of reviews. In July, Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, scrapped an earlier design by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid because of its futuristic design and spiraling cost estimates, the article states.

Kuma’s design for the circular stadium features trees and plants inside and around the building. The roof of the round structure, dubbed “the hamburger” in Japan, showcases wood and steel and draws on traditional Japanese architecture.

Lisa Christy, marketing director for the Portland Japanese Garden, said she was happy to hear that Kuma was selected to design the stadium. She said Kuma won the bid for the $33.5 million garden expansion because of his superior design and attention to sustainability.

Kuma decided to bid on the redesign of the Portland garden, Christy said, after visiting it. He called the garden “as beautiful as any in Japan,” she said, and considered the project an opportunity to bridge the cultural gap between the two countries, she said.

The centerpiece of the garden redevelopment will be Kuma’s design for the Cultural Village. Its three buildings will house a learning center, a library, gallery space and a traditional tea café. The buildings will all be Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design-rated, Christy said.

“Kuma’s submission was so connected to what we were trying to do,” she said. “His Japanese aesthetic and culture and use of sustainable materials were so in line with what we are trying to do and who we are as an organization, tied to the past while looking forward to the future.”

The garden is Kuma’s first project in North America, Christy said. In early February, the first exhibit of his work, which will focus on the Japanese Garden, will take place at AIA Portland‘s Center for Architecture at 403 N.W. 11th Ave. Details will be unveiled at .

The Japanese Garden will reopen on March 1, Christy said, but construction will continue until the formal grand opening on April 1, 2017. Progress can be followed at .

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When Eric Wheeler conducts an architectural walking tour in one of Portland’s historic neighborhoods, he doesn’t just talk about style and time periods; he talks about how history has shaped the past, present and future.

Wheeler, who moved here about three years ago, offers about 50 different architectural and historical walking tours through Positively Portland Walking Tours. He has an undergraduate degree in history and a master’s degree in history education. He spent most of his adult working life as a real estate appraiser.

In the late 1990s, Wheeler combined his work experience with his lifelong interest in history and began to pursue historic preservation as an independent consultant throughout his native Wisconsin.

Now 67, Wheeler said he reinvented himself a few years back when he decided to leave the Midwest – and the more he learned about Portland, the more he liked.

“I was impressed with the climate, the topography and in particular the urban cityscape,” he said. “The compact walkable downtown, the mass transit and this amazing array of neighborhoods and yet every neighborhood has its own distinctive appeal and background.”

take place in Portland, including those conducted by the Architectural Heritage Center. Wheeler gives volunteer tours there.

Holly Chamberlain, managing director of the AHC, said Wheeler also is a member of its education committee.

“We appreciate his commitment to sharing information about our historical built environment,” she said.

The AHC offers tours of historic neighborhoods all over the city from May through August. They are accessible at www.visitahc.org/content/ahc-walking-tour-information. The cost is $12 for members and $20 for nonmembers.

Portland Walking Tours, at www.portlandwalkingtours.com, offers year-round tours of Portland. Tours run about $20 with group fares available.

Wheeler’s tours are listed at . They are hosted by the Center for Architecture, which is housed in the American Institute of Architects‘ Portland office.

Wheeler charges $15 for his tours. He says there are many good walking tours in town, but he feels his are more comprehensive and “tell the story of a community and define a sense of place.”

Telling the history of a place helps define it, he said, and Portland is going through a “historic experiment” with high density, mass transit and livability in the face of a growing population.

“How are we going to absorb another one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand (people) over the next few years?” he asked. “How are we going to maintain the charming aspects of our special urban places, our residential neighborhoods?

“With all the teardowns and infill and high-rise apartment buildings … this whole thing about high-density livability is a challenge for the city of Portland,” he said. “For me, as a historian… the cliché is that the past is prelude to the future and explains the present.”

Tours conducted by Wheeler stand out, said architect Mike Riscica, who has taken two of them.

“I’ve taken other architectural tours that can be boring, but he has a great way of telling stories that is not overly esoteric and not too nerdy,” he said. “He conveys the information in a way that’s very easy to grasp and I like how he tells the history of Portland, conveyed in a way that an architect likes to hear it.”

For example, when Wheeler recently conducted a tour on cast iron architecture in Portland, he said that movement began only after a catastrophic downtown fire in 1873 that destroyed many wood-frame buildings. So in 1874, the city passed an ordinance that all new buildings must have a façade of brick, stone or metal. Builders turned to cast iron – much of it locally supplied by former mayor and entrepreneur William S. Ladd, who owned “significant interest” in a Lake Oswego iron factory, Wheeler said.

At one time, Portland had 200 buildings with cast iron facades – more than any city except New York City, Wheeler said. But now Portland has only about 20. In the later part of the 20th century, civic and business leaders decided these facades were worth preserving, but not necessarily with cast iron.

“What they did in the 1970s and 1980s to try and preserve them is they replicated cast iron pilasters on the front of buildings, so what looks like cast iron is actually fiberglass or plaster,” he said. “You can’t tell the difference. They look the same.”

Wheeler suggests that his clients bring a magnet along on his tour so they can tell which are real.

Wheeler recently added another tour, in the Irvington neighborhood in Northeast Portland. It was a “semi-rural area of little orchards and farms,” he said, and didn’t start to grow until the first bridge was built across the Willamette River in the late 1800s.

He started a recent Irvington tour at the Lion and Rose Victorian Bed and Breakfast on Northeast 15th Avenue, he said. The building features a combination of Queen Anne and Craftsman styles.

“It’s a great starting point to tell the story, about the bridge building and the streetcars,” he said.

When Wheeler is giving a tour in South Portland, he also tells of “urban sacrifice” wherein many Italian and eastern European Jewish immigrants were displaced in the name of civic progress.

“So this old south Portland neighborhood was essentially eradicated in the early to mid-1960s,” he said. “Fifty-five square blocks were torn down and that’s now what we call the (South) Auditorium District.”

But even though Portland faces challenges today, Wheeler said that is what makes it an exciting place to live.

“What makes the city today so exciting and the future so interesting is what came before,” he said. “It is all about context. We have stories of people and events and places and all those wrapped together is where we are now.”

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