Advocates for allowing Oregon interior designers to stamp their own construction drawings are ramping up efforts to create a state-approved licensing program for the profession.

A bill proposed earlier this year, Senate Bill 1521, was backed by the Interior Design Collaborative and would have required interior designers to obtain a license to work on commercial spaces. It gained some traction, but failed to advance out of committee. However, IDC-Oregon recently hired a lobbyist, and members plan to reintroduce a revised version of the bill early next year.

Oregon interior designers cannot stamp their own construction drawings, but must instead rely on an architect for some projects to move forward, said Ingrid Hoffman, a senior interior designer with LRS Architects and a public representative for IDC-Oregon. A state statute also does not include interior designers in the definition of registered design professionals who can sign off on project plans before obtaining construction permits, she said.

“All we are saying is that we want to be recognized as a registered design professional if we have these qualifications,” she said.

Proponents of the legislation say licensed interior designers have sufficient knowledge of building and fire codes to attest to the safety of tenant improvements and other solely interior projects without the oversight of an architect. The American Institute of Architects disagrees. Nationally, the professional organization’s official position on the issue is that only licensed architects and engineers possess the necessary education.

Oregon AIA Executive Vice President Robert Hoffman said the chapter stands by the national position, but one of the questions on a current survey of Oregon architects asks for their opinions on allowing interior designers to stamp construction drawings. The survey results could reshape the chapter’s position on the issue, he said.

If legislation like SB 1521 were to pass, Oregon would join 28 states and Puerto Rico – they for interior designers, said Roberta Pennington, an associate interior designer with Ankrom Moisan Architects and vice president of advocacy for the Oregon chapter of the International Interior Design Association. Such laws identify and regulate the qualifications of interior designers to stamp drawings and obtain building permits, she said.

“All of the states’ governments have seen that it’s beneficial,” Pennington said. “It basically defines our scope to say, ‘I’m a registered design professional. Let me permit.’ ”

Under the Oregon interior designer licensing proposal, a board of industry professionals would issue licenses to designers who have achieved certain standards for education and experience and passed an examination administered by the National Council for Interior Design Qualification. These licensed professionals would then be recognized by the state as qualified to stamp construction drawings for commercial interiors projects.

Residential interior designers, kitchen and bath designers and consultants, and consultants at furnishing stores would not be required to register.

In the past, proposed legislation to create a state interior design licensing board has turned off legislators because they see it as an added layer of bureaucracy, Ingrid Hoffman said. The latest bill may scrap this idea and instead simply advocate for state recognition to stamp drawings for interior designers who have passed the NCIDQ examination, similar to the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards test for architects.

“We don’t necessarily need our own board,” said EMC Interior Design’s Ellen Cusick, an IDC member. “It would be nice to stamp my own drawings.”

State-recognized licensing would eliminate the need for Oregon interior designers to constantly justify the work they do and allow projects to move along quicker without an architect getting involved, Pennington said.

“It streamlines the process for our clients,” she said. “I often have to qualify my level of expertise.”

Allowing interior designers to stamp would also bring down the cost of doing business in Oregon, Ingrid Hoffman said.

“We’re never going to be able to compete on equal footing (as architects) because we’re always going to have to charge our fee plus a fee to hire an architect to stamp our drawings,” she said.

Although city of Portland building officials often interpret the state statute on registered design professionals to include interior designers, staffers from other Oregon cities insist that an architect stamp the drawings, said Andrea Bainbridge, owner of Portland-based interior design firm Bainbridge. That can be tricky for the interiors-only firm that has no on-staff architect.

“We have situations where we do have to go through an architect,” she said. “That’s been a problem because our long-term clients will often know they better just hire an architect. So it’s definitely lost us business.”

Misconceptions about the scope of what interior designers do is one challenge to getting licensing legislation passed, Cusick said.

“It would be a lot more clear about what we’re allowed to work on,” she said. “Architects can charge more because they have that stamp … I think a major barrier is people don’t understand what interior designers do. They think it’s all pillows and paint.”

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Andrea Bainbridge was glad to revamp a Portland State University student lounge that her interiors firm, Bainbridge, designed a decade ago.

“Right now, the space is nothing but a big room filled with tables and chairs,” she said. “It doesn’t gather people.”

PSU this past spring hired Bainbridge’s firm to study the feasibility of remodeling on a limited budget the 3,842-square-foot Parkway North lounge in the university’s Smith Memorial Student Union. In June, university officials gave firm staffers the go-ahead to design the project in time for it to be completed by the time students return this fall.

The project team, for a cost of approximately $200,000, is transforming the look and feel of the space so that it can better serve its dual purpose as a study area and event venue, Bainbridge said. A small corner stage will be enlarged and moved to the center, and theater lighting and acoustical drapery will be added. To make the lounge a better performance venue, firm staffers worked with a sound engineer and a lighting consultant.

Other changes to the lounge will reflect feedback from students, Bainbridge said.

“They wanted it to be gritty,” she said. “They wanted an urban, gritty music (venue).”

A new color scheme and graffiti graphic wall panels will help achieve this look, Bainbridge said. Also, the carpet will be removed, exposing the concrete floor.

“Right now, the space is really light and bright, so we’re going to get a dark gray ceiling and walls to get it more urban,” she said.

A new raised platform with a steel mesh railing will provide seating next to windows that face the South Park Blocks. This will enhance views from passersby into the below-grade lounge, Bainbridge said.

“You’ll see people’s heads,” she said. “People outside can see what’s happening inside.”

The remodeled lounge will better serve students’ needs, PSU construction project manager Kay Byrne said.

“Smith (Memorial Union) is basically the students’ building,” she said. “They determined there was a need to have something that was more of a comfortable gathering space for groups. There was nothing there that’s really that inviting for gathering and entertaining.”

PSU is a longtime client of Bainbridge’s. Her firm since 1998 has designed interiors throughout the student union. She said it’s been nice to go back and start refreshing those spaces.

“We have a long history in that building of remodeling different areas, and now we look at it and say, ‘It’s dated and tired,’ ” she said.

Because the lounge remodel project will be paid for with fees collected from students, their input played a crucial part in the design process, Bainbridge said. The design team met with student event and performance organizers, student government leaders and members of a student funds appropriation committee.

PSU students were clear about what they wanted, turning down initial remodel design concepts as too café-like, Byrne said.

“They said, ‘No, no, no; that’s more Starbucks. We want more grunge,’ ” she said.

Some of the students’ comments, such as a request for a black light, surprised Bainbridge.

“That’s still cool?” she asked them. “It was fun to find out that a grungy bar hangout has not changed in 40 years.”

Also important to the students was creation of a campus space where they had complete ownership, Bainbridge senior designer Heidi Payne said.

“Their overriding thing was a place just for the students,” she said. “The students voiced that they didn’t have a space for them.”

PSU is serving as the general contractor for the project, and crews started construction last week, Byrne said. The project is scheduled to finish by the end of September.

Smith Memorial Student Union Parkway North lounge remodel

Location: Portland State University

Cost: $200,000

Construction start date: mid-August

Anticipated construction completion date: late September

Interior designer: Bainbridge

General contractor: Portland State University

Other associates: Listen Acoustics; Robert Dupuy, lighting designer; System Design Consultants and Spectrum Systems Design

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A company leasing space in a relatively typical suburban office building in Beaverton is taking advantage of the recent economic downturn to leverage sustainable construction.

New York-based , a manufacturer and distributor of medical supplies, has leased approximately 100,000 square feet in Beaverton since it acquired Protocol Systems in 2000. When the lease came up for renewal in 2009, company leaders knew that the weak economy put them in a unique position for negotiation. So they insisted that upgrades worthy of a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating for existing buildings be negotiated into the new lease agreement. PS Business Parks, which owns more than 27 million square feet of office and industrial space throughout the country, even footed the bill.

Now, after nearly $1 million in building upgrades and months of energy-use monitoring, the team is almost ready to submit its paperwork to the U.S. Green Building Council. It may even exceed its original goal for a silver rating in the Existing Buildings – Operations and Maintenance category.

“It was the worst business climate possible (in 2009), so building owners everywhere had to be as receptive to the terms in a long-term lease as they would ever be,” said Peter Murray, vice president of operations at Welch Allyn and site executive for the Beaverton location. “They knew they’d have to make these investments, even though getting a client to stick around for a certain price level is not a straightforward (return on investment).”

After Welch Allyn built a LEED-certified addition to its New York headquarters in 2008, Murray teamed up with Len Harjala, facilities supervisor in Beaverton, to see if they could follow the corporate example. In 2009, they hired consultants from Bainbridge, an interior design firm with LEED expertise to conduct a feasibility study of the main building.

“In Portland, people might be tired to death of hearing about sustainability and LEED; frankly, every project we do is LEED now,” said Andrea Bainbridge, who founded the interior design firm in 1983. “But this project is different because it was tenant-based; they normally don’t care or can’t do much about it.”

Major upgrades included replacement of a 28-year-old HVAC system, an overhaul of lighting systems, and bathroom remodels that will save approximately 465,000 gallons of water per year.

The team also worked to convince employees to change their behavior in order to reduce energy consumption.

“It’s easy to assume that everyone knows how to recycle in the Portland-metro area, but there are apathetic people everywhere, and we had to get after them,” Harjala said.

The team installed kilowatt meters and monitored the use of everyday office supplies, and then presented the information to employees. Harjala was most surprised by the amount of energy-drain caused by personal space heaters, which added nearly $20,000 to electricity bills each year.

“Money was just flowing out the door,” Murray said.

Now a “green team” helps monitor the utility bills, come up with project ideas and encourage behavior changes.

The Welch Allyn project benefitted from a cooperative building owner and a favorable economic climate, but other companies may be able to achieve a similar outcome, according to Sermin Yesilada, a senior designer at Bainbridge and a LEED accredited professional.

“In Oregon, what people are already doing may comply in a lot of cases,” she said.

For example, Yesilada cited the landscaping at Welch Allyn’s Beaverton facility, which earned points in the rating system without any changes.

“That project will provide a good example that it’s possible to achieve LEED as a tenant-driven project.”

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has three branches – in Lebanon, Albany and Sweet Home. When the credit union decided to renovate the branches to better reflect the Linn County community, it brought in designer Andrea Bainbridge of .

The credit union’s design group wanted the branches to reflect the community’s relationship with the timber industry and local rivers, as well as its status as the “grass-seed king of the world.”

“The committee was all born, raised and living in that area, and their pride of that area is astounding,” Bainbridge said. However, “to do all of this tastefully was kind of a challenge.”

The plan is for teller counters to be made of locally sourced, recycled timber, Bainbridge said. On the floor, the design calls for a winding path of river rocks to be embedded in the ceramic tile floor, to create an impression of a river.

To bring the grass-seed heritage of the local area inside, designers created artwork by embedding actual grasses going to seed into acrylic panels that will be used as dividers between tellers.

Also, existing lights and HVAC systems will be replaced to increase energy efficiency. And each branch will receive an “identity wall” that includes the credit union’s logo etched into a bronze signage panel. That wall will be the focal point in each branch, Bainbridge said.

Construction at the Lebanon branch will begin in the first quarter of next year, Bainbridge said. The Albany and Sweet Home branches will receive similar renovations in the next two years, with the same major branding elements in their lobbies.

Bainbridge and Linn-Co also are working on a project to make the flat buildings’ exteriors appear more “lodge”-like. That will be another challenge, Bainbridge said.

Designers Heidi Payne and Sermin Yesilada are part of Bainbridge’s project team. Other project team members include lighting consultant Interface Engineering and exterior studies consultant Linda Barnes of Merryman Barnes.

Bidding will open to prequalified contractors in the coming months.

“On the Boards” is a weekly feature that spotlights local firms’ best design work. Submissions from architectural and engineering firms are encouraged. Please email ontheboards@djcoregon.com or call 503-802-7240.

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The outdated offices at Molalla Communications Cooperative will soon receive interior improvements designed by Bainbridge.

The firm’s headquarters building at in Molalla was built in the mid-1980s.

“It’s a wacky building,” Bainbridge designer Sermin Yesilada said. “There are a lot of different elements going on, like strange angles and ceiling heights. It was a challenge to organize the space and simplify it.”

Existing furniture in the office will be replaced with workstations, which will include glass panels to increase daylighting. Principal Andrea Bainbridge and Yesilada worked with Northwest glass artist to create a distinctive logo wall made up of metal, glass and LED lighting.

Yesilada said the biggest challenge was improving the acoustics of the office.

“It’s an open office,” she said. “The ceiling is 14 feet high, and the existing tile was not good quality so it was pretty loud in there. We designed three drop clouds to make the space perform better acoustically.”

R&H Construction is scheduled to begin work on the renovation this month and finish in November. Linda Barnes of Merryman Barnes Architects is a project consultant.

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