The notion of equity in design can have many different meanings.

For instance, the U.S. Green Building Council in 2013 introduced Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design social equity pilot credits. They address equity within the project team, equity in the community around a project and equity within the project supply chain. However…

“When folks questioned us about the human impact we found it was missing the people side of the framework,” said Kimberly Lewis, U.S. Green Building Council senior vice president for market transformation and development.

Six years later, the LEED social equity credits remain a work in progress. But Lewis believes the design community can do more to move the needle.

“We struggle with amplifying the message,” she told attendees at a panel discussion Tuesday at the Center for Architecture in Portland. “Our heart and our mission are as powerful as we want, and it’s a great social justice message. But to the people on the street all things are local, and engaging vulnerable communities is not easy. Trust takes time, and we have a responsibility to shift the conversation. It’s us – even here.”

The discussion was part of Portland’s second annual Sustainable Building Week, a weeklong event dedicated to sustainable design and construction.

Equity has to do with access and empowerment, said panelist Elaine Aye, a regional manager with RWDI Consulting Engineers and Scientists. A good example, she added, is the .

Created in 2009 by Prosper Portland (the Portland Development Commission at the time), the Lloyd EcoDistrict uses public money to prioritize projects and programs that address transportation, water, energy, waste and education. It’s all in the name of prosperity, environmental quality and social welfare.

It’s a unique framework for sustainable development that has seen its share of success, Aye said. She pointed to an effort to retrofit buildings with LED lighting as one example.

“The value of a framework is it creates a path for an individual, an organization, a building type,” she said. “We had two listening sessions in the community and it was fantastic. We asked about resiliency and climate change, and it’s diverse. It impacts everyone differently.”

The key point, Aye said, is that the discussion involved the community and not merely a project team.

“In the world of an eco-district it is the essential elements that have to be done,” she said. “There are resiliency, equity and sustainability; those are the essentials, and we have to address them systematically – not at the building level, but at the society level or at the city level.”

Money for such initiatives is always an issue, said panelist Dave Otte, partner and development director at Holst Architecture.

But Aye said the issues at hand go beyond mere funding. It’s also a matter of listening to the wider community before making critical design choices.

“I think we scale it up by having conversation, by listening and observing what’s in our communities and finding the touch points where we can effect change,” she said.

Panelist Afton Walsh, community outreach director for Walsh Construction, agreed and pointed to the passage last year of Metro‘s $652 million affordable housing bond measure as an example.

“If you live in the metro area, you passed a monumental affordable housing bill last November,” she said. “On top of the city of Portland bond from 2016 the community has really stepped up, and we need to now fix this. Implementation obviously is just getting under way, and that will be the real scorecard.”

To build equitably, Walsh said, means using new and more efficient materials to advance energy performance, indoor air quality and other areas.

But those are the places where developers often look to save money, Otte noted. That is particularly true with affordable housing projects, he added, especially those constructed with the expectation of profits from the sale of the building.

“The bond is a great step, but frankly we’re playing catch-up – and in some ways we’re going in the wrong direction,” he said. “There’s something to be said for a long-term investment in housing, and sometimes we lose sight of the fact these buildings will be around for 60 years, so much of it is based on the cost per unit and not based on the quality per unit.”

Otte added that he hopes this does not come back to bite public housing authorities in coming years when they make use of Metro bond dollars.

“Housing is not just a human right; it’s also health care,” he said. “So investment in housing will pay off in ways we don’t even understand yet. Look at the long-term benefits from an energy and social justice perspective, because every project out there will still have a (financial) gap; every project will struggle to find a way to get built. It’s a stop-gap and it is going to take everyone working hard together and having the conviction and drive to make it happen.”

Otte noted that designers and builders are in a strong position to guide the conversation.

“We are the trusted agents in society, more than politicians and policy makers,” he said. “People will listen to us, and that’s an exciting opportunity. It’s in this discomfort that we’re going to be able to move the needle. That’s where design gets exciting, is in that discomfort.”

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An exhibition now open in the Pearl District is not just a showcase for faculty members and students in Portland State University’s School of Architecture, but one that looks beyond what people usually associate with architecture.

“The main intent is to have a visual survey of work outside of the studio,” said Clive Knights, director of Portland State University’s School of Architecture. “The show is an opportunity to show the creative work we each do.”

The work of 12 individual faculty members and students will be on display at AIA Portland‘s Center for Architecture, at 403 N.W. 11th Ave., through Jan. 25. Entrance to the exhibition, titled “Extracurricular,” is open to the public and free. While many of the exhibits are tied to the built environment, others are installations or collaborative efforts.

“Some of us write, draw, make furniture, but they are all exhibited here,” Knights said. “We give writing and drawing the same weight as everything involved with building. They all feed the richness of our projects.”

Each exhibit was chosen by a PSU committee based on quality and a research statement. A crew of faculty and graduate students helped assemble the exhibits, which include work from professors Sergio Palleroni, Barbara Sestak, Todd Ferry and others.

“It took a large team of faculty and grad assistants to get this exhibit up,” said Andrew Santa Lucia, PSU assistant professor of practice.

Lucia, whose work is featured in “Extracurricular,” said that exposure for efforts often overlooked in the architecture realm was important.

“There are many avenues that architecture takes,” he said. “That was a big reason to do a show.”

One exhibit features research done by Sestak on how design affects people’s health. Another focuses on efforts by Ferry and the Center for Public Interest Design to help solve Portland’s homelessness problem.

A model shows how this year’s Pickathon stage came about. While the design was done in the classroom, the stage served as one of the major venues during the three-day concert series.

“The work we do outside of the classroom is work that is important to work we do in the studio,” Knights said.

Also, the Center for Architecture will host a variety of lectures about the importance of architecture while the exhibition is running. The next event will be a panel discussion on Jan. 4 at 6 p.m. Faculty members responsible for “Extracurricular” exhibits will participate.

“When we talked about the various forms of output, we looked at people who could write an essay or make a structure, all on architectural theme,” Knights said. “There are a lot of other things that go on in other areas like writing and drawing all aimed at architectural understanding that this (exhibition) explores.”

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The Portland Japanese Garden is one of the most highly regarded of its kind in the U.S., and an to help it achieve even more.

The desired effect of a visit to the garden, according to its website, is for the person “to realize a sense of peace, harmony and tranquility and to experience the feeling of being a part of nature.” The expansion will enhance that effect, thanks in large part to an intense engineering effort – a lot of gritty work that will make that sense of tranquility possible.

The $33.5 million project will create the Cultural Crossing: three new buildings – a cultural education center, a gardening building and a small tea cafĂ© – around a large public plaza. In addition, the garden’s entrance will be moved downhill, closer to the parking lot. The structural footprint will increase by 11,328 square feet to 20,191 total square feet of developed area.

At the construction site, trucks and heavy equipment lumber through the muddy terrain. Slabs have been poured for the buildings. Also, 30-foot-high walls to shore up hillsides on either side of the site are being formed via dozens of vertical steel pilings with horizontal layers of wood lagging holding back the hillside.

But it’s more complicated than that, said Josh Faulkner, construction superintendent for the general contractor, Hoffman Construction. First, two hillsides had to be moved.

“There were two hills that almost touched each other and we had to cut them back to create a giant rectangular space,” he said.

That meant moving thousands of cubic yards of earth off the hillside before structural work could begin.

Next, Faulkner’s crew created a soldier pile wall by inserting 40- to 50-foot steel piles into the ground and securing them with steel tiebacks, said Christopher Pitt of KPFF Consulting Engineers, the engineer of record for the project.

But first, transporting equipment up a narrow roadway to the site was a challenge, Pitt said.

“They had to do some selective excavation so they could get the drill rigs up there,” he said. “Also, working with the tree canopy above was a challenge since you have to take the auger up high and, once you do dig a hole, you have to drop in a soldier pile up to 70 or 75 feet.”

But the hillsides still put pressure on the walls, and to counteract that force, steel tiebacks were attached to the soldier piles, extending into the earth 30 feet at a 30-degree angle and attached to bedrock, and then filled with grout.

Pitt said the soldier pile wall method is fairly common and most often used in constructing basements, and it was deemed the best solution in this case.

“Initially there were design options that were less common or more novel that wouldn’t require soldier piles, but those were deemed more challenging and with less comfort level because they’re not common techniques,” he said.

The hillsides, Pitt explained, are in a historic landslide area but the soldier pile wall ensures stability.

“The whole point is the tieback extends through the part of the hillside that’s wanting to slide and push on the wall and gets anchored solidly in the bedrock,” he said.

All new Cultural Crossing buildings will be rated Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold, said Claire Foster, spokeswoman for the Portland Japanese Garden.

“Now we have two very strong retaining walls and three green-certified buildings that are bolted to each other and bolted to the hilltop,” she said.

Another unseen portion of the project will be construction of 24 geothermal wells — designed by PAE Consulting Engineers — at 300 feet deep. They will provide sustainable heating and cooling for all three Cultural Crossing buildings.

Geothermal energy is not used widely in the Northwest, Faulkner said, but that could change.

“Geothermal is used a lot in Colorado and becoming more so nowadays,” he said. “Like any trend, once someone starts designing that, then everyone else wants to do it too.”

Pitt agreed that geothermal is used less in the Northwest than in parts of the country with more extreme temperatures. The system is more expensive to install, he said, but ensures energy savings in the long term.

“Geothermal wells basically run water through and go very deep down to where the temperature of the earth is static,” he said. “It is a way to get some passive energy efficiency (by) taking advantage of the temperature of the earth … it’s very energy-efficient because the earth does the heating and cooling for you.”

The garden expansion was designed by world-renowned Japanese architect Kengo Kuma. He will be in Portland next month for the opening of an exhibition of his work at the Center for Architecture at 403 N.W. 11th Ave. set to run Feb. 4-29.

Pitt said working on the project has been a memorable experience.

“What’s exciting for us as structural engineers is working with great local architects like Hacker and Kengo Kuma,” he said. “The sky’s the limit for projects they go after.”

Kuma’s design drove the engineering and is “a very precise and demanding design,” Pitt said.

“His structures were very refined and in some cases minimized, with a lot of long roof cantilevers that come down to a very sharp point with very thin edges and straight lines and a very light, fine feel,” he said.

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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 cafĂ©. 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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The American Institute of Architects’ Portland chapter is gearing up for its annual awards celebration, and Executive Vice President Robert Hoffman is gratified that more than 80 entries were submitted – up from 60 last year.

This year’s jurors bring a high level of expertise, Hoffman added.

“We’ve been so lucky in recent years to have really, really conscientious and creative jurors,” he said. “Portland is a city of substantial size, and it’s not New York or L.A. or Chicago, but we have really great architects interested in coming here.”

The awards ceremony will take place Oct. 30 at Revolution Hall, at 1300 S.E. Stark St., with a social hour at 7 p.m. and the awards ceremony to follow. Tickets can be purchased .

This year’s jurors are Sierra Bainbridge, senior director at MASS Design Group in Boston; Betsy Williamson, co-founder of Williamson Chong in Toronto; and Kevin Daly of Kevin Daly Architects in Santa Monica, Calif.

Hoffman said the AIA committee that chose the jurors focused on finding architects with a wide variety of experience from different areas, and not just “anybody that was available.”

“We were trying to find people who will engage and work with each other,” he said.

Hoffman said people can get an idea of how the jurors work together by attending Jury Critique Night on Oct. 29, at 5:30 p.m., at the Center for Architecture, at 403 N.W. 11th St. Admission is $5 at the door or free for students.

On Jury Critique Night attendees will be able to listen to jurors compare notes and discuss entries – possibly giving hints about their decisions. The jurors will be seated on a stage while entries are featured on a large screen behind them, Hoffman said. They will then engage in an open conversation about their impressions.

“They will talk about what’s interesting, talk about trends and give some insight going into the next evening,” Hoffman said.

Hoffman will emcee the awards celebration, and he said U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici and Portland Mayor Charlie Hales will attend.

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Many factors influence design, but a new exhibit at the Center for Architecture is focused on the one considering health and fitness.

The exhibit, Building Fit 2015, uses photographs and text in large standing displays showcasing designs that encourage healthy activities like walking and bicycling. Health considerations can include whether a building is close to parks and healthy food sources, how it encourages exercise and how close it is to public transportation.

Brian Cavanaugh, president-elect of the Center for Architecture, said it’s now focusing on fewer exhibits, but more significant ones around specific themes.

Building Fit 2015 is the first in a series over the next two years that will focus on the effect of design on communities. Its purpose is to show designers, planners and architects how they can encourage physical activity and give greater attention to health through thoughtful design.

The exhibit, which opened Oct. 1 and will continue through December, mostly features works by New York designers; however, several local projects are included.

“We expanded upon (an AIA New York exhibit) to include local projects,” Cavanaugh said. “It gets at how design and health are related, and how the design of the built environment actually affects people’s health in a lot of different ways.”

Local projects featured in the exhibit include the Kaiser Permanente Westside Medical Center in Hillsboro, the Tilikum Crossing, the Academic and Student Recreation Center at Portland State University, Harper’s Playground in North Portland, Legacy Emanuel Medical Center Healing Gardens and Oregon Health & Science University‘s Collaborative Life Sciences Building.

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A Portland-based firm’s idea to provide transitional housing and services for the homeless under Interstate 405 earned first place in a design competition hosted by the American Institute of Architects‘ Portland chapter.

The concept by an Opsis Architecture team of Joe Baldwin, Jennie Cambier, Heather DeGrella and Bryan Hollar, Jim Kalvelage, Chet Morgan and Nate Wood took the top honor in the STITCH II competition. For the contest, designs were sought to serve the needs of Portland’s homeless population on an unused space under I-405 between the Pearl and Alphabet districts.

The winning entries were announced on Tuesday during a reception at the AIA Portland’s Center for Architecture. Vancouver, B.C.-based GBL Architects staffers Andrew Emmerson, Joey Stevens, Roberto Podda, Kelsy Whitten and Jason Smith placed second. Portland-based designer Jon Creighton took third.

The winner received $500, the runner-up received $200 and the third-place entrant received $100.

A jury of architects, construction and development professionals and government officials evaluated the 33 contest submissions, which mostly came from Oregon designers. The contest jury included Dave Otte of Holst Architecture, Don Stastny of StastnyBrun Architects, Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish, Bob Walsh of WALSH Construction Co., Jill Sherman of Gerding Edlen and Portland State University assistant architecture professor Margarette Leite.

The jury was unanimous in its decision to award first place to the Opsis Architecture team, Stastny said. Jury members liked that the design included transitional housing that also felt connected to the two adjoining neighborhoods, he said.

“Their proposal was very complete and in a lot of ways extremely well thought out,” he said.

The STITCH II competition was similar to one held last year in which designs were sought for potential urban gathering spaces over a portion of I-405. Like last year, the plan is to share with the city of Portland, Metro and TriMet the ideas generated by the competition for activating underutilized urban space, contest organizer Jonathan Dunn said.

Winning designs and honorable mentions will be posted on the AIA Portland website, at .

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Portland’s Center for Architecture is seeking Oregon and Pacific Northwest projects to round out “Building Fit,” an upcoming exhibit showcasing how well-designed environments can positively impact community health.

The center, operated by the Portland and Oregon chapters of the American Institute of Architects, will host for several months the traveling “FitNation” exhibit starting in either September or October, said Robert Hoffman, executive vice president of both AIA chapters.

The show, created by the AIA’s New York-based Center for Architecture, features examples of how architects and planners in partnership with neighborhoods and public agencies can encourage physical activity and other healthy choices through design, but lacks a local perspective, according to Hoffman.

“We’d like to add some projects that are more regionally relevant to the exhibit,” he said.

Portland CFA staffers are gathering nominations this month for projects in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest that can serve as local examples of design influencing health, Hoffman said. Nominations can be sent by email to info@cfapdx.org. The CFA exhibit committee will select the projects included in the exhibit and contact the designers and owners for materials to display.

For more information, contact Hoffman at 503-223-8231.

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The American Institute of Architects‘ Portland chapter is again seeking entries from students and young professionals for a design competition with cash prizes.

AIA Portland will accept submissions for the STITCH II competition until June 1 at 5 p.m.

The concept for this year’s competition is similar to last year’s in which designs were sought for potential urban gathering spaces over a portion of Interstate 405. For STITCH II, designs are being sought for the unused space under I-405 between the Pearl and Alphabet districts. The plan is to share with the city of Portland ideas for activating underutilized urban space, according to contest organizer Jonathan Dunn.

Proposals for the site under I-405 between Northwest Lovejoy and Kearney streets could include transitional housing, homeless shelters and services or public space. Submissions should respond to the neighborhood context and the needs of the city and homeless population.

Contest entries will be reviewed by a jury of architects, development professionals and government officials. Prizes will be awarded on June 9 at 5:30 p.m. at the Center for Architecture, 403 N.W. 11th Ave. in Portland. The winner will receive $500, the runner-up will receive $200 and the third-place entrant will receive $100.

Winning designs and honorable mentions will be posted on the AIA Portland website and displayed in the Center for Architecture gallery.

The entry fee is $25 for students and $50 for professionals.

More information about the competition is available at .

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