Portland landscape architecture firm PLACE recently was named the Architecture MasterPrize landscape and urban design Firm of the Year for 2019.

The honor, in the medium (10-49 employees) category, was for PLACE’s total body of work. The firm was founded in 2010.

An international jury of architects, designers, curators and academics selected honorees from among more than 1,000 entries representing 65 countries. Recognition from a broad group of peers meant a lot, PLACE principal Mauricio Villarreal said.

“For us it’s kind of a way of understanding that the values we practice here in Portland, Oregon, translate worldwide,” he said. “Having people that understand the value of involving the community in the design process, which is something Portland is notorious for, and the community worldwide is not as involved with, that translates those opportunities into great landscape pieces. It’s just really exciting to see that is visible to people all over the world.”

In addition to being named Firm of the Year, PLACE earned a Public Award for its work on the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building������ downtown Portland; an Outdoor Award for its work on the Swarovski Kristallwelten World Museum in Wattens, Austria; and an Educational Award for its work on the University of Oregon’s Hatfield-Dowlin Complex in Eugene.

Those three projects effectively represent the firm’s overall portfolio, Villarreal said.

“Our work in Austria is a very good example of collaboration with artists and architects, and the landscape really brings it all together,” he said. “The award for University of Oregon Hatfield-Dowlin Center – that was an award for educational design and it’s very much the work that happens when you work with universities. And Edith Green, it’s an award about sustainability and it’s the work that you do with civic work. It really starts touching the different elements of working with the public and working on campuses and working with private institutions.”

PLACE received honorable mention for its work on the Hassalo on Eighth project in Lloyd.

“That’s a really interesting project in the sense of landscape architecture and private investment and the public sector can come together,” Villarreal said. “It was really three parking lots with a tower, and now it’s a building that has created a community.”

Hassalo on Eighth also received a 2019 ASLA Honor Award for residential design, Villarreal added.

2019 Architecture MasterPrize winners were honored Oct. 14 at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain.

The post Portland firm receives international honors appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

When a rooftop solar array became part of the plans to modernize the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building, the project team encountered an unexpected challenge.

The electrical grid the downtown Portland building is plugged into is designed to send out power, but isn’t set up to receive power flowing in the reverse direction. This made it impossible for the newly renovated office building, completed in 2013, to participate in net metering.

Net metering is a process that allows buildings that generate their own power through solar panels to feed excess electricity that occupants aren’t consuming back into the grid. The electricity meter for such buildings can run backward and provides credit toward power consumed when demand exceeds the solar system’s production.

Instead, if Edith Green’s 13,000-square-foot solar array produces more electricity than the building is consuming, the panels are rigged to shut off. This is mostly a power company safety precaution to protect the surrounding high-density power grid, but it’s also a missed opportunity, said Scott Bevan, an electrical engineer with PAE.

“Our challenge is to harvest as much of the sun’s energy as we can,” Bevan said. “Using the grid as a battery is something you hear all the time. Your building could be importing energy back to the grid.”

The realization that the Edith Green building’s central city location meant it couldn’t utilize any excess solar energy it produces has spawned an effort led by Portland design and building industry professionals to raise awareness of the issue. Bevan was among several industry professionals who spoke last week about the topic at an event titled “Net Metering in Downtown Portland” hosted by the Cascadia Portland Collaborative. The group is affiliated with the International Living Future Institute, which administers the Living Building Challenge, a stringent green building that requires net-zero energy usage.

“The genesis of this was the shocking revelation about net metering and potentially why it wasn’t happening (in downtown Portland),” said Steve Clem, vice president of preconstruction with Skanska.

The limitations of Portland’s central city electrical grid to support power flow in two directions could impede development of more net-zero buildings, said Lisa Petterson, an associate principal with SERA Architects and an International Living Future Institute board member. This flies against carbon reduction goals set by the city of Portland and Multnomah County in its draft 2015 Climate Action Plan, she said. The plan, an update to a 2009 version, sets goals of promoting new construction and retrofit projects that achieve net-zero energy usage. City officials also hope to raise awareness and promote the Living Building Challenge and other green building certifications that have more stringent energy efficiency requirements than the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program.

A lack of net metering downtown would also present a significant hurdle to Portland attracting a large commercial project similar to Seattle’s Bullitt Center, Petterson said. Earlier this month, the Bullitt Center officially became the first office building to earn Living Building certification.

A large contributor to the Bullitt Center’s success is that through net metering, the building can use the grid as a battery when it produces more electricity from the solar panels on the roof than the occupants use, Bevan said.

It wasn’t until SERA staffers designed the Edith Green modernization project together with Cutler Anderson Architects that the project team found out this wouldn’t be possible in downtown Portland, Petterson said.

“It was really the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt building that engaged us in this conversation … that it was not possible simply because of where it was located,” she said.

Devices called network protectors are installed in Portland’s central city grid to stop electricity from traveling in the reverse direction, Bevan said. The devices help prevent failure of the high priority grid, but are the main reason why net metering is impossible downtown, he said.

When the Edith Green project team approached Portland General Electric about returning electricity to the grid, they were told it would be too dangerous, Petterson said.

“PGE wanted a factor of safety with the equation that they would never get a surge back into the grid because what would happen is it would essentially shut down the grid in that part of the city,” she said.

The design team explored several options for using the excess energy in other ways, such as setting up an electric car charging station or transferring power to another building, but none panned out, Petterson said.

The Edith Green project team eventually decided to pursue a LEED platinum designation for the building, which was received earlier this year.

At this point in time, the one feasible option for a larger commercial Living Building Challenge project in Portland would be to construct it outside the downtown core where the electrical grid is less complex and can accommodate net metering, she said.

“So far, that’s the only solution we’ve been able to come up with,” Petterson said.

The post Portland’s net-zero setback appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Promoting workforce diversity is a passion for Rhonnda Parsons Edmiston, the diversity and business equity manager at Howard S. Wright, a Balfour Beatty Co. Last month the Small Business Administration‘s Portland office recognized Edmiston’s efforts by naming her a 2014 Oregon Small Business Champion.

Edmiston has spent her career working with small businesses and finding strategies to increase access for suppliers, subcontractors, veterans and women- and minority-owned businesses. She also works to educate young people about career opportunities in construction, and facilitate engagement between HSW staffers and the communities they work in, she said.

“I was brought on to help make a cultural transformation at HSW,” she said. “My job is to help small businesses identify opportunities to work with us and identify relationships with our project managers and superintendents.”

One recent success came during the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building renovation. She initiated the breakup of a large painting bid package into three smaller ones. A woman-owned company, Diverse Works Painting and Coatings, landed one of the contracts and ended up doing touch-ups on the steel-framed building as well as tenant improvements on several floors, she said.

“They did good work; there were no problems,” she said. “The next thing I knew, the project manager was telling other project managers. And now Diverse Works has dozens of projects in Portland and (is) trying to get up into Seattle.”

Edmiston also has spearheaded peer group interaction between 12 small subcontractors and several project executives and project managers. The quarterly business equity roundtables are geared to connect diverse job candidates with opportunities, she said. They also help increase the number of minority & women-owned business subcontractors and suppliers available to HSW.

“We have clients who value having community engagement on their projects,” she said. “It helps us build our client relationships and helps us in building relationships with the community. They welcome us into their neighborhoods and feel like we’re a good partner.”

The post Contractor’s diversity champion lauded by SBA chapter appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

People may not know current temperatures, but they know when they’re comfortable.

That theory is the basis for the climate chamber at the University of Oregon’s Energy Studies in Building Laboratory in Portland. Researchers can control temperature, air speed and humidity in the chamber so that building products can be tested and retrofitted elements’ benefits can be demonstrated.

On Thursday, the chamber will make its public debut during an open house. The idea is to show how the tool can help architects and engineers design buildings with greater efficiency.

One of the uses of the chamber is demonstrating that high levels of indoor comfort can be achieved without air conditioning. It’s especially handy to provide a physical understanding of numerical readings that describe human comfort levels, said architecture professor G.Z. “Charlie” Brown, the lab’s director.

“That’s kind of where the idea started,” he said. “If you can feel it, you can believe it.”

The climate chamber was completed two years ago with financial assistance from Oregon BEST and the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance.

Researchers built the chamber from a walk-in refrigerator formerly used by a farmer for pickle storage. The temperature of every surface is controlled through radiant aluminum panels. Approximately one-half mile of plastic piping carries hot or cold water throughout the chamber, and adjustments can be made to heat or cool each individual panel.

This ability to control radiant heat throughout the chamber is part of what makes it unique, Brown said.
“There aren’t many that have all radiant surfaces, which is its claim to fame,” he said.

The lab, since it was founded 30 years ago, has helped reduce energy consumption in building space totaling more than 2 million square feet. Besides the climate chamber, the facility has many other research tools – including an artificial sky for shading and glare studies. Lab staffers, based both in Portland and Eugene, have served as energy efficiency consultants on numerous projects throughout Oregon and worked with many of the state’s major architecture and engineering firms.

“The more architects we can touch, the better we can be,” lab program manager Terry Blomquist said. “We were knocking on doors trying to get people to save energy for years. Then people were knocking on our door.”

In the Portland area, the lab’s researchers have offered input on SRG Partnership‘s design of a new student commons and library at Portland Community College’s Southeast Center and SERA Architects‘ design of the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building remodel.

The earlier the lab is involved in a building’s conception, the better, lab research assistant Jason Stenson said.

“The energy savings is far greater if we’re involved in the design,” he said. “Often we’re looking at different design iterations and looking at the performance implications of those designs.”

Researchers have used the climate chamber to test the effectiveness of daylighting and thermal controls, heat pumps and water heaters, as well as compare single-pane versus double-pane windows.

A common finding has been that buildings don’t need air conditioning systems, even in summertime.

“It turns out you can expand the comfort zone by using ceiling fans,” Brown said. “As a consequence, we haven’t done a building (in) a while, consultant-wise, that doesn’t have ceiling fans on it.”

If you go

What: University of Oregon’s Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory open house

When: Thursday from 4 to 7 p.m.

Where: White Stag Building, 70 N.W. Couch St., Portland

More information: 503-412-3656, or pdx.uoregon.edu/esbl

The post Researchers put indoor comfort to the test appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

SUBMITTED?BY: HOWARD S. WRIGHT

Even before the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building was named one of the country’s top 10 examples of sustainable design by the American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment, the folks at Howard S. Wright knew the renovation project was something special.

“It’s that we’ve made a difference, a difference that will be good for people,” said Matthew Braum, a project manager for Howard S. Wright, which served as general contractor for the renovation.

Back in 2009, it was hard for some to imagine that an aging 1970s era concrete and glass building in downtown Portland would one day become the darling of the local green scene. When the idea was floated to use $137 million in federal stimulus money to renovate the building, more than a few people said the money would be better spent tearing down the existing structure and building an entirely new one.

In the end, though, the renovation went forward with an eye on turning the building into a structure worthy of a LEED platinum rating.
Everything about the renovation was about innovation,” Braum said.

The redesign features biophyllic and rhythmic aluminum shades on three sides of the building to optimize interior light while reducing thermal warming. It is 55 percent more energy efficient than the original structure and features elevators that generate energy to replenish the grid as they descend. Intelligent systems provide continuous monitoring of systems in the building.
Cutler-Anderson Architects of Seattle, which worked on design aspects with Portland-based SERA Architects, called the project “the kind of thing we reach for as designers.”

The building features 20 levels – including two that are underground – and more than 500,000 total square feet of office space that accommodates 16 federal agencies and approximately 1,200 employees.

“It’s satisfying to me,” project manager Braum said, “that, as a team, what we’ve accomplished will be here for another 50 years to serve the community.”

PROJECT?TEAM + STATS:
Location: Portland, Oregon
Cost: $137 million
Start date: September 2010
Completion date: May 2013
Owner/developer: General Services Administration (GSA)
Architect: Cutler Anderson, SERA Architects
Engineers: KPFF Consulting Engineers, McKinstry, Stantec
General contractor: Howard S. Wright

The post First Place Renovation: Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Building appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building in downtown Portland is reopening after a two-year, $139 million renovation by . Upgrades made during the -designed remodel of the 18-story tower are expected to reduce energy usage by over 50 percent.

The post Work on downtown federal building complete appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

This week, crews started installing the iconic steel “reeds” that will run up an entire face of the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building.

“It took a while to get going, but they’ve got the hang of it,” said senior project manager Jennifer L. Taylor said. “It will be quick now.”

The “reeds” will provide shading for the west face of the 18-story building, and reduce cooling costs, Taylor said.

The General Service Administration’s modernization of the building is well under way, and the reeds serve as a visible sign of progress – and the green features that will make the building one of the most energy efficient in the agency’s portfolio.

The project is being funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. That means that a project that would normally take about five to 10 years is being completed in 48 months, said GSA supervisory project executive Patrick Brunner. The fast pace has demanded a lot of organization and corners to be cut, but Brunner is confident that the team will finish the project by March 28, 2013.

To handle the accelerated pace of design and construction, the GSA used new delivery methods and co-location, Brunner said. During the design phase, architects, contractor , consultants and significant subcontractors worked in the building together. All of the firms worked on the same kind of computers and with the same Building Information Modeling software.

Once construction began, the project team moved into an office space in a nearby building to preserve the benefits of co-location.

“Having all the decision-makers on site saves time, and time is money,” Brunner said.

Howard S. Wright project manager Matthew Braun estimated that 20 percent of overhead was saved by reducing duplication of effort. Mechanical, electrical, plumbing and structural subcontractors all use software to make their wiring diagrams together, instead of creating separate drawings at different times.

The team is allowing as much work as possible to happen simultaneously. Crews installed a weather wall to close off the building’s interior, where hallways, bathrooms and stairways are located, so that those spaces can be built out while exterior work is taking place.

The project team also has moved a substantial amount of work off-site: Complicated bathroom fixtures were assembled off-site, for example, and curtain wall pieces and parts of the metal “reeds” that will line the building were stacked by manufacturers in such a way that they could be picked up off a stack and installed without needing so much staging time.

“Basically we went slower so we can go faster,” Braun said.

The project doesn’t lack complexity, particularly in green features. Through new technologies and advanced systems, the team is expecting the building to show a 60 percent reduction in water use and a 40 percent reduction in electricity from what code requires. A 170,000 gallon rainwater collection tank will be used to irrigate the site and flush toilets. The tank was installed in the building’s basement in a room that once served as a firing range.

Crews were trained for use of unfamiliar materials – for example, plastic pipes from Europe are being used instead of metal ones for some of the building’s systems. The reeds on the outside of the building are new to everyone – even the architects who suggested them. SERA had initially planned to provide shading with a wall of living plants, but that idea presented too much risk, Taylor said.

The reeds provide attractive building shading, and allow occupants to have clear views. The metal pieces are scattered in a random-looking pattern to avoid the impression of bars holding the building in. Taylor said that her team tried to foresee possible problems that could result from the reeds, such as them knocking together or wind whistling through.

“Whenever you do something new, you’re worried about unintended consequences,” she said.

When the project is over in 2013, Taylor says she’ll miss the way the crews are working on this project, with everyone in the same place.

“It’s hard to go back to basically working in the dark,” she said.

The post Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt building in time crunch appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A project to renovate the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building in Portland caught national attention last year when it was announced that an 18-story living curtain would be featured.

While the rest of the country lost interest in the project once the living curtain idea was scrapped, the Portland building community has kept an eye on work as it proceeds.

The Portland chapter of the Construction Specifications Institute will offer an up-close look at the renovation, courtesy of the project’s architects and general contractor, during a Tuesday dinner meeting at the Governor Hotel.

Don Eggleston and Russ Pitkin of , Troy Dickson of , and Pat Brunner of the General Services Administration will present information about the background and progress of the project as well as how specifications were handled.

Portland CSI holds a meeting every month, with a new topic or presentation each time. For more information about meeting programs, or to learn more about the organization, go to www.portlandcsi.org.

The post Green-Wyatt Federal Building, offered by Portland CSI appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Work has begun on the major renovation of the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building in downtown Portland. The 18-story structure, constructed in 1975, will receive structural, electrical and mechanical updates that could lead to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum certification. The remodel for the General Services Administration is being performed by general contractor Howard S. Wright Companies, with design work by SERA Architects.

The post Green Wyatt building begins renovation appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A plan to install what would have been North America’s largest living wall on the west facade of the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building in Portland has been deemed too risky, and too expensive, by the General Services Administration.

Portland’s SERA Architects and Cutler Anderson Architects of Bainbridge Island, Wash., received international attention for proposing 250-foot-tall vegetated “fins” to shade the federal building’s west side. The building’s energy performance is tied to the amount of shade it receives throughout the day, according to Don Eggleston, president of SERA Architects.

However, because of concerns about high costs of installation and potential maintenance of the vegetated facade, the building’s west side instead will be covered with a series of long, aluminum poles Eggleston calls “reeds.”

“It’s disappointing, but you have to look at the maintenance, operations and risk involved with a new building technology,” Eggleston said. “Once we started looking at the cost benefit of the living wall, we started looking for alternatives. The most cost effective and easiest-to-maintain option is aluminum.”

Construction is expected to begin this fall on a $133 million renovation of the 18-story federal building as part of a $5.5 billion stimulus award to the GSA to reduce energy use in its portfolio of buildings. The proposed living wall, when it was announced, was the subject of much media attention, and even drew the ire of Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who deemed it a waste of economic stimulus money.

The GSA’s Public Buildings Service was concerned about cost, according to Ross Buffington, GSA spokesman.

“The largest similar living wall system we found was only five stories high,” Buffington said. “We weren’t sure about having to prune it or how to irrigate it. We were concerned about the risk involved.”

Buffington wasn’t sure how the living wall compared costwise to the new aluminum shading system; however, Jon Crumrine, president of Portland-based Enviroscapes Northwest, said that low-end living walls go for $60 to $75 per square foot, and the price increases depending on the type of system.

Though Enviroscapes Northwest is able to install living walls, it has not sold any systems because of the high up-front costs, Crumrine said. He understands the GSA’s reasoning, but he said he’s disappointed a green wall won’t be added to the federal building.

“Progress is only made when someone takes a risk,” Crumrine said. “That’s what I thought this building’s design did. I don’t think it was a waste of money. In Europe, they are further ahead with living walls because the government has been aggressive in mandating that they are implemented.”

Large green walls like the one proposed in Portland are rare in the U.S. The largest is a 2,380-square-foot living wall installed last year by PNC Financial Services Group at its headquarters building in Pittsburgh.

Even though living walls are gaining in popularity, GBD Architects Principal Craig Norman thinks the GSA probably made the right decision.

“They were trying to think outside the box, which is great,” Norman said. “But I was concerned about whether or not it would work. It’s a great idea in concept.”

Researchers at the University of Oregon are testing colors for the building’s new shading system, which will be composed of curved, aluminum poles and provide 50 percent of the building’s shade. Aluminum often is used in architectural shading systems because the material is highly reflective. And Eggleston wants to be sure the material doesn’t cause too much glare inside or outside the building.

Eggleston does plan to add planters at the base of the federal building, and include some sort of climbing plant to shade the bottom three or four floors.

“We’ll see how far those go up the building,” Eggleston said.

The post GSA: Living wall out for Portland federal building appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.