Hammer & Hand will host an Aug. 6 event to present awards in the Portland contractor’s annual design competition.

The event, which will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. at the American Institute of Architect’s Center for Architecture at 403 N.W. 11^th Ave., is open to the public. The event also will feature the unveiling of an exhibit exploring how high-performance buildings can tackle climate change, said Zach Semke, director of business development for Hammer & Hand.

This is the second year for Hammer & Hand’s , which is open to architecture students and interns. The awards aim to encourage and recognize building practices that achieve net zero energy consumption, Semke said

This year’s competition attracted 50 entries, twice as many as last year. The entrants represent 24 universities from across the country, as well as from Toronto, Canada.

“It was fun to see it take off,” Semke said of the contest’s second year. “There is a lot of growing interest in high-performance building and the idea that buildings can generate more energy than they consume.”

Specifically, entrants were asked to design a net-zero energy, mixed-use, four-story multifamily building on a parcel bounded by Northeast Couch and East Burnside streets and 14^th Avenue.

Top winners will share a $6,000 prize and will have their designs put on public display in Portland and Seattle.

During the Aug. 6 event, Hammer & Hand also plans to unveil, “Evolution of Enclosure: The Anatomy of Building Performance,” a exhibit featuring the materials, techniques and designs used by four architecture firms to create net-zero energy, mixed-used, multifamily buildings, Semke said.

The exhibit will consist of four full-scale wall assembly cross sections, a suite of building science illustrations, project photography and an interactive set of high performance building animations.

The exhibit draws on built projects in Portland and Seattle that were designed by Holst Architecture, Scott|Edwards Architecture, SHED Architecture & Design and the Miller Hull Partnership.

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Three finalists are still in the running to design a public path through the former Blue Heron Paper Co. mill site in Oregon City.

The teams vying to design the riverfront path providing up-close views of Willamette Falls are: New York-based James Corner Field Operations with Portland-based PLACE and Seattle-based Miller Hull Partnership; Portland-based Mayer/Reed with Norwegian firm ����ø���ٳٲ� and Canadian firm DIALOG; and Portland-based Walker Macy with New York-based Thomas Balsley Associates.

Finalists will be interviewed next month, and a winning team should be selected by June, said Ellen Wyoming, natural resources engagement coordinator with project partner Metro. The design process is expected to kick off this summer and require 18 months, she said. This will include a significant amount of time gathering public input on the plans.

A path for pedestrians and bicyclists will be constructed along the Willamette River, adjacent to downtown Oregon City. The path will pass through the ex-Blue Heron site and Portland General Electric property to give the public access to nearby Willamette Falls for the first time in decades.

The project, estimated to cost $30 million, is a joint effort of Metro, the city of Oregon City, Clackamas County, the state of Oregon and site owner George Heidgerken. It has been hailed as the first step toward revitalization of the ex-industrial site; it has sat vacant since 2011, when the paper mill shut down.

About $10 million in funding has been secured from Metro and the state to complete the first phase of developing the path. The initial design phase budget is approximately $650,000.

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Seattle architect Robert Hull, who created a nationally recognized style of Pacific Northwest regional design, died Monday from complications caused by a stroke he had while on sabbatical in South Africa. He was 68.

Hull, a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and his business partner David Miller, formed the Miller Hull Partnership in 1977. Many of their projects utilized natural materials and were strongly connected to nature, said Rudy Barton, professor of architecture at Portland State University.

“Their work just exemplifies what it means to build in the Northwest,” Barton said. “They have a great appreciation for materiality. The tectonics of their buildings (is) superb. Their craftsmanship is remarkable.”

Hull was able to maintain a high level of quality on multiple scales of building types ranging from small vacation homes to institutional projects, Barton said.

“I really liked their library in Vancouver (Wash.),” Barton said. “It’s more than just a warehouse for books – it’s a place where community can come together. It has a great attention to the natural environment, particularly natural light.”

They designed numerous works in Oregon and Washington, including most notably the Fisher Pavilion at Seattle Center and the Tillamook Forest Interpretive Center in Oregon. The firm received several regional and national awards for The Bullitt Center in Seattle, and was named among the top architecture firms in the U.S. by Architect magazine in 2013.

Hull’s family, which includes his wife and two sons, will hold a funeral service in Cape Town, South Africa, on Sunday, according to a press release from Miller Hull Partnership. A public celebration of his life will be held at a later, still undetermined date.

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The $38 million, 83,000-square-foot Vancouver Community Library is ready to go, and officials expect it to be successful.

“N��� libraries bring new patrons,” said Sue Vanlaanen, spokeswoman for the Fort Vancouver Regional Library District.

When the library hosts its grand opening July 17, however, visitors looking out through the large atrium windows won’t see what planners had envisioned when the project began. The original master plan for the area, which included a boutique hotel, condominiums and office space, has been delayed indefinitely.

That plan also called for an underground parking garage, which would have included 200 spaces for library patrons. The garage was delayed as well.

Developer Killian Pacific announced its Riverwest development in 2005. In addition to the library, which was built on land donated by the developer, the Riverwest development would have included three mixed-use buildings and underground parking. In December 2008, Killian Pacific announced that it would delay work for at least a year. At the library ground-breaking in August 2009, Riverwest was renamed “Library Square.”

The original plan was for construction of all Library Square buildings to start and finish along the same timeline, but the 3.5-acre site is still vacant.

“The future of the project is going to be largely determined by market demand,” said Adam Tyler, a spokesman for Killian Pacific. The company plans to host marketing events this summer to seek office tenants for the next portion of the project, Tyler said.

However, the clock is ticking for Killian Pacific. The project’s parking structure is slated to be funded partially by tax increment financing, and those bonds need to be issued in 2014. The plan is then for the city to use $13 million in Local Infrastructure Financing Tool bonds to purchase part of the garage for library use; those bonds also need to be issued by 2014.

The project will need to be re-examined to “maximize the use of public funds,” said Alisa Pyszka, business development manager for the city of Vancouver.

While the rest of the project was delayed, the library went forward as planned. The building was funded primarily by a bond passed in September 2006 – so the project was not delayed when the recession hit, and its budget was never cut.

The first floor of the five-story building features 69 public-access computers and a teen area with three video game consoles, colored lights and furniture to accommodate movie nights.

The main attraction could be on the children’s floor, which has a large area for early-childhood play and learning with interactive exhibits like those seen at children’s museums.

The building’s top floor has a quiet reading room with a fireplace and a landscaped terrace with views of Mount Hood and downtown Portland.

“One advantage of us being ahead of the rest of the development (is that) we’ll have a nicer view for the next few years,” said Bruce Ziegman, executive director of the Fort Vancouver Regional Library District.

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The Vancouver Community Library, a five-story, 83,000-square-foot structure, will open July 17. The building was designed by Miller Hull Partnership and constructed by Howard S. Wright.

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The LOTT Clean Water Alliance’s new Regional Services Center in Olympia, Wash., next to the city’s sewage treatment plant, breaks the mold of a typical industrial center with spaces that actively engage the public.

The 32,000-square-foot project, designed by of Seattle, involved a renovation of an existing administrative and laboratory building and the creation of a new four-story center to house the LOTT Clean Water Alliance administrative offices, an emergency operations center, a boardroom and a water education center with interpretive exhibits and a classroom.

“We knew this was an odd project because we were adding on to a wastewater treatment plant, something normally put behind a wall or covered up,” Miller Hull founding partner Robert Hull said. “But we felt like it was important to make a statement that this is a utility that everyone should know about and be aware of what they provide.”

Miller Hull employed a vertical design so that the facility, located on Olympia’s waterfront, would stand out, Hull said. The contemporary, industrial design was coordinated with other projects planned in the area, including the new Hands On Children’s Museum also designed by Miller Hull.

The facility will be used as a teaching resource for the reclamation and recycling of water. Class A reclaimed water – wastewater that has been treated to higher standards and can be drawn for irrigation, toilet flushing and industrial and manufacturing capabilities – is used for plumbing within the building, for a pond surrounding the center and for irrigation of the grounds and the building’s green roof.

Other sustainable elements of the project include reused timbers from a warehouse demolished near the site and the use of a unique generator that siphons methane from the wastewater treatment to produce energy for the building.

Another distinct design aspect, Hull said, is that every workspace is within 30 feet of natural daylighting in order to reduce the need for artificial lighting. External louvers, like venetian blinds, help control sunlight and minimize solar gain, which reduces the need for air conditioning.

The facility, completed in June 2010, was awarded the Beyond Green grand prize for 2010 by the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council. The project also recently was certified Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum.

Korsmo Construction was the general contractor for owner LOTT Clean Water Alliance. Other project partners include: PAE Consulting Engineers, mechanical and electrical engineering; AHBL, civil and structural engineering; Murase Associates, landscape; 33 Design, interior design; Luma Lighting Design, lighting; BRC Acoustics & Technology Consulting, acoustics; and Highline Technical Services, commissioning.

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The Oregon Sustainability Center, still being developed in Portland, is expected to be a superlative accomplishment for American green building. Meanwhile, another Pacific Northwest project – the Cascadia Center for Sustainable Design and Construction – has been described as “the world’s most energy-efficient office building.”

Cascadia Center for Sustainable Design and Construction

Floors: six
Square footage: 45,000
Primary building material: timber framing
Prospective tenants: the Bullitt Foundation, the Cascadia chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council and the International Living Building Institute
Project team: Miller Hull Partnership, Point32, PAE Consulting Engineers, Schuchart Construction
Building life goal: 250 years
Completion target: summer 2012

Oregon Sustainability Center

Floors: seven
Square footage: approximately 135,000
Primary building material: concrete
Prospective tenants: Portland State University, retailers and others
Project team: GBD Architects, SERA Architects, Gerding Edlen Development, PAE Consulting Engineers, Skanska USA
Building life goal: 100 years
Completion target: August 2013

The projects, however, are not competing with each other so much as with the challenge of creating living buildings that won’t be occupied by their owners.

“The interesting thing about the Living Building Challenge is that you either meet it or you don’t,” said Scott Clem of , the general contractor for the sustainability center. “To say that one building is greener than the other is facetious.”

The Cascadia center, scheduled to be completed in summer 2012, would be the first urban office building to meet the Living Building Challenge. The sustainability center, slated to be completed in August 2013, would be the first urban high-rise living building, according to Jill Sherman at Gerding Edlen Development. And at seven floors and approximately 130,000 square feet, it would be the largest and tallest living building.

“We think it’s great that somebody else in the region is trying to figure this out,” Sherman said.

The Oregon Sustainability Center, originally planned as a 220,000-square-foot structure, has had to overcome significant hurdles relating to cost and public opinion. The center’s schematic design will need to be approved by the Portland Development Commission and Portland City Council before design development can proceed, hopefully this fall, Clem said.

Like all stakeholders striving to meet the Living Building Challenge, those leading the Portland and Seattle projects must take special care to avoid materials that contain harmful chemicals, detailed on the challenge’s “red list.” Officials with both projects are in talks with manufacturers to find – or even specifically commission – materials that meet those requirements.

“We’ve got a pretty good database that we’re building that will vet materials contractors use, and we’re working with manufacturing to remove toxins,” said Chris Rogers of Point32. He is working as a Cascadia center project manager.

A limited use of materials affects cost – a factor particularly important for buildings that will eventually offer leases.

In most cases, potential living building projects are community centers, nonprofits’ offices or private homes. Their owners typically absorb cost burdens and come to understand how net-zero energy structures and systems work.

“We’ve introduced the wrinkle of tenants that can change, need to be encouraged and controlled and monitored and that need to pay a rent that’s reasonable,” Clem said.

The Oregon University System has mandated that construction costs for the Oregon Sustainability Center be less than $424 per square foot so that rents can remain competitive. The Oregon Sustainability Center is a $70 million project, according to recent numbers from the Portland Development Commission. Rogers would not give a cost estimate for the Cascadia center, but added that downward pressure on commercial rents and the expense of green construction were major challenges for the project.

Stakeholders in the projects justify large price tags with sustainability: The Cascadia center is expected to last 250 years, and the sustainability center is expected to last 100.

Tenants in the buildings will be required to adapt to energy needs to keep them net-zero, Clem said. If office tenants were to act as normal office tenants – such as maintain a regular office temperature, run many large appliances like copy machines, and rely on artificial lighting – he said, “a lot of the (energy) strategies … are going to fail.”

Tenants will sign “green lease” agreements to assure practices are employed that will keep energy consumption low. Also, energy use will be monitored.

In the Oregon Sustainability Center, lower-floor retail spaces will be open only to tenants who consume relatively less energy: no dry cleaners or bakers, for example, Clem said. Cascadia center tenants, on the other hand, are expected to be involved in the green building industry and naturally employ sustainable practices.

Neither of these buildings, when completed, will be expected to operate like normal buildings.

“This isn’t just a real estate project; it’s an economic development project,” Sherman said. If a developer just wanted to build an office building that was profitable to rent, she added, this wouldn’t be the way to do it.

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A new, modern building in downtown Vancouver, Wash., will let the Fort Vancouver Regional Library spread out.

The four-story, 90,000-square-foot structure designed by of Seattle will provide three times as much space as the library has now, and will include indoor and outdoor meeting and presentation space to accommodate civic events.

“We did a lot of community outreach for the design, and one piece that spilled out of that conversation was an early learning center,” said Miller Hull’s Adin Dunning, lead architect for the project. The library district’s emphasis on early learning and early literacy inspired the inclusion of a space similar to a children’s museum.

“One of the most striking pieces in the building is a four-story art wall in the atrium,” Dunning said. The wall will feature a collage of words, images and colors as well as touch-screen TVs advertising events that are happening in the library and the community.

Some areas, such as a fifth-floor rooftop terrace with views of the city, were designed to let visitors linger comfortably.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold certification is being targeted for the building, which will include energy conservation features as well as a raised access floor.

“It’s going to be a really nice community asset,” Dunning said.

is the contractor for the project. The building is scheduled to open to the public in mid-July.

The Miller Hull project team also includes principal Ruth Coates and partner Craig Curtis.

Other project partners include: , mechanical and electrical; , structural engineering; Mayer/Reed, landscaping and environmental graphics; and , civil engineering.

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