PROJECT: Patricia Reser Center for the Arts

LOCATION: Beaverton

SIZE:��43,000 square feet

COST:��$55 million

START DATE: late 2019

ANTICIPATED END DATE: February 2022 (opening March 8)

OWNER: city of Beaverton

OWNER’S REPRESENTATIVE: Gerding Edlen

ARCHITECT: Opsis Architecture

ENGINEERS: KPFF Consulting Engineers (structural), Otak (civil), PAE (mechanical and plumbing), Reyes Engineering (electrical, tele/data low voltage)

CONSTRUCTION MANAGER/GENERAL CONTRACTOR:��Skanska USA Building

OTHER CONSULTANTS/PARTICIPANTS: Anderson Krygier (environmental graphic design), Angelo Planning Group (land use), DCW Cost Management (estimating), JLC Consulting (specifications), Morrison Hershfield (envelope), Pacific Habitat Services (environmental consultant), PLACE (landscape architecture), Stantec (acoustics), The Shalleck Collaborative (theater planning and audio/visual)

SIGNIFICANCE OF PROJECT: Located near The Round between Southwest Cedar Hills Boulevard and Southwest Hall Boulevard, the Reser Center features a 550-seat theater; an art gallery; rehearsal, workshop and meeting space; a lobby; an outdoor plaza and an adjacent parking structure. The site is near a light rail station, City Hall, Beaverton Creek, shops, restaurants and lodging. This is the first facility of its kind to be built from the ground up in the Portland area in more than three decades.

Opsis Architecture sought to blend urban and natural settings in the design. The plan included not only the main structure, but parking, a pedestrian-friendly promenade with a street festival ambience, and public art. Inspired by the metaphor of a beaver dam, wood panels and long, thin wood slats or “sticks” and incision points are integrated to enable light to pour into the atrium, while blending with state-of-the-art acoustic and theatrical systems in the Mainstage Theater. With blue seats, the theater is evocative of a body of water adjacent to a creek housing a beaver dam. The facility includes 21,000 square feet of Douglas fir. The second floor has space for a variety of educational workshops, classes, rehearsals, meetings and events. The performing and presentation spaces are designed to maximize the connection between artists and audiences.

The concept of creating a center for the arts in Beaverton started in the late 1990s. Later, a study led by Opsis and Theater Consulting Group, in conjunction with University of Oregon students, showed what a world-class arts center could look like. In July 2018, the Beaverton Arts Foundation announced a pledge of $13 million from Pat Reser to launch the project. In three years, more than 950 donors – individuals, families, foundations and businesses – provided more than $12 million to exceed the initial goal by $1 million. Gifts ranged from $2 to $1.5 million. Also, the Beaverton City Council approved a hotel lodging tax to help pay for construction and provide ongoing financial support of operations.

“Building Blocks” spotlights noteworthy projects either under construction or approaching the start of construction. To submit a project for consideration, please visit: djcoregon.com/building-blocks.

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A utopian community of sorts is in the works in San Jose, California.

SERA Architects has designed for nonprofit developer First Community Housing and design-builder Lendlease a mass-timber housing development with 365 affordable units. The McEvoy and Dupont Apartments will be two 13-story (including a podium level) towers with numerous amenities. Also, a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum rating is being targeted.

“There’s so much to tell about the project,” said Veronica Hinkley Reck, a principal in SERA Architects’ Oakland office, “being in that it’s 100 percent affordable, high-rise, tall timber and LEED platinum.”

The McEvoy Tower will have 224 apartments (142 studios and 82 one-bedroom units) intended for individuals and couples. The Dupont Tower will have 141 apartments geared toward families with one, two or three bedrooms each.

The complex will be located next to San Jose Diridon Station. Nicknamed “Grand Central Station of the West,” it’s near Google’s Downtown West mixed-use site now in development.

The McEvoy and Dupont Apartments developer, Hinkley Reck said, was interested in trying a lot of different things to ensure the project would be both sustainable and affordable to build. Starting with the structure, there will be a concrete podium, but then towers with cross-laminated timber slabs and glulam timber columns with a steel lateral core system.

The entire facade will be prefabricated and lifted in whole unit-size panels, some even with balconies attached. The mega wall panels are designed to be up to 30 feet long, but final dimensions are still to be determined. The structural panels (billets) will be up to 10 feet by 40 feet. Use of all factory-cut mass timber will reduce construction time, Hinkley Reck said.

PAE is the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing design engineer for the project. The podium, ground-floor amenity space and two towers will be 100 percent electric with on-site solar panels.

Agriculture has long been an important part of San Jose, and Hinkley Reck said the project team wanted to celebrate this history in the architecture. The white, gray and green colors of the building facades are intended to represent the agricultural fields that one might have seen when flying over San Jose before it became a metropolis.

Inside the structures, the project team sought to highlight mass timber anywhere they could. “Currently we are exposing wood at unit and amenity space ceilings at some columns,” Hinkley Reck stated via email. “We are also using timber storefronts at the retail and amenity spaces, instead of aluminum.”

Residents will have access to many communal features on the 1.13-acre site. There will be an urban farm on the podium level and gardens on the roof as well as a playground and play area in between the towers. Inside, people will be able to use a yoga studio, bike rooms with a bike repair station, a computer lab, a communal kitchen, laundry facilities and support services. Four rooftop terraces will serve as gathering spaces.

“You are thinking of it as a micro-city,” Hinkley Reck said.

The project team started by determining “what do you need to put into it for people to survive,” she said, and then “how to include it,” and finally “how to make it beautiful.”

A lot of collaborative work took place, Hinkley Reck said, to provide options for SERA Architects’ clients and paint a picture of what’s possible.

“We’re trying to do a whole lot in a really unique way in a challenging construction cost climate,” she said.

“We are really excited to have designed a healthy and highly sustainable project where people can thrive,” Hinkley Reck stated via email. “And we are particularly delighted that by using timber in lieu of concrete we are not just creating a more inviting design, but we are reducing embodied carbon by 32 percent. And if you look at the systems that PAE has designed, our operational carbon savings on top of that is tremendous.”

Currently, the McEvoy and Dupont Apartments project is in the permitting phase.

Design Beyond Borders is a 91��Ƶ feature offering a look at the projects outside of Oregon being tackled by local architecture firms. To have your firm’s projects considered, contact the 91��Ƶ newsroom at 503-802-7222 or newsroom@djcOregon.com.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect incorporation of clarifications throughout.

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PROJECT: New Road Ahead (Oregon Humane Society expansion)

LOCATION: 1067 N.E. Columbia Blvd., Portland

SIZE:��two buildings on 4.25 acres

COST:��$39.5 million

START DATE: March 2020 (site work); June 2021 (construction)

ANTICIPATED END DATE: summer 2022

OWNER/DEVELOPER: Oregon Humane Society

CONSTRUCTION/PROJECT MANAGER: inici Group

CONTRACTOR:��Lease Crutcher Lewis

ARCHITECT: Scott | Edwards Architecture

ENGINEERS: Humber Design Group, KPFF, PAE Consulting Engineers

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE/PLANNING: PLACE

SIGNIFICANCE OF PROJECT: After more than seven years of planning, the Oregon Humane Society’s most ambitious expansion project in its 153-year history – New Road Ahead – has begun. One new building will house a Behavior Rehabilitation and Rescue Center, and a second building will house an Animal Crimes Forensic Center and a Community Teaching Hospital. They will rise on land adjacent to the group’s existing campus in Northeast Portland. The project is intended to address some of the most pressing animal welfare issues: keeping pets and people together, and preventing animal cruelty and neglect.

The first building will hold 21,498 square feet on two stories. The Community Teaching Hospital will occupy the first floor. It will be the first clinic in Oregon dedicated to providing accessible veterinary care to low-income clients and their pets. The Animal Crimes Forensic Center – the first facility of its kind on the West Coast – will occupy the second floor. It will facilitate collection and analysis of evidence to build strong cases against animal abusers.

The second building will be one story and hold 13,876 square feet. The Behavior Rehabilitation and Rescue Center will be dedicated to helping traumatized pets heal in a safe environment.

Both buildings will feature specialized HVAC systems able to increase air circulation and prevent the spread of disease.

Excavator operators have already removed 2,875 tons of rock, asphalt and concrete from the site, which formerly was designated for industrial use. Crews will construct a tranquil landscape with bioswales, a rain garden and a dog walking path.

The New Road Ahead project will create more than 60 jobs.

The Oregon Humane Society is providing $3.5 million for the $39.5 million project; fundraising is under way for the remaining $36 million. To learn more and donate, visit www.oregonhumane.org/new-road-ahead.

“Building Blocks” spotlights noteworthy projects either under construction or approaching the start of construction. To submit a project for consideration, please visit: djcoregon.com/building-blocks.

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PROJECT: Parkview at Terwilliger Plaza

LOCATION: the full block bounded by Southwest Fifth and Sixth avenues and Sheridan and Caruthers streets.

SIZE:��10 stories (plus one level of underground parking), 374,000 square feet, 127 units

COST:��$110 million

START DATE: May 2021

ANTICIPATED END DATE: August 2023

OWNER: Terwilliger Plaza Inc.

OWNER’S REPRESENTATIVE: MHS Consulting

OWNER’S REPRESENTATIVE/CONSTRUCTION MANAGER: BC Group

ARCHITECT: LRS Architects

ENGINEERS: IMEG Corp. (structural), DOWL (civil), PAE (mechanical, passive house consultant), GEODesign (soil), PBS Engineering and Environmental (environmental)

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: PLACE

CONTRACTOR:��Walsh Construction

OTHER TEAM MEMBERS: DeWitt Construction (shoring design/build), Merit Electric (electric), Tapani Plumbing (plumbing), Ocean Park Mechanical (mechanical), Patriot Fire Protection (fire sprinkler design/build)

SIGNIFICANCE OF PROJECT: Parkview at Terwilliger Plaza will be a not-for-profit continuing care retirement community for residents 62 and over. The independent-living facility will feature 127 units. Each one will have one or two bedrooms and full kitchens as well as balconies. Thirteen floor plans will range in size from 1,095 square feet to 2,310 square feet.

Designed for passive house certification, the highly energy-efficient building is projected to use 50 percent less energy than a current energy-compliant building. With 100 percent continuous preconditioned fresh air circulation, interior spaces will be substantially more healthy, quiet and thermally comfortable than those in conventional buildings. There will be green roofs, green living walls and solar panels. Features will include: improved wall R values; triple-pane windows; lighting power reduction; eco-friendly appliances; outdoor air systems with heat recovery; high-performance HVAC-VRF; heat pump water heaters; low-flow fixtures; photovoltaic solar generation; and significant thermal bridging details at balcony connections, balcony edges, parapet connections and exterior walls to concrete slabs.

The commons will include stone terracing, a wood-paneled cocktail lounge and a sports bar. The building’s architectural features will include handcrafted wood paneling and a blown-glass chandelier.

One of the goals of the Parkview project was to encourage movement throughout the campus with plenty of opportunities for residents to gather and socialize. There will be a variety of multipurpose rooms, public living rooms, lounges, sunrooms and lobbies. The building’s U-shape will allow for an outdoor courtyard and amenity space as well as views of the adjacent Terwilliger parkway hills, downtown and mountains. A landscaped rooftop also will provide additional space for gatherings.

One of the most critical elements for this project was approval for a sky-bridge across Southwest Sixth Avenue between Caruthers and Sheridan streets. It will link the new Parkview at Terwilliger Plaza with the existing Terwilliger Plaza building. The connector will double as an art gallery space, in response to community building goals.

“Building Blocks” is a 91��Ƶ feature that spotlights noteworthy projects either under construction or approaching the start of construction. To submit a project for consideration, please visit: djcorprod.wpengine.com/building-blocks.

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After several months of delays in the permitting process, crews finally broke ground on the PAE Living Building project in Portland’s Old Town Chinatown earlier this year. Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck, putting the team behind schedule in the effort to erect the heart of the project: five stories of cross-laminated timber panels and heavy glulam structural columns and beams.

Several months later, however, that work is almost done … just before the anticipated arrival of wintry weather.

Crews recently placed the last five-ply CLT panel, hundreds of which were manufactured for the project by British Columbia firm Structurlam. The heavy-timber columns, beams and panels wrap around the concrete building core that was completed beforehand. Weatherproofing work is on tap next.

The PAE Living Building takes its name from the Living Building Challenge, which is perhaps the world’s most stringent green building program. To attain certification, a building must meet superior standards for energy and water use, and the project team must adhere to strict lists dictating use of materials, products and processes.

“It visualizes the ideal for the built environment and uses the metaphor of a flower because the ideal built environment opens clean and efficiently like a flower,” said Adam Klauba, director of sustainability for general contractor Walsh Construction Co. “So, everything kind of flowers when it comes to the Living Building Challenge.”

This is the first potential Living Building the firm has constructed, and the first such project that ZGF Architects has designed. PAE carried out its own MEP engineering for the project, while KPFF Consulting Engineers contributed structural work.

If the building does indeed gain certification, it will become the largest Living Building in the world.

Aside from renewable timber elements, the building will have a number of sustainable features. One will be a cutting-edge micro-grid electrical system, with a large lithium-ion battery to store leftover power. The system is being developed jointly with Portland General Electric, and the project team believes it is possibly the most important part of the project when it comes to future adaptation.

Net-zero energy will be accomplished via a 95-kilowatt rooftop photovoltaic array and the micro-grid system.

“Because of the spot network and the way the grid is set up, we can’t feed as much energy as we want out to the grid,” PAE principal Marc Brune told the 91��Ƶ in 2019. “So we’re getting around that with a 250-kilowatt battery. It’s a pretty big battery for a building, and a micro-grid controller paired with batteries allows the building to operate on an independent grid within the building itself.”

The building also will have a 71,000-gallon basement cistern for storing rainwater to be converted to drinking water. Plus, a vacuum-flush plumbing system will collect wastewater and feed it to a series of composters. There, waste will be converted into nitrogen- and phosphorus-based fertilizer to be sold to other parties.

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From a cutting-edge micro-grid electrical system to a 71,000-gallon basement cistern that stores rainwater for conversion to drinking water, the PAE Living Building in Portland is going to be a living laboratory of innovation.

Walsh Construction is preparing to break ground soon on a parcel at the corner of Southwest Pine Street and First Avenue in Old Town Chinatown. The five-story, 58,700-square-foot office building was designed by ZGF Architects to meet the requirements of the International Living Future Institute‘s Living Building Challenge. If successful, it will be the largest commercial Living Building in Oregon and the first of its type in Portland.

“There are not many buildings like this out there,” said Marc Brune, a principal with PAE, the engineering firm responsible for designing the building’s mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) systems. “And they’re all different.”

Brune, who led the PAE design team, detailed several new technologies and processes expected to help the structure ultimately become a certified Living Building. That will require it to produce more power and potable water than it consumes.

Power is probably the easier of the two, Brune said, and will be accomplished through the combination of a 95-kilowatt rooftop photovoltaic array and a micro-grid system that uses a large lithium-ion battery to store excess power.

“Because of the spot network and the way the grid is set up, we can’t feed as much energy as we want out to the grid,” Brune said. “So we’re getting around that with a 250-kilowatt battery. It’s a pretty big battery for a building, and a micro-grid controller paired with batteries allows the building to operate on an independent grid within the building itself.”

The controller determines whether to send energy to batteries, the grid or the building itself. Use of a battery also allows for a larger photovoltaic array than otherwise.

The project is being closely watched by Portland General Electric, which already is running a pilot program for two other projects’ micro-grid systems. One of them is the Beaverton Public Safety Center being constructed by Skanska USA Building. PAE also served as the MEP engineer for that project and lessons learned are being carried over into the PAE Living Building.

Darren Murtaugh, a senior manager for energy storage at PGE, said the term micro-grid describes systems ranging from a single site up to a large section of the electric grid.

Unlike the Beaverton project, the PAE Living Building will have to contend with a much denser network.

“The challenge that we both recognize is they’re in the downtown core area network, where it’s really difficult to be able to feed energy back to the grid,” Murtaugh said. “That’s where the engineers on both sides of the equation both get very excited; that’s part of the fun. We’re working together pretty closely these days to figure out how can we unlock this puzzle and qualify as a Living Building.”

The key is energy storage technology.

“It’s the ability to time-shift the energy they produce with solar and ‘levelize’ it so there’s no instance in time where the back-feed into the grid is too great,” Murtaugh said.

Further, the system will automatically disconnect when power flows from one or more customers back to the grid.

“This didn’t use to be a problem,” Murtaugh said. “But in tomorrow’s world that is a concern. Fundamentally it changes everything about what was a really high-reliability design. It doesn’t work right when you have customers who want to back-feed into the grid.”

Fortunately, micro-grid systems are an emergent technology, and the price of lithium-ion battery storage has fallen in recent years. Think Tesla electric cars for a close comparison.

“Most buildings have not been designed to do net zero in places where your grid limits your ability to feed back,” Brune said. “And other projects that consider a micro-grid controller and battery are normally critical facilities, something that needs to operate independent of the grid.”

Achieving net-zero water use is a bit trickier. As designed, the PAE Living Building will use only water collected and treated on-site.

All rainwater falling on the building will be collected and sent to the basement cistern for treatment. On the flip side, a new type of vacuum-flush plumbing system will collect wastewater and feed it to a series of composters, which will convert it into nitrogen- and phosphorus-based fertilizers.

A urine separation system will even sequester and treat an anticipated 30 gallons of wastewater per day for use as fertilizer. The vacuum-flush system, meanwhile, will feed the cistern in just 0.1-gallon increments – roughly 20 percent of the average flush toilet.

The project will feature locally-sourced cross-laminated timber and not use galvanized steel products in order to avoid hexavalent chromium – a known carcinogen.

It’s the issue of power, however, that is most important to the project and future ones. That is because renewable energy systems have the most potential for wider adoption.

“Batteries are a hot topic in the industry,” Brune said. “As costs come down, if everyone is net metering, then the utility becomes stressed without the storage aspect.”

It’s an area of the industry where even the experts have a lot to learn, Murtaugh said.

“We’re hoping they (pilot projects) will give us real world experience in location-specific benefits,” he said. “We can answer how these resources can be leveraged to offset traditional distribution investment and how they can improve voltage management. Today, none of us are very good at quantifying what that potential value is.”

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By the end of 2019 a Portland-based project team will break ground on perhaps the most important building the city has seen this century, and potentially usher into Oregon a new era of environmental and technological responsibility.

ZGF Architects and PAE are leading the effort to bring to fruition the first Living Building in Portland. The five-story, 58,000-square-foot mixed-use structure, when built, will be the world’s largest Living Building, according to PAE project lead Marc Brune. Gerding Edlen is serving as the developer of the project, which will be built by Walsh Construction.

The PAE Living Building will have four stories of office space (the top three occupied by PAE) above ground-floor retail space. It’s set to rise on a quarter-block parcel at the corner of Southwest Pine Street and First Avenue, in the Skidmore/Old Town Historic District.

Portland’s Historic Landmarks Commission last month voted unanimously to approve project plans, which call for achieving the International Living Future Institute‘s Living Building Challenge. Its exceptionally high standards are intended to inspire a built environment without negative ecological impacts.

But this isn’t PAE’s first Living Building project. The company provided mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering for Seattle’s Bullitt Center, which Brune said is currently the world’s largest Living Building at 55,000 square feet. That building houses PAE’s Seattle office.

“The PAE Living Building is a logical next step for a company that has already helped show the world what’s possible in several high-profile projects,” ILFI Vice President Kathleen Smith said. “When people look for examples of companies really stepping out front to lead on climate change, the PAE Living Building should be top of mind.”

One of the most daunting elements of the Living Building Challenge is the “red list” of prohibited materials because of the toxins they contain. The banned chemicals pollute the environment and are harmful to construction workers and building occupants, according to the ILFI’s website.

But the project team is using a number of tools to avoid red-list products, Brune said. For instance, Red2Green, a database of materials information, makes location of products outside the red list quick and easy. The project team will also call major manufacturers and ask for applicable products free from toxins – and if one doesn’t exist for the needed purpose, the ILFI will make exceptions.

As Living Buildings increase in popularity, Brune said, manufacturers will eventually be forced to make more products free from the red list. He believes competitors will then emerge, and costs will drop.

Incidentally, PAE and ZGF are using an innovative investment model – one not used before – to finance the building, Brooks and Brune said. While neither one was willing to explain the model any further, they said it gives investors a return and could prove replicable for other Living Buildings in the future.

Of course, such an environmentally-friendly project comes with a cost premium – about 10 percent greater than a typical building’s cost, Brune said. As a result, tenants’ leases will cost 5-10 percent higher than market rate, he added. However, the team is confident that PAE Living Building occupants’ productivity will be better than average. Research has proven that natural daylighting and ventilation can increase employee productivity from anywhere between 2 and 14 percent, he said.

“If we get a 1 percent productivity increase, that makes it totally cost-neutral for us,” he said. “We’re likely to get more than that.”

Similar boosts in efficiency are evident throughout the project, thanks to the design team’s line of thinking that optimizes solutions over the bottom line, according to ZGF project lead Justin Brooks.

For example, the building’s roof will feature an array of solar panels as well as a cistern to collect drinking water. That left no room for an eco-roof, which ordinarily would be required under city code. But the requirement’s intent will be fulfilled anyway, Brune said, because part of the Living Building Challenge requires the team to purchase an acre of land off-site, and that land will be dedicated to natural green space.

Those solar panels are intended to give back to the city too. The building will use a 500 kilowatt-hour battery to store power, Brune said, and PAE has partnered with a low-income housing complex nearby to share some of that power below market rate.

Another example of solution-oriented thinking can be found in the building’s concrete core and wood structure. It’s intended to ensure the building will be able to not only withstand a sizable earthquake, but continue to operate thereafter.

Most buildings require a minimum amount of buffer, because in a large earthquake they will likely rock back and forth. But because the PAE Living Building will meet a higher degree of safety, regulations allow it to stand a bit closer to its neighbors. This has allowed two sides of the building to each grow by six inches, Brune said. That means more leasable space, and subsequently greater rents, which in the end will help cover the greater costs associated with seismic safety.

“The return is the same, and now we have a building that will be standing for the next hundred years,” Brune said.

“Those sorts of creative, collective thinking are what make these projects work,” Brooks added. “You have to be that much more collaborative, which for me as a designer is a pleasure because I learn something every time.”

PAE learned a lot from its work on the Bullitt Center. The foam-flush toilets in that building are each connected to a composter, Brune said. The problem is that when one toilet receives more use than the others, its composter becomes clogged. For the PAE Living Building, the project team plans to use a valve so that composters are alternated each time a toilet is used. That will prevent clogging, and reduce the number of composters required. This is the first time a five-story building will use vacuum-flush toilets connected to basement composters, Brune said.

Brune and Brooks both said they hope this kind of learning provides a road map for other firms looking to take on the Living Building Challenge in Portland. They each said the experience has been incredibly valuable for the firm, and future projects will be easier as more companies become involved.

“The next person behind is going to have a little more of a path,” Brooks said. “I hope that in such a forward-thinking city as Portland, we’ll just see people following in that wake.”

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Resulting from one of the largest bonds passed in Oregon’s history, Beaverton’s 334,000-square-foot Mountainside High School is the largest comprehensive high school in the state. Set on 47 acres, the school serves 2,200 students in a “loop stacking” program that houses nearly all formal and informal academic spaces.

Open-concept teacher planning and circulation from the loop’s interior allow light to spill through these areas and into the classrooms, which also benefit from natural daylight due to their position along the exterior wall. Key program pieces including the gym, theater and commons are located close to the front door, easing access to high-traffic areas and streamlining wayfinding for students and visitors.

Wood salvaged from two onsite barns that were demolished clads a central stair and the walls of the theater lobby. A second-story media center overlooks both the commons and the courtyard, and the courtyard features outdoor classroom spaces.

Mountainside also provides robust Career Technical Education components, including a culinary kitchen/classroom; robotics space; and a 3,500-square-foot, state-of-the-art woodshop. The school’s fully ducted, dust-collection system is installed with a wood-pellet maker, allowing students to sell the byproduct as a fundraiser.

Chris Linn, a principal with Bora Architects, said the school’s advanced technology sets it apart, as does its dual role as a community emergency shelter because of its ability to withstand a higher magnitude earthquake than a typical school.

“The brick façade is particularly unique. The pattern transitions in color from top to bottom and was designed using parametric software – a first for us and for the brick masons,” Linn said.

Along with some bad weather conditions and an already-tight schedule, challenges included the site’s sloped topography. A large volume of predominately clay soil needed to be moved and reused as fill. By expediting mass excavation and identifying opportunities to reuse soils from the site, the project team avoided routing hundreds of dump-truck loads through the community. In addition, unforeseen conditions that arose during excavation required Hoffman Construction as general contractor and Bora to collaborate with city staff to implement a design change to the storm drainage and sewer systems.

Mountainside’s multiple athletic fields required 10.5 acres of turf, making it the largest high school turf-installation project in the Pacific Northwest. And its auditorium was built with a “ship in a bottle” construction approach that reversed some typical sequences and utilized Building Information Modeling.

“We re-learned a key lesson – that it takes a very high level of teamwork between the owner, the general contractor and the architect to successfully complete large, complex projects,” Linn said, noting staff with the Beaverton School District were “consummate professionals” and Hoffman’s “dedication to doing the work well and doing it right the first time was something to behold.”

Submitted by: Bora Architects and Hoffman Construction Co.

��Location: Beaverton, Oregon

Project cost: $184.6 million

Start date: September 2014 (design); July 2015 (construction)

Completion: November 2017

Owner/developer: Beaverton School District

Architect: Bora Architects

Landscape architect: Walker Macy

Engineers: Harper Houf Peterson Righellis, KPFF, PAE

General contractor: Hoffman Construction Co.

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Franklin High School was built in the heart of Southeast Portland in 1915. The school was extensively remodeled in the 1980s, but eventually ended up in need of upgrades and modernization.

The 2012 Portland Public Schools bond was the result of community involvement with the goal of improving schools in the district along a broad range of criteria. At Franklin, part of the modernization aimed to reconfigure and update the facility with a focus on environmental quality, sustainability and historic preservation.

More than 1,700 students currently attend Franklin, but that number is expected to grow. So the modernization project was tackled in a way that could accommodate a future increase in enrollment. The redesign also aimed to address changing needs of both students and the changing face of the educational curriculum. A new feature at the school, courtesy of the modernization project, for example, is a culinary arts learning space, where students can learn about nutrition while also learning how to prepare meals.

The $113 million Franklin modernization also included a new performing and fine arts center, a two-story entry lobby that doubles as a commons area, realignment of an existing outdoor athletic track by 90 degrees to accommodate a new gym and educational facility, repurposing the original auditorium as a media center, full seismic reinforcement, and fully integrating ADA access throughout the campus. Traditional lighting was replaced with LEDs and rooftop solar panels were installed to generate power for the school.

Submitted by: CBRE/Heery

Location: Portland, Oregon

Project cost: $113 million

Start date: June 2015

Completion date: August 2017

Owner/developer: Portland Public Schools

Project/construction management: CBRE/Heery

Architect: DOWA/IBI Group, SERA

Landscape architect: Mayer/Reed

Engineers: KPFF Consulting Engineers (civil, structural), PAE (plumbing), Reyes Engineering (electrical)

General contractor: Skanska USA Building Inc.

Other associates: KELSAY, Morrison-Herschfield, Pla Designs Inc., Scheduling and Information Services Inc., The Greenbush Group

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A wetlands system project that saved the city of Prineville tens of millions of dollars took top honors Wednesday night at the 2018 Engineering Excellence Awards event hosted by the American Council of Engineering Companies of Oregon.

In winning the Project of the Year title, the Crooked River Wetlands project, submitted by Anderson Perry & Associates and the city of Prineville, also claimed the right to advance to the ACEC Engineering Excellence national awards competition.

Judges for the local competition gave the wetlands project high marks for providing both an affordable solution that protects the environment and the community with valuable lessons in conservation and stewardship.

The project was the result of a population boom in Prineville that severely taxed the city’s existing wastewater treatment system. Rather than invest $62 million in construction of a traditional mechanical facility, the city approached Anderson Perry & Associates to identify alternatives. The firm’s team designed a series of wetland cells that treat wastewater before releasing it back into the environment. The wetlands area, which ended up costing approximately $8 million, includes walking paths and pavilions as well as informational kiosks created by local schoolchildren.

Parametrix scored two wins during the Wednesday evening event. The company earned the award for Best Small Project for its work on the Deschutes River Trail Boardwalk, a collaborative project with Oregon Parks and Recreation Department staff. The company also stepped forward with Kittelson & Associates to claim a Best in Category award for their respective work on the U.S. 20 Barclay Roundabout for the Oregon Department of Transportation.

KPFF and GRI scored a Best in Category award for their combined work on the Cultural Crossing, an expansion project at the Portland Japanese Garden.

Five firms received Grand awards for work on four projects. Nishkian Dean received one for its work on the commercial crew tower capability project at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. PAE‘s Grand award resulted from its work on the Oregon Zoo Education Center. Shannon & Wilson and HBH Consulting Engineers teamed up for their award-winning Southern Flow Corridor project for the Port of Tillamook Bay and Tillamook County. OBEC Consulting Engineers received its Grand award for work on the Peter Courtney Minto Island Bridge for the city of Salem.

Sixteen other projects received Honor awards.

The awards were selected by a jury of building industry professionals that included Mark Kennedy, associate dean and professor of civil engineering in the Donald P. Shiley School of Engineering at the University of Portland; Tova Peltz, region 1 geo-environmental unit manager for the Oregon Department of Transportation; Nick Bjork, publisher of the Daily Journal of Commerce; Mark Hanson, chief of the structural and architectural design section of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Portland District; and Ermel Quevedo, a past president of ACEC Oregon.

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