Twelve years ago, Jeff Schnabel left behind the architecture firm he founded in Baltimore to take a tenure-track position at the Portland State University School of Architecture.

Next month, Schnabel will succeed Clive Knights as director of the School of Architecture.

Schnabel said he has no regrets about leaving his own firm behind, and that it’s even more rewarding to see students’ work than it is to create work of his own.

“This is the place where I want to be,” Schnabel said. “These are the faculty and students I want to be doing it with.”

Schnabel said he wants to see the School of Architecture expand its ties with local firms and government agencies, lessen financial burdens on students and increase diversity in the student body.

“I think we are doing really well in terms of women represented in the curriculum, but students of color, we’re nowhere close to where we want to be,” Schnabel said. “If I haven’t made progress on that, then I’d probably consider my tenure not to have been a success.”

Schnabel is an ideal successor, said Knights.

“He’s kind of the perfect person to continue the legacy,” Knights said. “He’s been involved all the way along.”

Knights has led the school’s architecture program for 12 years, starting as the chairman of the former Department of Architecture in 2007 before continuing as director of the School of Architecture since its inception in 2012. During his tenure, the scope of the architecture school has expanded to include a Master of Architecture program and the Center for Public Interest Design.

“Job one really is not to screw up all the good work that Clive and my colleagues have done here,” Schnabel said. “I don’t mean that in a coy way; truthfully, we’ve got terrific momentum.”

After relinquishing his duties, Knights will take a yearlong sabbatical before returning to the university in a teaching role.

Knights was born and raised in England, where a high school art teacher convinced him to pursue a career in architecture. He enrolled at Portsmouth Polytechnic (now the University of Portsmouth), and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1981. That undergraduate education helped him practice and teach architecture, he said, but also focused too much on new building technologies.

Knights said he began to ask himself, “What does it mean to be creative, to make new work? I hadn’t figured it out at that point.”

To find the answers to those questions, Knights went back to school, this time at the University of Cambridge, where he worked under famed architectural historian Dalibor Vesely. At Cambridge, Knights said he spent more time studying the history and theory of architecture, which greatly influenced how he taught. Knights’ first opportunity to teach full time was at the University of Sheffield, beginning in 1989.

When professors Barbara Sestak and Rudy Barton convinced Knights to come to Portland State University in 1995, there was no architecture program. That changed within a year with the establishment of the Department of Architecture, which began offering a bachelor’s degree. The prospect of crafting a new program with Sestak and Barton enticed Knights, who said he had never been to Portland and knew nothing about the city other than its iconic Portland Building.

Knights set out to break the mold he encountered as an undergraduate. Too many architecture programs focus on creating unique forms and exploiting digital technologies, he said, instead of asking why a work of architecture is good or how it serves the public.

“It becomes self-referential and selfish,” Knights said. “As an architect you cannot be selfish, because your work is put out there in the public domain.”

Now that the program is established, with more than 500 bachelor’s degrees and 150 master’s degrees conferred in the past 12 years, Knights said he plans to work on other creative art forms. His main focus will be to examine the human body’s influence on architecture.

Schnabel also has a long history with PSU‘s architecture program. Around the time Knights was being recruited, Schnabel was working for PSU as an adjunct professor. He departed in the mid-1990s and moved with his wife, Paula Carder, to Baltimore, where he ran his own design firm.

In 2007, a tenure-track position opened up in the PSU Department of Architecture, and Knights sought out Schnabel to fill the role. With Carder simultaneously interviewing for a job in the university’s College of Urban & Public Affairs, the couple decided that they would move back across the country if they both received job offers.

Twelve years later, Schnabel and Carder are both still working for PSU.

Knights is looking forward to his sabbatical, he said, but also excited to return to the classroom to teach students.

“It’s the best job in the world, and that’s not an exaggeration or a cliché,” he said. “I can’t think of anything that would give me more pleasure.”

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Rookie and veteran architects alike took to the stage Friday in front of a packed auditorium in Portland State University’s Shattuck Hall to discuss personal challenges related to diversity in architecture, and how the next generation may change the industry landscape, which has traditionally been dominated by white men.

The six-person panel event, organized by students of the university’s School of Architecture, was the last of “Fridays@4” – a series of discussions between students and industry professionals.

Leading the veteran charge on Friday was Bill Hart, co-founder of Carleton Hart Architecture. As he explained, there have been challenges in architecture related to race and gender since he got his start, with clients through the years questioning his skill level and professional success. He stressed the benefits of a diverse team, which provides varied perspectives and strategies.

“Firms don’t recognize that everyone can contribute to putting the project together,” he said. “What we need is to give folks an opportunity to try.”

Nicolai Kruger, who owns an eponymous studio in Portland, has 15 years of experience in architecture, most of it in Japan. She said the process of learning Japanese and teaching her colleagues English helped develop empathy for cultural differences, and led to a more cohesive environment.

Now an adjunct assistant professor at PSU, Kruger said she is encouraged by her students, the majority of whom are women. In a predominantly-male industry like architecture, new professionals should apply to more diverse firms to make a statement to the less-inclusive ones, she said.

“Architecture is traditionally kind of an old boys’ club, and Portland is kind of an old boys’ town,” Kruger said. “I think we need to put the old boys’ club on notice.”

Octavio Gutierrez, an associate at Mahlum Architects, said individuals with diverse backgrounds should advocate for the benefit their viewpoints bring, which many modern companies will value.

“Take your talent where the talent’s welcome,” he said.

Cosette Hardman, who earned a master’s degree from PSU last year, is currently nominated for a secretary position on the World Deaf Architecture Board of Directors. People with disabilities can be even further marginalized in the industry, she said, and accommodations for an employee’s needs can depend on a given company’s size and willingness.

“There’s always a lot of accessibility we need to have to get the job or even get the job interview,” Hardman said. “A significant obstacle will probably be the budget of the firms.”

Designer Kayla Anderson of Salazar Architect said she is fortunate to work at a firm that values communication and is willing to listen to any issues an employee might experience because of gender or racial differences. That equality won’t be attainable until everyone in the industry begins thinking like this, she added.

“Until we decide that these issues are important, we’re never going to find a solution,” Anderson said. “We need to start advocating for everyone’s rights.”

Another unique perspective came from Dena Davani, an intern at C2K Architecture who grew up under a strict Iranian regime. Everyone wants change, and it could be achieved if citizens took action themselves, she said.

She said she believes the situation is the same in architecture. Regardless of one’s diverse challenges, Davani said he or she has a responsibility on a personal level to enact change.

“Inclusivity does exist; that’s why we’re here,” she said. “As an individual you have a lot of power to choose what you want to be involved in.”

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Portland State University student Nada Maani sees architects playing a role in addressing a humanitarian crisis.

This notion inspired Maani’s final thesis project before she graduated this month with a master’s degree in architecture. She explored architectural interventions to make Syrian refugee camps in Jordan more child-friendly.

“I kind of saw that architecture can add to that,” she said. “It’s not just humanitarian aid; architects can add to the solution. I would argue that there is a need for architects in these situations.”

The subject of Syrian refugee camps resonated personally with Maani, who is originally from Amman, Jordan.

“I feel there should be a different way of dealing with refugee camps,” she said. “Transforming those camps into livable cities, that’s my ultimate goal.”

The project also tied into Maani’s desire to pursue a career in public interest design, where architects offer their services to serve the common good.

“I knew I wanted to design to engage the community,” she said.

This fall, Maani, 23, will be among four PSU School of Architecture graduates who earn a certificate in public interest design. The students will be the first ones to receive the certificate since the university’s Center for Public Interest Design established the program earlier this year. Maani’s passion for architecture as a means to improve communities makes her ideally-suited for a career in public interest design, said B.D. Wortham-Galvin, a PSU assistant architecture professor and faculty fellow with the Center for Public Interest Design.

“Architecture is not about buildings, but about people – and that’s what her thesis is about,” Wortham-Galvin said. “She is very much inspired by the architects who have alternative practice. She certainly represents this next generation who are taking this new approach to architecture.”

Camp visits inspire designs

To prepare for her thesis project, Maani knew she’d have to see firsthand the living conditions in the Jordanian camps housing thousands of refugees fleeing a civil war in Syria. While in Jordan visiting her family, Maani arranged two visits to a Syrian refugee camp with the help of friends working for nongovernmental organizations.

She studied how the nearly 85,000 Syrians living in the Zaatari refugee camp near the Jordan-Syria border had already transformed the shipping container-like housing units delivered there by the United Nations. This included arranging the prefabricated structures around a central courtyard as is typical of housing in Syria, and adding canopies and other modifications to create a commercial district with approximately 3,000 shops – similar to the bazaars that are commonplace in the country.

“They transform them into restaurants and businesses,” Maani said. “It was really inspirational to see the Syrians’ resilience.”

Maani wasn’t allowed to take photographs on her visits. Instead she relied on a sketchbook.

“As soon as I left the camp I had my journal and I would write everything I saw and I would draw everything,” she said. “It’s called my ‘refuge diaries.’ ”

Using these observations from her visits to the camp, Maani created designs to enhance the existing housing and commercial areas using materials readily available in the camp. She focused those improvements on serving children, who make up about half of the camp’s residents.

“Really the essence of my project is to create spaces for children – and primarily female children because they are the most at risk,” Maani said.

In her research, she learned that only about half of the camp’s residents younger than 18 attend school; the others stay home because their parents are afraid for their safety.

“They call the children ‘the lost generation,’ ” she said.

With the prevalence of prostitution, rape and drug dealing in the camp, the parents of young girls are especially wary, Maani said.

“They don’t want their daughter on the street,” she said. “It’s coming from a place of love.”

In her thesis project, Maani designed modifications to the camp’s existing structures to create interior spaces for children to play with adjoining areas where their mothers can congregate.

“It creates a public realm that doesn’t exist yet,” she said. “The idea is to create a separate ground level, and that space is for the women and children … The key to getting children to use the space is getting their mothers to go there.”

Maani placed those spaces near the public shopping areas in a way that was inspired by the traditional layout of Syrian cities. To separate the spaces, her designs use screens, a common feature in Syrian architecture that provides a sense of privacy but also views to the outside.

“I was trying to learn from the language in Syria,” Maani said. “There is that in-between space between the public and private. That’s a very significant space, especially for children.”

Her experience growing up in Jordan and familiarity with Syria from travels there helped inform her design decisions.

“Syrian and Jordanian culture are quite similar,” Maani said. “I was trying to keep in mind the lessons I learned by studying the physical architecture in Syria.”

Interest in border regions

This summer, Maani will serve as an intern for La Jolla, Calif-based architect . The three-month internship will satisfy the fieldwork requirement to earn a public interest design certificate from PSU.

Cruz is known for his design work to improve the living conditions along the U.S.-Mexican border between the cities of San Diego and Tijuana. Maani said working for him will tie into her own interests in border regions and her thesis project exploring the Syrian refugee crisis and the impacts on neighboring Jordan.

“I’m very interested in margins of countries and the political tension that exists there,” she said.

Maani said she hopes to make work enhancing refugee camps and other marginalized communities a major part of her career in architecture. She credits the PSU architecture school’s emphasis on public interest design for inspiring this goal.

“I think now that it’s being incorporated into the education it will transform the profession more,” Maani said.

Wortham-Galvin said Maani represents a major shift among students graduating from architecture school seeking to build careers in public interest design.

“She is one of those people leading architectural practice in a different direction,” Wortham-Galvin said. “I would not be surprised if in 10 years we’re talking about her significant contribution to the field.”

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The Portland State University School of Architecture will soon offer a graduate certificate in public interest design.

The new program will be led by architecture school’s Center for Public Interest Design, which provides design services to a variety of domestic and international projects that serve the common good.

The aim of the certificate curriculum is to provide an educational foundation in public interest design through academic studies and hands-on experience in the field. Participants in the program will work directly with communities in need, addressing issues such as inadequate shelter, food and water scarcity, disaster preparedness and recovery and economic well-being.

PSU will soon accept applications for the program from current and incoming PSU graduate students as well as professionals seeking continuing education. The first courses are scheduled to start this spring.

The 18 credits of coursework to earn the certificate will be geared toward preparing future professionals in the fields of architecture, urban planning, sustainability and community development to aid underserved populations through thoughtful design.

At the conclusion of the program, students will participate in a real world public interest design project led by the Center for Public Interest Design. The center’s work includes international design-build projects in Haiti, Mongolia and Argentina. Domestically, the center has led planning and development work with disadvantaged neighborhoods in California’s Central Valley and along the U.S.-Mexico border.

To learn more about the program, email cpid@pdx.edu.

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A $300,000 grant awarded to Portland State University will create an architecture research laboratory.

The money from the Los Angeles-based W.M. Keck Foundation will purchase equipment to test green building techniques, transform a space in Shattuck Hall and establish faculty fellowships.

The new lab is slated to open in September in the PSU School of Architecture, said Corey Griffin, an assistant architecture professor. He will lead the lab as part of school’s Research-based Design Initiative, which pairs graduate architecture students with local firms to conduct building science research on actual projects.

Participants in the program currently use the Green Building Research Laboratory in the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science at PSU. The new architecture school lab with computers, sensors, a 3-D printer and laser-cutter will be used by these students as well as provide more research opportunities within undergraduate courses, Griffin said. Lessons will be developed in the lab, which he is hopeful will be used by the university’s engineering and urban planning programs.

The grant money will go toward efforts to expand the successful Research-based Design Initiative model, where architecture firms have gleaned information for design decisions through student research using university equipment and computer modeling software, Griffin said.

“The lab is really interested in increasing interest in research-based design,” he said.

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When Portland State University graduate architecture student Reid Weber spent weeks using computer modeling to pinpoint the best type of light well for a new school building, his findings extended beyond a class paper.

Weber’s daylighting analysis helped convince Oregon Episcopal School officials to include a light well in plans designed by THA Architecture for new preschool and elementary school buildings in Portland. His research involved working with THA designers at the firm’s downtown Portland office and contributing to the design of a real-world project.

“I hadn’t had a lot of professional experience in an architecture firm,” he said. “Being in on some of the meetings was a really great experience.”

Weber is among 27 PSU architecture students who recently completed 10 research projects in partnership with Portland architecture firms during a 10-week advanced building technology course. The required class is part of the PSU School of Architecture‘s Research-based Design Initiative, which pairs architecture students with local firms to conduct building science research on actual projects.

PSU assistant architecture professor Corey Griffin and architecture professor Sergio Palleroni started the initiative in 2011 with the help of a $16,000 grant from the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards. In August, the Oregon Community Foundation pledged $100,000 more over the next five years to support the initiative, and Griffin said he’s hoping to get more engineering firms and students involved in the program.

“Previously, from year to year I didn’t know if we could keep doing this,” Griffin said. “It’s a relief to me to keep planning. I feel like we can actually refine this process and increase the value to the students and the firms.”

The program has also gained the financial support of the five participating architecture firms: THA Architecture, SRG Partnership, Yost Grube Hall Architecture, Boora Architects and ZGF Architects. By 2018, each firm will have contributed $8,000 toward sustaining the course and the research the students produce.

“It’s a really important resource not only for these students, but for this region,” SRG Partnership principal Kent Duffy said. “That’s why we support it with our time and money.”

The graduate class has a larger impact than a more traditional building science lecture course, Griffin said. Participating Portland architecture firms glean information for design decisions through student research using university labs and modeling software, he said. At the same time, students learn skills that the firms seek in new hires while working side-by-side with professional architects.

“They have a skill set in building science research,” Griffin said. “My long-term goal is we’re going to have a bunch of students in Portland that have a unique skill set … The firms actually set aside desk space (for the students). We’ve come to think of it as a kind of practicum.”

The students’ research projects have included computer modeling to assess the impacts of wind, natural ventilation and daylighting on project designs. They’ve also conducted post-occupancy analyses on the energy performance of completed buildings to help improve design strategies or plan a renovation.

The information the students are compiling is becoming increasingly valuable to architecture firms, but they often lack the time or the resources to complete the necessary research, Griffin said.

“The clients are getting savvier,” he said. “They want to see evidence that what the architects are saying will happen, will happen.”

This is precisely why SRG is such a strong supporter of the PSU program, Duffy said. Students have researched factors that impact building designs, such as wind patterns and daylighting, that staffers wouldn’t otherwise have time for, he said.

“You find out new information when someone does actual analysis,” he said. “We find that really valuable to make informed decisions … Now we’re starting to realize we need to know these things to make decisions.”

Much of Oregon Community Foundation funding supports a teaching assistant position, currently held by Weber, to help coordinate breaking up the students into groups that work with the five architecture firms on 10 research projects, Griffin said. Staffers from each firm suggest several research projects and are paired up with students who are interested in researching those topics.

The students produce reports on the findings of their research projects that are made public.

“In many cases, those papers are of such a quality that they are being presented at academic research conferences,” Griffin said.

The students share their findings during a research symposium with the participating firms. One held last month at the Portland Center for Architecture was a great educational experience, graduate architecture student Julia Mollner said.

“I think it was really interesting to see different people from different architecture firms talking about ways of collaborating and topics that they were interested in,” she said.

Mollner said she appreciated that the course allowed her to work closely with Boora Architects staffers on her research.

“Being able to come into a graduate program and get your foot in the door with a firm was really valuable,” she said.

Mollner’s research during the course involved conducting a post-occupancy analysis of a school where she concluded that the building designers made assumptions about how it would be used.

“There’s this disparity between how they think people will use the space and how people actually use it,” she said.

That’s been one of the most interesting parts about the course, Weber said. The learning goes both ways and includes exposing firm staffers to new computer modeling software.

“It was eye-opening the different research that the firms are doing,” he said. “We are kind of showing them that they can use these tools.”

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A building product developed by a Portland State University School of Architecture team could help grocery stores sustainably dispose of waxed cardboard produce boxes by converting them into insulation.

Many Portland-area grocery stores include used produce boxes in compostable waste, but because they’re coated in wax it can take up to 50 years for them to decompose. The slow decomposition time and the large volume tossed by grocery stores are reasons why on Nov. 1 waxed cardboard will be banned from compost piles at Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas county dumps.

When PSU assistant architecture professor Margarette Leite learned that officials from New Seasons Market and other Portland grocery stores were seeking an environmentally friendly way to dispose of produce boxes, she thought it would be a perfect project for a class she teaches on finding architectural uses for waste materials. In the class, architecture students came up with several ways to reuse the produce boxes, such as in building siding or shingles.

But the idea to create insulation by shredding the waxed cardboard intrigued Leite most. She’s now in the process of developing a business plan with encouragement of New Seasons Market, and hoping to find a manufacturer willing to produce the insulation billed as both effective and sustainable.

“We’re getting a lot of support from the grocery stores,” Leite said. “This is more about diverting material from a landfill and making a green product that way.”

Certain types of cellulose insulation are made with standard cardboard, but that material must be purchased, she said. In contrast, grocery stores throw out waxed cardboard.

“Right now, the waxed cardboard has no value, so there’s really no competition right now for the resource,” she said. “So that’s the biggest advantage over the cellulose.”

Leite and a team of three students came up with several ways to use the shredded waxed cardboard as insulation. It could be blown into walls as loose fill insulation, packed into flame-retardant fabric for panelized installation or wrapped into bales for building construction.

Tests of the product’s effectiveness in PSU‘s Green Building Research Laboratory revealed that the wax coating that makes produce boxes hard to compost is actually an advantage when they’re converted into insulation, Leite said. She believes the wax is one reason why the produce box insulation performed better than traditional fiberglass insulation in the lab.

“It holds onto energy for a longer time,” she said. “It acts like what we call a thermal sink. As the wax kind of heats up, it’s storing energy so it’s a better insulator, or the wax is a barrier to hot or cold air.”

Kevin Chavez, a recent PSU architecture graduate who helped develop the insulation, said the lab test results helped convince him and the rest of the team that they were working on a viable project.

“That’s what launched this to say, ‘Oh wow, this is actually really competitive to what’s available,’ ” he said. “Then it was figuring out how to get it into a building and up to building code.”

The biggest challenge was ensuring the insulation was fire resistant, Chavez said. A series of tests proved this could be achieved either by adding a flame retardant to the loose fill of waxed cardboard insulation or wrapping it in fire-resistant fabric, he said.

The project was among seven finalists that this month vied for funding through the Cleantech Challenge – part of the Oregon BEST FEST clean technology conference in Portland. The team didn’t win funding though the competition, but Leite said encouragement from officials at New Seasons and other grocery stores has convinced her to pursue licensing the product to an insulation manufacturer or start a small business to produce it.

The cost of producing the insulation should be relatively low, Chavez said.

“All that would need to happen is shred it or fireproof it,” he said. “I think manufacturers would really like this because of how low-processing it is.”

Most of the approximately 580 tons of produce received each year by New Seasons stores comes in cardboard boxes with wax coatings to protect them from disintegrating in ice used to keep fruits and vegetables fresh, said Teak Wall, New Seasons sustainability program manager. Not being able to compost these boxes puts a wrench in the grocer’s efforts to avoid sending waste to the landfill.

“We realized the biggest issue for us would be our waxed cardboard,” she said.

While investigating where to send spent produce boxes Wall found out that the market for reusing waxed cardboard is relatively untapped with the exception of a California company that uses it to produce fire logs. The grocer already donates some of the produce boxes it uses to this company, but officials would prefer to send the waxed cardboard somewhere closer, she said.

“We would love to get more local businesses using this,” she said.

It would be great if PSU’s waxed cardboard insulation got off the ground, Wall said.

“I think it’s the coolest idea ever,” she said. “It’s almost too simple to believe that no one’s done it yet.”

Developing the product was a rewarding experience, Chavez said.

“I think it’s really important that we find these little avenues to repurpose those materials that we’re already making,” he said.

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Portland State University architecture professor Rudy Barton received a Fulbright Scholar Program grant to teach in Scotland next year.

Barton will spend January through May 2015 as a visiting professor in the architecture department at the Glasgow School of Art in Glasgow, Scotland. He is the first PSU professor to receive Fulbright money, through the U.S. Department of State, to travel to the United Kingdom.

In Glasgow, Barton will work closely with the school’s urban design program officials, who have strong relationships with Glasgow city staffers. Because Glasgow and Portland have a lot in common, Barton said and he would like to help facilitate an exchange of ideas between urban designers from both cities.

“In my urban design work, I’ve been very impressed by a lot of those programs that (Glasgow officials) have under way,” he said. “I hope to bring back some of those lessons to Portland.”

Barton has visited Glasgow several times; he said Portland designers can learn a lot from the city’s approach to urban design. Efforts by Glasgow city officials to revitalize former industrial sites along the River Clyde and encourage more activity along the waterfront are particularly applicable to Portland, he said.

“I think there are kind of similar problems that Glasgow and Portland share,” he said. “They’re trying to develop fingers to the river in the same way that we’re trying to do in Portland.”

Barton is hoping that his Glasgow experience will enhance his lessons in Portland.

“I can (bring) some firsthand experience and exposure back to the students at PSU,” he said.

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Dylan Morgan is preparing to graduate from Portland State University in June with a degree in architecture. But then bills will follow.

The long and expensive process of becoming an architect can deter many people from such a pursuit, Morgan said. This is especially true, he added, for him and others interested in public interest design.

“I knew I was doing the right thing, but it’s just the financial question that weighs over people,” he said.

This is one reason why Morgan is intrigued by the National Design Services Act of 2014, which last month was introduced to Congress by Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo. The bill, backed by the American Institute of Architects, would offer new architects help paying off their student loan debt in return for community service. The program would be similar to those already offered to lawyers, doctors and teachers.

“Our profession has a similar long path (of education); it makes sense that there would be some way to get debt forgiveness,” said Morgan, a graduate assistant at the Center for Public Interest Design in PSU‘s School of Architecture. “It’s a critical part to find more ways to bring more people into public interest design.”

Intern architects who have graduated from an accredited master’s program in architecture would be eligible to participate in the debt forgiveness program. It would be administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Participants would gain experience working for nonprofit community design centers and contribute to public projects such as schools, health clinics and libraries. Other eligible projects could include development of plans for the rehabilitation of blighted or deteriorating neighborhoods and help with restoration of historic sites, building retrofits to improve energy and water efficiency, assessment of building safety following a natural disaster and improvement of building accessibility for elderly or disabled individuals.

Perlmutter is co-sponsoring the National Design Services Act with Reps. Dennis Ross, R-Fla., Greg Meeks, D-N.Y., and Gwen Moore, D-Wis. The bill was introduced into the House of Representatives and referred to the House Committee on Financial Services on March 11.

The National Design Services Act was a hot topic during a recent meeting of AIA representatives in Washington, D.C., said Robert Hoffman, head of the Portland and Oregon AIA chapters. The AIA strongly supports the bill because large student loan debts combined with low pay of entry-level positions often make it difficult for young architects to stick with the profession, he said.

“A lot of these (architecture) students are coming into the working world with $40,000 or more in debt,” he said. “You’d have this mechanism for students who are just coming into employment or can’t find a job right away to help serve their community.”

Putting intern architects to work on public interest projects will also bring design services to underserved communities, Hoffman said.

“That’s a really great way that young grads can come out and help communities in need,” he said. “Design is important everywhere. This would help alleviate some of the economic barriers.”

The bill, if it were enacted, would be a great incentive for more architects to get involved in design that serves the common good, said Sergio Palleroni, PSU architecture professor and director of the Center for Public Interest Design. Many of his students would be eager to participate in community service design programs like the one proposed in the National Design Services Act, he said.

“In architecture, you don’t earn enough to pay your debt off; it hangs around you for 10-plus years,” he said. “All of a sudden, you can give these people who dedicate themselves to community a viable life.”

Student loan debt was a large concern for Ashley Koger after she received a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Oregon in June 2013. She started working as an intern architect for GBD Architects in Portland last fall.

“It’s usually six or seven years of education, and that adds up quickly,” she said. “Pay really played a big role in deciding where to work after I graduated.”

Koger added that she would have given more consideration to employment with a nonprofit if the National Design Services Act were enacted.

After Josiah Henley graduates with a master’s degree in architecture from Portland State University in June, he wants to pursue public interest design. His thesis is about providing farmworker housing in Oregon, and he’d like to one day start a firm that emphasizes socially conscious design.

“It’s not the most lucrative path, so that would be a hindrance,” he said. “Something like this bill would be (a) plus.”

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Portland State University this week will host two lectures on sustainable design as part of the School of Architecture‘s Sustainable Structures Symposium.

Stefan Behnisch, founding partner of Stuttgart, Germany-based Behnisch Architekten, will give a free lecture on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Room 212 of Shattuck Hall, on Southwest Broadway between College and Hall streets. Behnisch is known for an innovative approach to sustainable architecture, including designs of the Allston science complex at Harvard University and the John and Frances Angelos Law Center at the University of Baltimore.

Behnisch Architekten is partnering with SRG Partnership on the design of a 100,000-square-foot renovation and expansion of PSU‘s School of Business Administration.

Behnisch’s lecture will kick off the Sustainable Structures Symposium, which takes place on Thursday and Friday. The event will explore the greater role that structures should have in the design, impact and operation of green buildings, said Corey Griffin, PSU assistant architecture professor and symposium chairman. Presentations will cover topics including life cycle analysis, innovative wood structures and sustainability education, he said.

Architect Michael Green and engineer Eric Karsh will give the symposium’s keynote lecture about high-rise wood-frame buildings on Thursday at 6 p.m. at Ecotrust‘s office, at 721 N.W Ninth Ave. Green and Karsh, both based in Vancouver, British Columbia, are authors of a pertinent case study.

“Michael and Eric are both strong advocates for using wood for taller buildings versus concrete and steel,” Griffin said.

Green and Karsh’s lecture is open to the public; tickets are free for students or $10 for others. They will be sold online only on the symposium website: .

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