A frequent concern for Gerding Edlen CEO Mark Edlen is the impression that the Portland-based development company’s projects will make on neighborhoods.

“We used to think sustainability was a big deal, but today for us it’s building communities,” he said. “I think people are looking for more, richer ways to interact. To us, that’s what we think community is about. We think the buildings that we build have an enormous impact.”

With Portland communities in flux because of a boom in development, Edlen on Thursday joined three other industry professionals on a panel to discuss how to create inclusive, livable neighborhoods across the city. The “Designing Better Neighborhoods” event was hosted by Design Museum Portland at the Portland office of engineering firm Glumac.

Panelist and moderator Randy Gragg, executive director of the University of Oregon’s John Yeon Center, steered the discussion toward topics that included identifying ways to improve East Portland and addressing concerns about demolitions of older residences.

“We have a lot of heartburn going on in terms of change in historic neighborhoods,” Gragg said.

Panelist Jeff Stuhr, co-founder of Portland-based Holst Architecture, said it’s important for architects to investigate whether it’s possible to save an existing building or replace it with a thoughtful design.

“We’ve yet to elevate that conversation beyond historic preservation,” he said. “When we take down buildings and replace them with inefficient buildings, that’s not what we want to do. I think we need to change the conversation. I think this process of renewal and growth is natural.”

Acknowledging neighborhood opposition to development is crucial, said panelist DeAunne Denmark, a Pacific Northwest College of Art instructor who teaches a course that applies the principles of cognitive and behavioral neuroscience to design thinking.

“You get this vehement pushback, and it’s often because they want to feel like they have a stake in it,” she said. “If you don’t design well for the culture that’s in place you see these problems come out around it. The design process itself has to change. If the neighborhood itself wants historic preservation, it behooves you to find out why.”

The longevity of a development is one reason why its design must consider the larger impact, Edlen said.

“In our industry it’s very capital intensive; there’s a tremendous amount of risk,” he said. “One of the things we talk about a lot (is) … it’s a 100- to 200-year asset. It’s going to be around for a long time.”

Panelists also discussed ways to create better neighborhoods in underdeveloped areas in Portland east of 82nd Avenue.

“How can we create a sense of a neighborhood out there from this very piecemeal urbanism?” Gragg asked.

Some basic city amenities would be a great start, said Edlen, a Portland Development Commission board member.

“I think we’ve got to move faster,” he said. “We’ve got to have a public process, but we’ve got to move the needle faster on issues like parks and sidewalks.”

Stuhr pointed out that the larger lots available in East Portland could be advantageous for future development.

“I see this as a great potential benefit for the city rather than having to design the 200-by-200-foot square,” he said. “From a design standpoint, we have opportunities that we don’t have anywhere else. This is going to be the next big opportunity for density in the city.”

Redeveloping East Portland will also involve consideration of the needs of lower-income neighborhoods with more diversity than in other parts of the city, Denmark said. What worked downtown or in the Pearl District may not apply, she said.

“You can’t just impose those values on people that don’t want them,” Denmark said.

That doesn’t mean the standard of architecture in East Portland should be different, Stuhr said.

“Design makes a difference, and a lot of times when you’re working with a marginalized community you have to convince them of that,” he said. “People out there deserve good design just as much as we do in the inner city core.”

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When Michael Graves returned to Portland this week, he visited the building that launched his famed architecture career.

More than 30 years later, the Portland Building still took his breath away.

“I had a big smile on my face that I couldn’t wipe off,” he said Thursday. “It was joy.”

Graves is baffled why Portland residents don’t share his love for the iconic city-owned building. The controversial structure has been both heralded as one defining the emergence of postmodern architecture and criticized as an architectural atrocity.

“I don’t know where the hostility comes from; that disturbs me,” he told the sold-out crowd for a lecture he gave Thursday at the Portland Art Museum. “I think you all would be happy to pick up any history of architecture in the 20th century and find your building. What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with you?”

The Portland Building, completed in 1982 to house city government offices, was praised as a break from the modernist architecture typical of public buildings. A year later, it appeared on the cover of TIME magazine and in 2012 was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

But earlier this year, a city report concluded that $95 million worth of repairs are needed to fix structural problems and leaks. After considering several options, including building demolition, city officials will soon seek proposals from developers, architects and contractors for a remodel.

In light of plans to renovate the Portland Building, Graves, a principal of Princeton, N.J.-based architecture and design firm Michael Graves & Associates, traveled to Portland to defend his design and offer feedback on how to improve it. Whatever the city decides to do, it shouldn’t demolish the building, he pleaded.

“The whole idea of tearing the building down is like killing a child for me,” he said. “It was a work of architecture and art that so many people participated in.”

Graves is disappointed that the only invitation he has received to share how the building should be renovated has come from the University of Oregon’s John Yeon Center to speak during Design Week Portland. Graves, 80, wondered before the lecture why city officials haven’t yet reached out to him as they proceed with renovation plans.

“They’re not talking to me, which seems kind of strange with the architect alive and kicking,” he said.

Kelly Ball, a spokeswoman for the Office of Management & Finance, which oversees city facilities, said plans for the renovation are in the early stages. A committee of local industry leaders will advise the city’s chief administrative officer on the project and it’s unclear at this point what role Graves will play in the process, she said.

Yeon Center Executive Director Randy Gragg said he encouraged Graves to speak publicly about the future of the Portland Building because his insight would be valuable in the debate on its fate.

“We’re in the process of deciding what’s going to happen to this building, and who better to involve in that discussion than the architect?” Gragg told attendees of Thursday’s lecture. “Michael Graves very graciously, and bravely, agreed.”

In 1980, Graves won an architecture competition to design the building for the city of Portland. At the time, he was a little-known architecture professor at Princeton University, and it became his first major project.

Graves went on to leverage this success to win other design competitions. His work includes the Humana Building in Louisville, Ky., the Denver Public Library and lines of kitchen products and furniture first for Target and now J.C. Penney.

After an infection in 2003 rendered him unable to walk, Graves used personal experience to inspire designs for disabled veteran housing and products such as wheelchairs, collapsible canes and showerheads.

It’s odd, Graves said, to travel to Portland where he’s seen as a controversial figure because most of his designs in other parts of the U.S. and international locales are met with acclaim. Criticism of the Portland Building’s dreary interiors and lack of natural light were beyond his control, he said.

“I wasn’t part of the interiors, and that’s what people blame me for,” Graves said. “It’s a bit tragic that I get blamed for the interiors when I didn’t do it.”

Another factor contributing to the building’s current problems was its $24 million budget, he said. This was far below what was needed to construct the building Graves said he imagined.

“I wanted to create a great civic building and I wanted to make a building that was significant, but the building had a very low budget,” he said. “It was very difficult to make a good, civic building with $24 million.”

At the time that the building was constructed, the country was going through an energy crisis and Graves said he was asked to tint the windows. One of the first changes he would make to improve the building would be to install clear glass replacements to expose the building to more light. He also recommended encasing the loggia in glass and turning it into a retail space.

The lobby could use some work, Graves said. He was appalled when he went into the building last week.

“It’s a mess,” he said. “They don’t keep it up. (There were) papers everywhere. There’s no sense of tidiness at all.”

Today’s generation of Portland architects could learn a thing or two from the flair of the Portland Building, Graves said. On his recent visit to the city he was utterly unimpressed with recent additions to the skyline.

“It puts me to sleep,” he said. “It’s completely boring.”

He scoffed at a slide Gragg showed during the lecture of the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building before and after it was renovated.

“I’d rather have the old box, and that’s pretty dreadful,” Graves said.

At least the Portland Building is still being talked about, he said.

“I just shrug my shoulders,” Graves said. “Who else is going to get 400 people to come hear you talk about your building?”

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Portland Building architect Michael Graves next month will give a talk on the future of the iconic postmodern building.

The University of Oregon’s John Yeon Center and the Portland Art Museum will host “Michael Graves Live” on Oct. 9 at 7 p.m. in the Fields Ballroom at the museum, 1219 S.W. Park Ave.

Graves, a principal of architecture and design firm Michael Graves & Associates, will discuss which portions of the city of Portland-owned building should be preserved and which might change during a planned renovation to fix structural problems and leaks. Yeon Center Executive Director Randy Gragg will facilitate the talk, which also will delve into Graves’ career since designing the Portland Building.

“This is one of the late twentieth century’s great designers,” Gragg said. “He’s changed things in product design and certainly in architecture.”

The Portland Building, completed in 1981, was heralded as a break from modernist architecture typical of public buildings. A year later, it appeared on the cover of TIME magazine and in 2012 was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

But earlier this year, a city report concluded that $95 million worth of repairs are needed to fix defects and address seismic issues. After considering several options, including building demolition, city officials will soon seek proposals from developers, architects and contractors for a remodel.

When debate about the fate of the Portland Building began, Gragg said he reached out Graves to seek his take on how his design could be improved.

“I just thought we’re having this discussion and who better to involve in it than the designer himself,” Gragg said.

Besides the Portland Building, Graves has designed the Humana Building in Louisville, Ky., the Denver Public Library and a line of kitchen utensils for Target.

After an infection rendered him a quadriplegic in 2003, Graves has used personal experience to inspire designs for disabled veteran housing and products such as wheelchairs, collapsible canes and showerheads.

Tickets for the event are $10 and can be purchased online at .

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After Kevin Cavenaugh, managing member of Portland-based Guerrilla Development, purchased a century-old former horse barn in Southeast Portland, he decided to convert the industrial-style building with no windows and 24-foot-tall ceilings into four residential lofts.

The challenge included peeling away a portion of the roof to create a central courtyard that lets light inside.

“It’s fun because it’s an experiment,” said Cavenaugh, a designer. “It was more about: Can anybody live in here? Can I make this thing habitable?”

Now the building, called Dr. Jim’s Lofts, is where Cavenaugh and his family call home.

Dr. Jim’s Lofts is one of eight urban infill developments that will be featured Oct. 11 on a hosted by the American Institute of Architects’ Portland chapter.

“For the most part, they’re really creative uses of old lots,” said Dave Otte, president-elect of the AIA Portland board, said of the structures included on the “” tour.

A committee of AIA members selected the homes – all completed either this year or last year – as prime examples of custom urban infill projects designed in harmony with inner Portland neighborhoods. Several of the homes strive to bridge the gap between residential and commercial areas. Others balance out contemporary designs by taking cues from nearby structures.

Designs by Portland-based Works Partnership Architecture for the Bowstring Truss House and Overton 19, adjacent developments in Northwest Portland on the tour, fit their surroundings, Works Partnership principal Carrie Strickland said. The live-work lofts blur the line between industrial buildings across the street and townhomes to the west, she said.

“I think it works really well in that neighborhood because it’s sort of a transition neighborhood,” Strickland said. “You set up a project scale that helps blend that transition line.”

When Portland architect Rick Potestio was tasked with helping turn a Southeast Portland parking lot into a contemporary three-story apartment building, he took a close look at the neighborhood first. His design for the Gragg Apartments, including the home of University of Oregon John Yeon Center for Architectural Studies Director Randy Gragg, will be featured on the AIA Portland tour.

The concrete base of the apartment building uses materials that are common in the neighborhood and colors that are compatible with nearby structures.

“I designed the base of it to reflect the rest of the buildings on the block,” Potestio said. “That’s actually my philosophy is work with your context.”

Like the Bowstring Truss House and Overton 19 projects, the Gragg Apartments sits between industrial and residential areas. It’s one reason why Potestio said he decided to incorporate a large covered porch into the top-floor unit.

“The porch is a homage to the big covered porches on the residential side,” he said.

Another home on the tour, the Pavilion House in Northeast Portland, matches the setbacks, massing and scale of neighboring single-family homes, said Portland architect Ben Waechter, who designed the project. Yet it’s distinctly contemporary.

The design features an open central room on the first floor with a second-story “pavilion” supported by pillars around it.

“The house could be described as having a second-story body that’s supported by four legs kind of like a table,” Waechter said. “The idea was to place these legs strategically in places where they create privacy within the room that aside from these legs is all glass.”

Along with taking cues from surroundings, designs for Dr. Jim’s Lofts and the Bowstring Truss House take advantage of the context within the existing industrial buildings.

Preserving the open warehouse feel of the Bowstring Truss House was important, Strickland said.

“We didn’t want to interrupt that visual continuity across the space,” she said. “None of those walls go all the way to the ceiling, so you can always see over them.”

When Cavenaugh opened some of the roof of Dr. Jim’s Lofts, he left the truss system in place. This created a dynamic setting, he said.

“It’s take-your-breath-away space, and I have nothing to do with that,” he said. “The building, I just let it go.”

If you go …

What: American Institute of Architects Portland Homes Tour: Crafted + Creative Urban Infill

When: Oct. 11 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Where: Eight contemporary Portland homes. Participants in the self-guided tour will receive a printed booklet with maps and descriptions of each home.

Cost: Tickets are $40

More information: aiaportland.org/aia-portland-homes-tour-2014

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A free lecture series this fall will be hosted by the American Institute of Architects’ Portland chapter and focus on the design process.

One “In-Process” lecture is scheduled in September and another in October at the Center for Architecture, 403 N.W. 11th Ave. The first lecture, on Sept. 11, will take place from 5:30 to 7 p.m. and feature Skylab Architecture principal Jeff Kovel. The second, on Oct. 1, will run from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Portland architect Rick Potestio and Randy Gragg, director of the University of Oregon John Yeon Center for Architectural Studies, will discuss the design of Gragg’s Southeast Portland home.

AIA Portland’s Center for Architecture is hosting the lecture series so that architects and their clients can talk about the design process with design and build industry professionals as well as the general public, said Dave Otte, president-elect of the AIA Portland board.

“The In-Process (lecture series) is about opening this place up to the public so they understand more about design,” he said.

The lecture series is a primer for Design Week Portland, set to kick off Oct. 4. AIA Portland also that week will host a home tour (/news/2014/08/20/aia-portland-to-offer-self-guided-tour-of-homes) that will include Gragg’s house, Otte said.

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John Yeon was a self-taught architect whose career was studded with award-winning designs. The Watzek House, a masterwork that Yeon designed in the West Portland hills in 1937 at age 26, was immediately recognized as an architectural landmark; it was featured in the 1938 New York Museum of Modern Art exhibition.

The property, deeded in 1995 to the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts, now serves as the home of the John Yeon Center, a place to foster ongoing discussions about the future of design and architecture.

At the helm is newly appointed Executive Director Randy Gragg, a journalist whose passion for architecture shaped his career and led to his selection to head the center.

“From the time I landed in Portland, I had a deep interest as an advocate for the building environment,” Gragg said.

He spent 17 years writing primarily about architecture as a reporter at The Oregonian, and later as the editor at Portland Monthly, where he continues to contribute as an editor-at-large.

Gragg met Yeon in 1982. Accompanied by the architect, Gragg toured both the Watzek House and The Shire, a Yeon-designed landscape in the Columbia Gorge across the river from Multnomah Falls. During the tours, Yeon shared with Gragg how his concepts had come to fruition on those projects.

“He was an avid environmentalist,” Gragg said. “He believed that architecture and landscaping should be woven into the natural setting.

“As a preservationst, he was also very particular about what needed to be saved.”

Gragg is taking Yeon’s ideology to heart in his role as director of the center.

“My job is building a constituency for properties – not museums, but active places for discussions, conversations about working on more than preservation. This is a venue for thinking about the future.”

To that effect, Gragg spearheaded a recent $2.5 million campaign to restore four Lawrence Halprin-designed fountains in a Portland area that was among the first urban renewal projects in the country.

“This is another extension of what we want to do here – build a constituency for these properties and invest in the legacy of good planning and building,” Gragg said.

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