Designing buildings that will change a community for decades to come is never an easy endeavor. Doing so when without speaking many residents’ languages or knowing their cultures can be exponentially tougher.

“Fundamentally, in any community, if you ask them a set of questions, there is a commonality that can be brought out,” said Suenn Ho, principal and urban designer at RESOLVE Architecture + Planning. “What makes the difference is the cultural diversity of the neighborhood. There are some subtle nuances that are often missed.”

Ho has worked on a variety of projects in ethnically diverse communities. Creating designs that appreciate those nuances can be a time-consuming and expensive proposition. Typically, project teams hold town hall events and meet with neighborhood associations to gain residents’ input. But in communities with a variety of ethnicities, that might not be enough.

“If they make time to go to open house, sometimes the minorities don’t speak up in a public forum,” Ho said. “Then (developers) say no one spoke up in the events, so everything is good. Then their building is not reflecting what the community wants.”

Language can present a big chasm to cross. In 2016, the city of Tigard decided to turn Metzger Elementary School athletic fields into a public park. While working on the project, RESOLVE Architecture + Planning had to get input from community members who came from different parts of the world and spoke various languages.

“That school has very diverse demographics,” Ho said. “There were large numbers of Somalians, African-Americans and Muslims that we needed to reach. We had outreach in five different languages. It was very eye-opening.”

For that project, the team held three open house events. But designers also took the extra step of sending community members surveys in languages such as Marshallese, Arabic, Chuukese and Spanish. Ho worked with the MultiCultural Collaborative to bring in as many different views as possible.

That effort required time and money and is one that many architecture firms struggle to plan for, according to Ankrom Moisan Architects principal Scott Thayer.

“Our firms typically shortchange that whole topic,” he said. “When it comes to the identity of a cultural group or entity, that is where it becomes obvious that some special attention is needed.”

Outreach to communities can lead to subtle project changes that have significant meaning to residents, Thayer said. For instance, for a housing project in a largely African-American area, he said, designers found that porches and stoops were preferred so that residents had places to congregate and socialize. In other parts of the city, porches were largely seen as merely decorative additions.

“It’s important to be able to understand what the lesser understood values are,” he said.

Other subtle changes can be something as simple as a sidewalk upgrade. While working on a series of projects in the area of Division Street between Southeast 117th and 151st avenues, Ho found that residents were unhappy with the states of area sidewalks.

“They felt there were not enough sidewalk lights (and) they weren’t wide enough,” she said. “The area had always been treated like the suburbs. What do you do in suburbs? You drive everywhere.”

What hadn’t been taken into account was the area’s significant Laotian and Burmese populations. Even when traveling by car is an option, many people within those communities would choose to walk.

“They walk around as families,” Ho said. “They are walking because that is what they do. Yet to people and planners who are working in downtown Portland, it is not seen as downtown Portland, so why do they need large sidewalks? You can’t understand how they navigate.”

Ho has found that who designers talk to is as important as the number of people they find. During efforts to redesign the streetscape on Northwest Third and Fourth avenues in Portland’s Chinatown, Ho and her team reached out to the Asian community.

“We did extensive press coverage in the local Chinese Times,” she said. “We also went out and went to meetings with property owners.”

Oftentimes, the small restaurant owner or shopkeeper was the best resource for finding out what a particular community wanted to see in a new development, Ho said.

“Some of these ideas are brushed off by so-called experts,” she said. “These ideas are coming from people not in the mainstream circle. Because no one knows who they are, we are not really paying attention to these voices. As a design team we tried to encapsulate these ideas into the project.”

Portland’s extensive network of neighborhood associations can make the job of gaining public input somewhat easier than in other places.

“People, in general, like to be heard,” said Cameron Hyde, president of Soderstrom Architects. “Sometimes, they aren’t as skilled in describing what they want. It takes more effort to hear them.”

When residents aren’t familiar with dealing with the built environment, and a language or cultural barrier is present, learning what they want can be a challenge, Hyde said.

“You have to sort of interpret what people are saying,” he said.

Sometimes architects find it helpful to hire an interpreter. Design+Culture Lab, for instance, has worked with Ankrom Moisan on outreach in ethnically diverse neighborhoods.

“We will design outreach to allow architects to build relationships,” Design+Culture Lab CEO Joy Davis said. “People want to be involved in shaping their community.”

However, to be effective, outreach must be sincere.

“You have to have quality outreach,” she said. “Designers can’t go in thinking (they) can check a box. People know if it’s thrown in as a token gesture.”

Davis said that the biggest aspect a company like hers brings is trust from minority and disadvantaged communities. Often that effort means walking the streets and involving nonprofits that are active in the community. Davis’ company tries to make sure that the outreach becomes a conversation and not simply a one-note explanation of what a project is going to look like.

“It takes more than a one-size-fits-all approach,” Davis said. “Architects need to spend more time researching beyond their specific area. Get to know the community beyond just the built environment.”

The post A struggle to avoid culture shock appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Jade District, in Southeast Portland, could look a lot different if ideas presented in an urban design charette come to fruition.

The event came about after MultiCultural Collaborative, a self-described team of planning and business professionals, secured a $100,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. Then the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO) last week brought together Prosper Portland (formerly the Portland Development Commission), the Oregon Department of Transportation, the Portland Bureau of Transportation, TriMet and Metro as well as community members to participate in the charette. Designers from Resolve Architecture + Planning, Qamar & Associates Inc. and Green Girl Land Development Solutions LLC showed attendees ideas to “Green the Jade.”

“This is to generate the vision plan,” said Anita Yap, partner in the MultiCultural Collaborative. “It is a conceptual master plan.”

Now that stakeholders’ input has been collected, a final report will be submitted to the EPA this fall.

“Only five communities in the country got grants, so this is a big deal for us,” said Suenn Ho, principal at Resolve Architecture + Planning. “We were able to bring in really strong presence from the Vietnamese community. We got that voice in front of the jurisdiction representatives.”

The designers focused on areas around Southeast 89th Avenue and Brooklyn Street, Southeast 82nd Avenue and Woodward Street, and Southeast 85th Avenue and Division Street.

Organizers had four main goals for the charette. Designers were asked to minimize gentrification, make streets safer, foster development of small businesses and increase parks and green space.

“What was so inspiring was that they hit all four goals,” said Khanh Pham, programs and strategy manager at APANO.

Many of the proposed projects focused on creating parks and slowing traffic in the area. But the focus on small business development was one aspect that helped broaden the audience of the charette, Pham said.

“As community members we originally envisioned it as an entirely environmental project,” she said. “What we found most valuable was the interconnections of how greening the Jade is about small businesses. Trees are nice, but jobs – that is something that piqued people’s interest.”

Charette organizers hope that economic development will help minimize gentrification. Land values in the area have increased, and many parcels are now more valuable than the structures that sit on them.

With neighborhoods zoned for multifamily units, the area is primed for redevelopment.

“It’s about local economic development,” Pham said. “On 82nd (Avenue) and beyond, we are seeing a lot of gentrification issues. We are looking at how we can keep some land permanently affordable.”

Giving the community a voice in that redevelopment and the path it takes was a key aspect of the charette.

“When we team up with designers and they listen to the neighborhood (residents), they tend to be very surprised,” Yap said. “The design is much more complex and thoughtful.”

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Finding Portland’s Chinatown is a challenge for area residents and visitors alike.

“One of the more popular questions we get is: Where is Chinatown?” said Scott Steele, director of marketing and communications for the Lan Su Chinese Garden. “We always talk about the restaurants that are still nearby and Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA). But we also talk about the Jade District out at (Southeast) 82nd (Avenue).”

The Lan Su Chinese Garden, at 239 N.W. Everett St., is one of the few buildings in Portland’s Chinatown that has a distinct Asian flavor. Many of the buildings around it bear little difference from other structures in the city.

“(The gardens) are designed to incorporate the Chinese architecture,” Steele said. “We were truly built for the location we are at. It is really designed to complement the buildings around it.”

Yet few of those surrounding buildings resemble architecturally what many people consider Chinese. Plus, more Asian businesses and residents in Portland now occupy the Jade District than Chinatown.

That isn’t likely to change much under the proposed design guidelines for the Chinatown/Japantown Historic District. The Portland City Council is set to vote in August whether to approve the guidelines, which have been in the works since early 2016. The proposed standards emphasize a more flexible attitude toward signage, balconies, open courtyards and rooftop amenities like gardens. However, architectural changes won’t be drastic.

“You’ll see more balconies, rooftop spaces and a more subtle change to the built environment,” said Brandon Spencer-Hartle, senior planner for Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. “You won’t suddenly see a lot of pagodas and tile roofs. We are looking to keep what makes our Chinatown a little different.”

Rather than encouraging a radical redesign of the area to make it look more like other Chinatowns, the guidelines aim to create a more streamlined aesthetic, according to Spencer-Hartle. The rules will focus on allowing more flexibility on the first three to four floors and allowing alterations that may have been shot down in the past.

This plan is OK with many district stakeholders.

“We want to protect the integrity of the buildings,” said Helen Ying, board member of the Portland Lodge of the Chinese American Citizen Alliance. “We want to tell the history of what our Chinatown is.”

The core of Portland’s Chinatown ranges from West Burnside Street to Northwest Glisan Street and from Northwest Third Avenue to Northwest Fifth Avenue. The area features a large gate, including a pair of sizable lion sculptures, at Fourth Avenue and Burnside Street. Also, ornate streetlamps help give the area an Asian feel.

Nevertheless, Chinatown looks much different from those in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle. Aside from the gate, the streetlamps and a smattering of buildings with tile rooftops, little in Chinatown differentiates it from any other part of Portland. While classic Chinese architecture often has covered walkways, rooftop gardens and open courtyards, Portland’s Chinatown is just as likely to have a parking lot or a tech startup’s office.

“It’s more diffuse,” said Joann Dao Le, principal at DAO Architecture. “From a physical aspect, it is not packed with Asian or Chinese businesses.”

Spencer-Hartle added, “The casual passerby won’t know they are in a different district. A hundred years ago there would have been definite change. Not so much today.”

Prior to World War II, the area now considered Chinatown was dominated by Japanese who began immigrating to the area in the late 1890s and lived in structures built by early European immigrants. The city’s Chinese population largely lived to the south near what is now Keller Auditorium.

“During (World War II), Japantown was decimated by the internment policies,” Le said. “Slowly the Chinatown moved north of Burnside. Especially Third and Fourth Avenue became known as Chinatown.”

The area also has served as home to large Jewish, African-American, Greek and Italian communities. The hodgepodge of communities that have called the region home has left the area with a largely European architectural aesthetic.

Even once the city’s Chinese population migrated to the area, few people actually lived there largely because of a lack of residential units and a reputation for crime and homelessness.

“Other cities’ Chinatowns have a lot more people living there,” said Suenn Ho, principal at Resolve Architecture + Planning. “That makes a big difference.”

Ho contributed to projects in 2006 to improve the streetscape along Third and Fourth avenues. She designed bronze plaques highlighting the history of the area.

“This is not just a Chinatown,” Ho said. “Each of the plaques was located in specific areas that reflect the place that was referenced. They intended to talk about the diverse cultural history of the area.”

The project designers looked to incorporate the important Asian history of the area, and improve its use. Many cities’ Asian areas, for instance, have alleyways that serve as secondary retail areas for small family businesses. Portland’s streetscape doesn’t allow that kind of design, so planners settled for removing curbs from streets and using plazas to reference what a typical Chinatown would be.

“We wanted it to be a welcoming Chinatown,” Ho said. “The area can be utilized in a multitude of ways.”

While efforts to retain Chinatown’s history will continue, no one should expect the area to ever look like the districts that permeate much of the West Coast, Ho said. Many cities’ Chinatowns were created via efforts to attract non-Asian tourists rather than pay homage to authentic Asian architecture.

“Dallas wanted us to come and build a Chinatown for them; they didn’t have one,” Ho said. “The touristy nature of San Francisco is where the gate is. The money is coming from tourists, which perpetuates its own touristy thing because people want to make money.”

In Portland, Chinatown is likely to look more like the rest of the city as areas become gentrified and redeveloped. While it won’t have pagoda roofs and dragon décor, the goal is to make an experience that will be unique to the area and respectful to its history.

“We are not wanting to make it pretend like it’s Disneyland,” Ying said. “We want to tell the history of what our Chinatown is. That is what we want to focus on, not attracting tourists.”

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When Oregon Department of Transportation project leader Melissa Sutkowski created a request for proposals for the Old Youngs Bay and Lewis and Clark River Bridges Interpretive Display, she didn’t really know what she wanted, so she made the RFP vague. The strategy led to creation of a creative setup that will open officially on Tuesday.

ODOT had recently rebuilt the west approach for the Lewis and Clark River Bridge between Astoria and Warrenton, Sutkowski said. The bridge had huge old gears and other mechanical parts that had been operating nonstop for almost 100 years and needed to be replaced.

The State Historic Preservation Office told ODOT it would like to showcase some of the bridge relics, Sutkowski said, which would help mitigate the fact that the historic structure had to be “damaged” to accommodate safety and efficiency upgrades.

“We had these salvaged parts from the bridge we wanted to incorporate into some sort of interpretive display, but we needed some artistic people to come up with some really great ideas,” she said.

Suenn Ho of Suenn Ho Design provided some. She was awarded the RFP and became the lead designer for the display with the help of John Flynn of Resolve Architecture. Ho also brought in many other artisans she had worked with for the design of the Garden of Surging Waves in Astoria.

With a budget of $200,000 for the project, Ho said the team knew the display had to be “more than just a plaque,” so she started digging and learned that ODOT had copies of the original drawings and plans for the two bridges as well as photos taken when they were constructed in the 1920s.

Images of the drawings and photos will be sandblasted onto one side of flat, granite slabs that will be attached to vertical iron posts as one of the elements in a 27-feet-by-15-feet area. All etched drawings will be highlighted in white enamel paint to make them resemble blueprints, Ho said.

The other side of the granite slabs, which range in size from 9 inches by 15 inches to 24 inches by 50 inches, will feature drawings of bridges by students at Lewis & Clark Elementary in Astoria, along with poems they wrote after they learned about the bridges’ history. The kids’ artwork will also look like blueprints.

Ho said at first only a few of the kids’ drawings and poems were going to be used in the display, but once Sutkowski learned of them, she said all 60 should be included. The students will attend the opening on Tuesday, Ho said, but won’t know until then that all of their designs are featured.

The students’ original drawings will be placed in a metal time capsule that looks like a tree stump. It was built by Astoria High School students Bronson Holthusen and Clay Englund with the help of metal shop teacher Jesse Fulton.

Other elements incorporated in the display include gears formerly used on the Old Youngs Bay Bridge and wooden posts from Lewis and Clark River Bridge trestles. Short wooden posts will be topped by metal, photographic displays telling the history of the bridges and the men who built them.

Both bridges are among 13 on U.S. Route 101 designed by Conde McCullough. A life-size metal silhouette of McCullough stands as part of the interpretive display, next to a list of all the bridges he designed.

“You can stand next to him and take a picture,” Ho said.

The Old Youngs Bay and Lewis and Clark River Bridges Interpretive Display is between Astoria and Warrenton, near U.S. Route 101 Business and the Airport Dike Trail. Both bridges can be seen from the location.

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