Midsize builder Lease Crutcher Lewis is busy with public and private work in the Portland-metro area:

• Work on the $103 million Wizer Block project is under way in Lake Oswego. The controversial redevelopment will include 201 residential units and 42,000 square feet of retail space. Deconstruction of the Wizer shopping center has begun, with construction scheduled to conclude in fall 2017. Opponents have criticized the project for being too bulky and dense. Recently, a challenge of project approval was denied review by the Oregon Supreme Court.

• Lewis is modernizing Roosevelt High School in Portland’s St. Johns neighborhood. Demolition and site work for the $65 million project began in the summer. Construction of a new classroom building, a performing arts center and an athletic complex is under way. The historic auditorium building is undergoing a seismic upgrade and renovation to accommodate a new library and classrooms. Work should wrap up in fall 2017. The project is one of three major high school modernizations funded by a Portland Public Schools bond. The architect is Bassetti Architects.

• The Oregon Zoo‘s $48 million, 6.25-acre Elephant Lands habitat project, which began in February 2012, will finish later this fall. The Metro project includes an elephant viewing area and modifications to the zoo railway. The local architect is SRG, in partnership with CLR Design of Philadelphia. The project is the first in Oregon to incorporate cross-laminated timber, and the largest of those funded by a $125 million bond passed in 2008.

• Lewis is constructing a nine-floor tenant improvement for Stoel Rives at the Park Avenue West skyscraper. The project involves renovating 135,000 square feet to accommodate a two-floor conference center, five floors to serve attorneys and two floors to serve administrators. The construction value is $15 million.

• Lewis in spring 2016 will start a 175,000-square-foot headquarters renovation and addition for SAIF, Oregon’s not-for-profit state-chartered workers’ compensation insurance company. The project will include a seismic upgrade, a building façade modernization and a major addition.

Lease Crutcher Lewis in 2013 was the city’s 10th-largest general contractor, with $93.6 million in local billings. CEO Bart Ricketts splits his workweek between the firm’s Portland office above Tasty n Alder at 550 S.W. 12th Ave. and its Seattle office. The firm self-performs all concrete work and relies on predominantly union carpenters, laborers and operators, according to Lewis Marketing Director Janice Westcott. – Garrett Andrews

Builder’s Choice is a new 91��Ƶ feature offering a look at the projects being tackled by local architecture, engineering and construction firms. To have your firm’s projects considered, contact 91��Ƶ construction reporter Garrett Andrews at 503-802-7226 or garrett.andrews@djcOregon.com.

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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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Oregon Health & Science University officials are close to hiring architect and contractor teams for two new buildings in Portland’s South Waterfront District.

Contracts should be finalized by the end of January with design and build teams for the $340 million Center for Health and Healing South and the $160 million Knight Cancer Research Building (also referred to by some as the Schnitzer Campus Building Three), OHSU spokeswoman Tamara Hargens-Bradley said.

According to industry sources, OHSU has selected Portland-based firms SRG Partnership and Andersen Construction along with St. Louis-based McCarthy Building Companies to design and build the Schnitzer Campus building and Portland-based firms ZGF Architects with Hoffman Construction for the CHH South.

Hargens-Bradley declined to confirm these selections, however. The university is not releasing any details until final contracts are signed, she said.

Andersen spokesman Phil Kennedy confirmed that the general contractor is a finalist to build the new Schnitzer Campus building in partnership with SRG and McCarthy, but said no contract has been signed.

SRG Partnership spokeswoman Bonnie Duncan said the firm had no news to report yet about the OHSU project. Bart Eberwein, a spokesman for Hoffman Construction, and Amy Columbo, a spokeswoman for ZGF, referred questions to OHSU.

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It’s no secret that Oregon Health & Science University has compiled short lists of firms still in the running to design and construct two new buildings in Portland’s South Waterfront District. However, university officials have declined to name these finalists that responded to a request for proposals in August.

Now, industry sources say six teams of architects and general contractors are vying for the projects.

Industry professionals, who requested anonymity, confirmed that the three teams moving ahead in the interview process to design and build the $340 million Center for Health and Healing South are ZGF Architects with Hoffman Construction, NBBJ and GBJ Architecture with Turner Construction, and SmithGroupJJR and Mahlum Architects with Mortenson Construction.

Sources said teams interviewing for the contract to design and build the $160 million Knight Cancer Research Building are ZGF with Mortenson Construction, SRG Partnership with McCarthy and Andersen Construction, and Perkins + Will and Hennebery Eddy Architects with Skanska.

The university anticipates having a design-build team in place for the Center for Health and Healing South in mid-December and one for the Knight Cancer Research Building by early January 2015.

The estimated 675,000-square-foot Center for Health and Healing South will hold ambulatory surgery services and outpatient clinics for cancer treatment and cardiovascular surgery. It also will house the clinical trials for OHSU‘s Knight Cancer Institute, an 80-bed guesthouse, a conference center, a central utility plant and a parking garage.

The approximately 330,000-square-foot Knight Cancer Research Building will have research labs, administrative offices, a conference center and parking. Plans to construct the center got a boost last year when Nike co-founder Phil Knight promised to give $500 million to the Knight Cancer Institute if OHSU could raise $500 million more in two years.

Construction is scheduled to start on both buildings is scheduled to start in March 2016 and finish by July 2018.

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University of Oregon officials have selected the design team for an estimated $10 million to $15 million project to build a new softball stadium.

Portland-based SRG Partnership will design Jane Sanders Stadium in collaboration with Eugene-based Cameron McCarthy Landscape Architecture & Planning.

University officials are still investigating several potential sites on or near the Eugene campus for the new stadium, said Joe Waltasti, a spokesman for the university’s athletics department. The approximate size of the stadium won’t be determined until a site has been selected and the project moves into the design process, he said.

The UO softball team currently plays at Howe Field. The former baseball field, which in 1987 was converted into one for softball, is inadequate for both athletes and spectators, Waltasti said.

“It’s horrifically outdated,” he said. “It’s in dire need of being replaced.”

Plans to build a new softball stadium got a major boost in June when UO alum Robert Sanders donated $10 million toward the project. The stadium will be named in honor of Sanders’ late wife, Jane, who also graduated from the university. The pair met in college and earned their wealth in the lumber industry with businesses in Oregon, California and Washington.

University officials hope to raise additional money for the project, and anticipate breaking ground next summer, Waltasti said. A general contractor has not been hired yet.

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A 103-year-old building now has a new life as administrative offices following a renovation as part of an effort to expand Portland Community College’s Southeast Center into a full-service campus.

Over the summer, a four-story structure constructed in 1911 as the Altenheim retirement home for German immigrants was transformed into PCC‘s Southeast Administration Building.

The building’s prominent presence in historic photographs immediately struck Sam Stadler, an SRG Partnership job captain, when the firm was hired to design the project. A large goal of the $4.1 million renovation was to restore that feeling, he said. This included tearing down two wings that were added in the 1970s and ’80s so that the building would again stand alone on the site. Also the main entrance staircase was recreated and the facade was restored to closely match its past appearance.

“We returned the building to its original character,” Stadler said. “We really wanted to hold true to what the building originally looked like on the exterior.”

PCC acquired the building as well as other properties on an approximately 10-acre parcel from the German American Society in 2009, PCC spokeswoman Gina Whitehill-Baziuk said. The $9.4 million purchase, funded via a $378 million bond measure approved by voters in 2008 to improve and expand PCC facilities, doubled the size of the campus.

Renovation of the four-story building into administrative offices was one of the last steps in the expansion of the campus into one where students can attend all classes needed to earn an associate’s degree, Whitehill-Baziuk said. Bond money also paid for construction of a new student commons and library. PCC will host a grand opening for the comprehensive campus on Saturday.

As PCC officials reached out to the community to identify the best use for the ex-German American Society building, it became clear that it should be preserved, Whitehill-Baziuk said.

“A lot of staff people at the college in working with the community fully recognized that it was an iconic building,” she said.

It now holds a central office for campus administration and new headquarters for PCC’s community education program. Also, preparations are under way for a branch of the Small Business Development Center to move into the fourth floor, Southeast Campus President Jessica Howard said.

The building’s history resonates with the large number of immigrant students served by the college, she said. In 1911, Louisa Weinhard, widow of German-American beer brewer Henry Weinhard, donated a 20-acre parcel for construction of a retirement home for elderly German immigrants. The building now houses Howard’s office.

“By not only acquiring the property, but particularly by renovating the building, we’re preserving something that’s important to the community,” she said. “It demonstrates our commitment to serving immigrants and immigrant culture in Southeast Portland.”

Stadler said he and other members of the SRG design team also saw the value in preserving the building.

“Frankly, it has a great look to it,” he said.

The tricky part was addressing the building’s poor condition, Stadler said. There were numerous leaks and mold issues, huge holes in the floor and falling ceiling tiles, he said. The entire interior was gutted; a seismic upgrade was performed to stabilize unreinforced masonry; and windows, ceilings, floors as well as mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems were replaced.

Design team members had access to the original building plans, but a lot of surprises arose as construction proceeded, Stadler said.

“Structurally speaking, it was really challenging,” he said. “Pretty much every piece of the building that we pulled off ended up being falling apart or moldy … The building has been added on and taken apart, and we didn’t have good documentation of that.”

A series of historic photographs of the building that once hung on its walls proved especially valuable for restoration of the exterior, Stadler said.

“We just took what we thought was the best original context for the project and we celebrated that as best we could,” he said.

The photographs helped the team figure out that the stucco ends of the mostly brick building were previously a different color.

“The original building was gray at the bookends,” Stadler said. “We studied a lot of these historic photographs. We just worked really hard to match that.”

Restoring the building had a transformative effect on the college, he said.

“It ended up being one of the cool little gems on campus,” he said. “It was nice to provide something with historical flair to a campus that’s really proud of its identity.”

Portland Community College Southeast Administration Building

Location: 2305 S.E. 82nd Ave., Portland

Construction cost: $4.1 million

Construction start date: July 2013

Construction completion date: July 2014

Owner: Portland Community College

Architect: SRG Partnership

Landscape architect: Walker Macy

Engineers: PAE, Catena Consulting Engineers and KPFF Consulting Engineers

General contractor: O’Neill/Walsh Community Builders LLC

If you go

What: Portland Community College Southeast Center grand opening

When: Saturday, from noon to 4 p.m.

Where: 2305 S.E. 82nd Ave., Portland

Information: 971-722-8454 or www.pcc.edu/about/events/southeast-opening

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SRG Partnership co-founder and principal Jon Schleuning recently was honored by the American Institute of Architects’ Northwest & Pacific Region for his contributions to the architectural profession.

He received the 2014 Region Medal of Honor Award, the organization’s highest accolade for individuals who have promoted public understanding of architects and architecture through excellence in design and service to the profession. The award recognizes notable contributions to the region, which includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Hawaii and Guam.

Schleuning said it meant a lot to him that the honor singled him out from peers practicing throughout the region.

“I’m really humbled by it,” he said. “It’s actually really huge.”

He co-founded SRG Partnership with Dave Richen and Fred Gast in 1972; the firm now has offices in Portland and Seattle. Schleuning was instrumental in formation of the Portland Downtown Plan, efforts to install a light rail system and creation of Pioneer Courthouse Square. He said he is proud to have played a role in his hometown’s evolution into what it is today.

Schleuning said he has long emphasized to SRG staffers the importance of sustainability and designing buildings within their context or repurposing existing structures.

“It’s more than buildings; it’s more than design awards,” he said. “It’s about families of buildings. There is much more awareness today about eco-districts.”

SRG’s dedication to public, educational and owner-occupied projects was fostered by Schleuning. Among the designs he’s particularly proud of are the Oregon Market at the Portland International Airport – including its carpet – the Mount St. Helens Visitor Center in Castle Rock, Wash., and the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport.

Schleuning is a co-founder of the Architecture Foundation of Oregon and twice served as its president. He is a fellow of the AIA and has also played an active role in the Portland chapter, including service on the board and as a mentor of the next generation of architects.

Rapidly advancing design technology and work with a smart and talented group of young architects at SRG are among the reasons why Schleuning said he’s still eager to come into work each day.

“I’m practicing today because it’s the most exciting period that I’ve practiced,” he said.

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A team of staffers from SRG Partnership and PAE Consulting Engineers built the winning sand sculpture Friday in Yoshida’s Sand in the City competition at Pioneer Courthouse Square.

The 14-member team’s sculpture, “30,000 Leagues Under the Square,” was inspired by the book and movie “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and the 30th anniversary of Pioneer Courthouse Square, PAE associate Zachary Suchara said.

A team from Nike placed second and team Ultimate Ears was third; twelve teams competed.

The most prominent feature of the sculpture by the SRG and PAE team is a giant squid eating a submarine. Staffers from both firms spent a couple of months planning the project, including producing renderings and models with clay and using digital software, Suchara said. The team also took advantage of SRG Partnership’s 3-D printer to produce specialized tools for jobs like forming the suckers on the squid’s tentacles.

Team members then spent about eight hours constructing the sculpture on Friday. It was on display at Pioneer Courthouse Square through Sunday.

“Everybody just came together; it was neat,” Suchara said. “You get about halfway through the day and you don’t think anything will come of it and then it just forms before your eyes.”

The annual three-day Sand in the City event raises money for Kids on the Block, a nonprofit that uses puppet shows to educate children of the importance of accepting people with disabilities.

Hoffman Construction and ZGF Architects also participated in the competition.

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They’re a common sight in architectural renderings.

Perhaps it’s a woman strolling while talking on a cellphone, a businessman carrying a briefcase, or a bicyclist. All are real people who appear in photographic form to populate a scene that doesn’t yet exist.

This rendering “entourage” lends scale, provides a human connection to the viewer and tells the story of who might use or interact with the proposed building. It’s a mighty weight on the shoulders of these cutout people, so they are chosen carefully.

“Say a rendering takes 40 hours to produce – at least 20 of those are spent on the entourage,” said Walker Templeton, a senior project designer with SERA Architects. “You want the people in the image to portray the mood, the style, the lifestyle of the building you’re producing.”

Portland-area architecture firms gather the people photos from a variety of sources, and store them in portfolios of images that can be used in a variety of settings. Some websites offer free downloadable cutout people images taken using models and organized into categories like “summer,” “guitar,” “coffee” and “happy.” Others offer a combination of free images and downloadable packages for a fee.

Designers also often perform simple web image searches and crop people out, or take their own pictures using firm staffers as models. There’s also an element of playfulness involved, such as the subtle insertion of Clint Eastwood or David Bowie into a rendering.

Certain renderings by GBD Architects of the Hassalo on Eighth project in Portland’s Lloyd District feature Darth Vader riding a Segway, said Taylor Bailey, a GBD designer.

“We kind of hid him in the scene,” he said. “If you look closer, you can find gems.”

Age, diversity and clothing are among the most important factors when choosing an entourage, Portland designers say. Out-of-style clothing could make a rendering look dated instead of contemporary. Architects also pay close attention to the age demographic that a project is targeting and choose images of people that match that.

Although the most common entourage members are people with simple clothing who don’t draw much attention to themselves, a more flamboyant person can be used to pull the viewer into a particular element of the building design.

“Sometimes you need those distracting elements, like a kid with balloons or a guy breakdancing,” Bailey said. “It gives the scheme a narrative.”

In the early stages of design, Templeton said he prefers to use shadowy silhouettes or transparent figures because photographs of actual people have a strong impact on clients.

“They will zoom in on the people in the image,” he said. “They will not make a single comment on the architecture. They will only talk about the people in the image, so I’ve learned to be very careful about how I choose people.”

Remembering who will use the space is important, said Dmitriy Molla, a designer with the Portland office of SRG Partnership. When he was working on renderings for the Hillsboro Hops stadium project, a simple observation led to considerable revisions.

“I wasn’t really paying attention to the kind of people I put in there,” Molla said. “Somebody pointed out Hillsboro is actually quite a diverse place and I’d placed mostly white people in there, so I went back and put more Hispanic people in there.”

One client critique of early renderings SERA created for a renovation of the University of Oregon’s Erb Memorial Union in Eugene was that no one was wearing a backpack, Templeton said. So the firm bought a package of cutout images of people wearing backpacks. There was just one problem. All of the images were of schoolchildren.

“We needed a 20-year-old with a backpack, so we had to look online and find images,” Templeton said.

When SERA staffers decided to include the Oregon Duck mascot in a few of the EMU renderings, university officials wavered on whether that was an appropriate addition, Templeton said.

“That was a big discussion point,” he said.

He remembers another time when he created a rendering for the interior of a building and inadvertently included a person with a cigarette.

“That was a big deal because you weren’t supposed to be smoking in the building,” he said.

Because most renderings contain a composite of people images pulled from a variety of sources, one of the trickiest parts is making them fit the scene, said Nathan Katten, an associate with landscape architecture and urban design firm Walker Macy. This includes ensuring that the figures are shaded similarly.

“That can be really challenging to try and gather an entourage that’s all downloaded from different places and make them all look like they belong in the same image,” he said.

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Equilibrium Engineers principal Ed Quesenberry is accustomed to accounting for wind and earthquake loads, but the Oregon Zoo’s Elephant Lands project came with another one.

“We had this other load case, which is the elephant load,” he said. “In a lot of cases, it was the elephant load that controlled the design. It was very interesting and very challenging.”

Engineering the 35-foot-tall, 20-inch-thick cast-in-place concrete walls being installed by Lease Crutcher Lewis crews required extensive calculations to ensure strength to withstand the force of an adult bull elephant. Also, two separate wall sections reinforced with rebar sandwich a layer of foam insulation to meet the zoo’s stringent energy efficiency requirements.

“It took a lot of engineering and planning before the first concrete was poured,” said Wayne Starkey, project engineer and owner’s representative.

The 13,000-square-foot barn and adjacent 17,000-square-foot Forest Hall indoor viewing area are part of a $57 million project to expand the zoo’s elephant habitat and enhance visitors’ experiences. When complete, the two attached buildings will be the largest the zoo has ever constructed and account for elephants’ ability to reach up to 24 feet standing on their hind legs.

“We had to meet with zoo staff and with the elephant keepers to determine … the reasonable design criteria for elephants,” Quesenberry said. “The biggest concern was the elephants are very strong. They can push on things.”

Equilibrium Engineers determined the required strength of the indoor habitat walls by accounting for the weight of the zoo’s heaviest elephant, Tusko – about 14,000 pounds. This included ensuring that the walls could withstand the impact an elephant of that size traveling at 5 mph as well as 7,000 pounds of leaning force. As a test, zoo trainers coaxed Tusko to push against a pressure gauge mounted on the wall of the existing elephant barn.

“With very little effort, he was able to impart a load of 4,000 pounds, so we knew the lean load of 7,000 pounds was OK,” Quesenberry said.

Even with the ability to test Tusko’s strength, a lot of the structural engineering had to be based on theory and research of similar projects, he said.

“It’s a very interesting design process because you’re dealing with these very unpredictable elephants,” he said. “A lot of it was based on anecdotal evidence from other zoos.”

Every part of the barn that elephants can touch must be solidly locked down to avoid damage, Quesenberry said. Steel posts in the stalls, for instance, will be filled with concrete and embedded 4 feet into the foundation.

“If they can move something, they’re interested and want to move it, so we tried to design around movement,” he said.

Vertically casting the tall concrete walls is a tricky process, Lease Crutcher Lewis senior project manager Andrew Dykeman said. Each wall pour requires seven to eight hours because crews have to add concrete slowly to avoid a pool at the bottom of the form, he said.

“It’s a very unique type of pour just because of the pour pressures we’re dealing with and the heights of the walls,” he said. “We don’t do pours like that very often.”

So far, crews have worked on walls for the elephant barn; Forest Hall will follow, Dykeman said. The plan is to have structures ready for elephants to move inside in March 2015. The entire project is scheduled to finish in October 2015.

Elephant Lands

Location: 4001 S.W. Canyon Road, Portland

Cost: $57 million

Construction start date: June 2013

Anticipated finish date: October 2015

Owner: Oregon Zoo

Architects: CLR Design, SRG Partnership

Engineer: Equilibrium Engineers

General contractor: Lease Crutcher Lewis

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