Two Portland architect firms have received international recognition for their creative design of churches in Bend and Keizer.

Di Loreto Architecture’s design of a church in Keizer and the design of a church in Bend by THA Architecture were both awarded International Religious Art and Architecture Design awards in the subcategory of “Religious Architecture: New Facilities.”

The awards are co-sponsored by Faith & Form Magazine and the Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art and Architecture (IFRAA), a knowledge community of the American Institute of Architects.

Founded in 1978, the awards honor the best in architecture, liturgical design and art for religious spaces. This year there were 123 entries in the competition in five major categories, including religious architecture, liturgical/interior design, sacred landscape, religious arts and unbuilt work.

Di Loreto Architecture’s design for Saint Edward Catholic Church in Keizer was a $4 million, 11,700-square-foot project that replaced a 40-year-old sanctuary that was too small and structurally compromised. The new church can hold 600 people and the interior features glulam beams, arches, and woodwork made of Douglas fir and Oregon white oak. The interior arches are visible from the façade through a skylight that wraps around the entire building.

In designing the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Central Oregon in Bend, lead designer Corey Martin of THA Architecture said the design took into account “the natural processes of erosion” and high desert landscape. The landscape is brought indoors with telescoping sliding doors on the building’s south side. The $9 million, 20,000-square-foot project includes a 250-seat sanctuary, kitchen, meeting rooms, classrooms and a fellowship hall. Among its features are large, partially hand-sculpted interior doors that are an abstract reflection of the area’s columnar basalt cliffs.

Winners of the International Religious Art and Architecture Design awards will be displayed next May at the 2016 national convention of the American Institute of Architects in Philadelphia. They will also be listed in the Winter 2015 Awards issue of Faith & Form Magazine.

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The design of a recently completed church in Bend reflects the natural environment — inside and out.

Lead designer Corey Martin of Portland-based THA Architecture said the congregation at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Central Oregon is very tuned into the volcanic landscape of central Oregon which influenced the design.

“We looked at the natural processes of erosion in Central Oregon where there really are new eruptions you can see and the process of change going on right before your eyes,” he said.

Parts of the building are designed to seem like it is going through erosion or change, he said, and the building itself suggests a giant tree or log in a forest.

The $9 million, 20,000-square-foot project includes a 250-seat sanctuary, kitchen, meeting rooms, classrooms and a fellowship hall.

“The whole thing is designed to have continuity and they can open up the whole south side through telescoping sliding doors,” he said.

The building is also energy efficient and designed to maximize potential for heating with the sun, he said.

“In the winter, when the sun is low, it hits big thermal mass walls and heats them up,” he said. “And in the summer, when the sun is high, the building has a deep overhang that shades the whole building.”

General contractor for the project was Kirby Nagelhout Construction Co. of Bend with landscape architecture by Walker Macy Landscape Architecture. PAE Consulting Engineers of Portland was in charge of electrical and mechanical engineering.

Striking components of the design include two sliding interior doors, 10 feet wide and 20 feet high. The doors are meant to reflect the columnar basalt cliffs that are abundant in the region, said Martin, who also has a background in sculpture and furniture making.

“Sometimes you can see when the cliffs were first created under high temperature, they didn’t grow straight and it looks like the columns have been bent,” he said. “So the doors were inspired by the columnar basalt cliffs, but more abstracted.”

The doors were rough milled based on a computer model, he said, and then hand-worked and chiseled to get the final result.

Work on the new church at 61980 Skyline Ranch Rd. was completed about two months ago.

“The important thing about the project was a real attempt to design something that was really fit for that area,” Martin said, “a beautiful and amazing place where people appreciate their landscape.”

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After years of preparation, a pause during the recession and a state land-use appeal, the Portland Japanese Garden’s plans to expand are moving forward.

Garden officials this week said Hoffman Construction Co. crews are scheduled to start work in late August on a $33.5 million expansion project aimed at accommodating the growing number of visitors to the 5.5-acre garden in Portland’s Washington Park. The project to add four new buildings and landscaped areas is being designed by the Japanese firm Kengo Kuma & Associates in collaboration with Portland Japanese Garden curator Sadafumi Uchiyama and Portland-based firms THA Architecture Inc. and Walker Macy.

When the garden first opened 48 years ago, it received about 30,000 visitors a year. Now, more than 300,000 visitors pass through the garden’s gates annually, often detracting from its intent to be a peaceful place, Portland Japanese Garden Chief Executive Officer Stephen Bloom said at a press conference Tuesday.

“While it may have been tranquil with 30,000 people, with 10 times that it was starting to impact that,” he said. “So the garden is not overrun; we have (designed) buildings and places for people to be. That was first and foremost.”

But shortly after plans were made in 2007 to expand the garden, a recession hit and officials decided to hold off on fundraising efforts, Bloom said.

“We thought perhaps it was not the best time to raise $30 million,” he said. “We put the project on hold for a few years.”

Once the economy improved, the project first had to undergo the city of Portland’s land-use approval process. The Japanese Garden Society of Oregon, a private nonprofit, operates the garden on 9.1 acres leased from the city. The expansion project will increase that acreage to 12.5.

These plans were criticized by neighbors of the garden who raised concerns that insufficient public feedback was gathered on the project involving park property and that the expansion would block access to a well-used footpath that connects to Washington Park’s popular Wildwood Trail. Last fall, Portland architect Hilary Mackenzie, who lives near the garden, appealed the city’s conditional approval of the project to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals.

LUBA dismissed the appeal in March, upholding city approval of the project, and garden officials confirmed the expansion plans were proceeding. Bloom said on Tuesday that more than $20 million has been raised so far to pay for the project. This includes $1.5 million in state lottery bond funding.

Portland City Commissioner Amanda Fritz, who oversees Portland Parks & Recreation, said city officials are happy to see the project move forward.

“It’s been a very tricky land-use process,” she said. “We really appreciate the partnership with the Japanese Garden staff … The enhancements to the Japanese Garden are going to make it even more special.”

Project plans call for 11,328 square feet of new construction, including a relocated entrance and ticketing pavilion and adjacent Cultural Village with several new buildings.

“The idea of the design was to build a small Japanese village,” Bloom said.

In the Cultural Village, a new Village House will be built with a gift shop, art galleries, Japanese gardening library, multipurpose classroom and administrative offices. The Cultural Village will also include the new Tateuchi Courtyard, a plaza for hosting seasonal activities, performances and demonstrations, an upgraded maintenance facility for gardening staffers and a tea café.

“We listened to our members and we listened to our visitors and the biggest thing they said is we want a place where we can sit and have tea,” Bloom said.

The project will relocate the main entrance to align with the garden’s existing parking lot on Southwest Kingston Avenue instead of at the top of a steep hill. This will ease access to the garden, Bloom said.

“We knew that there were logistical and safety issues that we had to address,” he said.

The hillside will then be enveloped into the garden to become part of a series of new landscaped areas, including a bonsai tree terrace and Japanese tea flower garden.

The Portland Japanese Garden expansion is Kengo Kuma & Associates’ first public project in North America, said Balazs Bognar , the firm’s chief manager and design director. Nature and the existing gardens served as chief inspiration for the design, he said.

“The gardens are at the heart of the design,” Bognar said. “We are not touching the existing gardens. Those are perfect. What we are doing as the architect part of the team is simply filling in the gaps.”

A groundbreaking celebration for the project is scheduled for Aug. 31 with plans to close the garden starting on Sept. 8 during the height of construction. The garden will reopen on March 1 while construction continues. The project is scheduled to be complete by spring 2017.

Portland Japanese Garden expansion

Location: 611 S.W. Kingston Ave.

Cost: $33.5 million

Anticipated construction start date: August 2015

Anticipated construction completion date: Spring 2017

Owner: Portland Japanese Garden Society of Oregon

Architects: Kengo Kuma & Associates and THA Architecture Inc.

Landscape architects: Sadafumi Uchiyama and Walker Macy

Engineers: PAE, KPFF Consulting Engineers and Geotechnical Resources Inc.

General contractor: Hoffman Construction Co.

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THA Architecture principal Charles Dorn learned a lot about life on the margins between two countries while traveling last fall and winter along the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico.

Dorn visited a series of border checkpoints for motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists in both the southern and northern U.S. as part of the Portland firm’s contract with the U.S. General Services Administration to help improve the crossings.

“Every one is a story,” he said. “It was a lot of driving – thousands of miles of driving. A lot of people here thought it was a hardship. Frankly, it was enlightening.”

Dorn and other firm staffers were tasked with providing design expertise for way-finding and signage upgrades at 17 U.S. border checkpoints. To inform this feedback, he felt it was important to experience in person the regions surrounding the checkpoints THA was contracted to work on in Vermont, New York, North Dakota, Idaho, Washington, Montana, California, Texas and New Mexico.

“The most fascinating thing is visiting all these communities,” Dorn said.

This is one of the best approaches an architect can take to working on border crossing upgrades, said Ramon Riesgo, GSA director of projects for the 47 checkpoints the federal agency operates along the border between the U.S. and Mexico. The GSA also manages 121 other checkpoints, known as land ports of entry, along the Canadian border.

“You have to understand the community,” Riesgo said. “Every land port of entry is different because of the community.”

Since 1999, the GSA has invested heavily in various technology and security upgrades to aging and increasingly trafficked border crossings on both sides of the country as well as renovations and replacement projects. The agency has called on architecture firms like THA through its to assist with these projects and find ways to make the checkpoints more efficient, including meeting Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design certification requirements.

Approximately 290,000 cars, 25,000 trucks and 114,000 pedestrians pass through the U.S.’s northern and southern border checkpoints each day, Riesgo said.

“Our land ports of entry are pretty busy,” he said. “When you look at a land port of entry you have to look at it as an element of a transportation-wide system between two countries. The border in the last 20 years has become a large economic engine.”

But the average checkpoint was built more than 40 years ago, and many need to be brought up to current standards, Riesgo said.

“A lot of them were built in a different era with different needs in terms of security and in terms of trade,” he said. “We had to invest in making the ports of entry more efficient and also (meet) the enhanced need for new technology.”

The projects often come with a range of challenges, including extreme climate conditions and remote locations, Riesgo said. Designing improvements to border crossings also involves careful consideration of the dynamics of border regions, he said. Security concerns, the needs of nearby communities in both countries and the economic impacts of commerce and tourism travel across the border all factor into the design decisions.

“Working at the border, you have to be flexible, you have to have initiative and you have to be multitalented,” Riesgo said.

Dorn said he approached THA’s border crossing projects with interest because it differs greatly from the firm’s other work.

“It’s a weird project for an architect,” he said. “It’s definitely expanding outside the comfort zone of the architects. There are issues related to the demographics. It’s a transportation-oriented design problem that we’re not usually accustomed to.”

THA’s work on border crossings dates back to 1995, when the firm designed a to the Pacific Highway Port of Entry in Blaine, Wash. The project was completed in 2000.

More recently, THA staffers completed a master plan and design for a at the Juarez-Lincoln Land Port of Entry in Laredo, Texas to accommodate an increased amount of bus traffic passing through the checkpoint. GSA officials are in the process of hiring a general contractor for the project.

Last year, the GSA extended a contract with THA for the firm to assist installation of dynamic LED signage in English, Spanish and French at more border crossings following a successful pilot of the technology in Blaine.

Dorn said the project has involved figuring out the best way to move travelers through the checkpoints, such as adding lanes or more descriptive signage, based on the most common type of traffic passing over the border in that region. He quickly learned that factor varied greatly depending on the checkpoint’s location. One border crossing he visited was often used by Americans seeking medical treatment in Mexico while another primarily served diplomats and dignitaries. The Laredo bus processing facility THA designed will mostly serve Mexican workers traveling into the U.S. for temporary jobs while border crossings into Canada from Idaho and Montana are often used by tourists, Dorn said.

For all of the crossings, he strove to improve the visitor experience.

“It’s also a situation where most people are pretty tense,” Dorn said. “The idea is to make it a less stressful, a more humane approach.”

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Guardian Real Estate Services, owner of the pie-shaped vacant Portland lot at 2030 N.W. 17th Ave., has asked the city for a pre-application conference. The company may construct on the lot two buildings from five to eight stories.

But those plans could change, Guardian spokeswoman Emily Logue said, and a decision about what will be built will be made within a couple of months.

“We’re trying to find the highest and best use for the project,” she said, adding that any decision will take into account the neighborhood’s needs.

Guardian is also working with another company to develop the property, Logue said, but not with a focus solely on profit.

“We’ve changed our business model a bit,” she said. “We’re focusing on how we can help the city of Portland. We are focusing on mixed income – attainable housing – both affordable and market rate. We don’t want to drive any one demographic out of the city.”

Although the 17th Avenue project will be mixed use, Logue said, other key details remain unsettled.

“It could be housing and offices or offices and retail,” she said. “Everything is up in the air, including partners.”

Guardian president Tom Brenneke is passionate about land use, Logue said, and added that he mentioned interest in working with Central City Concern to learn how to include low-income units in future developments.

“This opportunity could be a market-rate 12-story office building, but it’s not about just building as high as you can build,” she said.

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A nine-story office building will be going up in the Pearl District now that an agreement has been reached for the sale of a 0.80-acre vacant lot from the Portland Development Commission to Williams & Dame Development for $7.4 million.

The triangular lot, a 34,808-square-foot parcel, is bordered by Northwest Ninth Avenue on the north and west, by Northrup Street on the south and by railroad tracks on the east. The PDC acquired the vacant lot in 1987 as part of a larger 30-acre Union Station purchase that was later divided into separate parcels. The property has been fenced and maintained as unimproved by the PDC over the years. But the land was contaminated by industrial activity in the past, and in 2003, the state Department of Environmental Quality outlined remedial actions to lower unacceptable levels of arsenic, lead and benzopyrene in the soil. The PDC will pay for the cleanup, estimated to cost $700,000.

Williams & Dame this week made a request to the city for early assistance with design advice. The request identifies Phillip Beyl of GBD Architects and Nick Hodges of THA Architecture as applicants.

According to the PDC, the office building will be 204,000 square feet and have retail on the ground floor. Williams & Dame made an unsolicited offer for the property last year, and the PDC board approved it in April.

Plans for the new building will be great for the area, PDC spokesman Shawn Uhlman said.

“That’s nearly $7.5 million that will go back into the River District Renewal District and will allow us to further reinvest,” Uhlman said. “This will create construction jobs, engineering jobs and have a longer-term impact.”

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The Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals has upheld the conditional use approval issued by the city of Portland for a planned expansion of the Portland Japanese Garden farther into Washington Park, dismissing concerns raised by neighboring residents.

In a final opinion released this month, LUBA sided with the city in an appeal filed by Portland architect Hilary Mackenzie, who lives near the garden. The appeal, filed last fall, claimed that the city’s approval of the garden expansion violated state requirements for public feedback because park property is involved. In the same opinion, LUBA denied a similar appeal filed shortly thereafter by three other neighbors of the garden.

The Japanese Garden Society of Oregon, a private nonprofit, operates the 5.5-acre garden on 9.1 acres leased from the city. An expansion to accommodate a growing number of garden visitors would increase that acreage to 12.5. Plans filed with the city call for construction of 11,340 square feet of new buildings, including a ticketing pavilion, administrative offices, a garden house and a café.

Mackenzie has said she filed the LUBA appeal because she believes that more people than neighbors should have received notice about the project and the chance to offer feedback because Washington Park attracts visitors from throughout the city and region. The LUBA opinion rejected this assertion, stating that the city did not violate state public input requirements by notifying only nearby neighbors of a hearing.

LUBA also dismissed Mackenzie’s concerns about the garden expansion blocking access to a popular footpath that connects to Washington Park’s popular Wildwood Trail. In the opinion, the board ruled that the city hearings officer had adequately considered this impact and noted that an alternative route to the spur trail existed.

Portland Japanese Garden spokeswoman Lisa Christy said Monday that officials are moving ahead with plans to expand the garden, but haven’t set the date for ground to be broken.

Architects Tokyo-based Kengo Kuma and Associates and Portland-based THA Architecture, along with Portland-based landscape architects Sadafumi Uchiyama and Walker Macy are designing the project. General contractor Hoffman Construction and engineering firms PAE, KPFF Consulting Engineers and Geotechnical Resources Inc. have also been hired.

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For the new exterior of the Brigadier General James B. Thayer Oregon Military Museum, Portland architect Don Stastny chose a metal siding that evokes the artifacts inside.

“To me, it was inspiration taken from a lot of military equipment,” he said. “It has a certain calmness to it, but a certain strength to it too.”

The STASTNY: Architect LLC co-founder has spent the past two years designing a $14.6 million project to remodel and expand a 1950s armory building at Camp Withycombe in Clackamas into a new home for , and build an adjoining park and memorial gardens. The project also includes creation of a covered outdoor space to display tanks and other military vehicles and restore the two oldest buildings at Camp Withycombe, which was established in 1909.

Crews from Portland-based Precision Construction Co., a division of Hoffman Construction Co., last month started work on the project’s first phase. Project backers are still seeking $7.1 million in donations through a led by the Historical Outreach Foundation to complete improvements to the former armory building and park as well as create the planned exhibits.

The museum has been closed to the public since 2009, when its previous home at Camp Withycombe was torn down to make room for the 41st Infantry Division Armed Forces Reserve Center. That same year, the museum’s artifacts – in total, more than 14,000 – relating to Oregon’s military history were transferred to the armory building.

The 40,000-square-foot building provided ample space for the collection; however, because of an aging heating and ventilation system and other deficiencies, the structure needed an extensive renovation for the museum to reopen, said Alisha Hamel, executive director of the Historical Outreach Foundation.

“It was not a good environment for artifacts,” she said. “The bones of the building are amazing. We just need to make the environment of the building into a museum.”

The former armory building also lacks a lobby able to accommodate school field trips and visits from large groups, Hamel said. Project plans call for an approximately 4,500-square-foot building addition with a large lobby.

The foundation, a nonprofit that supports preserving and sharing military history, since 2011 for the renovation project. In September, KISS band member Tommy Thayer, son of the museum’s namesake, James Thayer, organized a benefit concert in Lake Oswego that raised $1 million for the project. Nearly $8 million has been secured.

Stastny became the design architect though his work with the Oregon Military Department creating a set of design standards for the state agency’s capital projects. With more than 40 years as a practicing architect, he also has extensive experience designing museum projects.

“I know how the Oregon military works and I’ve been working with museums my whole career,” he said.

Last summer, Stastny started working with THA Architecture to finalize the project designs. The Portland-based firm is serving as the architect of record.

“Our effort has really been to keep the spirit of what Don has come up with,” THA project architect Derek deVille said. “I think the goal of this project is to make it much more efficient to run the museum. The building wasn’t designed to be a museum. It really lacked a front door and I think that’s what Don realized early on.”

The armory building may not have been designed to be a museum, but the structure was a great jumping-off point for the project, Stastny said. Other than various upgrades and the addition of a metal facade over the precast concrete structure, changes to the existing building will be minor, he said.

“What this old armory building gives us is a tremendous resource,” he said. “By using the old building we develop a tremendous repository function.”

The former armory’s expansive indoor spaces are especially ideal to display large artifacts, such as military vehicles and cannons, Stastny said.

“It’s the kind of artifacts you wouldn’t normally find in a museum,” he said. “We use the drill hall, which gives us the option to have major artifacts under a covered roof.”

When the project is complete, museum visitors will pass on the way to the main entrance through a plaza and garden honoring Oregon’s military veterans, deVille said.

“It will be a place for reflection as well as storytelling,” he said.

Near the garden, Camp Withycombe’s oldest buildings, the Quartermaster Storehouse and Battery A Horse Barn, will be restored to look much as they did when they were built in the early 1900s, deVille said.

The extensive history of Camp Withycombe and Oregon’s military will be celebrated via the project, Stastny said.

“The whole idea of the museum is as much for educational purposes as memorial purposes,” he said. “This whole idea of citizen soldiers – they become such an integral part of the American military story. In many ways, it’s a memorial to them, but it’s also kind of a ‘thank you’ for what they’ve done.”

Work on the museum’s outdoor portion is scheduled to finish in August 2015. The entire project is anticipated to wrap up by summer 2018.

Brigadier General James B. Thayer Oregon Military Museum

Location: Camp Withycombe, 15300 S.E. Minuteman Way, Clackamas

Cost: $14.6 million

Construction start date: November 2014

Anticipated construction completion date: summer 2018

Owner: Oregon Military Department

Developer/fundraiser: Historical Outreach Foundation

Design architect: STASTNY: Architect LLC

Architect of record: THA Architecture

Landscape architect: PLACE Studio

Civil engineer: KPFF Consulting Engineers

Structural engineer: ABHT Structural Engineers

Mechanical and electrical engineer: Interface Engineering

General contractor: Precision Construction Co.

Other associates: Listen Acoustics (acoustical)

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Construction crews are busy doing subgrade work on the Pearl West office building at Northwest 14^th Avenue and Irving Street in Portland.  Howard S. Wright is the project’s general contractor; crews with Coffman Excavation are removing dirt from the site, while DeWitt Construction and Northwest Cascade are driving augercast piles and installing soldier pile and lagging.

The 9-story building was designed in collaboration between GBD Architects and THA Architecture for developer BPM Real Estate Group. Work on the project began this past summer, and is slated for completion in early 2016.

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