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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University of Oregon graduate architecture student Jacob Simonson is fascinated by the challenge of bringing people back to the former Blue Heron Paper Co. site in Oregon City.

“It’s kind of an intriguing problem – more of a difficult problem – to address,” he said while peering over a large-scale model of the abandoned paper mill site.

Simonson and other students are building the model as they research the history, conflicts and redevelopment potential for the 23-acre industrial site. The dozen students are part of a yearlong studio class taught by John Yeon Center executive director Randy Gragg and THA Architecture principal Becca Cavell at the UO Department of Architecture in Portland.

The class examines ways to reuse the vacant industrial buildings that were abandoned when the Blue Heron paper mill closed in 2011, reconnect the site to downtown Oregon City and take advantage of the site’s proximity to Willamette Falls. At the conclusion of the studio next summer, each student will present their designs for redeveloping individual buildings on the site.

The course, one of the last the students will take before they graduate, is geared toward designing adaptive reuse projects, Gragg said.

“It’s the last opportunity for the students to be their own client,” he said. “It continues the imagining of the site. This is sort of an act of imagination for what can happen with the building stock.”

On Tuesday, the students marked the end of the studio’s first term with a presentation before the site’s new owner – Tacoma, Wash.-based developer George Heidgerken – and design professionals who created a master plan to encourage redevelopment.

The students shared what they’ve learned so far and sought professional feedback on their initial ideas for adaptive reuse projects. These include production facilities for bikes, food, canoes, outdoor shoes and other apparel. Students are also exploring design of fish and food markets, a mixed-use building, a brewery, an industrial design research institute, an outdoor camp and an interfaith institute.

One of the biggest appeals of the course was working with an actual site and reimagining existing buildings, Simonson said.

“This was just an intriguing site (with) a lot of potential,” he said. “I really enjoy and have done adaptive reuse projects.”

For the first term, the focus was on gathering as much background as possible to eventually inform students’ designs, class member Alex Brooks said. For inspiration, the class twice toured the site with Oregon City officials and traveled to Minneapolis, Minn. to see the Mill City Museum, which is built on the ruins of an abandoned flour mill.

“This studio was a major information download,” Brooks said. “It was about absorbing the site (and) the opportunities and the challenges.”

As a class, the students concluded that they would primarily seek to answer three questions over the course of the studio: What brought people to the site? Why did they leave? And finally, what will bring them back?

After hearing the students’ presentation, Walker Macy principal Mike Zilis praised their approach. The Portland-based landscape architecture and planning firm created for site redevelopment a master plan that recently was approved by the Oregon City Commission.

Zilis reminded the students to embrace what he believes is one of the site’s largest assets: a prime view of Willamette Falls. Any redevelopment should bring the falls back to prominence that was lost because of longtime industrial use on the site, he said.

“This place has been masked,” he said. “It’s been blown up and manipulated, and people can’t see it anymore. The way to build a market and bring people back (is) going to be about the draw of the site.”

Heidgerken said his team is exploring many redevelopment possibilities, such as a brewery or restaurant. Like the UO architecture students, team members have been careful to absorb the history of the site and consider which existing buildings should be preserved, he said.

“It’s not a matter of $5 million here, $30 million here,” he said. “It’s a matter of the site telling you what to do and the history of the site … What we want with this site is not something you see once. We want something that’s attractive to the general public. You come here once and you come back.”

At this point, plans to redevelop the Blue Heron site are open-ended. Heidgerken said he appreciates the architecture students’ visions.

“We don’t know (the plan) yet, but we will and meetings like this help,” he said.

Graduate architecture student Adrienne Fainman said class members are looking forward to sharing their final ideas with the developer.

“In June, we’re going to be presenting 12 projects,” she told Heidgerken. “We’re going to be pouring our hearts into this. We’re going to be able to hand that over to you – 12 fantasy projects.”

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While New York-based architect Jonathan Dreyfous was in Portland to judge the Design Awards for American Institute of Architects’ Portland chapter, a “Keep Portland Weird” sign reminded him what was lacking in this year’s entries.

“I was looking for some weirdness, some idiosyncratic-ness,” he said Friday during an awards presentation at the Gerding Theater.

Dreyfous, a partner with New York-based CDR Studio Architects, wasn’t the only member of the judging panel who admitted to greater expectations for the projects that Portland-area architecture firms submitted for design awards. Judges Gladys Ly-Au Young, a principal with Seattle-based Sundberg Kennedy Ly-Au Young Architects, and Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne said they had hoped to see more innovation, attention to urbanism and high-level design for both exteriors and interiors.

“We were looking for projects that showed tremendous social transformation – something that was more forward-thinking for Portland,” Young said.

Judges chose not to give out any awards in the unbuilt category because they wanted to see more creativity among the entries. They lamented the glut of private multifamily projects and longed for more public ones.

“We thought that side of the ledger was underwhelming,” Hawthorne said of the unbuilt category. “We were ready for projects that had a different idea for the interior. I think because so many of the projects were developer-driven they were a bit safe.”

A “tidal wave” of private multifamily development in Portland led to worries among the panel that architects were spending too much energy on projects’ exteriors to the detriment of their interiors, Dreyfous said.

“The exterior becomes the billboard for the building and we are concerned about the interior living up to the facade,” he said.

The panel’s response wasn’t all negative. One project that garnered significant praise from the judges was the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building renovation designed by Portland-based SERA Architects and Cutler Anderson Architects. The project received a merit award for what the judges considered a thoughtful transformation that incorporated many sustainable elements.

“We felt the designers worked really well to break up the massiveness of the building,” Young said. “You see the old and the new work really well together.”

Hawthorne said he has been following closely the debate on the future of the Portland Building, which suffers from structural issues and leaks. He noted that it could benefit from a renovation similar to the one for the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt building.

“This was the same exercise of remaking a building,” he said. “All of those questions are being tested and examined in this project.”

The judges were impressed by several projects designed by Works Partnership Architecture. The Portland-based firm earned a merit award for the Bowstring Truss House and citations for the 33rd & Division Apartments and Overton 19 multifamily projects, all in Portland.

The judges said they were particularly blown away by the Bowstring Truss House after touring it. A former industrial building in Northwest Portland was renovated into a living space.

“A lot of the details that we were impressed with in photographs came through when we walked the space,” Hawthorne said. “It was one of the strongest projects we looked at.”

THA Architecture received a merit award for Discovery Hall – a science and academic building at the University of Washington’s Bothell campus. The judges said that consideration given to surroundings came through in the design.

“There’s not really a front side or a back side,” Young said. “All sides are well thought through.”

ZGF Architects received a citation award for Pearl Izumi‘s North American headquarters in Louisville, Colo. Young said she appreciated the unified approach.

“The interior and exterior are by the same firm so they really feel like the same hand,” she said.

The panel awarded two citation awards specifically for interiors-focused projects. The first went to Architecture Building Culture for the Lubavitch Center of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C. They praised the understated design of the center for a Jewish organization.

“I’d like to commend the clarity of what it’s doing for the space,” Dreyfous said. “It’s very simple.”

Hennebery Eddy Architects took home the same honor for a renovation of the Shute Park library branch in Hillsboro.

“Rather than tearing down the building, it uncovered the strength of the building,” Dreyfous said.

Also at Friday’s event, Portland Mayor Charlie Hales praised the work of the city’s architecture community.

“It’s a great privilege to be mayor of a city where people appreciate excellence in urban design and architecture,” he said.

Hales then revealed the winner of the Mayor’s Award for Design Excellence: the Stephens Creek Crossing affordable housing complex in Southwest Portland, designed by MWA Architects.

“It is inviting to the people that live there and the people that will visit,” he said. “More importantly, they created a neighborhood there. This, to me, is one of the best examples of how you can create community in new projects.”

Honorable mentions for the Mayor’s Award went to SERA Architects’ Marriott Residence Inn, the Reed College Performing Arts Building designed by Opsis Architecture, The Emory apartments designed by ZGF Architects and the A Dialogue Street Seat by Scott | Edwards Architecture.

This year’s AIA Portland Citizens’ Medal for Design Excellence, selected through a public vote, went to Architecture Building Culture for the Roberts Creek Cabin single-family residence in Roberts Creek, British Columbia.

Also announced Friday were the recipients of AIA Portland’s 2030 Challenge Design Awards. They recognize sustainable design and honor a challenge from nonprofit organization Architecture 2030 for all new buildings and major renovations to be carbon neutral by 2030.

Hennebery Eddy Architects’ Ash + Ash won in the single-family category. The Kiln Apartments, designed by GBD Architects to meet passive house standards, earned the honor in the multifamily category. The Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt building renovation won the office category and the Central Oregon Community College Health Careers Center, designed by Yost Grube Hall Architecture, earned the institutional honor.

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A new nonprofit is pushing back against plans to expand the Portland Japanese Garden further into Washington Park, claiming a lack of public involvement.

Portland architect Hilary Mackenzie last week submitted a notice of intent to appeal to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals on behalf of the Alliance for Portland Public Lands, a nonprofit that she started. The appeal claims city of Portland conditional use approval for the garden expansion violated state requirements for public feedback because park property is involved.

“These are public resources, and if you jigger with it there needs to be public discussion,” Mackenzie said. “If there was more public notice, more people would have had a chance to comment.”

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, who lives near the Portland Japanese Garden, claims that garden officials were vague about the plans and misrepresented the sizes of the new buildings. She also 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 number one thing is taking 3.5 acres of public land and handing it over to a private entity,” Mackenzie said.

Architects Tokyo-based Kengo Kuma and Associates and Portland-based THA Architecture, along with Portland-based landscape architects Sadafumi Uchiyama and Walker Macy, are in the early stages of project design, making it hard to share details, Portland Japanese Garden spokeswoman Lisa Christy said.

An important part of that process has been public involvement, she said. The design team and garden officials are consulting with neighbors and representatives of various city bureaus, such as Portland Parks & Recreation and the Portland Bureau of Transportation, on the most appropriate way to expand the garden, Christy said.

“We’re doing all we can to be a good neighbor, but also protect the park as is,” she said. “It’s all so preliminary because we’re still talking and working with the right people to make sure it’s done as thoroughly and considerately as possible.”

Kathleen Stokes of the Portland Bureau of Development Services oversaw the application for conditional use approval, which was granted in July. She said she did not know enough about the LUBA appeal to comment on it.

One of the issues with the city’s approval that irked Mackenzie and members of the Arlington Heights Neighborhood Association is that the expansion would block access to a popular footpath that connects to Washington Park’s popular Wildwood Trail. The path often is used by pedestrians traveling between Arlington Heights, the park and downtown Portland, Mackenzie said.

“People can actually commute on this trail,” she said. “It’s a direct pedestrian link. It’s about as straight a line you can get.”

The Portland Japanese Garden is planning for a connector path replacement, but it won’t be as convenient, Mackenzie said.

“It’s a half-mile out of the way and it’s very steep,” she said. “When you’re walking, a half-mile matters and it’s not a straight shot anymore.”

In August, Mackenzie and the neighborhood association separately appealed city approval of the project to the Portland City Council. The neighborhood association later dropped its appeal before the council hearing in late August after garden officials agreed to address other neighborhood concerns with the project.

After city councilors denied Mackenzie’s appeal and last month officially granted approval for the project, she announced her intent to bring the matter before LUBA.

Susan Siegel, board president of the Arlington Heights Neighborhood Association, said the group has not taken an official stance on Mackenzie’s LUBA appeal and at this point is satisfied with a commitment from garden officials to address a number of concerns besides the path closure. These include construction of a 6-foot-wide sidewalk around the garden, installation of a bus pullout, consultations with neighbors on the design of a fence along an access road, and stipulations involving construction hours and a staging area on park tennis courts.

“It’s a good faith agreement and the concessions we felt were significant,” Siegel said.

As for the path, “we agreed to disagree on that point,” she said.

Mackenzie said she and other neighborhood residents didn’t realize the extent of the project or its impact on the connector path until this past spring when they saw plans that garden officials submitted to the city.

“I got a copy of the application and I thought, whoa ho, I have something to say about this,” she said. “That’s how it started and the neighborhood has been playing catch-up ever since.”

City approval of the path-blocking plan demonstrates a disconnect with addressing the concerns and interests of the community in a project involving public land, Mackenzie said.

“It’s symptomatic of a larger issue,” she said. “This would have all come up if they had a real public process.”

Siegel agreed that residents of the neighborhoods surrounding the Portland Japanese Garden aren’t the only ones who should have a say in the expansion project that affects Washington Park.

“As an individual, I think they did not give proper public notice,” she said. “This park isn’t just a neighborhood issue. We are hopeful there is access for everybody.”

Concerns about the garden expansion inspired Mackenzie to found the Alliance for Portland Public Lands. She believes the project is among recent instances where Oregon’s emphasis on community involvement in public land use decisions has been overlooked.

“That’s the core of our land use planning,” Mackenzie said. “This is how I formed the Portland Alliance for Public Lands, because that’s gotten eroded.”

Portland Japanese Garden expansion

Location: 611 S.W. Kingston Ave.

Owner: Portland Japanese Garden Society of Oregon

Architects: Kengo Kuma and Associates and THA Architecture

Landscape architects: Sadafumi Uchiyama and Walker Macy

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

General contractor: Hoffman Construction

The post Appealing for more public input appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Mahlum Architects has been recognized as a top Pacific Northwest firm by the American Institute of Architects.

The firm, which has offices in Portland and Seattle, recently received the 2014 Region Firm Award from the AIA Northwest & Pacific Region. Mahlum is the third firm to earn the annual honor that is open to firms with a principal office in the region or a branch office here for at least 10 years. The previous winners were Portland-based THA Architecture and Seattle-based LMN Architects.

An award jury of architects selects one firm for outstanding contributions to the architecture profession in the region, which includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Hawaii and Guam. Excellence in design and a track record of community engagement were among the judging criteria.

This year’s jury members were Steve Dumez of New Orleans-based Eskew + Dumez + Ripple, Larry Scarpa of Los Angeles-based Brooks + Scarpa Architects, THA Architecture principal Jonah Cohen and Works Partnership Architecture principal Bill Neburka. They praised Mahlum’s work for “projecting a warmth and clarity of design through the use of wood and design elements.”

Mahlum’s 60 staffers have worked toward a goal of earning the Region Firm Award and are proud of the achievement, said Niki Lesko, director of marketing in the firm’s Portland office. Along with a focus on design, staffers have striven to create a positive work environment through social activities and become involved in various community organizations, she said.

“It’s going beyond doing good architecture,” she said. “It’s being integrated in the community.”

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Phil Rude has seen the Portland skyline change dramatically in the past 50 years.

Since moving to the city to take his first architecture job in 1964, the FFA Architecture and Interiors associate has been a part of that evolution. While the practice of architecture has changed many ways, there are constants that motivate Rude, 73, to continue to come into work at FFA once a week.

“It’s still a very honorable profession,” he said. “Within the office, there is a collegial environment. I think the mix of ages and experiences helps me to thrive. I enjoy the people, I enjoy the challenge and I think that I still make a contribution.”

Rude continues to prove his value to FFA through his extensive design experience and numerous industry connections he’s made over the years, principal Troy Ainsworth said.

“Fifty years of technical and design experience is irreplaceable,” he said. “That’s very special and it’s just great to have someone (on staff) with that much experience in the profession.”

Other Portland design professionals who’ve worked with Rude say his way with people is one of his greatest strengths. This extends to managing a project team, interacting with clients and mentoring the next generation of architects.

“Phil was always that management thread,” said Herb Giffin, a principal at GBJ Architecture and one of Rude’s former colleagues. “He’s always been a people person. He can go into a room and work it. He enjoyed it.”

After earning a bachelor’s degree in architectural engineering from Washington State University, Rude spent the early part of his career at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. The architecture firm no longer has a Portland office, but 50 years ago its office was one of the largest in town, he said.

Rude, 23 at that point, wasn’t the only young face in the office.

“Skidmore was a young place for young people,” he said. “We enjoyed it. We worked hard. We partied hard.”

In those days, a Portland architecture office looked a lot different from the way it does today, he said.

“We drafted by hand,” he said. “Everyone always wore white shirts and ties.”

Rude spent 24 years with SOM before the firm closed its Portland office. While there, he helped design various office towers, including the Standard Plaza and One Main Place buildings in downtown Portland. He also worked on Autzen Stadium at the University of Oregon in Eugene, the parking garage at the Portland International Airport and an expansion to the Branford Price Millar Library at Portland State University that features a curved facade to preserve a large tree.

After the stint at SOM, Rude worked for Yost Grube Hall Architecture for a dozen years, mostly on health care projects. He then spent a year at Hoffman Construction Co. before joining FFA.

These days, Rude helps out on various FFA projects, including many historic restorations. He often provides insight for renovations and tenant improvements in buildings that he helped design originally, Ainsworth said.

“He also brings knowledge of players on new projects,” he said. “They’re new to us, but old to him … He’s great for having that background.”

Rude’s extensive network is a huge asset, said Sue Johnson, FFA marketing director.

“Phil can pick up the phone and call anybody,” she said. “He knows everybody.”

Giffin worked with Rude at SOM for 10 years in the 1970s and ’80s. At the time, Giffin was a recent architecture school graduate who considered Rude a mentor. Rude later mentored Giffin’s daughter, Jody Giffin, when she worked at FFA.

“Phil Rude was such a Father Time that he mentored me and my daughter,” Giffin said. “He just knew all the ropes and everything (and) how to handle clients.”

John Weekes, a principal at Dull Olson Weekes-IBI Group Architects, also worked with Rude at SOM as a young architecture school graduate and considered him a mentor.

“He was just kind of a quiet, careful thinker,” Weekes said. “He was very supportive of me. He is someone I have enormous respect for.”

Weekes said he’s always been impressed with Rude’s project management skills.

“He was the guy who made sure we got done what was supposed to be done, and he was quiet about it,” Weekes said.

It was watching Rude in his element that inspired THA Architecture’s Stefee Knudsen to go into project management. She has adopted his understated, yet effective management style into her own work.

“It’s really about client relationships and taking care of your team,” she said.

Rude hired Knudsen for her first real architecture job at Yost Grube Hall and has served as a mentor throughout her career, she said.

“He’s been my most prominent mentor,” she said. “Very early on, he differed from the norm. Even though I was a very young intern, he took me on meetings with the client. He took care to make sure I was prepared without making me think about what he was doing.”

Knudsen admires his approach to architecture.

“He has a real ethic about him that’s about more than what you do at your desk,” she said. “It’s about how you treat people.”

The enjoyment of work as part of a team to achieve a common goal is one reason why Rude has no plans to retire from architecture completely.

“It’s nice to have your thumb still in (the industry),” he said. “You’re proud of what you’ve done. When it’s all said and done, you’re proud of what you’re part of.”

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Over two decades of experience combined with vision and discipline have made Stefee Knudsen a classic example of excellence as a leader and mentor. As an associate at THA Architecture, Knudsen has led complex project teams and had a hand in the implementation of vital initiatives at the firm. As the leader of the firm’s mentoring program, she is responsible for providing orientation for new employees and matching them with in-house, long-term mentors.

In 2011, she helped implement a sustainable design vision for THA Architecture that has enabled the firm to integrate sustainability into its projects more efficiently and effectively than previously.

As a project manager, Knudsen has been fearless in taking on large, diverse and complex projects, according to her colleagues. She managed an extensive master plan for the Juarez-Lincoln U.S. Land Port of Entry in Laredo, Texas, a facility designed to process vehicles through one of the heaviest border crossings in the United States.

She has served as project manager for THA Architecture’s first design-build project, the Colonel Nesmith Readiness Center for Oregon Military Department. That project went on to earn five design awards and was featured in Architectural Record, the industry’s pre-eminent magazine.

Knudsen also was an integral member of the Oregon Solutions Green Modular Classroom Project, through a partnership with Portland State University. The resulting prototype was displayed at the 2012 Greenbuild International Conference. The design won an International Social Economic Environmental Design (SEED) award in 2013.

Knudsen is the current president of the Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architects and is involved in the Architects in Schools program.

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A chance meeting during a tour of Franklin High School in Southeast Portland for architects interested in a campus modernization project led to a first-time partnership.

While walking through the school, SERA Architects associate principal Alene Davis and Dull Olson Weekes-IBI Group Architects associate principal Karina Ruiz saw an opportunity for the firms to work together.

“We started talking and immediately saw synergy,” Ruiz said.

Davis and Ruiz realized they could leverage DOWA-IBI Group’s extensive experience designing K-12 schools and SERA’s expertise in historic restoration for the $80 million update of 99-year-old Franklin High School. The strategy paid off when Portland Public Schools hired the two firms to design a project to preserve and modernize the school’s historic buildings, as well as construct additions that respect the existing architecture.

Combining design talent is becoming increasingly common in the Portland area. These local partnerships allow firms to better meet client needs.

“More and more of our clients are demanding a level of expertise and collaboration,” Ruiz said. “I think more and more this is going to be the model where you bring together experts no matter what firm they’re with.”

Besides Franklin High School, recent collaborations involving Portland architecture firm partnerships include LEVER Architecture and LRS Architects for the ArtHouse mixed-use building on the North Park Blocks, and GBD Architects and THA Architecture for the Pearl West office tower under construction in the Pearl District.

There are many advantages to partnering with nearby firms, GBD President Phil Beyl said.

“In our industry, it’s really challenging for us to line up the right talent at the right time for the right project,” he said. “Depending on when a project comes in the door, a firm can be in great shape to respond or not so great shape.”

Instead of hiring more staffers to take on Pearl West, GBD partnered with THA, which has offices just blocks away, Beyl said. The firms have collaborated in the past on the Multnomah County Library‘s Hollywood branch and two condominium projects in the South Waterfront District.

“We didn’t have the right people available, and we just had the perfect opportunity to get the right people from THA,” he said. “We proposed a team approach to this building and it worked really well. What’s wonderful about Portland is there is a tremendous amount of collegiality. We believe in sharing people.”

Collaboration between DOWA-IBI Group and SERA staffers with different perspectives and experiences has been one of the greatest benefits of the design partnership for the Franklin High School modernization, Davis said. Although technology allows the firms to easily share digital plans, the project team’s greatest design solutions have come out of face-to-face meetings, she said.

“You just want to sketch something real quick and show it to the person next to you,” she said.

That is one reason why two SERA employees have spent the past nine months working out of DOWA-IBI Group’s office. The arrangement has helped the team work to ensure that the remodeled and expanded school can reopen in fall 2017, Davis said.

“If time is no object, it doesn’t matter if you’re together or not,” she said. “But when you need an innovative solution quickly, you need to get everybody together.”

SERA associate Craig Rice said his workstation at DOWA-IBI facilitates collaboration between the two firms by allowing him to lean over his shoulder and quickly confer with team members.

Early delegation of each firm’s part in the project has smoothed the process, Rice said. SERA staffers are responsible for preservation and restoration of the existing school building while DOWA-IBI staffers design the expansion.

“We’re not overlapping,” he said. “Because of our clear delineation of scope it’s easy to work independently.”

Delegating a highly detailed and complex project with so many different facets among staffers from both firms has been helpful, Ruiz said.

“I think that delineation of tasks is really critical,” she said.

For Pearl West, THA staffers took the lead in the initial design of the building skin. Then GBD staffers gradually became more involved in other details of the project, THA principal Will Dann said.

Partnerships are especially helpful for the smaller firm, he said.

“It’s like having more employees,” he said. “It allows smaller offices to do bigger projects. It’s the wave of the future.”

Increased partnership between Portland architecture firms fits into a larger industry trend, Dann said.

“The work that we do as architects has gotten considerably more collaborative over the years,” he said. “We realized that we all collaborate in our offices and there are creative people in other offices we can collaborate with.”

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Yorke & Curtis is nearing completion of 3330 Division, a four-story mixed-use building Southeast Division Street and 33^rd Place. Designed by THA Architecture, the building features 30 studio and 1-bedroom apartments over three ground-floor retail spaces. The project is the last phase of a three-building development at the intersection by Urban Development Partners that contain a combined 95 residential units.

According to UDP principal Avi Ben-Zaken, the building was designed from the inside out. The apartment spaces are wide instead of long in order to maximize light and air flow. Each unit opens onto an outdoor corridor which looks down on a courtyard that will also be accessible to non-residents during daytime hours.

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Three Salem architecture firms last month were honored by the American Institute of Architects‘ Salem chapter.

CB | Two Architects received the Honor Award for a remodel of the Salem Alliance Church youth center and the People’s Choice Award for the Broadway Commons mixed-use building.

Also, Arbuckle Costic Architects received a Merit Award for the Chemeketa Community College Center for Business and Industry, and Studio 3 Architecture received one for the Helping Hands Resources headquarters.

Five Salem firms submitted 13 projects for consideration by a three-person awards jury featuring Portland-based THA Architecture principal Becca Cavell, Eugene-based PIVOT Architecture principal Bill Seider and Architecture Foundation of Oregon Executive Director Jane Jarrett. The general public chose the People’s Choice Award winner after viewing a display at the Salem Public Library.

The Salem Alliance Church youth center remodel was completed in September 2011 on an accelerated schedule and with a limited budget of $250,000, CB | Two Architects principal Aaron Terpening said. The CB | Two design team opted to tear out walls and open up a building that had previously been used for auto repair and beauty supply sales among other uses, he said.

“It was a remodel to a junky space, and the transformation was pretty dramatic,” he said. “It really just felt like a maze in there.”

The four-story Broadway Commons building was constructed in 2010, after the city of Salem changed the overlay zoning for retail and mixed use, Terpening said. The building features ground-floor retail, two floors of conference room space and a top floor of leasable offices.

“(Salem Alliance Church) really seized the opportunity and decided to go for it and do something that’s totally different,” he said. “The church purposely made it a really public-feeling place.”

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