Founded more than 75 years ago, ZGF has made a concerted effort to effect positive change in its communities and beyond. With origins in Oregon, ZGF has expanded to seven offices across North America while maintaining its Pacific Northwest environmental ethos. The firm’s approach earned it the American Institute of Architects’ Architectural Firm Award for its “high standards, humanistic concerns, and unique ability to capture the spirit of a place and the aspirations of its inhabitants.”

ZGF designed the main terminal expansion at Portland International Airport, setting new standards for sustainability and passenger experience in aviation. The expansion features an innovative nine-acre mass timber roof – making PDX the first major U.S. airport to utilize this sustainable material on such a scale. The locally sourced timber comes from within a 300-mile radius of the airport, including small landowners, tribal lands and community forests practicing sustainable forestry.

ZGF continues expanding its mass timber expertise to other regions, including the Boulder Western City Campus – Colorado’s first commercial building using locally-grown fiber for structural CLT.

In the past five years, ZGF has donated nearly 10,000 hours of professional services with the goal of leveraging the design of the built environment to strengthen communities and work toward resolution of chronic societal problems.

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Designing environments that promote equity and diversity is a big concern of landscape architects, so they’re holding an event on just that topic.

The American Society of Landscape Architects‘ Oregon chapter on April 9 will host a symposium at the University of Oregon’s White Stag Building, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Oregon ASLA spokeswoman Rebecca Wahlstrom said the keynote speaker, landscape architect Diane Jones Allen, is a leader in designing for diversity and equality.

Allen was featured in the November issue of Landscape Architecture magazine for her work to convert empty lots into green community spaces in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward. She has also performed pro bono work on plans for restoring Claiborne Avenue in New Orleans, once a tree-lined boulevard that separated minority communities when it was replaced decades ago with an elevated freeway.

Allen is a principal of DesignJones LLC, a landscape architecture and urban planning firm based in New Orleans and Baltimore. Her talk is titled “Bridging Community, Practice and Academy to Create Equitable and Resilient Environments.”

Other speakers include Gabriel Diaz Montemayor of the University Texas at Austin, Nolan Lienhart of ZGF Architects, Joy Alise Davis of Design+Culture Lab and Tony DeFalco of Living Cully.

Wahlstrom said the symposium will also include a panel discussion. Attendance costs $165 for ASLA members, $200 for nonmembers and $30 for students. The symposium is co-sponsored by the John Yeon Center for Architecture and the Landscape at the University of Oregon.

The symposium will offer continuing education credits for landscape architects and also provide valuable information for people outside the profession, Wahlstrom said.

“They would be able to hear really diverse speakers and people who will touch on this topic of environmental justice and equity,” she said. “It’s something that we as landscape architects and as a culture don’t touch on enough.”

To learn more and register for the symposium, visit .

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Although staff recommended approval for Oregon Health & Science University‘s latest development on its South Waterfront campus, the Portland Design Commission set another hearing date.

Design review for the new Center for Health & Healing South, will take place Feb. 18 beginning at 12:30 p.m. – an hour earlier than usual. The hearing will be the project’s fifth appearance before the commission.

CHH South, designed by ZGF Architects, will occupy Block 29 and include a 15-story hospital with more than 370,000 square feet of ambulatory surgery and clinic space. It will connect to the existing CHH North via a two-level sky bridge over Southwest Whitaker Avenue. Plus, on the adjacent Block 28, plans call for an 11-story building with six floors of housing over four stories of parking.

Design commissioners agreed that the design of the hospital portion was acceptable, but Commission Chairman David Wark said the two projects couldn’t be approved separately.

“They need to be cohesive and relate to each other,” he said.

Much of the commissioners’ discussion focused on the exterior of the parking garage, which the residential tower overlooks.

“It is a big building, but it seems so much heavier than it needs to be,” Commissioner Tad Savinar said.

Architect David Staczek of ZGF said determining the right exterior for the parking garage was the design team’s biggest challenge. He suggested creating artwork – perhaps a grid of perforated metal panels that would emulate flocks of birds. He said that would be appropriate because Portland is on the Pacific Flyway (bird migratory path), and that several artists were being considered.

At the end of the meeting, Wark said that the team needed to address the composition of the garage exterior as well as the heaviness of the housing and the need for more glazing.

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Repairs to the large glass canopy at Director Park in downtown Portland are now finished – a week ahead of schedule.

Workers in September began to refurbish the 26-foot-high canopy, which covers about one-quarter of the half-acre park. The city learned last year that the wood beams supporting the canopy had moisture damage. Steel beams were chosen as replacements.

Portland Parks and Recreation spokesman Mark Ross said “notable achievements” of the project include improved durability and safety as well as preservation of “architectural integrity and look of the structure.”

The cost of replacing the canopy’s wood beams was $790,000. The city paid $188,000 for the work and ZGF Architects paid $602,000. The park was designed by ZGF and landscape architect Laurie Olin of OLIN.

Reid Blanchard, construction manager for the parks department, said that KPFF Consulting Engineers performed structural engineering for the project. ZGF was the architect and collaborated closely with general contractor R&H Construction.

“R&H did an amazing job of coordinating everything and had a great plan in place to complete the work,” Blanchard said. “We had the area (under the canopy) closed off, but outside the fence line the rest of the park remained open.”

Elephants in the Park, a restaurant that operates in the park, closed when construction began and will reopen Dec. 14, according to .

Director Park was built in 2009 at a cost of about $9.5 million. The Portland Development Commission contributed $4.5 million and the city gave $1.9 million. Developer Tom Moyer contributed $1 million and developer Jordan Schnitzer donated $1.97 million.

The park is named for Schnitzer’s grandparents, Simon and Helen Director, who came to Portland in the early 1900s, from Russia and Poland, respectively. Schnitzer wrote on the parks department’s website that his grandparents “were part of a generation of immigrants whose hard work helped build this city.”

Director Park has been recognized as a successful downtown public park that connects Portland’s Park Blocks. The Sustainable Cities Collection website has titled, “21 Reasons Portland’s Director Park is One of the Most Successful Public Spaces in the World.”

The last reason listed points to the park’s inclusivity: “Parents, kids, old people, young people, people of different ethnicities, tourists, locals, business people, the unemployed, people on bikes, people who are alone, people in groups, couples, singles and anyone else you can think of,” the article states. “This is the measure of a great public space.”

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KPFF Consulting Engineers‘ work on a renovation and expansion of the U.S. embassy compound in Helsinki began with a crash course at the project site.

The engineers’ weeklong trip to Finland was jam packed with research on what it takes to gain local approval for the project.

“You have to figure out what all the planning rules and regulations are, what all the permitting regulations are, in a week,” said Matthew Dolan, KPFF managing principal. “It’s a pretty big effort.”

The U.S. Department of State, for security reasons, contracts only with American firms for design and construction of such projects. But because they are built all over the world, KPFF engineers must consult with local building officials and closely coordinate with the contractor and on-site State Department staffers. Most of KPFF’s work is done remotely, making that initial trip to the project site critical for information gathering, said Adam Roth, senior project manager for the approximately $80 million Helsinki embassy project, which finished last month.

“We meet with multiple government agencies,” he said. “And then you walk the site and take as many pictures as possible.”

This process has become a specialty for KPFF. In the past 15 years, the firm’s Portland office has worked on 75 embassy projects, ranging from preliminary master planning through construction. Other Portland firms also have substantial embassy portfolios; Portland-based Yost Grube Hall Architecture and ZGF Architects are two that have collaborated with KPFF.

Along with the challenges of designing a building in another country, Portland engineers and architects working on embassies must follow federal guidelines set by Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations. This includes considerations for anti-ram protection against vehicles driving into the building and anti-climb measures to prevent people from scaling walls.

“There are a huge amount of materials on what you can and cannot (use),” Dolan said.

The tricky part, YGH President Nels Hall said, is finding a way to make a heavily fortified building also appear inviting because it serves as the face of America in foreign countries and houses diplomatic programs.

“Security is giant,” he said. “That is why Congress is funding these things. How do you find ways of meeting those requirements and still find ways to make these campuses seem open and inviting? We don’t want to have the image that we’re building these forts.”

“You can build transparent fences that meet the anti-climb criteria and try and incorporate motifs that make a place unique,” he added.

On the engineering side, challenges include working with unusual site shapes and anticipating the effect of extreme weather conditions on the embassy buildings. Roth, who has worked on 10 embassy projects for KPFF, said he often substitutes information on weather conditions in certain parts of the U.S. while doing storm modeling for projects in countries with insufficient records. For cold climates, he has referred to weather patterns in Alaska and Minnesota, and he has found that Fiji is comparable to Hilo, Hawaii, for rainfall.

The Helsinki project involved investigating historic storm surges because the embassy compound sits on a coastal site overlooking the Gulf of Finland.

“That was part of our research,” Roth said. “We had to research the local climate … You have to think about that information when you go somewhere that might not have very organized public agencies.”

YGH’s work on embassies began with an overall push by one of the firm’s founders, Joachim Grube, to pursue more projects in developing countries, Hall said. Over the past 15 years, the firm has worked in 46 countries. This includes embassies in Islamabad, Pakistan and Quito, Ecuador and Yangon, Myanmar.

In the past, the firm has partnered with ZGF on embassy projects, but more recently worked together with Allied Works Architecture on a new embassy in Mozambique.

KPFF’s expertise in seismic retrofits helped it land a project with ZGF in the late 1990s for work on the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, Dolan said. This led to other State Department contracts for embassy projects in partnership with ZGF, YGH and Washington, D.C.-area architecture firms, he said. The firm worked together Washington, D.C.-based architecture and engineering firm Page Southerland Page on the Helsinki embassy project. Since work on that embassy wrapped up, KPFF staffers are gearing up for the firm’s next overseas project – a U.S. consulate compound in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.

“We’re just very fortunate to be able to keep working on them,” Dolan said.

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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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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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Business for Culture and the Arts (BCA) on Wednesday will hold its annual “Arts Breakfast of Champions – Wherefore ART Thou?” at the Portland Art Museum from 7:30 to 9 a.m. The event recognizes local donors and businesses whose contributions of time, energy and funding have helped keep the arts and cultural atmosphere vibrant and active.

Bart Eberwein of Hoffman Construction will receive the John C. Hampton Award for Outstanding Leadership in the Arts.

“Bart contributes more time and resources to … well, not just us, but the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Literary Arts, Oregon Arts Commission, the Oregon Symphony and so many others,” said Jane Jarrett of the Architecture Foundation of Oregon. “It’s really amazing.”

Eberwein, said, “I do it because it’s fun. It’s also something that started when I joined this firm many years ago, and Eric Hoffman and Cecil and Wayne Drinkward told me to go for it, to involve myself in the community in any way I thought was important and they would be 100 percent supportive. It was already a part of the culture when I came on board, so my interest in the arts, our interest has become as much a natural extension of who we are as the projects we build. I’m really honored because of the name on the award, too. Those are big shoes to fill.”

John C. Hampton drove the lumber industry and the arts culture in Portland after World War II, helping create a city where arts are integrated into business and daily life.

Neil Kelly will receive the Creative Arts/Business Partnership Award. Tom Breunig, Neil Kelly corporate marketing manager, explained the cooperative effort that worked both for the firm and the Portland Children’s Museum & Portland Festival Symphony.

“We committed to donate $100 every time we had a design consultation,” he said. “In addition to the initial corporate sponsorship, we’re happy to announce that we’ve dispersed over $5000. As a design firm, we’re more interested in the artistic elements that go into what we do. This is a step beyond that, and we see it as a necessary part of being involved in building communities in the Pacific Northwest.”

Vigor Industrial will receive the Most Valuable Business Award for proving itself indispensable in efforts to advance arts and culture with donations of time, talent and funding.

Also, ZGF Architects will be recognized as the No. 1 donor to the arts in Oregon in the medium-size company category.

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