http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/site/index/ en Copyright 2012 2012-01-28T21:31:01-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/like_us_on_facebook/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/like_us_on_facebook/#When:21:31:01Z Social MediaLink to our Facebook page 2012-01-28T21:31:01-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/yoonhee_choi_madcap_graphs/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/yoonhee_choi_madcap_graphs/#When:16:51:00Z Blackfish Gallery, Portland Oregon November 1-26, 2011 Above: Teatime, 2011, mixed media, 5" x 5" It's interesting to consider how industrial processes have affected graphic art and how many of the techniques used (with their attendant aesthetics) have disappeared over the years. There's the obsolete printing methods: movable type printing presses, photo engraving, PMT's, blueprints, diazos, faxes, photocopies, dittos, mimeographs, carbon paper, etcetera. Then there's the detritus of computer pre-history: perforated daisy-wheel printer paper, Scantron exam sheets, punch cards, etcetera, carrying nostalgic affect for those of us to whom these things used to be so common. A lot of these techniques, when used in art, accordingly seem dated to our contemporary eye. In the case of artist Yoonhee Choi, she has gone back to use another one of these forgotten systems originally marketed to illustrators to forge completely new work without the noxious whiff of the old. It's because she's taken the material and subverted its use to the extent that it sings anew. With titles such as "Bramble," "Dawdle," "Grumble," "Even," "Cicle," and "Jaboo," the works shown in Choi's most recent exhibition bespeak a certain innocence, akin to tales from illustrated children's books that have been both pixilated and purified down to a symbology straight out of Flatland. Entitled "Madcap Graphs," the show, encompassing 20 recent works by the artist displays a casual, consensual relationship with hard-edged, gridded, monumental abstraction from a century ago of the De Stijl and Suprematist variety, presented as tiny whimsical 'cartoons' often just one inch square. Encased in a hand-drawn light graphite matrix that is not ruled with a straightedge (what the artist calls an "unpredictable armature"), the work is composed from small pieces of illustrators' and graphic artists' adhesive films and tapes (formerly known by the brand names Zip-a-tone, Chartpak, and Letratone) which have been made obsolete over the past twenty years with the introduction of the computer to illustration and graphic design. Half-circles, dots, dashes, tonal fields, solid color, dashed lines: a personal lexicon unique to each work of tiny deliberate shapes has been manufactured and deployed in these compositions. The machine-made films, which themselves lend a certain technical rigor to the work, also manage to convey a childlike, innocent sensibility in their "sticker"-like quality (often with primary colors), excised with an X-Acto blade from the original sheet of film and stuck in place in a composed array over the light grid. Don't take the remarks on childhood here to mean that the work is light or easily digestible. This is the mature work of an artist who chooses to work on a canvas that is portable and hand-held. Occasionally, Choi's mysterious semaphore language of dots and lines seems imbued with narrative content, which may be partially due to the way the work is constructed. A leads to B (with a dotted line, often) which leads to C, and in certain cases, these relationships begin to resemble molecular chemical diagrams in their geometry. Compositions often use the resonance of similar elements to produce sensation. Mathematical-like symbols show equivalence, addition, subtraction of elements in the pieces. In other cases, a dense, treelike armature teased out of Sumi ink in lieu of the graphite grid is used to create compositions that start to resemble a trunk road with many branches, some with cul-de-sacs and interesting symbologic "dead ends." The Chartpak bits in these instances are brought to new prominence in spite of their lack of profusion because of their contract with and adjacency to the liquid medium of the ink, producing frissons from the disjunction. The artist's architectural training, while being perhaps facile reference here, bespeaks an organized mind and one trained at different scales of organization, be they buildings, towns, or almost microscopic fields of textured handmade paper. In summation, the work does a tremendous amount with the most modest of materials, bringing you into their effervescent often light-hearted world, a new visual language built out of discarded scraps from our pre-computer heritage. Yoonhee Choi, Blackfish Gallery 2011-12-04T16:51:00-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/eyebrow_house_in_portland_monthly_magazine/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/eyebrow_house_in_portland_monthly_magazine/#When:14:43:00Z Family CircleThe link to the article is here Portland Monthly Magazine Lincoln Barbour, photographer website. Amara Holstein, writer webiste. 2011-10-21T14:43:00-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/eyebrow_house_in_readymade_magazine/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/eyebrow_house_in_readymade_magazine/#When:23:16:00Z Cover StoryThe June/July 2011 issue of ReadyMade magazine features our project, the "eyebrow" house. Read it here, purchase it at newsstands while it's out. We are honored to be chosen for its pages, and are thrilled at the quality of the story by Amara Holstein and images by Lincoln Barbour. ReadyMade Magazine Lincoln Barbour, photographer website. Amara Holstein, writer webiste. 2011-05-31T23:16:00-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/eyebrow_house_on_hyperallergic/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/eyebrow_house_on_hyperallergic/#When:20:40:01Z Space Age SuburbiaAn interview by Hrag Vartanian of Edgar Papazian on the Hyperallergic arts website about the Eyebrow House. Hyperallergic is a popular website for art criticism that bills itself as "Sensitive to Art and its Discontents." 2011-05-25T20:40:01-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/wikipedia_work/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/wikipedia_work/#When:17:58:00Z Ongoing contributions as "EdgarPriestly" on WikipediaArticle on Aalto's Riola Parish Church Images of reconstruction of an Armenian Cathedral called Zvartnots. Last three images, as of editing in April 2011. 2011-04-22T17:58:00-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/alvar_aalto_lecture/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/alvar_aalto_lecture/#When:20:12:00Z Two late-career projects by Alvar Aalto: Mount Angel Library, Oregon, USA and Riola Parish Church, Bologna, ItalyHad a great time giving a lecture last night, April 12, 2011 at Caffe Umbria in Portland, sponsored by the PBSCA. It's fascinating that the two sister cities possess the only mature Aalto works in their respective countries, both comissioned by the Catholic church in virtually the same year. I got some great questions at the end, one of which piqued my interest particularly: what is it about the Mount Angel Library in its architecture relates to its setting in a religious complex? I hadn't thought about that, becuase it's a great work of architecture, but I wonder how the library would have turned out had Aalto been more able to be on site/on call during construction. In looking at the buildings we see the rational and organic bound together, and light is celebrated as a precious commodity (we all know that in Oregon, every lumen is precious, whereas in Italy it's bountiful). There's no doubt that choice of Aalto was an inspired one in both cases. And that we still have a lot to learn from the Oregon project locally. Aalto has influenced our local culture and architectural culture, and certain aspects of his work, especially the use of wood slats as a finish material have finally become overused. These Aalto tropes have launched a hundred good to mediocre projects in Portland (although most without any of his formal dexterity and curvilinearity). I think Aalto has proven you don't have to be from here to design well here, which prompts a return to concept of critical regionalism articulated by Kenneth Frampton where site geography, climate, sustainability dictate how to build in a place - a kind of locavore architecture as we aspire to in food culture. Portland and Bologna have always straddled the line between national/regional, trendy/provincial, contextual/extraordinary, and what these projects do is integrate these opposites rather successfully in their designs. Also, because of their design and upkeep, both are perpetually new-feeling, not dated, even though they are forty years old, which is simply amazing. I might mention in passing that we do expect more in our time from our building exteriors in terms of contextual sensitivity. Not necessarily to other preexisting buildings that surround the project, although that's part of it. But some response to the natural landscape, local conditions might be appreciated and heighten the experience. The era of high heroic modernism is most certainly over, and we're on to more formal nuance. 2011-04-13T20:12:00-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/a_new_hope/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/a_new_hope/#When:15:13:00Z Justice Gerard Cafesjian prevails in the quest to build a meaningful institution dedicated to exposing the Armenian Genocide. 2011-02-02T15:13:00-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/pecha_kucha_presentation_video/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/pecha_kucha_presentation_video/#When:21:38:00Z October 14, 2010 v.8 Portland Oregon Check out link to video here 2010-10-15T21:38:00-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/press/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/press/#When:17:35:00Z FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEJuly 16, 2010. Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. ARCHITECT'S BOOK ACQUIRED BY YALE UNIVERSITY A book of designs and essays created for the Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial (AGMM) has been purchased by the Robert B. Haas Family Special Collections Library for its Art of the Book Collection at Yale University. The author of the book is architect Edgar B. Papazian. The book, entitled 'Scaleless: Approaching the Armenian Genocide' was first released in 2005 to the trustees of the AGMM. The 2010 edition has been appended with all of the design work the architect created from the years 2002-2005 for this project, in two distinct yet related versions, as well as other scholarly material and appendices. The book was recently shown in an art gallery exhibition in Portland, Oregon entitled "Book Power" displaying artists' books that address social and political issues. The book contains an exploration of themes (written and visual) involved in the creation of a design for a museum two blocks from the White House in Washington D.C. dedicated to exposing the Armenian Genocide of 1915-22, a historical event whose factuality is currently denied by the descendants of the perpetrators. It contains the plans to a logically derived, diagram-based spiraling building extension to an extant bank building whose architectural design was meant to capture the attention of passerby and impart the endless suffering of the victims and their descendants via its form and material. In 2003, Papazian, a New York native, entered into a dialogue about the design of the AGMM with businessperson-philanthropist Gerard Cafesjian, based on Cafesjian's favorable reception of Papazian's response to the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) search for the museum architect. Papazian then worked to develop his proposal in 2004 and 2005 under Cafesjian's auspices for the museum board. Due to structural changes on the board beyond the architect's control and knowledge, Papazian's designs were ostensibly abandoned sometime in 2005 or 2006. The complete 'Scaleless' book (minus art cover and padlock) has also been made available for purchase through lulu.com, a publish-on-demand website. The striking design within it pages is a contemporary response to the cyclical nature of genocide, a process that prevents the transfer the events it contains into historical facts due to denial. Genocide is forgotten (the victims cannot speak of their experiences), and thus comes the next spiral segment and the begetting of another genocide, onward and onward, an algorithm of death. The central memorial void, or husk, would have provided a radically "decentering" spatial experience with its 1.5 million khatchkars, or cross-stones. The design was viewed as an opportunity for an edifice to guide the general public via emotional response to the form and space of the museum, and to speak about genocide as a larger societal ill, beyond the Armenian experience. Mr. Papazian is a graduate of Columbia and Yale Universities and is an American Institute of Architects (AIA) member. He is licensed in architecture in several states. In previous employment he has worked on several cultural institutions of note, including the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, New York. The acquisition of the book did not hinge on Papazian's status as a Yale alumnus, but was a coincidence. Jae Jennifer Rossman, Assistant Director for Special Collections at the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library of Yale University, said in response to Papazian's request for comment, "I did not know that you had a Yale connection - that is a wonderful surprise. Your book will have a home in the very building where you studied [Paul Rudolph Hall, formerly the Art and Architecture building]. I chose your work because it falls into two themes which I strive to collect in artists' books: architecture and political commentary by artists. I also wanted to include it in our collection because it deals with a political topic that is not well known -if at all- by many people, especially in the United States." Mr. Papazian comments: "My education, training, and background made me incredibly excited to work on this project back in 2002-05, and I gave my all to it. I tried my best as a professionally accredited architect to research, execute, and edit per criticism the design as elaborated in this book. The result was -in my opinion- striking, ambitious, and powerful, and while highly pre-schematic (ie. preliminary), was eminently buildable. I feel as though there is still much more I could develop with this project to make it even better and even more appropriate to its site." "I do not maintain contact with any of the people currently or formerly involved with the project, nor do I make any claim upon or comment about the current plans and the state of the project today. I wish them all the best. However, I do find it encouraging that an institution such as Yale finds the work and the thought behind the 2005 design have the merit to place in their permanent collection." From the Haas Family library webpage: "Arts Library Special Collections contain a growing number of artists' books. These works take conventions and expectations associated with the book format and exaggerate, subvert, question, or ignore the ways in which the traditional codex looks, acts, and feels. In the words of art historian and book artist Johanna Drucker, they 'interrogate the form.' Artists' books in ALSC cover a broad spectrum of book works, from highly sculptural pop-ups to more traditionally printed texts, and include unique books, multiples and small editions, and occasional trade books which in some way or another play with the notion of what makes a book a book. A blend of historical collections and contemporary book arts offers a forum to examine the book as a construction, both physical and cultural." Edgar Papazian's architectural firm is named Doon, after the Armenian word for house and home, although his work is contemporary in thought and contains many cultural sources. He provides services for architectural projects of any scale, location, and type, and strives to achieve creative personalized solutions for a diverse clientele. It is a young, emerging practice and has just completed the "Eyebrow House" in Portland, Oregon, among other projects. Links: Scaleless Book - purchase & preview: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/scaleless/11780482 Book Power! Exhibition, 23 Sandy Gallery: http://www.23sandy.com/bookpower/artists/papazian.html Book page on architect's website: http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/archives/scaleless_omnibus_edition/ For further information about the Robert B. Haas Family Special Collections Library, please see: http://www.library.yale.edu/arts/specialcollections/index.html Doon Architecture page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Portland-OR/Doon-Architecture/122158827818592?__a=5 2010-07-23T17:35:00-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/scaleless_available_for_purchase/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/scaleless_available_for_purchase/#When:20:51:00Z Scaleless: Approaching the Armenian Genocide (2005/10), book. pp. 1-104.This book contains an exploration of themes (written and visual) involved in the creation of a design for a museum two blocks from the White House in Washington D.C. dedicated to exposing the Armenian Genocide of 1915-22, a historical event whose factuality is currently denied by the descendants of the perpetrators. It contains the plans to a logically derived, diagram-based spiraling building extension to an extant bank building whose architectural design was meant to capture the attention of passerby and impart the endless suffering of the victims and their descendants via its form and material. -Displayed as part of Book Power! Exhibition, 23 Sandy Gallery, Portland, Oregon, June 3-23 2010. -Acquired in 2010 by Robert B. Haas Family Special Collections Library for its Art of the Book Collection at Yale University. -Available for sale at Lulu.com "Curves and Collisions:  visiting the Eyebrow House" by Brian Libby, May 25, 2010. Yale Constructs, Spring 2009. Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial design 2010-07-15T20:51:00-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/eyebrow_house_steelmaster/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/eyebrow_house_steelmaster/#When:22:03:00Z Promotional article on the project by Galvanized Arch Manufacturer The Link is Hither 2010-06-16T22:03:00-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/eyebrow_house_in_apartment_therapy/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/eyebrow_house_in_apartment_therapy/#When:17:16:00Z We went [slightly] viral Ladies and Gentlemen... 2010-06-10T17:16:00-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/scaleless_omnibus_edition/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/scaleless_omnibus_edition/#When:20:20:00Z A revision and update of the handbook to 2005 Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial Design _New edition available for viewing at 23 Sandy Gallery, Portland, Oregon, June 3-26, 2010. 2010-05-25T20:20:00-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/eyebrow_house_on_the_portland_architecture_blog/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/eyebrow_house_on_the_portland_architecture_blog/#When:20:05:00Z Journalist extraordinaire Brian Libby has a take on the Eyebrow House Here is the Link to the Blog 2010-05-25T20:05:00-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/foda_studio_doon_architecture/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/foda_studio_doon_architecture/#When:01:42:00Z Foda Studio on Doon's Identity Link here 2010-02-20T01:42:00-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/long_suffering_wife/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/long_suffering_wife/#When:00:03:00Z Anime-style image of Michelle in the basement during our reno. 2010-01-22T00:03:00-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/notes_on_building_our_house/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/notes_on_building_our_house/#When:21:38:00Z November 2009I haven't blogged in a while, so I thought I'd take a break from landscaping the house and putting together our kitchen to write something about the process of our house renovation (and it ain't done yet). Something that an architect gets to do only a few times in their life, creating a residence for one's family is an act fraught with anxiety (financial, social), meaning (doing this was a goal we'd had as a married couple for a long while), and intimacy (collaborating with strangers to build the private space we inhabit). It's also a polemical act, and represents a statement by the architect on what they believe to be possible or a priority when designing buildings. That's a topic fo another post. (Above: Michelle testing out a future "wall" in our demolished second floor.) So, it's been both a monotonous and exciting process, and I've learned a few nuggets: 1. It will take longer and be more expensive than you ever thought possible (a truism I already knew, but when applied to yourself it -wouldn't you know?- resonates more. 2. Open-minded people are everywhere. We have gotten so many positive "street reviews" of the house that I wish I could bottle it and drink when needed. 3. Complete drawings save so much time in the field. It reflects the truism that we architects like to spout that you don't save any money not hiring an architect. I couldn't have done this project without the upfront time spent creating our drawing set and details, and really thinking through the design to the extent that I did, regardless of the design "style." It's good to know that he process works - but so few people seem to give it any credit these days, in our retail society. It has been unbelievably fun to see the thing incrementally appear as it did in my head - an abstract complex design reified. 4. But...don't underestimate your contractor's ability to share in your vision and "fill in the blanks" where needed. Mike and Kent have admirably taken the baton and kept running. (Mike Ayres of Sunset Construction siding the house.) 5. Don't underestimate the structural aspect of adding living space on the second level of a single-story house. 6. Try not to poison the relationship with your contractors. I've pulled back whenever I saw myself doing this, and have tried to be a good client. It's harder than you think! It's the small things that stick in people's craws, nickel-and-dime items. Big budget items are the places to cut when you are stretched. Also, the more often you are at the site, the more connected you are to the daily process of getting the job done and thus typically the more sympathy you have for what the contractor is facing (intractable sub, difficult technical issue, sickness in the family, what have you). 7. Hire contractors who are personable and repectful. Thus far, our contractors have been (mostly) deferential, quiet and well behaved. You are putting your neighbors through your renovation with you, so pick people you like and that will do good pr. I didn't consciouly intend to do this, but have gotten good feedback from our neighbors and have determined it's rather important, especially when the design is something a little mind-stretching like ours (but no less contextual to Portland). 8. Living in the basement of a house without windows, heat, and a roof is not so much living as being cave-people. I should have got out my paints and gone all Lascaux on the walls. (Note our espresso maker is hooked up - this is Portland after all) 9. But...having good friends to stay with in town while you renovate is a gift from above. Peter Martin and Carol and Sam Perrin deserve our ultra-gratitude. 10. Getting over the "hump" at 75% completion (waiting on inspections/subcontracors) is the most tedious part of the process, especially with the weather getting worse day by day. Only time will tell if we get to everything we wanted and remain sane. But my final word of advice would be to try and enjoy the ride. Building is kind of fun in a narcotic sort of way. 2009-11-04T21:38:00-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/doon_architecture_in_aia_practicing_architecture/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/doon_architecture_in_aia_practicing_architecture/#When:16:14:00Z Article by Shaunt Yemenjian "Creativity and Economy" Article on AIA website here 2009-09-09T16:14:00-08:00 http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/writings/slat_ism/ http://www.doonarch.com/index.php/ writings/slat_ism/#When:00:28:00Z Recent Fetishes in Portland Design, May 2009Anybody who's taken a look at recent contemporary projects in Portland would find certain repeating stylistic themes based on designer education and groupthink. Now don't get me wrong here. I think there is a burgeoning architectural culture in Portland, with architects having more control over the finished results of projects than in other cities, especially if they are stakeholders and/or instigators of the projects. Larger cities tend to create more complex project delivery teams and scenarios, and purity of authorship, which (let's face it) produces better buildings, tends to become muddled. Luckily, not so in Portland, based on the lack of economy of scale and the high quality of construction in general (believe me, no irony here). In this essay I'm interested mostly in the contemporary infill loft building type, a host of which have been built in the past year. And which are not selling right now, based on a cursory look at all the real estate signs around town, but let's hope that doesn't say anything about the quality of the work. My criticisms to follow shouldn't detract from the hard work lavished on many of these projects by their architects and builders. ...So as I was leading up to, there is groupthink producing a certain kind of design language of which certain themes become fetishized. I'm calling attention here to one of these themes, commonly known as "slats," so that we can interrogate it and possibly understand why, culturally, designers are using these in such multitude. Any material, used "on the flat" as an exterior facing like siding, or cladding, has a signifying effect in architecture. The material defines the building's relation to its surroundings, the natural world, and speaks about the owner's tastes and financial wherewithal. With the advent in the twentieth century of the type of wall construction known as the rainscreen system, the facing material of a building was allowed to become an infinitesimally thin veneer over a mostly invisible (but very functional) waterproof membrane. Call the facing material cladding. In its most basic formulation, a rainscreen-type deployment of the cladding allows water behind the cladding itself through "dry" joints (as opposed to "wet" ones filled with caulking), and then allows the water to drain down a cavity between the cladding and the wall and to escape at the bottom of the wall outside again via metal flashing. This way, water doesn't get past the wall, but it does get past the cladding, hence taking the onus off the finish material to be watertight (and allowing it to be really thin, and hence cheaper). The veneer-cladding is [often invisibly] clipped to a non-aesthetic backup wall, consisting of a composite sandwich of sheathing and studs or masonry. Veneers have been used since the beginning of building construction, but never before this was the wall, the most basic architectural element, so completely decoupled from the aesthetic affect of the building. In effect, our building construction now is "full of air," that is to say, the thick, solid, load-bearing masonry or concrete wall of historic architecture has been outmoded in favor of lighter, cheaper wall systems that have better thermal characteristics, and use metal studs, wood, or lightweight masonry that can be easily assembled. In this scenario the actual load-bearing structure that holds up the building ie. the floors and walls, becomes a third element, a superstructure to hang or clip the walls onto. The rainscreen is the equivalent of veneering a functional piece of plywood with a high quality birch that is 0.5 mm thick, as is customary with cabinetry these days. None of us are exactly fooled by a veneered piece of furniture into thinking it's made of solid wood, but it does present a handsome, uniform appearance that's perfectly acceptable. The same is true of buildings. And thus the initial attempted affect with this technique was the creation of buildings that looked like prismatic solid objects of a certain material such as stone or metal (when in fact it is covered with a paper-thin-skin). Millions of square feet of corporate architecture from the 1980's through today reflect this technique (creator of many of these works would be my old employer, the brilliant Cesar Pelli). The European architect Renzo Piano, who began practicing in the 1960's, among others, saw another design potential in the rainscreen. He and others realized that gaps or joints in the rainscreen did not need be denied as much as celebrated, since water was allowed behind anyway. Piano, in the IRCAM project adjacent to the Centre Pompidou in the mid '70's viewed the rainscreen as just a...wait for it... 'screen' that is applied to the exterior of a building, that can be taken off or used intermittently, without any huge effect on its watertightness. Once the realization of the rainscreen's (arguably) ornamental role made people realize that the facing material could be porous, the highlighting of gaps between cladding units could be used as another design technique to create visual interest on a facade. And a rainscreen could have a completely different geometry than the building it is applied onto, and could pull apart from the wall it was clipped to. Cladding truly became clothing that a building could conceivably discard at some point in the future for newer more fashionable vestments. Which brings us to the Pacific Northwest, and the new clothes progressive architects are wrapping their buildings with, using this contemporary building technique, but arguably not to the fullest. If there were a school of thought in progressive Portland architectural practice, it would be defined by the use of alternating blank areas of facade (default = stucco) with areas of visual interest, most often wood slats, sometimes metal panel. Contemporary design in Portland owes a huge debt to the formal abstraction first brought into architecture by professors of the Bauhaus school in Germany in the early twentieth century during the Modernist revolution in the arts in 1913-1930. During this time architecture was reduced to essentials: pure geometric euclidean forms floating in space, unencumbered by gravity. These forms were related to program (ie. use) of a building and were then deployed (often) repetitively in a fashion that was described at the time as rational. Resulting compositions based on this technique were musical in their push-pull, repetitive, proportional, monochromatic nature. The abstraction of form gave rise to a new type of creativity in architecture, divorced from the learning of historical styles and instead dedicated to the solving of the functional, programmatic problem in a way that was clear, abstract and beautiful without the illogical trappings of the past. The dictates of modernism took a while to catch up with building technology - it's only now a hundred years later that we can build a flat roof that won't leak, make thin-profile metal-framed windows that have desirable thermal characteristics, and build a hovering, light cube that is composed with lightweight studs and sheathing of mostly air (instead of heavy masonry). These design techniques are still in our architecture schools and as an architect, I have to admit that it's more enjoyable to design a building using this vocabulary than thinking about shoehorning a building with a complex program into a historic skin. Also, modern architecture as developed through the latter twentieth century by such practitioners as Steven Holl and non-architects like Richard Serra was very much concerned about spatial perception and experience, phenomenological concerns. Robert Irwin experimented with spatial divisions using the most minimal means. In Portland there are a bunch of talented, younger architects, some of whom I've met, who are designing using these precepts and concerns, and wood is obviously one material in a building palette (that tends to denote "dark" as opposed to "white"). An argument that I tend to make against a lot of contemporary American architecture as compared to its international brethren is that it's too fussy - there's usually too much going on, and there's needless decorative aesthetic complexity with no performative role. The veritable epidemic of 'slat'-ism following from this tendency that seems to have infected contemporary northwestern architecture of late has me concerned. Horizontal or vertical slats, of varying species of wood - cedar, ipe, etc. are often deployed with abondon. The Belmont Lofts, the 7th and Knott townhomes (by Holst Architecture), the B House and Stump House (by Architecture W), the Williams Five, the Butler Residence (Path Architecture), The Neal Creek Residence (Paul McKean), Lair Hill Condominiums (Rick Potestio), Sum-Thing New Condominiums (Sum Design Studio), Z-Haus (Ben Waechter) all wear their fashionable slats well. Sometimes, in some less skillful projects, repetition does not breed a favorable aesthetic response. Many architects here will say: that's Portland, that's the Northwest by extension. It's what we do here. Does that mean that every project needs slats in order to be properly Northwestern? I ask, coming from the outside, what do these cladding choices signify? Hopefully something beyond the fact that wood is cheap! Admittedly, wood slats can be found on contemporary projects all over the world. There are some hot projects from South America and Europe that use wood cladding absolutely gorgeously and are able to create beautiful scrims and textures. Well used, repetitive slats have a phenomenological purpose and a indubitable modernist pedigree. And yet here, on your average contemporary project, it just seems to be deployed as a given, without critical use, usually in horizontal format, applied to a cubic shaped building in a format that is purely elevational, sometimes turning the corner, sometimes sheathing the entire building. At a recent jury at University of Oregon (project for student center at the campus of the Oregon College of Art and Craft, critic David Gabriel, CoLab Architects), a student's project had a vertical wall that was composed of layered wood timbers laminated together (I'm assuming) wrapping around an elevated, levitating public space. It was like a giant glue-laminated beam, and had a heavy, monumental feel, and it was gorgeous. This was taken by some on the jury as a signifier of northwest. Yes, the northwest produces excellent trees for construction and the timber industry has a long history here. But should a student's project which uses layered wood or timber cladding somehow be judged "northwestern" enough? Was it the scale that was appealing, the sheer volume of wood? Admittedly, there is a certain 'woodiness' to the existing historic buildings of the northwest, because wood is plentiful and affordable as a building material here, and trees are so visible in the landscape. In my office space, there are massive old growth timbers spanning the building, holding the roof up. Does using wood contain an idea of a building reflecting its surroundings back to itself, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery? Well, you have to make the conceptual leap between the dressed plank and the cedar tree adjacent; I'd argue that we can do that pretty easily. But are materials a true indicator of region anymore? I'd argue not. Couldn't the project be just as pertinent in Maine, or Vermont? Or Switzerland? Or even New Zealand? I can tell you, nobody outside of the Northwest would have assumed that the project was regional to Portland or the Northwest. What I'm looking for is this: what can make Northwestern architecture tick and cool/relevant to the world at large, and yet not lose it soul? I think it boils down to making it performative - make your buildings work with weather and solar patterns. This is sustainability in essence; a building needs to have a certain formal composition to work well in this particular climate, which is very unique for the planet - half mediterranean, half northern forest. I must emphasize to architects here - what you do is on a stage much larger than you think, beyond Portland and its environs. Portland gets written up in the press constantly and people are training their eyes on this place as a leading-edge city. I'd humbly suggest that you push projects more spatially, don't rely on design conceits, and make your buildings take advantage of the kooky weather and solar patterns here. I'd also argue to my fellow architects that in a rainscreen application, joints can be wide and vary in width too. The rainscreen 'skin' can travel across a building facade, wrapping a building volume that could be rather different (remember, the skin and the wall have been teased apart into separate systems). It can be performative in that it can prevent glare for its inhabitant and provide privacy while still admitting natural light. People need to be able to inhabit the space between the rainscreen and the wall. I might bring up one project as a postscript that seems to critically interact with its materiality, albeit ironically, and only on its interior. At the Doug Fir Lounge (Jeff Kovel, Skylab) - the log ["from whence wood comes"] is used as an interior lining (non structurally, hence irony) and in one spectacular case the log is disassembled into planks and then re-assembled in one hanging ornamental solid element over the bar - wood slats return to their source material in a brilliant move. Graceful glue-laminated beams arch over our heads and reference perhaps an older modernist pop-aesthetic - I believe these were part of the original structure that Kovel renovated. The stylized, ironic aspect of the wood - referencing to the log cabin of yore, hits a fin-de-siecle note that we [still] respond to with a knowing wink. Along with the vestibule's high tech-shiny ceiling lattice, the space's tinted reflective glass, and chrome midcentury pendant fixtures provide a modern context to enjoy wood as a retro sign of regional proto-history, repurposed. 2009-05-09T00:28:00-08:00