Briefed 8.5

Portland developer John Russell is one of the "worker bees" on presidential finger-crosser Sen. Hillary Clinton's Oregon steering committee, the O reports.


Salem's getting its fourth Walgreens, and neighboring business owners are looking at the development as a shot in the arm rather than out-of-town interlopers coming along to push pills, the Statesman Journal reports.


Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters thinks his city should get over its love of Portland's transit-oriented, controlled growth strategies, because what doesn't work is making "policy on ideology and blind faith that changing law changes human nature." Thanks, Walters.

This old open house

Oregon National Register spots that take advantage of tax freezes have to be open to the public -- the actual dirt-tracking, medicine-cabinet-spying, antique-loving public -- one day per year. And the state Parks & Rec department thoughtfully compiles a monthly calendar of open house events.

Up this weekend is the Sidney Ruddy House (1725 SE 16th Ave.) in Ladd's Addition, which is open Monday. Scheduled for September are the Herman Brookman-designed Alan and Barbara Goldsmith House, Kohn House, and the Whidden & Lewis-designed Wilcox House, as well as a handful of historic apartment buildings, among them Barcelona and Estelle Court.

Briefed 8.29

Thomas Hacker Architects is in negotiations to design a new library for Bellingham, Wash., the Bellingham Herald reports.

Callison is designing Vancouver Mall's transformation into a "lifestyle center," the Columbian reports. Because malls are places where teenagers buy Cinnabons, and lifestyle centers are places where yuppies buy vases and boots and food processors and barstools. Ah, marketing.

Cool story about deconstruction -- and Portland gets props -- in the L.A. Times.

The GBD Architects-designed Vancouver Columbian newspaper headquarters is tracking LEED gold, and Columbian publisher Scott Campbell cares about people AND the environment, the...Columbian...reports.

Briefed 8.28

City Harvest Church will be at the center of a $50 million mixed-use retail, residential, office and restaurant complex planned for Orchards, the Columbian reports.

The Thomas Hacker Architects-designed William W. Philip Hall at the University of Washington-Tacoma broke ground today.

The renovation of two Medford historic schools (Opsis Architecture is doing the project) is taking some heat as opponents wonder a. whether the schools were really all that dangerous in the first place and b. whether the schools are so dangerous they should just be razed and built new. Good luck, Medford School Board.

Briefed 8.27

Does designing a building for an anti-gay church make the architecture firm anti-gay? Discussion about Sienna Architecture's design work -- which appears as a backdrop in a Mercury photo -- for New Hope Church, which is working to overturn recently passed gay rights laws, is going on over at Metroblogging.

Ace Hotel's decor appeals to the well-styled manly man, the London Times reports. One who knows that "living in a skip limits one’s pulling capacity."

Sustainable homes aren't so accessible to regular, can't-afford-a-consultant folks, the Register-Guard reports.

Second opinions

TVA Architects and Walker Macy's second-effort designs for Saturday Market's move to Waterfront Park were much more well-receieved by the Historic Landmarks Commission than the team's first effort, which commissioners said looked like something that belonged at the airport.

The solution, designers said during their second advice session today, came after they started treating the sunscreens like simple park structures rather than full-on buildings. The result is a slim, flat, column-supported shade with cable-stayed detailing. More on this in Wednesday's DJC...

Briefed 8.23

Translations for Willamette Week's story on the University of Oregon move to Old Town: "attracted little attention" means at least one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight stories have been written since UO announced the move in January 2006. And "Moisan" is Ankrom.

The Portland Mercury's Scott Moore weighs in with the possibility of Hoyt Street Properties (and others) building a Pearl District School in exchange for more FAR. And Hoyt Street definitely needs the FAR.

Good neighbors

The U.S. Green Building Council has released the LEED for Neighborhood development pilot participants -- and there aren't as many Portland projects as I thought there'd be.

LEED-ND is, it seems, a gimme for a lot of Portland projects. As Green Building Services' Terry Miller told me last month, "If you do any infill development that has services that are walkable and has access to transportation, you will do well in LEED- ND." But when it came down to it, just five -- Ladd Tower, Hoyt Street's properties, the Eliot, Helensview, and the South Waterfront Central District -- signed on. (18 of the registered 238 projects asked to remain confidential.)

Hmmm. Maybe, as Helensview assistant project manager Devin Culbertson said, it's a case of "How much LEED do you need?"

Briefed 8.22

West Seattlites are against the development of a PetCo that Gary Reddick and Sienna Architecture Co. are designing.

Interesting International Herald Tribune story about architecture design competitions, in which Thom Mayne points out that the GSA didn't make clear the hypothetical-ness of the site during the Eugene Courthouse competition, and therefore screwed over the design team. (I'm paraphrasing.)

I used to obsessively check the H&M website, hoping they'd board the internet commerce train and offer their cheap chic online. But, as ultra pdx says, with a Seattle store on the way, is Portland far behind? Potential bonus: Most of the Euro H&M's are in coolly renovated historic spaces. Hello, Galleria.

Is Wyatt developer Bob Ball running for mayor? Perhaps, Willamette Week reports.