Down for the count

The Columbian is counting down to Clark County's best piece of architecture, as determined by five area architects, among them Kalina Kunert, Larry Wilson and Rob Barrantine. I'm assuming the other two panelists are Don Luthardt and Karl Johansson, who are quoted in the articles, but the paper doesn't explicitly say that or list the panelists (seriously, journalists). They're all on the AIA Vancouver board, though, so that makes sense.

The paper will reveal the panel's top choice on Sunday (the countdown hit number 3 today with Esther Short Park) as well as the top 10 favorites of Clark County residents. Revealed picks include Officers Row, Clark County Courthouse, and Clark County Public Service Center.

The suspense may strike me dead. Predictions?

**UPDATE**
The Academy was the top choice, and the paper (finally) i.d.s the panel properly.

Architectural surveys

InsideArch is this website that's billed as a tool for getting inside the employee culture of architecture firms -- and employees of 16 Portland firms have filled out surveys.

For most of the sixteen, surveys appear to have been filled out by either a. a PR person or b. an underpaid, overworked,this-close-to-giving-the-principals-the-finger employee. Still, the site's entertaining in the same way bathroom graffitti is entertaining (and maybe more useful to architecture job seekers than stall scribbles).

Les is more (unless the more is beef-related)

GBD's designing the new Les Schwab headquarters in Juniper Ridge, a 1,500 acre development in Bend.

Bend residents got a look at the proposed design on Saturday, when the Bulletin tossed up pre-review renderings.

The buttresses are odd (unless it was meant to be a gargoyle-buttress one-two punch, and the gargoyles got value engineered out). Other than that, I have no actual opinion on the design. I'd warm up in a hurry, though, if interior plans reveal the building contains. . . a free.beef.vault.

If it's ugly, light it up. It's an aloftism.

Developer of the new aloft Portland, a trendy-traveler aimed hotel out by the Portland airport, calls the space "sassy and smart" in a story in today's O.

Myhre Group's designing the $12 million project, which will feature trademark aloft "swoof" on the roof.

The swoof, if you're unfamiliar with such a thing, contains nearly 70 different colors and is exceedingly ugly. But it'll be lit up at night, which may trick the hipster crowd the hotel's targeting into thinking that it's so ugly it's sexy. Like yellow eyeshadow and bowling shoes.

Do I hear one million?

AIA Portland's looking for art by architects (and members of the architecture community) to auction off as a fundraiser for its new

Center for Architecture (that's it in the photo).

Rules and stuff are here.

Sketched out

Delayed reaction: Brian Libby had a review in the O of Brad Clopefil's show at PDX Contemporary Art, which will be up until June 27 if you want to see the real deal.

Reviewing a review sounds like something only a journalist would even think of doing. So I'm not going to.

But I will say -- I think the incubation and ultimate execution of architecture is artistically compelling. Especially the idea of chronicling different manifestations of a project as it goes along. SERA today presented its design for the new downtown Courtyard by Mariott, which will be back before the design commission on July 12 (there'll be a story in Monday's DJC). Part of the presentation was a series of considered-and-rejected designs, as well as sketches from a very, very basic design point for the building patterning to a fully grown (and almost approved) design.

And seeing it was like...like seeing what would have happened had Van Gogh said "The hell with sunflowers. I'm a begonia man." Awesome. People are naturally curious about the maybes and the mights and the could-haves, and architecture is one of the few fields where the almosts can really be part of the end art.

Cloepfil at PDX Contemporary

Brad Cloepfil's drawings of Allied Works projects will be exhibited in June at PDX Contemporary Art. The show, Drawing/Making ,will run June 5 through 30 at the gallery, 925 N.W. Flanders St.

The drawing that's on the show postcard -- which is how I heard about it -- is a simple geometric simple study of Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis' facade, done in charcoal on trace paper.

Very worth a stop on the First Thursday circuit...

Messing with Texas

Major before and after: BOORA's designing the $14.7 million renovation (which revved up this week) of Bass Concert Hall at the University of Texas at Austin.

The 1981 building's opressive (in the way that corrective facilities are oppressive) brick facade will get scrapped in favor of a five-floor glass-encased lobby. Light spills in, activity spills out...architecturally nudged creative outreach.

Artchitecture

Architecture is art. And the idea that architecture, like art, is something that can and should be preserved through collecting has taken root (great stories in Departures and Wallpaper).

The architecture and the architect (even not-Franks) matter to some buyers (particularly the ones who can pay serious cash). And when something matters to buyers, real estate agents grab hold. But even on architectureforsale.com, where on-the-market works by architects like Edward Durell Stone and Mies van der Rohe are listed, real estate agents miss the point.

Oregon's solo showing is a Northwest contemporary home in Corvallis designed by Portland architect Howard Glazer. But Washington has three listings -- and the trio works as a perfect example of agents v. architecture.

One listing, for a $1.2 million midcentury modern work tucked into a forest hillside, gets right to the point -- and it's a big point. NBBJ founder Perry Johansen designed the international-style residence in 1965; the front door was done by Portland sculptor Lee Kelly.

The second is for a 1991 McMansion -- "perfect for holiday entertaining!" and "HAS IT ALL!" -- and doesn't nod to design, designer, or architectural significance.

The third, for a Seattle townhouse, also doesn't mention the architect. But unlike the missing McArchitect, this omission's significant. The home is in Hillclimb Court, which was designed by Jim Olson and Rick Sundberg of Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects and won a Seattle AIA honor award in 1983. The firm's also done striking work on projects like Delta Shelter, An American Place, and The Brain (in the photo), but that doesn't get a nod. The wall-to-wall carpeting, however, does.

Lame. But who designs a building, amazingly, is becoming a part of how a building gets positioned in the real estate market. Particularly, it seems, in Portland, where attaching an architect or firm name to a condo tower might be the thing that makes a buyer choose the John Ross over the Encore or the Casey over 937 (more architect-as-marketing later).

It's important for people to know who designed their living spaces -- who designed, in effect, the walls within their most basic and intimate lifestyle takes place. But it's also important, as a city, to know who designed the homes that are or will become architecturally significant. Real estate agents can have a big role. So can architects and developers, neighbors and writers, students and professors. Architecture is art -- treating it as such will save it.