2002

AIA/IDP CHARETTE

mixed-use urban gateway mid-rise

 BLOCK 76

members

location

Matt Loosemore

Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Prefabricated units integrated, over time, within an established steel framework.

Screens composed of various opacity and patterning systems enclose, define, and control the seemingly randomness of the units behind.

The skin and framework define and establish the project's parameters allowing internal scenarios to transition and metamorphosize in response to the users' needs.

This is a symbiotic project between architectural dictation and individual user definition.

A cocoon.

Situated at a gateway intersection, the project is a self contained architectural scenario.

A bar of active two story retail addresses the Burnside/MLK intersection and establishes the south edge of an urban plaza.  A canopy overhangs the west edge of the plaza engaging the view towards downtown Portland.  A bar of industrial activity holds the north edge of the plaza.  It is within this bar that the individual user units are prefabricated.  Openings along the bar's south wall allow pedestrians within the plaza to visually engage with this process.  It is within this plaza that the staging for cranes to operate and insert units within the framework occurs.

A steel framework rises from the plaza/industrial base.  Screens of various opacities and patterns overlay this controlling grid creating the established exterior feel and look of the project.  The west facing screens acknowledge the river, the already established downtown and the hills beyond.  The formalized east facing façade responds to the adjacent orthogonal quality of the urban grid.  The prefabricated units are inserted within this framework.  Units penetrate the skin at various controlled points along the exterior creating relief and texture.  It is considered that the project will evolve over time, that units will be inserted into the "collective" as leasing occurs - i.e. infrastructure acting as placeholder for future development and expansion.  Units act as a 'kit of parts'.  Users dictate their location and configuration within an established set of parameters - the grid, the screens, and the unit itself.

Two continuous walls of concrete held together/apart by glass link the individual components of the project and house the vertical circulation and entry points.

While such an urban infill project promotes public transportation and other individual non-vehicular means of commuting, submerged parking fulfills user needs.

Steel, concrete, glass, opacity, translucency.

Framework, prefabrication, units, shell, infill, screens, layers.