Sometimes neighborhoods or communities initially view light rail coming to their area with a combination of excitement and  concern, not really knowing what’s to come. In the case of TriMet’s Portland Milwaukie Light Rail project, a seven-mile light rail route in the early stages of design and construction, the new alignment winds through under-served industrial SE Portland, residential SE Portland neighborhoods and the suburb of Millwaukie. Through an innovative process leveraging existing funding sources and a unique collaboration between a wide variety of designers, jurisdictional partners and stakeholders, transit oriented development begats a host of possibilities large and small that the community may have never envisioned but that will benefit many for years to come. The panelists explain how they accomplished this.

Tad Savinar | Portland

Tad Savinar’s presentation

David Hyman, AIA | deca architecture, Portland

David Horsley, AIA | DAO Architecture, Portland

Kenny Asher | City of Milwaukie

Evolving the Design Excellence concepts developed during the 2010 Oregon Design Conference, the AIA Southern Oregon and Southwestern Oregon chapters updated us on their progress, including an implementation roadmap. They are ready to move into action. See their presentation (below) for how you can get involved.

Southern Oregon and Southwestern Oregon Design Excellence Overview

AIA – Southern Oregon is represented by Beverly Thruston, David Thruston and Joseph Sis

AIA – Southern Oregon is represented by Michael Fifield

Architect and drawing teacher Bill Tripp believes that if you can’t draw, you can’t see. If you can’t see, you can’t imagine. If you can’t imagine, you can’t design. Carry a sketchbook with you always and draw every day. Only a few are keepers, but draw, draw, draw. Drawing is our language. Use it.

Personal examples from his own experience, plus those of Mike McCulloch and Rick Potestio, are included in this presentation: Drawing Is Essential, But It’s Also A Struggle.

Bill Tripp Drawing Presentation

Many Oregon architects have benefited from Phil Sylvester’s drawing classes. 

How Are We Adapting? For Thomas Kosbau and ORE design + technology, it’s based on the premise that creative potentials in current scientific research and the natural world can be synthesized into architectural and industrial design solutions.

Their current projects range from the DeKalb Market, a pop-up retail concept constructed of salvaged shipping containers, to the Riverpark Farm, New York City’s first portable rooftop farm, to a bio-mimetic cactus that harvests drinking water from the air.

Thomas Kosbau Keynote Presentation

Where: Approaching Local Architecture with a Global Mind. Houston-based Carlos Jimenez share his inspiration and reflects on the important of context – between memory and the new and the now. Coming from Costa Rica, where color is a celebration of the  intensity of the local environment, Jimenez considers trees as a metaphor for design possibilities. His presentation touches on the cycles of nature and includes a project his office created for Rice University, where he is a professor. It was Rice’s first green building, in more ways than one. International work includes projects in France and Spain. Jimenez is a former University of Oregon Pietro Belluschi Distinguished Design Professor.

Carlos Jimenez Keynote Presentation

See images from the Carlos Jimenez Studio portfolio here.

Why New Thinking is Needed After blazing a trail in the computer games world, Mark Frohmayer became a sustainable business entrepreneur,  helping Oregon reshape its vision for new opportunities. He founded Arcimoto, a manufacturer of affordable, sustainable vehicles that aims to be a driver in the green transportation space. The Arcimoto Platform consists of a three-wheeled chassis, motor, control electronics and chemistry-agnostic energy storage bay. Arcimoto will be opening up its platform for other designers in true open-source style so others can build on and from that foundation.

Mark Frohnmeyer Keynote Presentation

Nathan Fillion talks to Conan O’Brien about his reasons for getting an Arcimoto:

Stana Katic drives the Arcimoto Generation 5 SRK prototype:

Google’s Sebastian Thrun describes Google’s self-driving car project:

Peter Stone’s Autonomous Vehicle Intersection Simulation:

Arcimoto founder Mark Frohnmayer presents at TEDxConcordiaUPortland:

When Does Conventional Thinking Need To Be Challenged? If you’re Walter Hood, that’s every day.

A provocative artist and landscape architect Hood and his Hood Studio is based in Oakland.

From a strong viewpoint that people matter, Hood is breaking new ground in urban design, turning cross-walks into parks, blowing up creeks and maximizing the public realm to better serve those it’s created for.

His inspirational presentation covered projects large and small from all over the country, including Powell Street Promenade and the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

Check out the Hood Studio portfolio for examples of their work, which aptly characterize the new normal.

What’s New: The American West. The new now for this husband and wife architect team is characterized by rigorous research of materiality, history and regionalism of each project. Committed to green design, they apply aesthetic and technical innovation and a heuristic process. Several California and Utah institutional and residential examples bring these concepts to life. The results are beautiful, sensitive and emotional.

Work of Sparano + Mooney

Emerging professionals Robert Krotser, Amanda Hills and Erin Hastings shared their experience and inspiration and then challenged us to write down an idea or question to be answered during the conference. Each of us then built a form out of paper and wrote our observations on the building. Check out the City of Ideas created by the conference attendees.

Finding Inspiration

They braved the 20-slide, 20-second format and shared their thoughts with us, giving up control to the Pecha Kucha concept. We applaud them for their bravery and candor. They are:

- Jonah Cohen

- Boyce Postma

- Nora Wendl

- PSU Architecture Students

- Erin Hastings

- Joann Dao Le

- Jim Tice

Excerpts include:

- It has to be very visual or I will lose my balance

- If you take yourself too seriously, you are missing half your life

- We find opposites in conflict

- The new now finds us being scrappy, finding work where we can and improving collaboration

- The new normal for me is working on other people’s projects with no time, showing me I need to be flexible

- Drawing is the most important inspiration for me; it helped me to see

Did any of these presentations striek a chord with you? Please share your thoughts.