710 E Burnside | 132'-10" | 12 floors | Dead

[cailes]

Wow.

Need a total rethinking of the building, starting with the parking and extending to the
arcade.

Parking is driving a lot of the program and design to negative results. It’s visually
dominant and driving out active space.

[NESteve]

Wow is right. A pretty ruthless, almost mean-spirited summary memo. These are opinions that should have been levied onto Dumbbell and Yard: "the building has an alien character to it"..."it needs to merge into the neighborhood more cohesively"..."need a total rethinking"..."schizophrenic".

Maybe the commission wants to seal the fate of lower Burnside as a wacky, fun-house district as if to buttress sins of the past: "The envelope design...is architecturally very conservative"..."East Burnside is developing into one of the more interesting design districts in town, so there is also more carte blanche to explore architectural form here". They should just come out and say: "with the addition of Dumbbell, Yard, and asphalt shingle skin on the Jupiter expansion...we want and expect peculiar massing, unconventional materials, and extra credit for bizarre fenestration".

It's become a race to the bottom.

[ORNative]

That DAR summary was painfully critical

[maccoinnich]

Images from DAR #1 and write up at Next Portland.

Option without arcade:













Option with arcade:

[pdxtraveler]

I like the concept of having arcades along there, so keep! Though I did read the earlier post on how much the commission likes the overall design, so who knows... lol!

[Derek]

I like the arcade as well.

[urbanlife]

The arcade does make the building look a bit overly bulky, but I would much rather they go with the arcade to keep up with the design theme of that area. It is one of the only places in Portland where this is allowed to be done, so I say put in the arcades for any building built in that area.

[cab]

The quickly-rising east Portland skyline has two newly proposed developments, both currently in the thick of the City’s design review process....

http://pamplinmedia.com/but/239-news...-two-buildings

[zilfondel]

Originally Posted by NESteve

Wow is right. A pretty ruthless, almost mean-spirited summary memo. These are opinions that should have been levied onto Dumbbell and Yard: "the building has an alien character to it"..."it needs to merge into the neighborhood more cohesively"..."need a total rethinking"..."schizophrenic".

Maybe the commission wants to seal the fate of lower Burnside as a wacky, fun-house district as if to buttress sins of the past: "The envelope design...is architecturally very conservative"..."East Burnside is developing into one of the more interesting design districts in town, so there is also more carte blanche to explore architectural form here". They should just come out and say: "with the addition of Dumbbell, Yard, and asphalt shingle skin on the Jupiter expansion...we want and expect peculiar massing, unconventional materials, and extra credit for bizarre fenestration".

It's become a race to the bottom.

No kidding. It is like they are commenting on a completely different buildling.

I happen to like this design. the blockiness is somewhat dynamic and the push/pull combined with the transparency of the first floor would fit in well with the street and I think would help activate and make the street interesting.

[maccoinnich]

Revised drawings [PDF - 30MB].

[2oh1]

Wow, that's one heck of a revision this building went through. Like zilfondel, I liked many aspects of the previous design which appears to have been scrapped. I like a lot of this one too, though I don't understand the brown weeds (?) shown on the terraces. I assume that's just some silly artistic license being taken with the renderings, right?

I think I might like this a lot. It seems like it bridges the gap between the neighborhood's older buildings and ultra modern buildings, especially if they get the materials right. I'd hope for brick or the cement panels assuming they look kind of like ultra-long bricks.

[pdxf]

The new version is fine, although I much prefer the original. This one seems to be following a trend (moderately random elements, oddly protruding balconies). The previous seemed to have a cleaner, more elegant, lighter design that I think would have stood the test of time longer.

And I always have to chuckle at thinly veiled justification for design moves. For this one, they use "strata" -- images of a marble or limestone quarry (which we don't have around here) to explain the reasoning for these horizontal bands that sweep across the building. Can't we just admit that we design buildings to just look cool and interesting. It's just silly -- I almost feel like perhaps it's intentially showing the absurdity of having to justify design moves.

[maccoinnich]

The previous iteration had some major issues with the parking was dominating the first three floors on the SE 7th Ave elevations. I'm glad to see that they've completed reworked the parking strategy.

[cailes]

They turned that around quickly. Its almost like they knew going in that this might happen and had a backup option?

I don't know how quick you can retool but its a drastic change.

Not bad though.

[NESteve]

I like this new one, although I liked the last one much better. Design Review asked for something less conservative and it seems they got their wish. However, I agree with the sentiment that the last design was more "timeless" - which this is not. The last one wasn't perfect, but it was elegant - and timeless.

This is what I hate about the current state of Design Review in Portland: the commission delivers a blistering opinion of a (subjective) design, and the architect/developer deliver a knee-jerk response; there's nothing organic about that - just a design that reflects the bluster of a blow-hard committee.

Personally, I'd like to see the architect/developer meld the two. Yes, the 7th side with above grade parking circulation was wonky, but why throw the baby with the bathwater? Use the first iteration design elements with the new below-grade parking scheme.

This building has the potential to be great - to me it seems the architect is listening too much to a dysfunctional design review commission.

My opinion.

[ablerock]

I'm really not understanding their reluctance to fully embrace the arcade. It's a rare opportunity to encourage a unique little piece of urbanity and they're just like "nah, we cool on that."

[maccoinnich]

Memo to the Design Commission.

[TowerPower]

Needs more refining. While I agree this looks more "contemporary" than the old design, that's not always a good thing. They seem to be gleefully hopping on the sculptural bandwagon started by Works - but in this case I'm failing to see the justification behind the building form as it relates to the context. With the Jupiter Hotel Expansion, you can see how they were playing off the existing form of the hotel roof. With this, I don't see a connection to anything other than what's trendy and satisfies the architect's ego.

[NESteve]

@TowerPower

I don't know if this is about the architect's ego as much as it has to do with kowtowing to the design commission's bizarre reaction to the first iteration.

[TowerPower]

Edit: Nevermind, I didn't realize the design commission had gone so crazy on this one. I'm intrigued to hear their take on the new iteration though.