Allied forces: the conversion of a warehouse into the headquarters of an advertising agency places civic amenities at the heart of the building, making it part of the larger community

Architectural Review, The, Nov, 2002

Allied Works Architecture, led by Brad Cloepfil, first came to attention with a series of conceptual works called 'Sitings', pieces of land art placed in landscapes ranging from coastal forest to uninhabited prairie and suburbia. Brian Carter and Annette LeCuyer' describe how these abstract essays were designed to reveal the particular qualities of the site, to explore structure and material, and manipulate the relationship between man and nature. As land art rather than works of architecture, they worked at a subliminal level.

Cloepfil's preoccupation with the potential of structure as a potent conceptual and physical ordering device' was informed by his work with Kenneth Frampton, and is demonstrated in design of the Portland headquarters of the advertising agency, Wieden Kennedy. The site chosen was the National Historic Registry, a historic warehouse occupying a city block in Portland's Pearl district and requiring a great deal of renovation, repair and seismic upgrading. The enlightened client, keen to make their offices part of a larger community, wanted to incorporate a public theatre and art gallery, as well as a gym, cafe and library.

Simultaneously, the architects were given the opportunity to reconsider the nature of industrial space.

Allied Works' solution was to place the civic and communal spaces at the centre of the building and offices around the peripheries. A central void was carved out of the heavy timber structure and a box of perforated concrete inserted. Lateral bracing provided by the box satisfies modern seismic regulations.

At the same time, the box allows natural luminance, admitted by a rooflight and filtering through a lattice of beams, to be brought down into the heart of the deep plan. Two new concrete columns within the void break the regular rhythm of the warehouse structure, and introduce a note of pleasing irrationality. They are connected to the enclosing concrete walls by beams and bridges shooting off in different directions on each floor; similarly, to counteract the regularity of the building's exterior faces, openings in the walls are random. Such devices aerate and transform experience of the building.

To achieve the impression of pure structure, Allied Works devised a pressurized system for smoke extraction that eliminated the need for rigid compartments within the building.

At the base of the concrete box, an amphitheatre accommodating 500 people was built employing the timbers removed to make the void. It is used for drama, dance and concerts and for video presentations. Such civilizing influences on office life are further supplemented by the Portland Contemporary Art Gallery -- also in the building, along with the other office amenities.

Carter and LeCuyer point to resonances between this essay in pure structure and light that is the central void and Louis Kahn's Exeter Library in New Hampshire (Kahn's work has been a source of inspiration for Cloepfil). But they note that Wieden Kennedy's informality, responding to a different social and cultural context -- and time, they could have added -- is in contrast to Kahn's Classically composed space.

This interior is an intellectual construct but its great pleasure is sensual, deriving from the quiet play of light over pale grey concrete (of immaculate quality and workmanship) and wood; and from the subdued elegance of furniture and fittings in meeting areas and offices. The establishment of boundaries through deployment of structure is so subtly achieved as to seem almost ordered by nature, and the glimpses through and beyond these boundaries to other parts of the building eliminate oppression.

I All American -- Innovation in American Architecture, by Brian Carter and Annette LeCuyer, published by Thames & Hudson, London, 2002.

Architect

Allied Works Architecture, Portland

Project team

Brad Cleopfill, Lorraine Guthrie, Kyle Lommen, John Well, Chris Bixby, Jake Freauff, Jeff Lee

Structural engineer

kpff Consulting Engineers

Photographs

Sally Schoolmaster