Univ. of Oregon, Portland State Univ. architecture students share

Daily Journal of Commerce (Portland, OR), Jun 6, 2005 by Justin Stranzl

With the end of the school year just days away, Portland State University and University of Oregon architecture students on Thursday took their work out of the classroom and into an arena where it would be judged not by a teacher but by a different critic: the general public.

The displays took place in separate locations downtown: Graduating UO students took over the walls of the Galleria at 921 S.W. Morrison St., while students in their first or second years with PSU's architecture studio exhibited drawings, sculptures and other art in the gallery of Associated Institute of Architects Portland at 315 S.W. Fourth Ave.

The UO students at the Galleria were graded, but not by the instructors who've guided them through the 2004-05 school year. Rather, professional designers and architectural critics volunteered to sit with individual students for one-hour sessions in which the students explained their work and the judges offered suggestions or criticisms.

On some levels the event was stressful - students were showing their work for Galleria customers not accustomed to judging architecture, and some of the students had never displayed their work publicly before. And the event was a de facto job interview: Designers with some of Portland's more recognizable firms paced the gallery, scouting for future help.

At the same time, the students breathed easier knowing their course load for the year was finally done. Josh Meharry, who soon will receive his bachelor's degree from UO, said he'd exhausted himself over the last term, working anywhere from six to 18 hours a night on a relief cube for victims of natural disasters. A critic would council him in minutes, but he wasn't worried. All he could do was relax after finally finishing a model of his work.

I finished two seconds before my review, he said, leaning against a wall from which his proposal hung.

The projects varied in size, scope and probability. Meharry's relief-cube design proposed an 8-foot-by-8-foot square that could easily be packaged and sent across waters before expanding into a sleeping room, kitchen and bathroom.

Another student, Rose Vadnais, proposed an urban cemetery that would take over the West Park Blocks near the Pearl District and house a crematorium, chapel and more. A third student, Alina Graham, proposed a massive, narrowing tower for the South Waterfront District that, instead of mirroring the Meriwether, would mimic the skinny towers of Vancouver, British Columbia, squeezing 900-square- foot spaces into a gradually thinning tower that would protect the views of West Hills homeowners.

There's a lot more innovation with high-rises (in Canada) than in Portland, Graham said.

UO professor, James Pettinari, roamed the gallery, but he offered little criticism for the projects.

Instead, he checked in with each of the 80 students mostly to see if they finished the damn thing, he said, laughing.

Blocks away, students from PSU unveiled architectural work both obvious and not. Simple building sketches were included in the collection at the AIA gallery, as were photocopies colored over with charcoal, wood blocks and drawings of leaves.

The students, all of whom were in their first or second year under the tutelage of Clive Knights, acting chairman of the architecture department, were exhibiting as much as architects as artists. As nascent students they'd yet to create the grand proposals of the graduating UO students, but that offered them an advantage, Knights said. The students could exhibit less structured, more adventurous work, he said, to see how it registered with arts fans visiting as part of First Thursday festivities.

We have an advantage pedagogically - we can exploit a freedom to test definitions of architecture, he said. This gallery teaches them how to make their work presentable - visually interesting as well as architectural interesting.

They're learning to see, said Tim Siemens, an assistant professor.

Malia Kalahele, a second-year architectural student, proudly showed off 19 drawings she and fellow classmates completed throughout the year. They cut photographs of people and living spaces out of magazines, then photocopied them and drew over them with charcoal and graphite to both flesh out their artistic tendencies and give our spaces more of a living quality than a sterile, chipboard model would, she said.

Our work is mostly in our head, she said. This gives us a chance to bring it out.