Portland State University students go green in Pearl District

Daily Journal of Commerce (Portland, OR), Jun 23, 2008 by Sam Bennett

Before designing a building in the Pearl District, Jamie Tausen studied the site and created an artifact.

"The artifact was used to explain our site concept, which we discovered in the site analysis," said Tausen, a third-year architecture student at Portland State University. "Mine was a window into the historical continuum and the layers that make the Pearl what it is - the old, the malleable and the new - and everything that connects them together. Then on top there was room for a new layer in the Pearl, which was where my sustainable day- care center comes in."

Her Pearl District building was an assignment for a hypothetical building that was the centerpiece of a design studio at PSU. Tausen and other architecture students recently presented their building designs to professors and design professionals at a critique hosted by Mahlum Architects. Jason Jones, an architect at Mahlum and adjunct architecture professor at PSU, said he invited designers and sustainability experts from around Portland to the critique.

"I want to expose the students to a professional atmosphere," said Jones.

The living community assignment challenged students to design a community center in the Pearl on a half-block, vacant parcel at Northwest 14th and Irving. The community center had to have a sustainable component, such as a rainwater harvesting system.

"The premise of the studio I was teaching was how to shape a community using sustainable systems," he said.

Jordan McComb incorporated a rainwater harvesting system and solar panels in his design of a Pearl District community center. The building would have high-end retail, befitting its neighborhood.

McComb said one criticism he heard was that the building's "program was broken up too rigidly" and the community center needed to have more overlapping spaces. He was also advised that the building's roof "fins" could accommodate solar panels.

Tausen designed a day-care center with sustainable components that would be centrally located so children could watch it work. In addition to solar panels, she would have a rain collection system that would provide water for the building's toilets. It would also be used as irrigation water for plants.

"The kids would watch the action and also be able to help plant the plants," she said. Jones said the second-year students worked on the "living machine" projects throughout the spring. "I look at the studios as think tanks to solve theoretical problems," said Jones.

Alex Lightman designed a center that revolved around cyclists - with storage for bikes, lockers rooms with showers and a velodrome on the top floor.

"I really enjoyed having critiques at [Mahlum]," said Lightman. "It allows us to get really good feedback by people who are actually getting things built in the industry."

Both Tausen and McComb said sustainable buildings will be the goal of future designers.

"I think architecture is going to become more and more sustainable, as technology progresses," said McComb.

Tausen said the "new generation" of buildings will have to be sustainable because of the economic effects of rising energy prices. "You can't design a building without certain sustainable standards," she said.