Category: Landscape Architecture

Rethink, Recycle, Regenerate: Imagining Portland Centennial Mills

Posted on by Sabina Poole

Centennial Mills Redevelopment:
A Pedagogical & ‘Real Life’ Opportunity to Preserve and Play with History

 

University of Oregon Architecture Studio Engages Students in Real World Projects to
Rethink-Recycle-Regenerate:  Imagining Portland Centennial Mills
A Studio
With
Ihab Elzeyadi, Ph.D., FEIA
Associate Professor of Architecture | Department of Architecture
School of Architecture and Allied Arts
University of Oregon
Summer 2013 Studio | ARCH 484 /584

How can you make new life from the old yet create a 21st century public place for the city of Portland? What is the process of reusing historical buildings without getting locked-up in its relics? Which elements can we preserve, reuse, while sustaining the past, present, and future for the city of Portland by developing its Centennial Mills? –Ihab Elzeyadi

These are questions at the heart of a UO architecture summer studio–led by Profesor Ihab Elzeyadi and 14 students, armed with their sketchbooks, laptops, and eight weeks of an intense summer studio centered on Centennial Mills.

The Centennial Mills development project has been referred to as one of the largest sustainable redevelopments in the history of Portland.  Since being brought on board last spring by the Portland Development Commission (PDC) to redevelop the property, the project development team of developer Jordan Schnitzer and his Harsch Investment Properties has enthusiastically pursued input and design ideas for the Centennial Mills site from varying resources. [Scroll to the end of this article for background and a full list of partners.]

One important resource has been the engagement with UO Department of Architecture and the High Performance Environments Laboratory at the School of Architecture and Allied Arts.

Instrumental in establishing the connections to facilitate this project has been Tad Savinar, a civic catalyst on the consulting end of Schnitzer’s Harsch Investment Properties.  Savinar invited the University of Oregon Department of Architecture faculty to join Harsch and offer a summer 2013 design studio that would focus on the Centennial Mills property.  Nancy Cheng, director of and associate professor for the University of Oregon Portland Architecture Program was the Portland liaison teaming up with UO Eugene-based associate professor of architecture, Ihab Elzeyadi. Professor Elzeyadi initiated and taught the summer studio, Rethink-Recycle-Regenerate:  Imagining Portland Centennial Mills.

Tad Savinar and students at the final review, Centennial Mills Studio.

Elzeyadi comments on the partnership with Harsch and the UO Department of Architecture:

I [had] investigated the potential of offering a studio to rethink and re-envision the Centennial Mills for over a decade. We had worked on adaptive reuse studios in Portland for a number of years collaborating with the late Art DeMuro of Venerable Properties. This has led to a number of successful “real” projects.

The Centennial Mills project was always interesting yet wasn’t defined enough to tackle… Bottom line—it will be a great adventure… Pulling it together has not been as easy. When Tad Savinar contacted us and invited me to consider it for a studio in collaboration with Harsch, I felt an adrenaline rush to go for it. It felt to me that this was the right moment to intervene on a project I always valued not only because of its historical value but also due to its rich opportunity and great challenges.

The timing was also ideal since we are working in parallel with the design firm and Harsch.  We were also preceding them with some tasks and contributing a great deal of research to the design team.

Professor Elzeyadi’s studio engaged students: “in a real project to develop parallel research and conceptual development on the urban and building scale to adaptively re-use the site and its complex of buildings.  The process both was informed by the work undertaken by Harsch Development as well as informing the design team based on research and academic exploration in a process of collective intelligence.” [Course syllabus]

Reviewer with students, Melissa Anderson and Kathryn LaNasa.

In mid summer of 2013, during the studio’s midterm review, the students were joined by Jordan Schnitzer who intently listened to the students presentations, engaging in commentary and conversation about their designs and addressing them post-review with his own reflections on the project and moving forward.  Schnitzer, who has consistently promoted the project and the site as one that needs to be grounded in emotion and connectedness to Portland, takes a thoroughly humanitarian approach to the project’s overall conceptual approach.  He reminded the students that a useful thought here is to realize this is an opportunity to “preserve but play with history.” Schnitzer enthusiastically complimented the students on their “great ideas” and “the fabulous job” they had introduced with concepts for the Centennial Mills complex.

[View photos from the reviews here on Facebook.]

In what can be described as a rather stirring and heartfelt conversation of advice, Schnitzer continued by asking the students to “balance between dreaming and what is available…always dream, but remember to put yourselves in the shoes of the developer…the client.” In a moment of pedagogical delivery, Schnitzer expressed a sort of reverence for the students’ work, saying “when any of us are lucky enough to touch the land, [we] have an obligation  because [we] are doing something that will result in a better quality design..it is an honor to be an architect, to effect the land and have that responsibility…You have that responsibility.”

Model showing current buildings on the site, from river side.

Schnitzer encouraged the students to stay actively involved and encouraged their future input on making the Centennial Mills project rife with attractions and features that would appeal to all ages and activity levels encouraging engagement with the final outcome of the site.

Along with Schnitzer’s words of encouragement and inspiration, the students relied upon their professor to guide their projects to completion and the final review held August 12 on the Eugene campus.

The University of Oregon architecture students enrolled in the studio have proved to be a significant part of the brain trust and logistical process for the project. At the final review, 7 proposals were pinned to the walls, with teams consisting of 1-3 students.  On site for the final review session was Gil Kelley (Harsch); Tad Savinar; and Gregg Sanders, David Wark, and Nick Byers (all of Hennebery Eddy Architects), among others.

Final Review of student work.

Professor Elzeyadi addressed the assembled group recalling to all the predominant aspects of the project:  to provide open space; to capture history and historic context; to define community focal points; to embrace sustainability; to strengthen connections; to link a riverfront greenway.  Elzeyadi also detailed aspects of the project that provided the guidelines and contextual framework within which the students had to develop their design concepts.  A few of these:  2030 Energy Benchmarks; providing for a hotel, a museum | arts center; utilizing the north-south axis of the complex; recognizing solar radiation modeling; daylighting ideas and micro-climate and cross ventilation opportunities; the integration of greenroofs, rainwater catchment, embodied energy; and context analysis incorporating energy and environmental benchmarks developed by High performance Environments Laboratory (HiPE) that he directs at the UO department of Architecture to integrate performance and experience as guidelines to develop sustainable place making

The students were to design within the following constraints and understandings of the site:  to recognize and envelope historical context of the flour mill, the feed mill, the grain elevator, and riverfront warehouse; to use existing site opportunities such as the greenway and the connections inherent to the site, 9th Avenue, and the existing city park; to work within the restrictions of the existing corridor, easements, setbacks, transit lines, and zoning, as well as within the context of a vibrant urban setting. And, to work with an understanding of the cultural context in addition to an architectural context that would study and embrace industrial, mixed use| retail, hotel and high rise condominiums.  The geographic context that students addressed included contaminated ground, metal debris and air pollution of methane chloride.  Climate context included the prevailing NW or SE winds, sun angle diagrams and sound levels.  Also to be considered was the folding in of elements to make a coherent complex—retail, office, residential and parking that balance a cultural program of a visitor center and a museum

Harsch's Gil Kelley with students.

Professor Elzeyadi relates that the studio was a challenging yet fundamentally rewarding experience:

I offered the students a rich design process and a rigorous work schedule. I’m proud of their professional attitude throughout the studio. Working in teams, they had to vent their decisions together, respond quickly to critiques offered by me in a short time frame as well as respond to feedback from the design team.

 

It was intense, quick, and rewarding. They learned a great lesson for this schematic phase of design and planning a site of complex multitudes. It has been a sort of midnight summer dream —and, we are looking forward to further engage with it in the next phases of the project through my fall-winter-spring thesis/terminal studio I’m offering in 2013-2014.

The following lists the students involved in this studio and the titles of their projects (a printed publication of their work is planned to be released in the fall of 2013)

  • The Anchor of Portland by CLINA (Claire Seger and Gina Auduong) | Using a vocabulary of solid and transparent, this team created a series of different gestures with a sense of an ebb and flow between addition and removal.  Termed “very evocative” by reviewers, this project “left a sculptural form.”
  • Playground for Portland by Melissa Anderson and Kathryn LaNasa | With a vision to make Centennial Mills into a place where the greenway joins to the complex uniting outside with inside and providing multiple vantage points; Re-uses many of the structures and a bridge that captivated reviewers. . .
  • Centennial Mills Park to Water Redevelopment by Carolina Trabuco and Kaitlyn Rowley | Focused on site connections to the Pearl District, the Willamette River and the greenway.  This plan advocates an “island” approach.
  • Centennial Mills  Sawing the Seeds of History by Elena Traudt | The central feature is the open space that draws in the park, the city, the water. A very organic approach that gives precedence to the landscape and the water, and will benefit from a sense of the “push and pull” of the design .
  • Envisioning Centennial Mills A System of Parks and Axis by Tudor Bertea and David Richards | Interweaving urban life with the site as a threshold.  Bridging nature with retail belts and a visitor center and the preservation of a story of place. “To introduce a northern city strongpoint by revitalizing historical facets of Centennial Mills while interconnectedness of the urban and natural life.”  Floating greenways lends a chance for a “water level view.”
  • Bookending Portland’s Waterfront:  Centennial Mills, Adapted by Carmen Ulrich and Emily Smietana | The bookend for the city center of Portland.  Incorporates marketplaces, underground parking, visitors center, interacts with nature and seeks to celebrate the Tanner Creek feature.  Would benefit from a grander gesture to Tanner Creek and a study of Halprin Fountain as inspiration.  The bike trails and resident profiles make this project stand out.
  • TuRBiNe by Alex Brooks and Chris Watkins | A focus on energy:  the urban energy of the city and the energy of the visitor to create an urban vitality.  This will be a place people want to go and use the street to bring the people in.  Inspired by the Vancouver landbridge and the urbanity of Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park, Pikes Place Market and connecting to the river.

Following the final review presentations, Savinar addressed the group and talked about the constraints and opportunities of the project (the submerged site area, the 20’ building line set back, the waterfront; Tanner Creek ; restoring the riparian zone, and the seawall; to name a few.  He continued by reiterating the key site features of the flour mill, grain elevators and feed mill.  Savinar noted the greenway trail is a new opportunity and there might be a way to preserve the warf buildings.  The review closed with high hopes on all sides and the momentum to continue this project adding, and adapting ideas.

I asked Professor Elzeyadi to reflect on the studio and moving forward:

The collaboration was interesting on multiple fronts:  we took a different approach to the problem by first researching the context extensively and through engaging my HiPE lab expertise. We developed some evidence based guidelines to sustainable design and the creation of a high performance buildings. This information was shared with Harsch and the design team to support their work.

 

We also benefited from great reviews and feedback through some of the planning and documentation that was produced by the design team.

 

In addition, I used a number of ways to breakdown the project so the students could bite the right size and be ready to investigate in a meaningful and manageable way. Towards that end,  we explored seven different proposals reflecting on the same issues that the design team is challenging. It corroborated what they are concerned with and engaged in and offered a different approach to the design problem in the same way.

 

This is the kind of triangulation and interaction that would fit the project and Harsch in the long term. It’s looking at the project from various perspectives and offering both a practical and academic perspective to developing and planning it.

The somewhat sprawling complex, even in the dusking evening skyline, is an imposing settlement of shape and context —its grand proportions and soaring features touching the sky like few other buildings on our city’s waterfront.  And with a project of somewhat unprecedented scale, and undeniable importance to our metropolis, the pedagogical opportunities afforded here are monumental. The partnerships blend new ideas and create new conversations within our capable community of those dedicated to a built environment that can unite so many elements vital to a healthy urban tapestry.

Gazing at the visibly deteriorating colossal structures from a stance anchored in the well-used park across Naito Parkway and just the other side of the glimmering tops of well-worn train tracks, lets one imagine and visualize the quiet beauty and inherent possibility of Centennial Mills.  An appreciation of the Ozymandia-esque melancholy of the project reaches far into an emotional and thoughtful consideration of Portland’s past—a monument of sorts, a reminder of inevitable decline to be gently halted, or re-invigorated mid-track by compassionate sensitivities with an keen sense of the importance of place, history, culture, and reuse.

And that, it seems, is the intention of this place’s most passionate advocate, Jordan Schnitzer, who along with the team he has so aptly brought together could very well transform what remains of this mighty place to rise again, with a bold melange of old and new.

Many thank yous to Professor Ihab Elzeyadi….

Background Context…

In 2013 the Harsch development | real estate firm received approval of a $350,000 loan from PDC to perform “predevelopment” assessment.  Under direction from Schnitzer, Harsch mindfully moved forward to examine the project’s financial possibility and to initiate preliminary design concepts.  In May of 2013, Harsch led tours of the Willamette riverfront | Pearl District Centennial Mills location and hosted an open house to introduce leading developers, preservationists, and community leaders to the dilapidated 11-building site.  It was an opportunity to glean ideas responsive to the site, both historic and public-minded, that would begin the process to transform the former flour mill into a bustling complex of office, housing, and retail development complete with a respectful inclusion of the historical character of the site.

Indeed, the goals of PDC have been to redevelop the site to be a center of “’cluster industry / traded sector employment’” encouraging industries such as “footwear, software, and clean energy that the city is courting and having success attracting.” [Portland Tribune.]  A further aspiration is to incorporate retail space, an arts-culture center, housing and parking facilities for approximately 295 vehicles. The current site, complete with the historic structures such as a four story feed mill, a five story flour mill and water tower, and grain elevators speaks of a relevant economic and social history that was a vibrant part of Portland’s past.

Working cooperatively, the PDC and Harsh have established a redevelopment team of experts well-versed in the vastly progressing realm of green design, building innovation, and sustainability.  The team, comprised of professionals from both PDC and Harsh have incorporated the expertise of Portland’s Hennebery Eddy Architects as the lead design firm. The long list that reads like pages from a who’s who of the Portland development and design universe, instantly conveys the impression that this is going to be a project with no stone, or aging timber, left unturned.

This post has been the story of how students at University of Oregon Department of Architecture were incorporated into the project. The inclusion of both graduate and undergraduate level students in UO architecture program has precipitated a design team that links UO to the following partners::

Harsch Investment Properties

·         Jordan Schnitzer

·         Gil Kelley

Studio of Tad Savinar

·         Tad Savinar

Hennebery Eddy Architects

·         David Wark

·         Gregg Sanders

·         Nick Byers

Other Project Team Members

·         Portland Development Commission

·         MS&R Architects

·         SERA Architects

·         OLIN

·         GreenWorks

·         CH2M Hill

·         KPFF Consulting Engineers

·         R&H Construction


Sources:

http://www.centennialmills.org/

http://www.oregonlive.com/front-porch/index.ssf/2013/05/developer_seeks_ambitious_idea.html

http://portlandtribune.com/pt/9-news/135707-schnitzer-tackles-centennial-mills-redevelopment

A piece by Randy Gragg in Portland Monthly on Centennial Mills

A piece by Brian Libby in Portland Architecture on Centennial Mills

UO graduates help shape and lead 40 years of Oregon land use system

Posted on by karenjj@uoregon.edu

This month marks the 40th anniversary of the passage of Oregon’s land use law, SB 100. This law created the most innovative and progressive land use program in the country, and no state has a law that rivals its success. Every one of its 36 counties and nearly all incorporated cities have state-acknowledged plans to protect farm and forest lands with urban growth boundaries, which limit the potential for urban and rural sprawl, and preserve natural resources and greenspaces. One needs to just drive along I-5 through the Willamette Valley to understand this fact: Oregon has chosen to grow differently and it’s working.

Governor Tom McCall signed SB 100 into law on May 29, 1973. Over the last 40 years, the law’s success has required an army of vigilant advocates to ensure its success and stave off full frontal assaults from upset citizens, oppositional legislators, and ballot referendums. The University of Oregon has been a nurturing ground for many of the bill’s most ardent supporters, whether Oregonians or those who moved to the state to learn how and why Oregon is a leader in sustainable development, environmental preservation, agricultural success, and urban livability.

The Three Sisters in the Cascade Mountains from Sisters. Photo courtesy of Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives.

This is a story of three UO graduates who have, with countless others, lifted up and ensured SB 100’s success, which many can agree is a true gift to the State of Oregon.

PPPM Associate Professor Emerita Maradel Gale, JD ’74, taught and nurtured hundreds of students who went on to directly impact the law’s development. However, before she joined the ranks of the PPPM faculty, Gale was at the forefront of the Oregon land use program’s development. In 1968, she became the first president and volunteer lobbyist at the State Capitol for the Oregon Environmental Council. In this role Gale successfully lobbied on legislation for increased funding for bike and pedestrian paths, prohibition of billboards along highways, and helped create the Nuclear Thermal Energy Council, which disallowed utility companies from siting new nuclear power plants without public input and vetting.

Gale’s biggest land use success was the creation and appointment to the Oregon Coastal Conservation and Development Commission, which established a planning process for Oregon’s coastal region. ”Prior to the creation of the Commission, city councilors, county commissioners, and port directors had formed a coastal organization with the goal of maximizing development throughout Oregon’s coasts,” says Gale. “They were fighting to get ports in every one of Oregon’s estuaries.”

“I was proudest to get estuary designations that allowed some degree of development in areas like Coos Bay and Astoria, but also preservation for others with greater natural resource benefit. This was not a popular concept on the coast at that time, but thankfully it happened.”

In 1971, Gale enrolled in the UO law school. In 1974, during the week of her last law school final, Gale gave a lecture to the UO Masters Program for Urban and Regional Planning (a pre-cursor to the current Community and Regional Planning program). Her lecture on “Politics and Planning” resulted in a new career and hire for the department, where Gale taught Legal Issues in Planning and the Environment and numerous other courses.

PPPM Associate Professor Emerita Maradel Gale

“The department was the first school throughout the country to bring a lawyer on its faculty,” says Gale.  “Most of the planning programs around the country didn’t teach a legal planning course, and subsequently we saw many more departments developing legal planning courses and bringing many more people with legal experience on their faculty.”

Students such as Ron Eber, MURP ’75, were behind the creation of the Legal Issues class. “My peers and I pushed really hard to develop the Legal Issues class, because we felt that this was something that planners needed to know, and was missing from the department,” says Eber. He was glad this work paid off, because Gale’s class prepared his peers and him to become engaged in the implementation of SB 100 and fight for its success.

“Maradel’s class was by far the hardest class that I took. She taught it like a law school course and it was a real challenge to us. Her course probably did more to prepare me for a career than anything else. I used the practical skills from that class almost everyday for over 30 years, whether it was researching the background of  a statute, the case law or understanding statutory construction. Planners must know how to implement broad policy and legislative pronouncements to develop plans and regulations that are effective to achieve the desired outcomes.  Understanding our legal and administrative system is where the rubber hits the road. We learned these important skills in Maradel’s class.”

Ron Eber (MURP '75), Oregon’s preeminent farm and forestlands specialist

Eber became Gale’s first graduate teaching fellow in her Legal Issues course. He joined the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development as a summer intern in 1975 and worked for it full time from 1976 until his retirement in 2008. During that time he was involved in all phases of implementing SB 100, especially the state’s longstanding policy to protect farmland including the development of legislation and administrative rules, the review of local plans and zoning codes, local land use decisions and legal appeals.  Upon retirement and still to this day, Eber is looked to as Oregon’s preeminent farm and forestlands specialist and recently published a history on Oregon’s efforts to protect farm land from 1961 to 2009.

Dick Benner’s career, JD ’75, intertwined with both Gale and Eber at different times. Benner enrolled in the UO law school in 1972, and took up land use causes early on through a position for OSPIRG assigned to monitor the Oregon Coastal Conservation and Development Commission, on which Gale was a commissioner. In 1975, Benner became one of two initial staff attorneys with 1000 Friends of Oregon along with UO law school classmate Bob Stacey. Stacey later became planning director for the City of Portland, the executive director of 1000 Friends, and is currently a Metro Councilor.

Dick Benner (JD '75), staff attorney for 1000 Friends of Oregon, first executive director of the Columbia River Gorge Commission, director of Oregon Department Land Conservation and Development, and senior assistant counsel for Metro in Portland.

Benner spent 12 years with 1000 Friends as the lead attorney on coastal and rural land use cases, where he ensured Oregon’s cities, counties, and the state were upholding SB 100’s goals. In 1987, he accepted the position as executive director of the newly formed Columbia River Gorge Commission, which oversees the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. He directed development of the commission’s staff and creation of the Scenic Area’s management plan. Upon completion of the plan, he accepted the position as director of the Department of Land  Conservation and Development in 1991.

“That was a very difficult job. My moving into this position coincided with a fairly dramatic turn to the political right in the Oregon Legislature, who were not fans of the program,” says Benner. ”Much of our work was defensive, trying to save the land use program and trying to keep a budget for the agency, which was always under attack.”

Even so, Benner and his colleagues, including Eber, were successful at implementing two changes to the program that have real and positive impacts. First, he oversaw the implementation of Oregon’s Transportation Planning Rule, which requires integration of the state’s land use and transportation systems to emphasize the reduction in reliance of automobiles.

“As this rule started to be defined and enacted, it became clear what a big deal it was because it was the first real recognition of the interconnectedness of land use and transportation,” says Benner. “However, it was a titanic struggle within state government to truly enact this rule. Thank goodness for Governor John Kitzhaber, because the Oregon Department of Transportation resisted this all the way. They wanted nothing to do with the land use program, because they were dominated by highway engineers who had no notion of the linkage between the land use patterns and the transportation patterns. Ultimately, the Governor told the Oregon Transportation Commission and the Department that they had to climb on board, and Oregon is starting to see the benefits of this rule today.”

The second success was his work with Eber and others to redefine Oregon’s farmland protection statutes. In 1993, Eber was on assignment as a special assistant to Governor Barbara Roberts’ Natural Resources Policy Advisor Ann Squier. At the outset of this process, both Benner and Eber were fearful the whole farmland protection section of the law was at risk because the House had leverage to block the agency’s budget in the legislature and hold it hostage in order to force the Senate to agree to changes to weaken the laws designed to protect farm and forest lands from conflicting development. These two worked tirelessly over the summer of 1993’s extended legislative session to gain compromises from all parties to pass HB 3661, which amended policy on standards for dwellings in farm zones, placed fixed minimum lot sizes for farmlands in statute, and created the definition of “high-value farmland,” and “finally provided some peace in the countryside, so to speak,” says Benner.

Ron Eber and Hector Macpherson (the "father of SB 100") at the signing of HB 3661 in 1993 at the Sokol-Blosser Winery.

Benner left DLCD in 2001 and became the senior assistant counsel for Metro in Portland, where he witnessed the benefits of Oregon’s land use law up close. Benner says, “Portlanders drive about 20 percent less than average cities of its size. We attribute this not to reduced number of trips, but to shorter trips. The trips are shorter, because we are growing with a more compact urban form. Portlanders do a higher percentage of commute trips made by bike than any city in the United States. They ride transit more. The per capita carbon emissions are below 1990 levels.”

“After 40 years, we are getting to where we set out to go,” Benner concludes.

A barn at the Melrose Vineyards. Photo courtesy of Gary Halvorson, OregonStateArchives.

Gale, Eber and Benner have deep appreciation for Oregon’s land use law as it has taken shape and evolved. “I see myself not just as an advocate of the land use law, or a practitioner of it, but also as a student of it,” says Benner. Eber believes that the law offered him “a great appreciation of the democratic process as well as the responsibility we all have as citizens to not only those of us here today, but to future generations as well.”

Oregon’s land use law is truly a gift to the state of Oregon, and it hasn’t been just the work of Gale, Eber and Benner’s passionate advocacy, but thousands of Oregonians who have ensured its success. However, understanding the battles that these three UO graduates faced in educating, communicating, and fighting for Oregon’s land use program over the last 40 years will be important to the success of its next 40 years. Two things are certain: first, change is inevitable for the law, but the foundations of having urban growth boundaries, farm and forestland protection, housing, transportation, and extensive opportunities for citizens to be involved in an open and transparent public process will live on; second, the UO stands ready to continue its development of professionals ready for this task. It’s up to today’s students to pick up the fight to see Oregon’s land use program through for another 40 successful years.

Story by Joe McAndrew; A&AA Writer/Videographer Graduate Teaching Fellow

Bruce Wolf | Part II

Posted on by Sabina Poole

Part II:  Bruce Wolf, Photographer

"I signed it with a Sharpie." Bruce Wolf's portfolio

[This is Part II of Sabina Samiee’s coverage on photographer Bruce Wolf, an adjunct instructor at the UO in Portland and instructor for Light and Color:  Tools of the Trade Workshop for Summer in the City 2012. You can read Part I Bruce Wolf | A Little Profile on a Big Photographer posted previously.]

Images | Bruce Wolf

Now it is fall 2012. Wolf is firmly entrenched in the Portland scene.  He is an adjunct instructor for the Summer in the City University of Oregon Portland program.   And from the projects he has taken on, it is evident he has graciously assimilated the culture and vibe of Portland, and has never looked back.  Granted he isn’t making the prodigious dollar amounts New York had bestowed upon him, but as he comments, “that really doesn’t matter.”  Whether he is shooting Pietro Belluschi’s architectural wonders, a stunning plated concoction at Yakuza for a scrumptious-looking website, or photos for a children’s book on food, Wolf’s images are powerful, captivating, emotional, and have that je ne sais qua any photographer worth her salt dreams about.   [See Bruce Wolf:  A Little Profile on a Big Photographer]

 

If you are here in the city next summer, look him up:  Summer in the City 2013—with a little luck and a fair wind, Wolf’s experience and knowledge will be back here again and yours for the taking at the UO in Portland.  This is an opportunity to learn methods and process, gain knowledge and insight from one truly great photographer.  And, as Wolf, himself puts it, he “[doesn’t] just want advanced photographers in [his] class,” not at all.  In fact, he welcomes and encourages a specific kind of person,  “Photographers at any level passionate about photography. . . .That’s what I’m looking for,” he states.  It was a late afternoon, mid-summer and we were happily into our second coffee talk– “interview” – meeting at Floyd’s coffee shop in Old Town. Wolf was beginning to feel like an old friend.  “Passionate about photography” and “photographers at any level:”  this sounded mildly provocative…I was caught on the “at any level” phrase.  It sounded so refreshing and open to possibility. I asked him to tell me more about his 2012 Summer in the City Light and Color workshop, the students he worked with, his expectations for the course and the students and his future plans.

Bruce Wolf

Wolf finds that being welcoming to photographers of any level with a passion for picture-taking attracts students who are eager to learn and listen.  And, photographers at any level can take insightful, thoughtfully composed images. Photographs should “say something about the person who took the photo, not just be an image of what that photographer captured.” In Wolf’s opinion, a photographer “needs to learn how to present the image so that it tells a story, leaves personal narrative and inhibitions behind, and freely exposes the photographer.”  This ability can be learned over time with work and experimentation.  Wolf aspired “to teach [his] students to tell us who they are, to expose their self.”

Bruce Wolf and his students in the Light and Color Workshop

Wolf continued, speaking softly and thoughtfully.  The intent of a photo is to translate a story and project a personal signature.  When students presented their work to him for critique and review, Wolf found it best to refrain from criticism and rather try and find what “they thought the process was, or had been, like a personal journey” he says.  Wolf wanted his students to learn how to use their photographs to “take us someplace” and to make their image a “personal reflection of what drives them to see what they see, and why they see it that way.”  He suggested that they experiment with light, color, angle, cropping and content to express this.

 

Equally intriguing is Wolf’s unique pedagogical approach that assumes his students are blissfully “unaware of anything.”   He continued, “I talk to them as if they know nothing.”   Not intending to be at all demeaning or condescending, Wolf means he strives to instruct as if his students are a blank slate, ready and receptive to challenge the components of their work to access a sense of both the art and the science of photography.  He finds this approach the least intimidating and the most encouraging to his students’ sense of free experimentation in the class.

Bruce Wolf

There is one area, however, where Wolf expects his students to have a working knowledge.  His Light and Color Workshop requested that students have an existing working familiarity with Photoshop, a technology Wolf feels “is essential to contemporary photography.”  In addition, he only allowed the students to use their cameras in Manual mode—a somewhat daunting prospect for many.  If a student needed help or instruction in the mode, Wolf gladly assisted. By using only Manual mode, Wolf encouraged each student “to regain control of the camera and the image.”

 

I asked Wolf his opinion on camera equipment.  Would someone with a prosumer camera be as welcome as someone with a simple point-and-shoot? Wolf assured me, regarding equipment, students were not criticized for the quality or technical hierarchy of their equipment. One student was welcome to use her father’s point-and-shoot, which she did for the entire duration of the course. When asked if he felt the quality of one’s camera had a great deal to do with the quality of the image, Wolf responded that “it is not the camera that is the final instrument of the image” but how that “image is interpreted or taken forward to create an intention.”  Here is where Photoshop becomes the somewhat indispensible tool of the contemporary photographer, the sine qua non that allows the artist | interpreter of the image to “sharpen the intention, to clarify and capture” what one has merged into pixels, and digitalized into a printable reality.  Photoshop will help ease a transition from a captured moment to a fully finished image. Today’s digital photographs, says Wolf, will not be worked on in a traditional darkroom, a place where the photographer used to transition an image and produce desired effects, experimenting with light and dark, saturation and hue. Thus, says Wolf, “Today’s darkroom is Photoshop.”

Bruce Wolf in Google search

With all his work, his reputation and his legacy, it is no wonder Wolf is carefully watched.  Coming to Portland in 2009, a blog post by his then rep, Stockland Martel declared “BW MOVES TO PDX and POSTS photos.” [I would show you the post but Stockland Martel has since removed it.] It was a series of photos posted on Wolf’s online social media presence that precipitated a small tempest of curiosity—Wolf was doing something new, something different.  Maybe Portland enabled Wolf to branch out into a new perspective, and explore that “loneliness” he talks about.  Whatever it was, we can read about the “guerrilla photography” Wolf and his wife, Laurie launched into.  Photographing over 70 Portland restaurants for Portland restaurant scene, Wolf found his way right into the delicious underbelly of some of Stumptown’s most coveted places.

Photographing 70+ Portland Restaurants..Food! Glorious Food!

As time has passed these last few years, Wolf has eased into a singular Portland aesthetic, appreciating and valuing a sense of independence, being in a league all his own, and valuing a certain obscurity for its own sake. He seems to have found meaning, and worth, and definitely his own Portland style of cool.  He’s become one of us.  He’s settled in with a new rep, Greenhouse, and released a new book, along with collaborator and wife Laurie Wolf, Portland, Oregon Chef’s Table .

Bruce Wolf

Things are looking bright and beautiful for this New York transplant. As evidence to his understanding of things Portland, whether due to the cagey arrangements of representatives or Wolf’s own propensity to find meaningful working relationships, halibut-sized printed monthly publications have been scooping him up and sending him back out to hone his forte with a uniquely Portland grind.  And, now that we can open up some of our favorite regionally-based magazines and see architecture from our own metropolitan backyard photographed by Wolf; get google-guided to a unique Portland restaurant and stumble upon images from a few of those places we head to for something uniquely delicious, we see Wolf’s light and color in new places.  Take a trip to our favorite bookstores and see Wolf’s images in lovely volumes available to grace our coffee tables and our kitchen bookshelves.   We can access Wolf’s Portland work almost daily and we can even take a university summer course from him.  When asked what his plans for future courses at UO might be and if he’s interested in teaching again, Wolf responded, pointblank, “I’d love to.”  In fact, he is interested in teaching photography at all levels, lower and upper division, beginners to advanced.  In any case, Portland and, indeed, Oregon is certainly richer and even more beautiful when we have Wolf’s imagery of our environment surrounding us—all in gorgeous light and color…. Let’s hope it stays that way, because he sure makes things look good.

[As if it were not readily obvious, black and white photographs in this post –devoid of color and not much in the way of brilliant lighting, were taken by the author, who somewhat reluctantly posts her images in the same blog as BW images.  Images from Wolf were taken from his blog, and website, and provided to the author.]

ABOUT SUMMER IN THE CITY

In addition to photographer Bruce Wolf, Summer In the City has offered the teachings of  academic and creative  phenomena such as D’Wayne Edwards, James Cutler who directs the Summer Portland Architecture Program, and Bill Tripp, among others. It is an eclectic arts and architecture-based program, offering interdisciplinary courses, specialized studios, and a lower-division, requirement-satisfying class in cooperation with the new Urban Ducks program. In a come-one-come-all egalatarian manner, the UO opens its doors and lets the summer breeze in as Summer in the City welcomes both enrolled UO students, community members in the Academic Extension program and professionals seeking to enhance and expand their professional affiliation, network and expertise.  Above all, it is an opportunity to learn from experts.  Come join us next summer!