In the past week, I’ve visited two places in Portland that hover around my intended program. One, Refuge PDX, is a multi-purpose art space. Their ultimate goal is one of a capitalist nature so their program really only addresses part of my goal. The other, Environment Oregon, is an environmental advocacy program. Their goal tracks with mine, although since the methods they employ are more business based, their program as well only addresses part of my goal. I hope that the mix of these two organizations will help me come up with a useful program.
Refuge PDX is sited in the industrial district of the SE, at 116 SE Yamhill. This is definitely not a walk-by site, this is a destination space. I visited in the very early afternoon on a Thursday and the building was totally empty, which makes sense considering that the use probably occurs in the evenings and weekends. I drew this very quick sketch of the layout while I was there. The single hatch is the performance space, which measures approximately 30′ x 60′, and bar. The cross hatch is the exhibition and reception space, which has a small kitchen type area to the left of the main doors. The open hatched spaces are more or less open to each other. The more solid hatch is the back of house and are behind a door: restrooms, small offices, storage. I thought it was useful to draw a diagram showing the relative sizes of the spaces.
I also visited the Environment Oregon offices, which are located at 1536 SE 11th Ave. These offices are located in a more visible area, very close to the famous Hawthorne food carts, although also a residential area. At first it seems strange that Refuge PDX, a place that seems like it could benefit from walk by traffic, is located in such an industrial area but the relatively isolated area probably allows for louder shows to be held there without incident. The Environment Oregon space is sited in a building which take up one-quarter of the block, and the offices themselves only take up half the ground floor. They are indeed offices, equipped with all the typical office spaces. It makes sense that this organization would only have small offices: an organization that seems to be based in research and activism would perhaps only need space to accommodate the research (and perhaps some meetings) as activism is inherently an extroverted activity.
I talked to a number of individual people associated with organizations like Food Not Bombs, Northwest Institute for Social Change and City Repair. Food Not Bombs uses local church kitchens to make free dinners in order to feed the homeless while illustrating the amount of food that goes wasted in our society. This organization is not in need of major facilities, just dedicated people and the occasionally used space to cook, as the dinners are hosted outside. The NWISC uses mostly radio media in order to promote political and social change. They were unfortunately not very helpful, although this program seems less open and citizen-based. Perhaps the most helpful information I got was from the City Repair people. City repair is an activism group that helps communities and individuals change the places they live through varied means. They indicated that they do not go out and choose the projects they work on, they let people from the community come to them and they go out and help those people achieve their goals. To me, this illustrates the need to involve the community in my project (which I am expecting will be addressed through the arts collective piece of the project) as these people are less in need of offices to do research than dedicated people. None of these projects were literally as close to my intended program as the first two places I visited, although they can also be helpful.
Some basic zoning information about the site:
– Two stories at appx. 8,200 Sq Ft each, with unfinished basement at appx. 8,200 Sq Ft
– Zone EXd: Central Employment with a design overlay. This supports mixed use functions (Industrial, Business, Service and some Residential) and supports conservation and continuation of the local culture. The site has a 9:1 FAR with a 200 Ft height limit.
Based on the visits, interviews and three major program activities (exhibition/show, enlighten/incite, and execution/caper seen with their icons above), I came up with some basic programmatic elements.
A total guess about what the square footage of these spaces would be:
Performance – 2000 Sq Ft
Exhibition – 2000 Sq Ft
Meeting / Multi-function – 1000 Sq Ft
Kitchen – 800 Sq Ft
Coffee / Bar – 600 Sq Ft
Reception – 1000 Sq Ft
Collection – 800 Sq Ft
Studios – total area around 2000 Sq Ft
Offices – no more than 1000 Sq Ft
Restrooms / back of house / storage – I honestly have no idea about this. 3000 Sq Ft for everything?
This totals out to 14,200 Sq Ft, which would mean that the program would fit inside the existing building. My gut feeling is that I should include more types of spaces (maybe an education-type space dedicated to the sustainable and environmental cause? maybe a larger space incorporated into the reception area that serves as an all access, public space for the buildings functions?) and/or increase the amount of size required for some of the more programmatically important elements.
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