Portland Revelations – New Construction
Decatur Metro | August 5, 2010
There’s a lot of new construction in Portland. But for some reason, it doesn’t feel all that new. Which got me thinking, why is that? And what does that mean I subconsciously expect from “new construction”?
Ultimately, I decided that a big part of it was nothing more than the pedestrian’s perspective on a crowded city grid. As long as you have a consistent wall on your right or left, you’re already about 50% of the way to continuity. From a distance, the city skyline is a mismatch of styles and forms, but as long as the base of each building touches the sidewalk, the city dweller is at home.
The other major reason I decided nothing felt new is that, generally speaking, I expect a vast majority of new construction to be of poorish quality. But here, simply because most of the newer buildings are of similar quality to their more historic brethren, it all sort of works in harmony. And with that foundation of quality materials and craftsmanship, style is again allowed to roam freely – within the boundaries of form of course – giving each building its distinctive, but cohesive look.
A few more of Portland’s newer residential buildings after the jump.
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Just wondering if you’d looked a the demographics of Portland vis a vis Atlanta.
I’d reply if I knew what you were referring to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Oregon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta
Check it out. David Sucher sounds like a smart man.
A big thing in Portland is that the new buildings are designed with pedestrians in mind first and autos second. Take the new condos on Peachtree Street. They all look like the parking deck was the most important component and everything else was designed around it. A thin layer of street retail is slapped on the front and maybe one side (but then again, may be not). Some cheap plastic panels are thrown in on the side of the parking levels to try to make it look like windows but the brain isn’t fooled. It’s obvious when looking around that you’re surrounded by parking decks that happen to have condos attached. The most important factor in the design of those buildings was getting enough parking so everyone could have their own car in the building with plenty left over for retail and those who want to have more than one vehicle.
Compare that to the new buildings in Portland. None of the ones I saw felt like fancied up parking decks. Interaction with pedestrians at the street level and being designed for humans first makes a difference. In Georgia we seem to think things like “Oh if we just add one more driveway, what would that hurt? Oh, it we just eliminate this store front, it’ll make the parking ramp easier to incorporate… one more blank wall won’t matter… it’s only an extra thirty feet”. All those little cuts add up to a pretty nasty wound.
David, in the book ‘City Comforts’ by David Sucher, the author makes the claim that mass transit works well only in large dense cities or in smaller towns with a homogeneous population. Portland was one of the cities he mentioned as having successful transit in a relatively small city because there is no us versus them mentality. There simply isn’t enough difference between population groups in the city to define anyone as “them”. I don’t know if I agree with his theory but have to admit that when I was in Portland, he seemed correct on the surface.
Portland has a great functioning transit system. As does Toronto. I just wish the heads of marta would go take lessons from them.
Everytime I’ve been to toronto and portland, all of the busses/trolleys/subways have had a lot of people on them, unlike marta where from home or work i can watch the trains/busses go by with usually 1-5 people if that on board.
Actually, MARTA has a very well functioning system. Per the latest ridership reports on the American Public Transportation Association website, MARTA’s average weekday ridership is about 462,000 per day. Weekday ridership on Tri-County Metro in Portland is about 324,000. Obviously MARTA is doing something right despite being located in one of the least transit friendly cities in the country in terms of densities.
Instead of bashing MARTA maybe we could advocate for more transit supportive development in the region? Why not?
Notice the trees in all the pictures of the new construction. A good lanscaping plan helps “newness” fit in better.
Many of the Atlanta new construction projects that appear cheap to me do a lot of mixing of brick veneer and stucco (with less and less brick)– the Portland pix posted above seemed to have more of a substantial and consistant building material, which gives them a solidness lacking in ATL projects. I also agree with Jason K re ATL parking centric building design– we’ve come a long way, but have much further to go.