All Things Portland

[barfo]

Summer tourism!

[video=youtube;B1B2_r6Azvg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1B2_r6Azvg&playnext=1&list=PLED5F58C9921F7799[/video]​

Damn! I wanna go there!

barfo

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

A new view of the future public market + high-rise:

The new park in the Pearl set to start this winter:

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Gibb Street pedestrian bridge (SoWa) has started construction:

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Quite the, umm, atmosphere. Scott McCaughey band @2:00 is nice!

[video=youtube;LqOO1KoBKxM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqOO1KoBKxM[/video]

The Bud Clark homeless shelter in the Pearl is quite plush:

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[THE HCP]

I love this town!!!!

 

[Natebishop3]

What could have been. The project is not dead, rather it's stalled indefinitely.

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The tower contains 300 turbines? Interesting concept... I still think PGE needs to fix their system. From what I've been told, our grid is extremely ineffective and loses about 70% of the power that goes into it.

 

[barfo]

The tower contains 300 turbines? Interesting concept... I still think PGE needs to fix their system. From what I've been told, our grid is extremely ineffective and loses about 70% of the power that goes into it.

I suspect that what you've been told is wildly incorrect. Typical loss in an electric grid is more like 7%, not 70%.

barfo

 

[Natebishop3]

I suspect that what you've been told is wildly incorrect. Typical loss in an electric grid is more like 7%, not 70%.

barfo

The number came from my urban planning class, but unfortunately the professor didn't post the powerpoint slides online. I might be too high with 70% but trust me, it was considerably more than 7%. We were told that the grid was old and outdated. That PGE is actually shutting down the wind farms in the gorge temporarily because they can't find a place for the energy generated. I'll email him and see if I can get the info.

 

[barfo]

The number came from my urban planning class, but unfortunately the professor didn't post the powerpoint slides online. I might be too high with 70% but trust me, it was considerably more than 7%. We were told that the grid was old and outdated. That PGE is actually shutting down the wind farms in the gorge temporarily because they can't find a place for the energy generated. I'll email him and see if I can get the info.

Cool. If it's true, I'm interested to know. I can't quite imagine how it could be true, but that might be a failure of my imagination.

barfo

 

[Natebishop3]

Cool. If it's true, I'm interested to know. I can't quite imagine how it could be true, but that might be a failure of my imagination.

barfo

This is the only thing I could find on the wind farms being shut down. I'll let you know when I hear back from my professor.

http://www.columbian.com/news/2011/may/23/wind-industry-demands-bpa-fix-problems-that-forced/

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

When architect Gary Bastien received a call proposing the transformation of Veterans Memorial Coliseum into a gigantic soundstage, he thought the idea was farfetched. As principal of Tustin, Calif.-based Bastien and Associates, which designs film and television studios, Bastien says he knows that most such projects would not be feasible.

A local team – with Bastien’s help – has a plan to convert the city-owned arena, used mostly for sporting events, into a media production center with three theaters and the largest self-contained, fully integrated urban soundstage in the world. The team says its proposed project would not only create jobs but also let the city avoid spending property tax dollars it planned to use to repair and upgrade the facility.

LINK

http://www.bastienarchitects.com​

 

[Natebishop3]

I'm all for renovating the MC. I think it's a waste in its current form, and if they aren't going to tear it down, it should be put to some other use.

 

[The_Lillard_King]

Classic that in Ptd we have a mayor who is as pro-bicycle downtown as any mayor can get, and while he is driving downtown he gets into an accident with a bicyclist.

OK so the bicyclsit ran into him . . . still kind of funny.

http://bit.ly/jQNwKg

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

The ingredients that make up Lonesome's Pizza, located in Kerns, include a tasty marinara, quality mozzarella, a thin coal-fired crust, garlic and tomatoes, cardboard, paper and glue, compact discs, machismo, a little braggadocio, some playful irreverence, and four young men with a propensity to make their own myths.

If you haven't already heard of Lonesome's, then you've likely been behaving. They have no storefront, no sign, it's delivery only, and their marketing ploy is, in the words of New Orleans native Noah Antieu, comprised of "a giant and a midget getting drunk and handing out menus on the street."

Antieu, at seven feet tall, is the giant. Performer Nik Sin, at three feet six inches, is the dwarf. Lonesome's talent in the kitchen comes from the Michiganders Tim Stecker and Mikey Wilson. And after five alchemical months of testing and retesting pies that they hope are as pleasing for dinner as they are when eaten at 4 a.m., Lonesome's quietly opened its doors on July 1, 2010

Antieu says they're passionate about the artists they like, and they think you should have the chance to share that passion, too. So they burn a few tunes performed by a favored musician to a CD, which they paste inside the box in which your supper comes, so that, if you like it, too, you can visit that artist's website and purchase their music directly from him or her.

"But what we're selling is food.The rest is window dressing," says Antieu. "When you think of a midget and a giant getting drunk and acting stupid, if we sold bad food, people would hate us. And that music's never going to get in the front door unless the food is good. We know that if you hate the food, you might hate the musician."

So they rely, he says, on slow-cooked, quality pizza, which comes from determination and patience in the kitchen, along with the ability to let oneself be surprised.

"Our ingredients are hand-selected from the finest markets in the Pacific Northwest," says Stecker. "We are constantly searching for the freshest ingredients possible to make a pizza worthy of the Lonesome's name. Some of us learned to cook in school, others were taught by their grandmothers. Our recipes, however, come from many late nights full of peyote and agave liquor."

In the words of Antieu, "It's gourmet food prepared and delivered by jackasses."

http://www.lonesomespizza.com​

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

[video=youtube;082S3UZjrIk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=082S3UZjrIk[/video]

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

You can now get hammered at Starbucks (Pearl District):

LINK​

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

I dig the new Voodoo doughnuts sign:

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

 

[THE HCP]

That's NOT Portland! Fuck the suburbs!

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

(via Flickr) the new cladding for the Wyatt W. federal building looks wild:

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

Portland's oldest standing building (Hallock & McMillan building) is set to be renovated and return to it's cast-iron glory:

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[maxiep]

Classic that in Ptd we have a mayor who is as pro-bicycle downtown as any mayor can get, and while he is driving downtown he gets into an accident with a bicyclist.

OK so the bicyclist ran into him . . . still kind of funny.

http://bit.ly/jQNwKg

I had never come close to hitting a cyclist before, then when I got my last car I put "Share the Road" plates on it. In the past year and a half, I've almost hit four cyclists, none of which would have been my fault. I swear, those plates are like bike magnets.

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

Freaking AWESOME concept from SERA architects:

Converting this:

Into this:

 

[Natebishop3]

Freaking AWESOME concept from SERA architects:

Converting this:

Into this:

That's funny. I was JUST talking about how they should do something with that in one of my urban planning classes Spring term. Of course, Europe has been taking old silos, textiles, and industrial buildings and converting them into public spaces for years.

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

Speaking of development, do you agree that super high-rises are a thing of the past?

 

[Natebishop3]

Speaking of development, do you agree that super high-rises are a thing of the past?

Probably, but there's definitely a trend towards higher density new urbanism. I don't think we'll see any more Sears Towers or Empire State Buildings though.

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

Or Chicago Spire's:

2000'

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

Btw, a new rendering of my most anticipated future Portland project:

 

[Natebishop3]

Btw, a new rendering of my most anticipated future Portland project:

Is that supposed to look like a giant cock and balls?

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

The massive eyesore (70's Burger King) on Broadway & Burnside is finally gone.

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It'll be home to the new ($20m) Broadway Recover Center.​

This was designed for a future expansion from (current) 3-floors to 11-floors.

Central City Concern’s Broadway Recovery Center, on schedule to open in November, will contain three stories of mental health clinic space. And those floors will be significantly structurally sound.

That’s because the center was designed and built with the future in mind: More money would let officials add eight floors to the building at Broadway and West Burnside streets. The design and construction teams planned appropriately.

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

Hillsboro on Highway 26 fantasize about the ocean, not the economy. But even as the coast beckons, this burb hides places as vital to our world as England’s mills were to the Industrial Revolution.

Intel, the global computer-chip giant, does its most important research in Hillsboro. “Intel’s facilities here amount to one of the biggest capital investments in the Western world,” notes Ethan Seltzer, a Portland State University urban planning professor. The company’s latest endeavor, a $3 billion R&D factory, will employ some 6,000 construction workers and promises to add up to 1,000 permanent jobs to Intel’s current local corps of 15,600.

The project symbolizes Hillsboro’s remarkable rise: the old farm town at the Blue Line’s end has become the metro area’s unlikely economic star. For Portland, Hillsboro’s ascent means the familiar model of an imperious core city ringed by boring suburbs is finished. The Rose City may have cornered the market for vegan bakeries, but the “Hub City” is forging Oregon’s future industries—and landscape.

The city’s crisp planning charts tell a tale of urban aspirations, none bolder than a proposed high-density neighborhood called AmberGlen. Envisioned as a bristle of gleaming high-rise towers around a central park linked to the world by MAX and streetcar, AmberGlen could be home to 15,000 people by 2030—not exactly a Leave It to Beaver version of suburban life. “We’re moving beyond traditional development,” says city planning official Alwin Turiel. “This will push the boundaries.”

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LINK

The metro have some interesting 2030 plans, such as Vancouver:

 

[BrianFromWA]

One of you urban design guys please help me out...

I remember reading (and being quite interested in) a Popular Science article from summer 2008 that talks about towers that are self-sustained and grow their own food, process their own waste, and have first-level grocery stores. Things like koi ponds recycling water, aerodynamic cooling, etc. Anyone heard of this stuff?

I mean, with the amount of sun and rain Portland gets (and its green reputation) you'd think that would be a slam dunk for some investor.