Redlands Conservancy visits adaptively reused buildings in Portland POSTED: 09/23/14 “Portlanders value integrity in projects . . . . and value quality and inspiration in design,” said the Felt Hat Experience Design Team which had been charged with transforming an old stone building into a brilliant experience. The building, the First Regiment Armory Annex, built in 1891 in Portland, was one of six adaptively reused buildings visited in August by a group of Redlands Conservancy members. This drive to create an experience within the values of Portlanders resulted in 2006 in The Gerding Theater at the Armory, the first building listed on the National Register of Historic Places to receive LEED Platinum Certification. The $36 million project also serves as a model for creative financing, sustainable design and construction practices, and often counter-intuitive alliance-building. The structure of basalt blocks and brick construction covers half a city block. Its clear-span is supported by old growth Douglas fir trusses, and left a 100’ by 200’ open space for marching soldiers, for a venue for prize fighting and wrestling, and for a warehouse for a brewery, its latest use before the renovation. Within the Pearl District of Portland, it had become a fixture with its medieval styling with fanciful turrets. It had been purchased in 1969 for $202,000, and then treated roughly as a warehouse. Enter Portland Center Stage, a professional theater company which needed a new home in the early 2000s. The Armory seemed a likely candidate, but huge questions popped up: How could it be renovated to accommodate two theaters, a rehearsal space, spaces for creating sets and costumes, and offices, all within the constraints of the National Register listing? Furthermore, as PCS seriously considered the project, several individuals insisted on making the building a showcase for sustainable building practices. The Redlands Conservancy’s tour group was guided by project manager Creon Thorn on a private tour to see all the pieces of the extraordinarily complicated renovation project for The Gerding Theater at the Armory. On the tour, Conservancy members looked for lessons they could apply to Redlands. Besides the monumental task of building a ship-within-a-bottle—that is, building the theater complex within the building shell so the exterior remained unchanged—the Armory renovation project incorporated enough sustainable construction practices to qualify the building for LEED® Platinum certification, the highest level of praise from the Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design organization. Points are awarded for salvaging and reusing materials deconstructed from the original building and for careful waste management during construction; in this case, 95 percent of the materials involved in the project were recycled. To earn energy-saving points, the building utilizes skylights for the office spaces that are tucked into the trusses, keyed electric lights and other energy-saving devices that allow it to operate at approximately a 30 percent energy savings from conventional new construction of the same scale. According to the book, Voices of the Armory, “A displacement ventilation system was installed that provides conditioned air underneath the seats of the mainstage theater. This system distributes tempered fresh air efficiently at the human level, rather than flowing down from above” as in a traditional A/C model. Utilizing a 12,000 gallon cistern built under the sidewalk in front of the Armory and low-flow bathroom fixtures, the building is expected to generate an 89 percent savings in potable water. Sustainably-harvested woods used throughout and recycled fabrics used in the seating added to the points earned. “As we approach an era of profound ecological constraints, every region has the opportunity to actively invest in a culture of sustainability that will allow it to become prosperous, equitable and resilient,” wrote Stuart Cowan, managing partner in Portland-based Autopoiesis, LLC which is involved with green real estate projects internationally Being thoughtful and profitable at the same time seems to work for more than this Portland adaptive reuse project, as the Conservancy tour group discovered. Applying these lessons-learned to Redlands’ projects will be the next challenge. redlandsdailyfacts/arts-and-entertainment/20140923/redlands-conservancy-visits-adaptively-reused-buildings-in-portland
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 21:35:00 +0000
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