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Principals Joe & Barb at an event supporting Roosevelt High School improvements and redesign.

As part of our commitment to serve the communities in which we work, we are working with Roosevelt High School and committing funds to support increasing the diversity of our profession through a college scholarship program. The goal of this scholarship is to help the architecture profession in Portland to better reflect the communities they serve. According to NCARB by the Numbers, people who identify as Black or Indigenous and are working on licensing is less than 8%, while the US census shows 15% of our country is made up of these races.

Our built environment is better able to serve people if it is designed by a representative cross section of our community. We are starting the scholarship program at Roosevelt High School with a single, one-time scholarship of $1,500. We will be looking to grow this scholarship over time to increase its impact on the scholarship’s goals. Students at Roosevelt will be able to get more information from the school once it is released with the other school-specific scholarships. The challenge is much bigger than we can take on by ourselves, but we are committed to do what we can to drive positive change.

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The museum was originally under the St. Johns Center for Opportunity (SJCO) for its non-profit status. After the reorganization of SJCO in 2020, they determined that it was no longer feasible to maintain the non-profit status of other organizations, and so co-chairs Maria Bubriski and Barb Anderson undertook the effort to create bylaws and to apply to the Department of Justice and the IRS to fulfill the requirements to establish the St Johns Museum as its own 501(c)(3). Once that tax status was established, the museum was able to set up their own bank account with our local credit union.

With these big efforts completed, Maria and Barb are looking to help the organization continue to progress and grow. The organization is currently seeking volunteers to move programs forward, including the following:

• Find funding for a part time director,
• coordinate another sneak peek museum day,
• fill board positions (Chair, Treasurer, Secretary, At-Large, etc. are available),
• ongoing bookkeeping,
• prepare the 2021 tax filing,
• and more!

If you have an area of expertise or interest, there is likely a place for you! Contact stjohnsmuseum@gmail.com for more information.

If you don’t have time to volunteer, but you would like to contribute to the museum, please consider making a donation. In addition to wanting to establish a permanent home for the museum, there are museum expenses like paying for the website that are recurring and need funding. Please consider joining Convergence in supporting the St. Johns Museum by making a gift of $25, $50, $100, $250 or any amount that is meaningful to you. You can send a check made payable to:

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Fun was had at the Alpaca Affair of the year!

Convergence Architecture gathered the herd together – employees, families, an alpaca and fellow building-folk, to partake in fellowship, food and fun for an end-of-the-year event. That’s right, an alpaca from Mountain Peaks Therapy Llamas and Alpacas! Jean-Pierre (“JP”) was his name.

We were fortunate to catch a sunny December day to gather in the parking lot and enjoy corn hole, alpaca hugs and “carrot kisses”, and warm up by the fire pits with hot cider and cocoa. Smoke from the fire pits became a little intense from time to time, but this encouraged continued mingling and shuffling around of party-goers. Guests enjoyed local fare from St. Johns Deli, Sparrow Bakery, The Great North and New Seasons, plus homemade alpaca and carrot-shaped cookies.

JP was well-trained and stood calmly as people came up to pet his soft, thick fur, take photos, and to feed him carrots from their hands, or straight from their mouth to his! He was a trooper, dressed as a reindeer with red antlers while modeling a gray ‘Convergence Architecture’ bandana around his neck. He’s basically the company mascot now!

After yet another “pandemic-year”, it was enjoyable to leave our homes and take a break from work to visit with others, share conversation and laughs and create memories together.

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Written by Joseph Purkey

Houselessness is a Problem for Everyone

Many communities are being confronted with rising houselessness* these days and transitional housing** is a key piece of the solution. Once someone gets to the point where they are living on the street it becomes a monumental task to get back into housing. Once you are living in your car or a tent, showers and healthy, refrigerated foods are a luxury. If you don’t have easy access to food and a shower it is harder to hold down a job. That’s not to mention the fact that if you don’t have a safe place to store your possessions they might not even be there when you get back if you go to get food or work a shift. This is all to say, houselessness is not going away on its own. Transitional housing, like the St Johns Village, meets the needs of having a safe, secure, and supported place to live while people get reintegrated into society.

* “Houseless” is the preferred term instead of “homeless” because a person can choose to make a home anywhere, but when we use these terms we are typically talking about people without a structure (house) to live in that is officially deemed habitable.

** There are three main types of supportive housing to address houselessness: 1) Temporary Shelter, where the main goals are to provide safety, security, and support; 2) Transitional Housing, where the focus is on support services back into standard housing, financial sustainability, and community living, coordinated through a case manager; and 3) Permanent Supportive Housing, where the focus is on independent living and less intense support from case managers.

The SJV and Convergence Origin Story

We were happy to see the success of the Kenton Womens’ Village in the nearby Kenton neighborhood, as well as the Clackamas County Veterans’ Village, so when we heard about the Joint Office of Homeless Services (JOHS) working with Do Good Multnomah and looking to build a similar village in our neighborhood of St Johns we got engaged right away. Back in 2018, we joined the St Johns Village Coalition, which was led by JOHS and included people who were currently houseless, where we explored what was needed here and worked together to introduce the idea to the neighborhood. We helped organize and hosted a table at the St Johns Village Fair early in 2019 to start getting neighbors informed about the issues and proposed solutions.

When a site lease was finally secured for the Village, we again reached out to JOHS to offer pro bono design services for the effort. The Homebuilders Foundation was already on the project, so we got to work with their team for the second time on a pro bono project (our first was for Hope House). We also pulled together a team of pro bono subconsultants, with Rachel Hill Landscape Architect and WCL Engineering, both in St Johns, and PAE Engineers. The site is just two blocks from our office and our St Johns team was excited to be a part of making this housing a reality.

People First Design

Our design process was informed by the input and experiences of several neighbors who were houseless, like the need for privacy and independence, which we accommodated with staggered sleeping pod doors and space for growing. We also used lessons learned from the two other transitional housing villages in Oregon at the time, and, of course, our own design experience working with clients with all different types of needs and perspectives. There is so much of being houseless that puts people outside of society’s rules and expectations that it becomes dehumanizing. One of the roles of transitional housing is to provide dignity and a source of pride to the residents moving off the streets as one aspect of reclaiming their sense of self-worth.

The sleeping pods were built offsite from a design by students in Portland State University’s Center for Public Interest Design, with only minimal changes due to lessons learned from the other existing villages. The site was laid out to incorporate biophilic design. We told Rachel Hill early on that much of the success of the site would depend on how much she could incorporate plants seamlessly throughout and she did just that, filling the site with vegetation that is already growing quickly. The common building was programmed using the facilities at the Veterans’ Village as a model. We were able to use modular construction at the St Johns Village, which allowed us to incorporate trauma informed design in the layout and make the building feel much larger than the Veterans’ Village buildings, even while reducing the size by more than 15%.

We ended up providing design services equivalent to around 8% of our annual income through our pro bono efforts, with many weekends and holidays spent ensuring the project was a success. Thinking about all the people who were going to get off the street with this development made it all worth it. As a matter of fact, just recently we had the pleasure of being with a houseless neighbor we’ve known for years when he  found out that there was space for him at the St Johns Village and he would not be sleeping outside for the first time in over four years. He had been living outside our office off and on for the two years we were involved in getting the Village built. Getting to see such a direct impact of our efforts by rousing him from sleeping in the rain to bring him to a warm, dry home was more than we ever imagined. There are still so many who are still struggling to survive the streets and there is much more work to do, but it’s nice to remember also that every single person that gets off the street is a huge deal and something to be celebrated.

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Written by Diana Delgado

Hello! I am Diana Delgado part owner of CE Engineers.  CE Engineers is a father-daughter owned Electrical Engineering firm based in Portland, Oregon.  Electrical engineering is a very broad field, but we specialize in Electrical Power Distribution Design, Power Studies for Facilities (Arc Flash Studies, Short Circuit Studies, Protective Device Coordination, etc.) and Controls and Instrumentation Engineering.

Out of all the services we provide arc flash studies are my favorite.  It’s easy to take a facility’s electrical system for granted, and typically it is not replaced until something goes wrong. We come across sites where the building has been remodeled or renovated several times over the past 2-4 decades, but the main distribution board and panels remain original to the facility (over 30+ years old).  This always amazes me since we rely so heavily on electricity to power our lights, computers, phones, HVAC units, data centers, etc.  If a main electrical component stops working, a site or part of the site can be out of service for several hours if not days. In the process of performing an arc flash study we get to analyze the electrical system of a facility and find any deficiencies and help come up with solutions.

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If you are a local to Portland (but especially St. Johns), you may know Liz Smith, aka: Bizzy Lizzie. Liz is a warm, engaging, and gregarious woman who is bursting with talents. She is the owner of Bizzy Lizzie Social Media Marketing, President of Venture Portland, President of the St. Johns Business Boosters, and a small business coach through the St Johns Center for Opportunity… as you may have inferred, Liz wears many hats. An interesting thing about Liz is that she is always drawing connections between people and industries, she is a natural at it; it is in her blood. One of those connections she recently told us about is that her grandfather is the late William E. Hartmann, a globally known architect and major influencer of the Chicago skyline.

Mr. Hartmann was a managing partner of SOM (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill) during the post WWII peak of building and urban development in Chicago. Having managed SOM for well over 30 years, his influence on the city is undeniable, often through examples of post-war modern buildings like the Inland Steel Building and the Daley Center. Just like his granddaughter today, William brought people and industries together. He believed that his role as the architect was to design the building and space, and that it was best to let artists adorn them. Over the years, he became quite the steward of art and culture, he served on the board of the Art Institute, and he brought in Joan Miro and other mid-century artists as collaborators for SOM projects.

Perhaps most notably, William personally persuaded Picasso to create the sculpture that stands in the Daley Center Plaza. Using his own warm and engaging personality, William would visit Picasso in the French Riviera and send care packages of Chicago; photographs, gifts, memorabilia of the Cubs and the Bears… eventually the two men became friends. Although Picasso himself never visited Chicago, he gained a sense of the city through Mr. Hartmann and agreed to design the public work of art. In 1966 Pablo Picasso was 85 years old, internationally known, and regarded as one of the most influential artists off the 20^th Century. Incredibly, Picasso gifted his sculpture and the rights to its reproduction to Mr. Hartmann and the City of Chicago. It took 3 months’ time to construct the 50 foot, 162 ton sculpture, but on August 15^th, 1967 an estimated 50,000 Chicagoans gathered in the courtyard of the Daley Building for the unveiling of the untitled work of Picasso. The Chicago Picasso, as it is commonly referred to, still stands there in the courtyard today. Hartmann and Picasso remained friends until Picasso’s passing in 1973.

If you would like to learn more about the life and times of the architect, artist champion, and cultural influencer, Mr. William Hartmann, you can read the Oral History of William Hartmann by Betty Blum.

To learn more about the Chicago Picasso and the Daley Center Building, you can visit their website here.

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The Portland Building.

Such an iconic a building that it is named after our city. It’s not the Graves Building, the Postmodern Building, or even the Portlandia Building… it is The Portland Building. Over the years, nearly 30 since it was first unveiled and occupied, there have been numerous articles and discussions around this landmark. Love it or loathe it, the style is completely unique, and it is a flagship in the seas of architectural history.

How did the building come to be?

Back in 1979, Michael Graves won a design competition to create one of America’s first major works of Postmodern architecture. There were references to and exaggerations of historical elements, prominent decorative flourishes abound – columns, keystones, and garland. The color palette stood in stark contrast to the more common grey cityscape of concrete, colors that delighted as often as they offended; teal, salmon, and cream being the most dominate tones.

In 1982 the Portland Building opened, with the addition of the Portlandia statue, and quickly became an architectural icon. In May 1983, the building won an American Institute of Architects honor award. However, the honeymoon phase was brief. Shortly after opening, structural flaws began to rear themselves, from dark work areas, to drafts, and a notoriously leaky facade. By 1990, there was already a remodel underway. Many began to call for the building to be demolished and replaced. In October of 2009, Travel + Leisure magazine called the Portland Building “one of the most hated buildings in America”. However, in 2011, local preservation architect Peter Meijer successfully petitioned for the building to be added to the National Register of Historic places. Even so, while the building had been officially recognized and registered, by 2014 there was still serious consideration by City officials for the building to be demolished. Preservation prevailed and by 2016 there was a multi-million-dollar renovation underway. It was to be a full and thorough overhaul to maintain the historical relevance of the building, and our city of Portland skyline, while also creating a public building that would be seismically upgraded, and free of those years-long ever persistent leak issues, and a healthier work environment in general. The project outlined improvements to the efficiency and functionality of the workplace, including replacing drafts and dark shadows with light filled and comfortable spaces in each of the 15 stories, along with other mechanical, electrical, and plumbing system upgrades.

In 2016, Convergence Architecture was by all accounts, still a new architecture firm.

With a staff of five, we were only seven years into business, and so we were elated to join the Portland Building Reconstruction Project alongside such heavyweights as DLR Group and Howard S. Wright Construction, among others. The project was a progressive design-build effort, with many in doubt and disbelief from the onset, however the team prevailed in executing an update that, when previewed in Autumn 2019, wowed audiences and exceeded expectations. The project wrapped a year earlier than expected, and under-budget, without sacrificing any of the project goals. In fact, through the DLR design process many figurative and literal walls between city bureaus were broken down, making way for better collaboration and efficiency within city government. As anyone in design or construction can tell you, creating a perfect balance of on time, on budget, and well-built is nearly impossible. Our team fully integrated with the larger team, working directly and collaboratively with the architect of record and contractor to deliver a successful project for the City of Portland. It is with great pride that we can include The Portland Building in our project portfolio.

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“The guides intend to share knowledge, generate discussion, deepen self-awareness, and support organizational discovery and change around discernible and namable concepts” – AIA Guides

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While revisting the Benedictine Brewery in December of 2018 for an appreciation party of those who helped timber-raise the brewery building, my colleague Adam and I arrived a little early to allow time to visit a very unique building. The Mount Angel Library designed for the abbey in the early 1960’s by Finnish Architect Alvar Aalto. A man known and studied as one of Architecture’s great Modern Architects. Buildings, furniture, paintings and sculptures were all mediums of expression for this historical Architect and Designer.

As you approach the library from the seminary campus of the Abbey it is a seemingly simple and somewhat understated brick building. When you enter the building, you realize it is comprised of multiple levels of shelves and places to sit all bathed in natural light while mimicking the sweeping arch of skylight that cuts through the center of the roof. There is a softness to the light that is comforting to the eye. I personally find our use of artificial light to be overdone and straining to the eye and struggle all the time with the lack of natural light and misuse of artificial light especially at work in a computer dominated field. That isn’t a thought here. The space is calming and quiet and protected. This is a space of quiet study and the architecture lends itself beautifully to the task.

The building is currently undergoing needed renovations but that is an inevitable part of life. We were told the building had not had any major work done on it since the 70’s so it is overdue and needed. A building tested by time and with some TLC will continue to house the Abbey’s collections of books and art for many years to come. I highly recommend visiting and seeing for yourself and while you’re at it visit the Benedictine Brewery as it too is a testament to great Architecture.

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