MENU
Contact

Expertise: Architecture

15 West Apartments

15 West Apartments is a five-story, 120-unit residential building with a ground floor parking structure and live/work units on an irregularly shaped site. In an effort to expand housing in the area, the building is surrounded by a heavily trafficked vehicular couplet and limited pedestrian activity.

Adding Residential Availability to a Popular Urban Environment

With limited pedestrian activity, special attention was paid to building massing along the couplet streets, while pedestrian-oriented details were incorporate along the single pedestrian friendly street forming the triangle. At the main intersection, the ground floor contains live/work units, which provide desirable interaction with the urban environment.

Otak Submits Land Use Application for Portland’s Latest Architectural Innovation

On April 9, Otak submitted a Type 3 land use application for the precedent-setting Hyatt Place and Allison Residences, a 24-story mixed-use building containing 170 hotel rooms and 110 residential units. The ground level will offer areas for residents, visitors, and neighbors to gather, while the top of the building will consist of lounge and event spaces, a fitness center, and a guest kitchen. This project is the second hospitality + housing high-rise building designed by Otak, the first being Hotel Indigo/Kirkland Tower on the Vancouver waterfront.

Adding accommodations in a tight housing market

Representing a new kind of sustainable design for hospitality and housing in Portland, helped by a change in the City of Portland’s zoning codes, the Hyatt Place and Allison Residences project adds market rate and affordable housing in a tight real estate market. The City must provide growth capacity for 123,000 new households through 2035.

First building to use the City’s new design code allowing a greater height

The design team has made a rare and unique use of urban space, putting a lot of lodging and amenities into one-quarter block. The new Portland Central City 2035 zoning changes, which came into effect in the summer of 2018, transformed the opportunities for this 10,000-square-foot property. In response to recent urban growth, the City is allowing unlimited density, or floor-area ratio, and a new allowable maximum height of 250 feet for this property if it includes affordable housing.

With a 24-story building on a small footprint, efficient and elegant design is paramount. The two different types of use require two separate entrances, with priority given to pedestrian experience.

Solving next-level sustainability challenges

Cars no longer drive urban planning. Portland’s trendy Pearl District is the perfect place to live and work car-free, so it’s the optimal location for this creative new property. As fewer of the young people moving to Portland own cars and as ride-sharing increases, the City wanted a building without parking. The design and development team embraced the opportunity for innovative, sustainable design and has chosen to use Green Globes to guide its sustainable design practices. The team is also working with the Energy Trust of Oregon to explore incentives and rebates for sustainable and efficiency elements. A green roof will form the team’s strategy for stormwater retention. This building meets the current needs of today, solving human-level sustainability issues.

Responding to neighborhood needs, presenting a new standard for development

While the building will be higher than all the others in its four-block radius, it is designed to respond to the rest of the neighborhood. From the concrete base, moving upward with metal panels, the design symbolizes moving into the future while protecting the past. The design and development team are focusing on protecting buildings that are worthy of protection, by transferring floor-area ratio (FAR) to the site from historical buildings in the area.

Residents will benefit from a new spot to grab coffee, wine, or a bite to eat, either in a new café or on the sidewalk under the new tree canopy. The building will offer hotel conveniences to tenants and fit in seamlessly with the surrounding neighborhood. This new building will be designed to fit the way people live, work, and play.

Collaborating with residents, the City of Portland, and other building owners in the design

After consulting with the City of Portland and attending two meetings with the Pearl District Neighborhood Association’s Land Use and Transportation Committee, the design team has submitted its land use application to the City. The team took into consideration all concerns and suggestions through a highly collaborative process.

“Given the significance of this precedent-setting, innovative mixed-use building, the architecture must be exceptional,” said Brian Fleener, Otak’s Director of Architecture. “How this building transitions from the tower down to the pedestrian realm, and complements the neighborhood’s architecture and character, will be critical.”

The design includes these responses and elements:

  • Massing was further refined by moving the fitness center from the northwest corner of the building to the southeast corner. This creates a single, glazed two-story crown for the tower that is much more coherent and focuses the architecture of the crown into a more powerful statement. Vertical slots on the east and west facades are further integrated with the crown, articulating the paired tower forms of the building. Balcony windows are inset to better integrate balconies in the building façade. Balcony panels were modified to permit more windows to open to the balcony and further integrate the balconies. The east wall has the maximum number of windows allowed by building code.
  • The northwest corner of the building was revised to add large balconies in the west wall at the residential units and two additional windows in each of the hotel rooms. This makes the corner more visually appealing, adding to the texture and interest of the corner at the intersection of 12th and Flanders.
  • Landscaping follows the River District right-of-way standards. The hotel entrance is located on the northwest corner of the site, with a large glass vestibule that opens to both north and west. The height of the tree canopy, coupled with the signage, makes the hotel entrance prominent. The residential entrance has a lower tree canopy with landscape elements that distinguish it from the hotel portion. The bike entrance is more open and welcoming, with storefront glazing and lighting design that promotes transparency, safety, and activity. Art and water features are architecturally integrated into the building, with panels that represent Portland rain and Portland themes.

Over 20 years ago, the once-dilapidated Pearl District came back to life through the visionary collaboration of the City and private developers. Now the area has a worldwide reputation for urban renaissance. The Pearl District will have a new architectural innovation in 2022—our city’s first new combined hospitality and housing space!

The Tabe

The Tabe, an urban infill apartment project, provides 19 market rate apartments in four stories, with a mix of one-bedroom, studio, and two-bedroom townhouse units.

Urban Infill Housing, Neighborhood-Conscious Design

The project maximized the allowable building area, while also being sensitive to the scale of the existing urban architecture. Otak provided planning, architecture, and landscape architecture services for this fast-tracked project. The result of the development is a thoughtful building design that provides additional housing options for Portland’s Mt. Tabor neighborhood.

Mount Rushmore National Memorial Visitor Center and Plaza Paver System Rehabilitation

Poor drainage affects us all—even American presidents. At Mount Rushmore National Memorial, a potent combination of water intrusion and freezing winters damaged the Avenue of Flags walkway and deteriorated the inside of the park’s visitors center.

Designing a Lasting Visitor’s Center for a National Monument

In rehabilitating the visitor facilities for the National Park and upgrading building components to be more energy efficient, the historic monument aims to provide a lasting location for quality visitor experiences. Outside the facility, designers developed a new pavement system to better manage drainage and resist deterioration from the seasonal freeze-thaw cycle. With this Otak led design, the result is a safer visitor experience that reduces operating costs and, like the presidents’ sculpted visages, will last for years to come.

Hyatt Place

Portland’s trendy Pearl District is the perfect place to live and work car-free, including the Hyatt Place and the Alison Residences. This mixed-use building represents a new kind of sustainable design for hospitality and housing, helped by a change in the City of Portland’s land use codes.

A Mixed-Use Design Focused on Next-Generation Community Building

Developer James Wong wanted to build a livable, leading-edge building on what is now a parking lot. The 23-story building houses a Hyatt Place hotel on the first 11 floors, topped by 12 floors of housing and amenity space. A green roof will be part of the team’s strategy for stormwater retention. Pearl District residents will benefit from a new spot to enjoy coffee, wine, or a bite to eat…either in a new café or on the sidewalk under the new tree canopy. The building will offer hotel conveniences to tenants and fit in seamlessly with the surrounding neighborhood. This new building will be designed to fit the way people live, work, and play. Otak was chosen to lead the Hyatt Place design because of the team’s multidisciplinary approach and visionary philosophy focused on next-generation communities.

Hotel Indigo and Kirkland Tower

The city of Vancouver, Washington had made it a priority to begin taking full advantage of its location on the Columbia River. Enter the boutique-style Hotel Indigo, a 138-room high-rise hotel as part of Kirkland Tower with sweeping views of the river and surrounding downtown environment.

Adding Mixed Use Development to a Prime Location

Otak provided comprehensive planning and design services for the mixed-use property, which also includes 10,000 square feet of retail and 7,700 square feet of restaurant space. Kirkland Tower’s mixed-use also includes luxury condominiums across its 12-stories. The design highlights the hotel chain’s signature brand while creating an iconic destination on the prime site. A six-story atrium, second-level meeting and conference hall, rooftop bar, expansive terrace, and valet parking will provide visitors and residents with luxury amenities and an inviting setting to enjoy the riverfront festival street and parks. The hotel, one of the few Indigo properties west of the Mississippi, is within easy walking distance of downtown Vancouver.

Cascade Converting Plant

As part of master planning for the Scappoose Airport Industrial District, a new manufacturing plant and warehouse would be developed in the Airport Industrial Park. With two phases of development, the facility would be delivered on a compressed schedule.

Designing Around a Compressed Schedule for Manufacturing Site Development

Large raw paper rolls manufactured at Cascades’ site in St. Helens, Oregon, will be shipped to the warehouse, converted into various paper products, and then shipped to distributors. The warehouse has two phases of development: Phase 1 includes 290,000 square feet of light industrial and office space, and Phase 2 adds 300,000 square feet of warehouse and distribution center space. One of the significant challenges on this project was the compressed schedule. The equipment being used in the converting process was scheduled to arrive in just months after the design and permitting process began. Through a collaboration with the City of Scappoose and the State of Oregon, Otak teams were able to fast-track the design and construction process so that the equipment had a place to be stored upon arrival.

Cannon Beach Parks and Trails Master Planning

Cannon Beach is a community of about 600 full-time residents that attracts over 750,000 visitors a year to its scenic beaches, charming shops and restaurants, festivals and events, and vibrant art community. In emphasizing its features, a comprehensive master plan for long-range development of the City of Cannon Beach’s existing park and trail network.

A Comprehensive Master Plan for Long-Range Development

In addition to its natural features, Cannon Beach also encompasses lands with a rich and important cultural history for Native Americans and early settlers. As the City’s first Parks and Trail Master Plan, the clear, functional document addresses the recreational needs of both the local community and the seasonal influx of visitors, while raising awareness of the historical significance this special place holds. Leading the public engagement process and design, Otak developed a plan that will create an inviolable “green framework” around which other land uses will naturally coalesce and create benefits for the community. After the master plan was finished, the City retained Otak to redesign a state park at Tolovana Wayside, along with beach access plaza and interpretive art in celebration of Oregon’s famed “Beach Bill.”

Polishing Portland’s Pearl With The New Hyatt Place

The Pearl District’s proposed mixed-use building on Northwest 12th and Flanders represents a new kind of sustainable design for hospitality and housing in Portland, helped by a change in the City of Portland’s building codes. The 23-story building will house a Hyatt Place Hotel on the first 11 floors, topped by 12 floors of housing and amenity space.

As Portland is growing faster than it can accommodate people, the demographics are changing. Population forecasts predict that each year over the next five years, the Portland metropolitan region will welcome nearly 6,000 new residents between the ages of 20 and 34 years old. Although more than 15,000 new housing units were built from 2010 to 2014, only a few hundred of these units ensure long-term affordability. At the same time, the number of vehicles sold to 18- to 34-year-olds has significantly dropped and TriMet’s ridership continues to increase.

Portland must provide growth capacity for 123,000 new households through 2035 and accommodate the need for a variety of housing types at different price levels. Through better implementation of an affordable housing bonus structure, the City of Portland can move closer to its goal of equitable, healthy, and complete neighborhoods.

Portland’s trendy Pearl District is the perfect place to live and work car-free, so it’s the optimal location for this creative new property, which will be designed by Otak.

It began with a vision

James Wong, co-founder and CEO of Vibrant Cities, wanted to build a livable, leading-edge, 11-story apartment building on what is now a parking lot. A multifamily real estate development firm, Vibrant Cities aims to build vibrant, smart, and sustainable communities in sought-after neighborhoods that people feel proud to call home.

Otak’s involvement

After interviewing several firms, James Wong chose Otak to design the building because he liked the company’s multidisciplinary approach and visionary philosophy focused on next-generation communities. Casey McKenna, Otak Senior Project Manager, is leading the design team made up of experts from all services offered by Otak: design, landscape architecture, land use planning, civil engineering, structural engineering, survey, and architecture. DCI Engineers will be the lead structural engineer and UEB Builders will be the general contractor.

A new opportunity for the Pearl

As Vibrant Cities continued to explore development options for the site, the concept of a hotel development arose.  Enter Ray Harrigill of The Sunray Companies, a hotel management and development company, who has formed a new partnership with James Wong called “Parq on 12th.”

The new Portland Central City 2035 zoning changes, which came into effect in the summer of 2018, transformed the opportunities for this 10,000-square-foot property. In response to recent urban growth, the City is allowing unlimited density, or floor-area ratio, and a new allowable maximum height of 250 feet for this property if it includes affordable housing. As a result, the proposed building concept transitioned once more into the current hotel/residential concept that includes affordable housing, and the height went from 11 to 23 stories.

Elegant design challenges

With a 23-story building on a small footprint, efficient and elegant design will be paramount. The two different types of use will require two separate entrances with a shared bank of elevators and a loading dock, with priority given to pedestrian experience. “Given the significance of this precedent-setting, innovative mixed-use building, the architecture must be exceptional,” said Brian Fleener, Otak’s Director of Architecture. “How this building transitions from the tower down to the pedestrian realm, and complements the neighborhood’s architecture and character, will be critical.”

Sustainability at the forefront

The design and development team embraced the opportunity for innovative, sustainable design and has chosen to use Green Globes to guide its sustainable design practices. The team is also working with the Energy Trust of Oregon to explore incentives and rebates for sustainable and efficiency elements.

A green roof will form the team’s strategy for stormwater retention. Fortunately, Otak has plenty of experience with green roofs. In fact, Otak designed the city’s largest green roof in 2004 at Portland State University’s Broadway Housing facility, a LEED-Silver certified project, with Gerding-Edlen Development.

Amenities for the Pearl

Residents of the Pearl District will benefit from a new spot to grab coffee, wine, or a bite to eat…either in a new café or on the sidewalk under the new tree canopy.  The building will offer hotel conveniences to tenants and fit in seamlessly with the surrounding neighborhood. This new building will be designed to fit the way people live, work, and play. “It’s our responsibility to leave a lasting legacy for future generations,” said Vibrant Cities CEO James Wong. “Sustainability and integration will be at the forefront of our design and construction as we create a great place to live and stay.”

Moving from planning to construction

The design team is in the design advice review stage with the City and has also met with the Pearl District Neighborhood Association’s Land Use and Transportation Committee. Li Alligood, who leads the Otak planning effort, will submit the land use application once the design is complete. By 2022, the Pearl District will have a new architectural innovation—Portland’s first new combined hospitality and housing space!

Otak Architect Plays Central Role in Shaping the Urban Environment

Gary Larson first knew he wanted to become an architect at age 13. Growing up on the Olympic Peninsula and working with his builder father to design houses, he had design in his blood. After graduating from Washington State University, he moved to Boston and joined Kallmann McKinnell and Knowles Architects and got his start working with the team that designed the competition-winning Boston City Hall.

During his 50+ years in the business, Gary has played a central role in defining and shaping the urban environment, for which he has achieved national recognition for design excellence from the American Institute of Architects and major architectural publications. In 1976, while with ZGF Partnership, Gary was project designer for the three-building, 230-foot-tall World Trade Center on Portland’s waterfront, linking three buildings on three blocks with a unique, glazed space frame bridge and roof structure, redefining the city’s urban experience forever.

In the past 50 years, he’s worked as senior principal, global design leader, partner, and design director for notable firms such as ZGF Partnership, MG2, and Walker McGough. He also cofounded his own design firms, Parker Larson Architects in New York City and BML Architects in Portland.

Shortly after Gary retired from MG2, Otak’s Brian Fleener, Director of Architecture, asked Gary to work at Otak. Intrigued by the possibility of working with Brian to help sculpt and elevate the company’s architecture practice, Gary agreed to come out of retirement to join Otak. He quickly stepped into the fun challenge of mentoring Otak’s younger architects while they worked on great projects that have significant meaning in their communities.

“Gary and I have worked together for many years,” said Brian. “The passion he brings to project design is unequaled in this industry. Every time we get into a discussion about design, I leave the conversation full of energy.”

Since Gary and Brian have joined Otak, the company has teamed with Kirkland Development to design the boutique Hotel Indigo on the Vancouver waterfront and is working with James Wong from Vibrant Cities to design Hyatt Place, an innovative, mixed-use hotel/housing high-rise on a small site in Portland’s Pearl District. Next they will tackle revitalizing a mixed-use building, Jasmine, in the heart of Seattle’s Chinatown.

Gary’s design portfolio includes iconic northwest projects such as the KOIN Tower, the Veterans’ Medical Center, Bellevue Towers, the Tower 12 residential mixed-use project near the Seattle Waterfront, Pacific Tower, as well as the Kaiser Interstate campus, Oregon Graduate Institute’s Cooley Science Center, Kah-Nee-Ta Vacation Resort, Convent of the Holy Names, Temple Beth Shalom, St. Luke’s Hospital, and Spokane County City Public Safety Building. Beyond the northwest, he’s designed Chengdu’s 57-story Suning Plaza and the Wuxi Chong An Towers in China.

“I’m enjoying working at Otak and sharing my commitment to outstanding design and quality,” said Gary. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to cultivate and mentor the next generation of architects by sharing my passion for enhancing the urban experience through sustainable, elegant, and functional design.”