We have had some beautiful weather here in Portland, Maine this past week. Bild took the opportunity to get out of the office on a field trip to Two Lights State Park. Armed with snacks, cameras, and kids, we enjoyed 70+ degree temps, full sunshine and the occasional rogue wave.
Written by Audra Wrigley
Today is International Women’s Day, and to mark the occasion, I wanted to share some of my experiences as a women in the field of architecture. I was raised by extremely tolerant parents who always told me that I could be anything that I set my mind to. Therefore, it was no surprise when I decided at a young age that I wanted to be an architect. At the time I made this decision, I essentially lived in a vacuum with no sense of the gender inequality awaiting me in the real world.
My first experience of gender discrimination as it pertained to architecture actually occurred when I was only a junior in high school. Architecture had stirred my interest years prior, and I was in the process of applying to architecture schools. I was enrolled in an introduction to architecture course consisting of a semester of design, drawing, and physically modeling a residential home. I was one of only two women in the class, and one day the other girl was having some difficulty constructing the roof of her model. She called over the teacher for assistance, and I overheard him say to her “this is why women shouldn’t be architects”. I am still amazed that in 2004, these words could be uttered by a person responsible for shaping young minds.
Despite my teacher’s declaration, I went on to receive two degrees in architecture before beginning my professional career at an architecture firm. Once again, I found myself faced by the glaring gender disparities of the workforce. Often I would be the only woman in the room, but it would feel like I was either totally invisible or had a spotlight shining directly on me. Unfortunately, I can’t say that these feelings have completely diminished as my experience grows. I still find that some men avoid shaking my hand upon greeting and appear to not be listening when I speak. I also can’t avoid stepping onto a job site without feeling workers’ eyes burning a hole through my back. I know that these occurrences are not unique to female architects, but the under-representation of women in architecture only acts to perpetuate this gender bias.
I recently gave birth to my first child and returned back to the work force. While I am aware that it will be challenging to meet the demands of my chosen career while adjusting to my new role as a mother, it is critical to me to keep advancing my architectural career. Today and every day I stand in solidarity with my architect sisters. Together we can bridge the gap, shatter the glass ceiling, and shape the world!
As of 2013, only 43% of U.S. students enrolled in accredited architecture programs were female, according to the National Architectural Accrediting Board. When it comes to practicing, licensed female architects, this number drops down to 18% women. Not only are more men architects than women, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, female architects earn 20% less than male architects.
Hall Internet Marketing enlisted the services of the Bild office to judge their annual Thanksgiving pie competition. The stakes were high. Judges Eric and Evan of Bild Architecture, four year old Jesse and Bild office-mate Peter Bass of Random Orbit Inc. sampled the 6 pies including Pumpkin, three different takes on Apple, a Blueberry Chiffon and Sour Cream Raisin. After careful deliberation the winning pie was a Cranberry Caramel Apple. It was chosen because the sweet and tart flavors were perfectly balanced and had a perfect crust. It was a close call though, our judges enjoyed the taste and uniqueness of the Sour Cream Raisin as a very close second place.
Thank you to Hall Internet Marketing for including our esteemed panel of judges!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Written by Eric Wittman
As an architect new to the Portland area, I was extremely excited to attend the Portland Society for Architecture’s “Drink n Crit” held on September 7th. This event featured the “Visioning Growth” charrette teams presenting their concepts for the city’s future as it becomes a city of 75,000. Not only did this give me a quick education on the problems and issues facing my new home, but it was a great opportunity to mingle with other architects, engineers, planners and other people entertained by city planning; a group my fiancée reminds me is a small and unique collection of people. Going early to Space Gallery, where the event was held, allowed me to check out the teams’ work before the “crit” actually started. Pinned up on the gallery walls were several maps of Portland overlaid with radiating circles, colored zones and highlighted nodes.
As I walked around the room studying the various maps, I was intrigued by the shape of Portland and its natural barriers. Being born and raised in Wichita Kansas, a typical mid-western city, with its perfectly placed north and south grid, the map of Portland is still curious to me. Wichita, with no natural barriers, can expand easily as its population grows, but I was interested to learn how Portland, wedged between neighboring cities and the coastline, with no room to sprawl, would handle growth.
As the teams presented their ideas it was easy to see, this was one of the main concerns they all were focused on. How can a city grow when there’s no place to expand? Naturally the answer is for the city to get denser, but where? What areas of town are more suited, or have the potential, to handle more density. One team presented the idea of developing preexisting nodes which can already be found throughout the city, encouraging more density and larger buildings along the cities arterial roads where infrastructure already exist. This solution would allow the entire city to grow and not just the downtown core. Another team suggested developing an entire section of town near the union station shopping center along St. John Street; infilling existing gaps in its urban fabric with new commercial and retail buildings, anchored by a large scale hospitality building. This development could also help the community engage more with the natural beauty of the Western Promenade. One of the more extreme ideas was presented by a team suggesting 295 be converted into a boulevard as it cuts across the peninsula, undoing a mid-century mistake of dividing the city. Wide areas through town, currently unusable because of the elevated highway, would now be open for development, creating a new iconic urban pathway for the city while at the same time stitching back together old neighborhoods torn apart long ago.
Besides determining where future growth in Portland could happen, the teams also mentioned other issues the city has; the separation of the peninsula from the rest of the city, the traffic, keeping the identity of neighborhoods, connecting USM more into the city and designing a city for both tourists and locals. Hearing all these concerns, helped me understand my new city more and made me feel more like a true citizen of Portland. The evening partially felt like a crash course on the city’s history, learning why certain areas had developed and looked the way they did. However most of the night was devoted to seeing a glimpse of Portland’s possible future. As cities everywhere continue to see more interest in different generations of people tiring of the suburbs and moving to urban areas, problems for our communities will only continue to develop and change. The “Drink n Crit” event made me thankful there are talented, energetic, passionate and creative minds in this city that will help guide our community into a promising future.
All the teams had wonderful ideas and I can’t wait to see them developed further. All of this work leads up to a follow-up to 2015’s Challenge of Change titled: “The New Allure of the City (and Some Unanticipated Consequences.)” This lecture is a partnership between: Portland Society for Architecture, Creative Portland, University of New England, University of Southern Maine, and The Chamber of Commerce. It will feature a lecture by Alex Krieger FAIA a founding Principal of Chan Krieger NBBJ and take place on October 25th at Portland High School.
More information on the lecture here: http://www.une.edu/calendar/2016/new-allure-city-and-some-unanticipated-consequences
In the past week, I have been fortunate enough to tour two of the largest Passive House projects in North America. The first tour, organized by passivhausMAINE, was of Bayside Anchor located in our back yard of Portland, Maine. The building was designed by Kaplan Thompson Architects and is currently being constructed by Wright-Ryan Construction. The project is a collaboration between Avesta Housing and the Portland Housing Authority. The 45-unit building will contain affordable multi-family housing, Portland Housing Authority offices, a Head Start program, and a police substation. The goal of the project is to obtain Passive House Institute US (PHIUS+) certification.
The second tour attended, which was organized by GrowSmart Maine, is the newly completed Village Centre project located in Brewer, Maine. This project was delivered through a public-private partnership between Community Housing of Maine (CHOM), the City of Brewer, and their business partners. This 48-unit multi-family housing project was also constructed by Wright-Ryan Construction. CWS Architects acted as the design lead for this project. This project was also built to Passive House Institute US (PHIUS+) Standards.
As someone who has undergone the PHIUS Certified Passive House Consultant training, as well as assisting with the mechanical design for the Bayside Anchor project, it was fascinating to learn more about the different dynamics and challenges of each project. For example, both projects were under extremely tight financial constraints which resulted in a reduction of floor to floor heights during the design process. I can recall firsthand the impact that this reduction had on the space for mechanical services such as ductwork on the Bayside Anchor project. As I walked through the Village Centre building, it was interesting to see that this project team had run into similar challenges and to compare the elegant approaches used to conceal these services.
I came away from these tours with a renewed excitement for Passive House construction, as well as with a lot of pride in our State for embracing the rigorous challenges of PHIUS+ certification. As more of these large scale projects get constructed in Maine, it is exciting to see the Passive House movement growing not only among designers and builders, but developers and municipalities as well.
Last month I had the opportunity to explore the Chicago Loop and a few surrounding neighborhoods for the first time. Chicago made quite the impression on me.
Marina City
Seeing the buildings downtown brought back all I had learned about the evolution of high-rises back in architecture school. I saw the whole spectrum of history, from the Monadnock Building (the tallest building built without steel) to the famous Marina City and John Hancock Center to the shiny and new Trump Tower.
Having returned home, I find myself still thinking about all of the stone and terra cotta ornamentation that I saw. The terra cotta is a great example of the “material of the times,” and it’s prevalent use can be attributed to the need for fire protection and the availability of clay and labor. As beautiful as the terra cotta is, it’s a mass produced product.
Terra cotta facade
Stone engraving
Stone engraving
FLW Studio Sign
I also had a chance to go out to Oak Park and see some of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work, which was a true pleasure. I could see the influence of Wright and Lewis Sullivan (his mentor) throughout Chicago.
Arthur Heurtley House
Detail of Nathan Grier Moore House
Of course Mies Van Der Rohe had a huge influence in Chicago as well:
Kluczynski Federal Building
I was also struck by the amount of money and Power in Chicago. This project appeared to be an abandoned pedestrian bridge that easily cost millions of dollars.
Bridge to nowhere.
Lastly, while in the Windy City I visited the neighborhood where my grandfather grew up. This is me on the front steps of one of the apartment buildings he lived in.
My grandfather’s home.
In early 2015, The Salvation Army approached Bild Architecture to design a 4,000 square foot dining hall addition to serve their Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC) located on Preble Street in Portland, Maine. The addition would replace the existing outdated dining space located on the third floor of the facility, and the existing dining space would be divided and converted into a community room and a two-bedroom apartment to be utilized by Salvation Army commanders.
Portland’s Adult Rehabilitation Center houses 70 male residents at a time, with the purpose of assisting the men to recover and reintegrate with their communities through work therapy, counseling, and spiritual guidance.
Multiple locations on the ARC site were considered before settling on the corner of Preble and Lancaster streets. This location takes advantage of the existing thrift store parking lot, which is no longer in use since the thrift store has been closed. This location provides a large outdoor space to be revitalized into a privately screened court yard and picnic area acting as an outside extension of the dining hall.
The proposed design for the dining hall addition will be integrated into the first floor of the existing building while maintaining the current security requirements of the ARC. In light the security requirements of the ARC, the challenge arose of how to engage the surrounding urban environment along Lancaster and Preble Streets. This engagement was achieved through varying fenestration and building materials, as well as the inclusion of an accessible entry at the corner of the two streets.
Evan Carroll and Connie Jones co-presented a design charrette on Friday, June 3rd at the 26th annual Maine Geriatrics Conference. Participants listened to a description of a vacant building then brainstormed general uses for the space. Charrette attendees were then asked to get specific about their desired programming. Teams used pre-measured room blocks, labeled by function, to lay out a complete plan for the building. The session was fun, interactive and educational. Participants came away from the charrette with a greater understanding of the challenges of space planning.
We’ve come a long way from our humble beginnings in June of 2011. Today Bild Architecture celebrates our five year anniversary. Bild has completed commercial projects from a small public works garage to an ice arena. Residential projects from single family homes to multi-family condominiums and apartment buildings. Some of our most prized projects include the Marquis Lofts condominiums, Bedside Manor Alzheimer’s Care Facility, 109 Main Street Gorham and most recently our work with the Salvation Army. Our single most valued accomplishment over the past five years has been the relationships we have built with our clients.
Written by Eric Wittman
“If you follow your passion, you’ll never make a bad decision.”
This might just be the single best advice I’ve ever received and it’s been at the root of the best decisions I’ve made in my life. It’s what led me to change course and study architecture, it helped me see the positive effects design can have on a community and it’s what led me Portland, Maine to work at bild architecture.
Junior year of college found me growing frustrated with my major. I had spent three years studying architectural engineering and with every triple integral I attempted to solve I realized this was not the major for me. During this same time, I had also become friends with a group of architecture students. I would listen intently as they described what “studio” was like and I grew envious about what they were studying and creating in their classes. It didn’t take long to realize my passion for buildings was in the design and not the engineering of them. Knowing full well it would add four more years of classes; I made the switch into Architecture and it was one of the best decisions of my life.
Fall of 2005, I was entering my fourth year of Architecture school, learning about good design and its positive effects on communities when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. My professor organized a group of students to help clean up and rebuild a house and museum in the lower ninth ward. Wanting to see firsthand how design can help a community and following my passion, I joined the group. The whole experience was incredibly humbling. I witnessed how bad design can ruin a community, especially when politics are involved. I met and became friends with people who had their homes, offices, churches and schools, the very things I was learning to design, swept away. As bad as this all was I also saw the compassion people can have for each other. People reaching out to care for strangers and help them put a roof over their head. We helped a family rebuild their house, which led to an entire community rebuilding. The decision to go to New Orleans created one of the most memorable and educational experiences in my life.
Following my passion is also what led me to Maine. My fiancée took a job in Portland and naturally I wanted to join her. As nervous as I was to leave my hometown, friends and family, I knew as long as I was following my passion to be with her, I’d be fine. That being said, I still needed to find a job. Thankfully I found bild architecture, a firm incredibly passionate about helping their community in a variety of ways. After talking with them, it was an easy decision to decide to work at the firm. I’m extremely excited to join the team at bild and look forward to making my new home a better place with the projects designed in this office.
