Oregon Excellence in Concrete Award
Joseph Gallivan
May 12 2020
Business Tribune
Even something as solid and reliable as the Oregon Excellence in Concrete Awards has gone virtual this year.
The annual shindig in Salem celebrates the uses of concrete in new projects across the state, but this year it is reduced to announcing the winners in a press release.
So be it. These monuments to good design, engineering and construction will be standing long after we've forgotten what a coronavirus is or why we'd ever need to stay six feet from a co-worker.
Seventy-eight project entries competed in 19 unique categories in 2019. The following projects and companies are recognized for their exemplary use of concrete in building design, construction, concrete paving, and landscaping on projects completed within 2019.
Six of the winners were in the Portland area.
In the category of Mixed Use, which usually means residences, office and retail all in one building, the winner was Vista, a new condo tower at 11th and Quimby in the Pearl District. With 21 floors, the 153 condominiums are billed as being "where curated living meets urban adventuring." The area is crowded with gyms and salons, and the ground floor has a new Korean coffee shop called Snow Bunny Coffee. The façade is plain and the building solid-looking. Owned by Hoyt Realty Group and designed by Bora Architects, KPFF was the consulting engineer, Andersen the contractor, and ASI Structures the Concrete Contractor & Concrete Finishing Co. The ready-mix supplier was CalPortland.
7 S.E. Stark is the most-talked-about parking garage in the state, and it justly won in the category of Parking Structure. It is wedged between the railroad tracks and Interstate Five near the Morrison Bridge and takes advantage of the fact that no one wants the noise, pollution and view of the lower levels, so those are given over to the concrete parking structure. The top levels are spec offices with excellent views of the Portland downtown skyline.
For great precast, look no further than Providence Park and the newly expanded East Stand, a tall but not deep structure that sits high above the MAX tracks on Southwest 18th Avenue. The City of Portland owns the building, which is leased to the Portland Timbers and Thorns soccer club. The architect Allied Works Architecture was going for a steeply raked series of levels with good views of the pitch with very little room in the back to encroach on the street. Most of the work was done during the season, with fans cordoned off. The precast concrete was from Knife River Precast, and the ready-mix supplier was CalPortland.
In Education K-12, the Grant High School Modernization won for Mahlum Architects' transformation of a blocky high school into a light and airy learning environment. Andersen Construction and Colas Structures worked with ASI Structures and LaRusso Concrete. Ready-mix was by Cadman Materials and CalPortland. The concrete floor polishing and sealing were by Pure Floors. Just don't drop that iPhone 12 on it.
The Woodlark Hotel in downtown Portland won in the Seismic category. MCA Architects and Kurt Fischer Structural Engineering created a 150-room hotel by the renovation and combination of two buildings, the Cornelius Hotel and the Woodlark Building.
A warehouse, the Meadowlark in Portland, won in the Tilt-Up category. These are flat panels of concrete, made offsite, then craned into place on site. Architect and Engineer Mackenzie worked with Skanska USA Building, LaRusso Concrete, and the popular ready-mix supplier Knife River NW.
Other notable winners included, in the Commercial category, the newest Facebook data center in Prineville, called PRN 5-6; the best concrete high rise, 959 Franklin in Eugene; and in the Higher Education category, Tykeson Hall at the University of Oregon in Eugene. Tykeson Hall houses student resources for the College of Arts and Sciences and much-needed classroom and faculty office space within the heart of the university. The 64,000 square feet project cost $31 million to build. As architect Randy Nishimura remarked, "Overall, Tykeson Hall bodes well for the University of Oregon in its efforts to preserve the unique character of the campus. Promoting and protecting a strong sense of place—as opposed to provocatively disrupting it—is the order of the day."
EXCELLENCE IN CONCRETE AWARDS
Education Higher Ed
Tykeson Hall-University of Oregon — Eugene, Oregon
Owner/Developer — University of Oregon
Architectural Firm — Rowell Brokaw Architects / Office 52 Architecture
Civil/Structural Engineer — Hohbach-Lewin, Inc.
General Contractor — Fortis Construction
Concrete Contractor — Pence/Kelly Concrete, LLC
Concrete Finishing Co. — LaRusso Concrete, Inc.
Ready Mix Supplier — RiverBend Materials-A CRH Company