After the passage of the City of Portland 1994 general obligation bond measure, I was privileged to become the City of Portland Architect assigned to the Bureau of Parks and Recreation.

There, for nearly 15 years, I headed a small in-house design team - the Architectural Projects Team [APT] - that oversaw some 100 projects renovating and upgrading community centers and swimming pools, and converting under-utilized park facilities to new uses.  The APT also managed the relatively few - but highly visible - design and construction of newly-built facilities.

The intent had been that I, as the on-staff architect, assisted by my two-person team, would produce all design and construction documents in-house; but the sheer number of projects multiplied times painstaking public process, in turn multiplied by “resistant” permitting processes, required a different strategy. 

Aided by my team I took responsibility and was the architect of record for all design and public process, and for preliminary code and zoning reviews.  Only when the respective project was developed sufficiently to be unambiguous, an associate firm would be brought in to complete the contract documents and to assist during the construction and close-out phases. 

The one exception was the East Portland Pool addition, where SERA Architects was brought in already during the Schematic Phase to help evaluate various economic models and development strategies.

In addition to renovation and management of the project types discussed above, I also was the Bureau ADA accessibility technical advisor and led the Bureau in its sustainability practices and achieved the City’s first LEED Certified and LEED Platinum facilities - University Park Community Center and the East Portland CC Pool addition, respectively.

Additional descriptions follow on each project page.