Wow

Recapping the 2023 PIVOT Fellowship

This year’s Fellowship was unique in that it featured not one but two UO MARCH students, Josh Garhofer and Willy Benjamin. Josh and Willy each spent the summer working on research projects and gained hands-on experience working with current PIVOT project teams.

Willy’s project, “Biogenic Materials: Opportunities and Obstacles for Carbon Sequestration in the Building Envelope,” explored the viability of wood fiber, straw, and hemp as alternative options for insulation and wall systems. These biogenic materials have the ability to sequester carbon and reduce the embodied energy of the built environment, which accounts for at least 40% of global annual carbon emissions.

Driven by the climate crisis, Willy set out to explore barriers and opportunities for the implementation of these proven, yet alternative building materials. Willy investigated the materials by interviewing leading professionals all across North America including architects, builders, developers, and policy advocates. Additionally, he studied spaces currently using wood fiber, straw, and hemp as building materials and evaluated a current PIVOT project using computer modeling of biogenic materials to determine the carbon sequestration possibilities.

Willy found that there are great opportunities for products such as Hempcrete, Straw-SIPS, and wood-fiber insulation, concluding that these options are viable substitutes for their more common counterparts. Implementation may mean thicker walls, deeper windows, shorter spans, and deeper eaves, but Willy is hopeful that these building materials will become common place. He plans to continue his research while implementing biogenic materials into his own work.

To see Willy’s project, click here. 

Josh’s project, “Passive Aggressive House,” took him on a journey all around Eugene and Springfield examining the feasibility of manufactured housing for creating sustainable, affordable, and socially viable housing developments. After receiving a call to action from his HOA protesting plans to develop a mobile home park near his neighborhood, Josh was inspired to study a diverse range of issues concerning mobile home parks and manufactured housing with attention to the influence of their stigma on neighborhoods.

Josh started his project by digging into the different ownership models, policies, and types of manufactured homes. He then visited manufactured housing communities around Eugene and Springfield hoping to better understand the people and the design of these neighborhoods. Josh was amazed by the culture of the places he visited, and concluded that community building is one of the greatest strengths of this housing type.

Overall, Josh’s project worked to dispelled myths around manufactured housing communities, highlighting the importance of site locations with access to transit and amenities, and identified beneficial design patterns and strategies. He found that manufactured housing can truly be affordable housing, but Resident-Owned Cooperatives (ROCs) and non-profits must be the most common ownership models.

To see Josh’s project, click here.

The PIVOT Fellowship is a means of fostering original thought about issues outside the daily routine or obvious future trajectory of our firm’s thought process. PIVOT selects fellows based on the nature of their project proposal and other factors. It is a paid position and the term runs from June until September.

The PIVOT Fellowship is open to BARCH, BIARCH, MARCH, and MIARCH students for the summer preceding their final year of study at the University of Oregon. Students are selected following an application process that includes review of the candidates’ proposals for a project of their choice to be executed over the summer of the fellowship.

For more information or to apply for the position, click here.

Wow

Scott Clarke, AIA, Celebrates 25 Years at PIVOT

We recently toasted a milestone: Architect and Associate Scott Clarke’s 25th anniversary at PIVOT!

“PIVOT has been an essential part of my life, and a place where I have been able to grow, learn, and (I hope) contribute,” Scott told the staff. “May you all benefit from your time here as much as I have.”

Scott is analytical by nature. We rely on him to evaluate, extrapolate, and get to the root of our clients’ desires to ultimately deliver projects they envision which suit their needs and accommodate the future.

A lifelong learner and deep thinker, he is drawn to architecture’s seemingly endless knowledge basis. And as a result, his colleagues at PIVOT and our clients have benefited from his ability to explore options and fundamentally understand how creative design solutions can serve communities for decades.

Scott’s link to the University of Oregon’s school of architecture has remained strong since he graduated from the program. He helped launch the PIVOT Fellowship program, which is going into its seventh year, and has regularly taught classes at the UO.

We are all extremely grateful to have worked side-by-side with you, learned from your knowledge and example, and the friendships formed throughout the years. Cheers to Scott!

Insight

Governor Kotek Visits Team Oregon Build

We were thrilled to have a few moments to tell Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek about the progress Team Oregon Build is making in her trip to Amity to visit an assembly site.

Team Oregon Build (TOB) is an innovative partnership between education, industry, state, and community to introduce youth to career pathways within high-wage and high-demand construction trades.

Through hands-on construction, students are making a difference in Oregon’s housing needs with 11,000 experiences to nearly 5,000 students statewide since the project got underway last year.

We’re honored to be part of a fantastic team that includes Lane ESD, Lane Workforce Partnership, Oregon Housing and Community Services, and many others.

Read more about Team Oregon Build.

 

Insight

Mayor Kaarin Visits PIVOT

With Eugene’s new mayor, Kaarin Knudson—a card-carrying architect—eager to engage with the community, we were thrilled to welcome her into the PIVOT office. Her visit was not only insightful but enlightening.

The way she sees it, being an architect has been an advantage as she gets used to the new job. Her professional training helps her navigate the technical complexity and interconnected systems that come with civic leadership. Being invested in the built environment and building culture is a collective effort and reflects how many in the design profession think about progression.

“With concentrations of positive energy, we can make an impact,” she said, urging PIVOT employees to make their voices heard in the community.

“It’s important that you stay engaged in public conversation enabling insights with professional opinions,” she said. “Let’s get energy moving in a productive way.”

Downtown Eugene: A Work in Progress

The potential of downtown Eugene and its role in the community has been a struggle for decades, she said. There are multi-layered reasons to how it’s gotten to its current state and one contributor is the lack of useful concentrations of housing downtown.

Having spent a decade deeply engaged in housing in our community, bringing a concentration of residential presence downtown is a priority for her.
“We could have a new trajectory of housing in downtown with rezoning and other efforts,” Mayor Kaarin said.

Mayor Kaarin pointed out that Eugene doesn’t have neighborhoods like those in other mid-sized cities. The large city block sizes in Eugene’s city center with designated uses impacts activation of the street edge.

“There are so many broken teeth in the downtown area,” she said referring to the abundance of inactive space. “There are no eyes on certain pockets.”

“We have some bright spots, but we are really struggling. We need to bring more people downtown,” she said. “There is a lot of work to do with public realm,” she said.

Public Safety: Shifting the Experience

Mayor Kaarin pointed out that the public safety metrics downtown are improving but the experience and the narrative have not shifted. “Public vs. private controlled spaces and civil rights are components contributing to the public safety issue,” she said.

“We have a lot of issues that compound the pushing people to the margins,” she said. Addiction, behavioral health, mental issues, and repeat offenders challenge resource allocation and are all contributors. “We need a compassionate but effective response,” she said.

City Government: Many Irons in the Fire

The issues the City of Eugene is dealing with are challenging and with multiple systems struggling it is creating huge crises. The City needs to work on more than one thing at a time with many irons in the fire creating policy decisions that affect multiple fronts.

“The City of Eugene should be an active partner to development of all sorts,” she said.

City-level budget conversations in coming months will be key with incredibly challenging budget and funding situations. “Tariffs and executive actions at the federal level are not insignificant for the City of Eugene,” she said.

Looking Ahead

While Eugene faces challenges, Mayor Kaarin still feels optimist about the future. “We need sustaining levels of positive energy,” she said.

Four months into her administration, the 40th mayor of Eugene is still getting her feet under her. But she insists she isn’t overloaded and “drinking from the firehose.”
“It’s more like drinking from a beautifully designed water feature,” she said with a smile.