William / Kaven’s recently completed headquarters in Portland have won an American Institute of Architects (AIA) Oregon Citation Award. Accepting the award on stage at Revolution Hall in Portland was the project design team:
Partners: Daniel Kaven and Trevor William Lewis
Project Architect: Mike Perso
Staff Architect: Max Taschek
Staff Designer: Joel Dickson
The project team additionally included KPFF consulting on the Structural and Civil aspects of the building and Shapiro / Didway on the Landscape design.
Located in a neighborhood that has been transformed in recent years by a considerable building boom, Silica is a heavy timber office and retail project that acknowledges the industrial roots of the site while contributing to the aesthetic character of the neighborhood as a whole. The site was formerly home to a single-story, un-reinforced steel fabrication shop, a history referenced in Silica’s steel and heavy-timber construction. Several of the old-growth beams from the deconstructed building were repurposed into furniture for the new lobby and common areas on the floors above, including benches that sit atop steel legs fabricated by the very manufacturing plant that Silica replaces. “Architecture of Normal,” a mural at the entrance of the lobby by Daniel Kaven, serves as a visual link to surrounding buildings in the neighborhood, many of which prominently feature exterior murals.
Silica’s program consists of ground-floor retail, office and covered parking. The base, which houses five retail spaces, is clad in board-form concrete with large glazed openings. Cantilevering out from the base sits a three-story box clad in a dramatic and highly efficient curtain wall with interstitial panels of pin-stripe fritted glass running top to bottom. Along N Williams, the cantilever provides more than 7’ of overhang to shelter a sidewalk cafe program. An outdoor terrace with a green roof and an extension of the office along the south at Level 2 serve to break down the building’s mass and scale and negotiate a transition to its residential neighbors to the south. Balconies along the west facade capture views of downtown Portland and the West Hills while providing shading and privacy to the large expanses of office window. Two concrete cores that house the vertical circulation support the building in shear while massive glue-laminated heavy timber beams with fir car-decking and a concrete topping slab span between to make up the floors.
Critical to the design of Silica was meticulous landscape integration; the terrace’s green roof and the balconies’ steel planters, along with the vine trellises and foliage at the base of the building, produce views as stunning from the inside as they are from the outside. The building was deliberately set back from the street to accommodate the sidewalk tables and a row of cork oak trees.