The goal was ambitious: Design the first public performance and visual arts venue in Beaverton, Oregon.
Fourteen students in an architecture studio at the University of Oregon in Portland were up to the task, in a recent collaboration with Opsis Architecture to enhance the Portland suburb.
The students took part in the class, “The Beaverton Performing ArtSpace,” taught by James Kalvelage and Joe Baldwin from Opsis and professor Nancy Cheng, program director for the UO in Portland Department of Architecture.
Students were asked to make the underdeveloped Beaverton Center into a more pedestrian-friendly vibrant node. Potential sites for a performing and visual arts facility were narrowed down to the commercial heart of Beaverton adjacent to Beaverton Creek, and The Round, a gathering space near the Beaverton Central light rail station.
The studio “introduced students to an important challenge — making suburban centers more livable and sustainable,” Cheng said. “It brought together powerful ingredients for a successful learning experience — thoughtful teachers, engaged clients, and an underutilized location.”
The students had the task of pairing a performing arts center, a building type that’s usually in an urban setting, with the suburban nature of Beaverton.
“The students faced the challenge of large, open autocentric spaces with little architectural character,” Cheng said. “Students showed sensitivity in preserving Beaverton Creek as a wildlife corridor and scenic amenity, accommodating commuting lifestyles and acknowledging the agrarian past.”
Kalvelage said that most satisfying to him was that “rather than 14 variations on a common theme, the students were able to generate 14 unique, compelling visions for the Beaverton Performing ArtSpace that start to critically address this unusual marriage of building type and context.”
The students and faculty collaborated with stakeholders including potential users, Beaverton Arts Commission staff and board members, members of the Performing Arts Center Blue Ribbon Task Force and the city’s Community and Economic Development staff.
Beaverton Mayor Denny Doyle said the “collaboration with University of Oregon architecture students will yield some incredible and creative concepts for a performing arts center.”
More information about the performing arts facility project is available on the Beaverton Arts Commission website.
- by Sabina Samiee for the UO School of Architecture and Allied Arts