The Burnside Blog
PNCA Installation Explores Future of PDX
Here’s what you must to do in Portland to make your next gallery exhibit the hottest thing going. Make the subject of your exhibit Portland. We Portlanders love nothing more than a PDX love-in. PNCA has caught onto this tidbit and now features “pdXPLORE: Designing Portland’s Form,” an installation of sketches, renderings, drawings, and most notably a 30 by 50-foot aerial map (one could tap dance on Gresham) of the entire Portland Metro region that’s pasted to the cold concrete floor of PNCA’s Swigert Commons. The floor was actually the only element of the Commons that was remotely cold or cool last night as hundreds packed the former Pearl District warehouse on what had been a 92-degree day. Let’s hope that some of that Ford grant money goes toward an air conditioning unit.
No city where I’ve ever lived fancies talking about itself more than PDX, and that’s a good thing as demographers are predicting a 21% increase in regional population over the next decade. Combine that population swell, which amounts to 400,000 people (Four Greshams) with rising fuel prices, higher construction costs, and climate change that could cause the sun-drenched Southwesterners to flee to the rain-soaked and water-rich Pacific Northwest, and you’re left with the ideal formula to build the dense city that’s long been the golden carrot of PDX’s planning set and residents like me who above all hope the swell in population will bring more late night downtown dining options.
That’s why what Portland will become is the subject of pdXPLORE, and everyone with an MA in Planning (Portland equivalent of the MBA) or a LEED certificate turned out for Wednesday night’s unveiling of what snapshots Architects Rick Potestio William Tripp and Michael McColloch plus Urban Designer Rudy Barton and Landscape Architect Carol Mayer-Reed have in mind for the future of Portland’s built environment.
I’m preparing a longer write-up of the exhibit with photos, and I should have that up on the site by Friday. In the meantime, the exhibit continues until the 27th of July, and it’s definitely worth the half hour or so it takes to walk through it. One word of caution: bring a cold glass of water and a fan. It’s hot as hell in there. pdxPLORE takes place at Swigert Commons at PNCA (1241 NW Johnson) from now until July 27th.
