In this episode, Cherise is joined by Brent Grubb, Principal at Skylab Architecture in Portland, Oregon. They discuss Sideyard, a five-story, 20,000 sf mixed-use building in Portland, Oregon.

You can see the project here as you listen along.

A leftover berm space was created when the City of Portland constructed a new one-way Couch Street couplet, reconnecting the roadway to the Burnside Bridge. Skylab and Key Development reimagined this small 9,000 sf lot as a new development and proposed a new building concept exclusively focused on pedestrian, bicycle and public transit access called Sideyard.

The design approach for Sideyard was to create a working class building with restaurants, shops, bars and creative office space above. The unusual wedge-shaped site was structured utilizing a prefabricated CLT framework with cast-in-place concrete cores. Within the concrete cores, new mass ply stairways were assembled as both fire escape and floor-to-floor access paths.

This project had unique challenges and opportunities:

• a 9,000 sf, unusual wedge-shaped site that was considered to have no value,
• innovative use of mass ply for egress stairs,
• utilizing a prefabricated CLT framework to reduce cost and schedule, and address limited site access for construction,
• and much more!

If you enjoy this episode, visit arcat.com/podcast for more.

If you're a frequent listener of Detailed, you might enjoy similar content at Gābl Media.

Mentioned in this episode:

ARCAT Detailed on Youtube