Portland State University has chosen a collaboration led by Walker Macy as the winner of its Place Matters design competition, advancing the university’s efforts to transform the campus and, the university hopes, inspire the revitalization of downtown Portland.

“Serving our city is core to our mission and further animating our campus and its downtown connections expands the ways we can show up for Portland,” the university announced in a press release issued earlier today.

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The jury – which included emeritus professors, professors in PSU’s schools of architecture and urban planning, developers, and a senior city planner – voted unanimously in favor of Walker Macy.

“There was honest discussion about each submittal,” said Don Stastny, an architect who oversaw the design competition. “When you do these things, you want to get as close to unanimity as possible. If you get a unanimous verdict, it’s much easier to move it forward. Any conflicts are discussed within the jury.”

Walker Macy is a landscape architecture and urban design firm based in Portland. The firm Walker Macy designed PSU’s Urban Plaza and was part of the team that designed Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square, Oregon Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the South Waterfront Greenway.

The collaborative includes Hennebery Eddy Architects, Colloqate Design, a design firm with a stated mission to “intentionally organize, advocate, and design spaces of racial, social, and cultural justice throughout the built environment,” writer Randy Gragg (who contributes to Oregon ArtsWatch), Kate Bingaman-Burt, who is the associate director of PSU’s Schnitzer School of Art, and real estate advisor Matt Brown.

 “We are excited to join PSU in its quest to provide meaningful places that will foster deep connections within the campus community, to showcase the incredible work being done at PSU, and to energize the campus,” Michael Zillis, principal landscape architect and campus planner with Walker Macy, said in a press release issued by PSU earlier today.  

Launched earlier this year, the Place Matters design competition sought proposals from teams made up of architects, landscape designs, graphic artists, and planners that would recommend ways to give PSU’s campus a distinct identity and foster a stronger sense of campus identity and belonging among students.

Placemaking is an interdisciplinary concept in urban planning and design that intentionally creates public spaces that reflect the surrounding environment and the identity of the people who use them. Ultimately, the intention is to create public spaces that strengthen urban vitality and people’s connection to the places in which they live. 

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In interviews with Oregon ArtsWatch, PSU officials wanted proposals to address everything from better signs, maps, and lighting to increase safety, to ways to clearly announce PSU as a leader in Portland’s arts, culture, and education sectors.

The jury report lauded the Walker Macy Collaborative’s proposal, titled “Constellations of Connection,” for proposing a “comprehensive vision” that “addresses the entire PSU campus and its sphere of influence on downtown Portland” with ideas that are “inexpensive and powerful,” “do not require an expensive capital investment” and that ranged from immediate actions to longer-term ones.

A key proposal of Walker Macy Collaborative’s plan is transforming the university’s public safety building on the corner of Southwest Broadway and Montgomery Street – currently, a drab concrete building that was completely boarded up during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 – into a Welcome Center, with vibrantly colored murals and designs on the exterior and places for students to congregate. The jury found that the proposed center “would be a fast, easy, and affordable way to have an immediate positive impact.”

Walker Macy Collaborative’s proposal also includes a new location for the university’s skate park, expanding the Oak Savannah, creating more outdoor spaces for students to gather, and signs that signal the entrance to PSU’s campus on the Park Blocks and along Market Street.

Another distinctive feature of Walker Macy Collaborative’s proposal encouraged making PSU’s work visible to the public.

Ideas proposed include having academic classes taught outside; bringing musicians and other artists to the Park Blocks; and using empty storefronts and undeveloped street-level spaces on campus to showcase academics, art, and research being conducted at PSU. The proposal “is brilliant,” the jury report reads, and “provides free advertising to attract future students. … Many of the proposed moves could lure people to the campus who otherwise have no reason to be at PSU.”

Walker Macy proposed creating an “Office of Activation” that would work with various entities, including PSU and the City of Portland, to make the proposals a reality. It also proposed creating a “Design Justice Council” to allow PSU’s faculty, students, staff, and other community members to, as their proposal reads, “guide PSU’s placemaking efforts and determine alignment with design justice principles, community values, and evolving institutional priorities.”

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“Their knowledge of the PSU was evident and genuine — it felt as though they had been studying the campus … far longer than the competition time frame,” the jury report found.

Bionic, a San Francisco-based landscape architecture firm, collaborated with Office 52, a Portland-based architecture firm, and submitted a proposal that focused heavily on the parts of PSU’s campus that surround the South Park Blocks and along Southwest Montgomery Street.

The axis formed a plus-shape which potentially could have created a strong sense of identity in that area. But the proposal did not account for the rest of PSU’s campus, which extends east of Broadway. And, importantly, the proposal did not account for future development, particularly the construction and development of the University Place block, which PSU hopes will become the new replacement for Keller Auditorium.  

Various aspects of the plan – from furnishings to signage to proposed artwork – “did not feel specific to PSU,” the jury report read. “The proposal feels like an applied identity for PSU.”

A collaboration between BIG, a Danish design firm, and PLACE, a Portland firm that designed PSU’s Native American Student and Community Center and the Vernier Science Center, offered a “grand and visionary” plan, the jury report summarized, but was “just not responsive to the project’s mission and intentions.”

Their proposal was ambitious and also, in many ways, the least tenable. An important component called for dissolving the street grid within PSU’s campus and developing an urban forest, in part to mitigate climate change and urban heat. One photograph shown during their June 13 presentation portrayed mountain bike paths, surrounded by trees, shrubs, and other native planting, running directly next to the MAX rail lines on Southwest Fifth and Southwest Sixth Avenues.

Their proposal also called for substantially increasing the amount of student housing through new construction and development. Building more student housing is a priority for PSU, but the “aggressive level of redevelopment [is] not realistic,” the jury report reads.

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In the coming months, the Walker Macy-led team and PSU will create a phased implementation plan. Anything created through the placemaking initiative is expected to be funded through philanthropy.

When will Portland State students and Portlanders start to see changes on PSU’s campus? “Hard question,” Statsny said. “We have initiated the idea of placemaking. There are a number of things that have to come together.”

Among those are “strong leadership” and political will to shepherd initiatives through numerous hurdles, including the number of city bureaus that will inevitably be involved: the Park Blocks are managed by the Parks Department; any changes to streets – such as the closure of Southwest Montgomery Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, to create Montgomery Plaza – requires approval from the Bureau of Transportation; any new development requires permitting from the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, as well as the City Forester.

“That, to me, is going to be a major” – Statsny paused, pausing to choose the right word. “Impediment? Opportunity? Challenge; that is the best way to put it.”

Stastny does not expect to be involved as the Place Matters effort rolls out. But he hopes to see quick action. “Things that are doable, you do,” he said.

Portland State University is not hiding its efforts to become a heavy hitter in downtown Portland, especially when it comes to the arts and culture sectors. The university recently created a new major in social justice and art.

PSU has also thrown its hat into the ring to build and operate a replacement for Portland’s aging Keller Auditorium, constructing a 3,000-seat and a 1,200-seat auditorium on PSU-owned land in south downtown. Two other proposals include renovating the existing Keller Auditorium, and building a new replacement auditorium in the Lloyd District. The Portland City Council is expected to choose a proposal sometime this summer.

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In a recent interview with Oregon ArtsWatch, PSU President Dr. Ann Cudd said she sees the Place Matters initiative as a potential catalyst in reviving downtown Portland. 

“I’m excited about the opportunity for PSU to be the center of arts, culture, and education in downtown, which I think is what’s going to revitalize downtown,” she said. “We’re eager to help bring about a resurgence of Portland.”