Portland is once again on the national stage, but this time it’s not the New York Times touting the city’s epic eateries (thanks for the nod, but enough already).  Architect Magazine released its second annual ranking of green architecture firms and two of the top ten firms call Portland home.

Sera Architects and Zimmer Gunsul Frasca (ZGF) Architects both earned a well-deserved seat among the nation’s most sustainable-focused firms.  Sera, coming in at No. 3, is behind the city’s greenest projects, including the Oregon Sustainability Center, which aims to be a net-zero high rise and is catching the attention of designers and developers the world over.  ZGF, coming in at No. 10, gained acclaim for its commitment to sustainable projects like the rain gardens at the Oregon Convention Center and its own offices at Twelve West in downtown Portland.  Perkins + Will came in as the number one green architecture firm according to the magazine.  While the firm is based in Chicago, the work coming out of the Perkins + Will Seattle office is on the cutting edge of green design (and of course adds to the sustainable cache of the Northwest).

On a related note, Clark Brockman of Sera Architects and a cadre of current and former ZGF architects, including Amy Cortese, John Breshears and Naomi Cole, have all been recognized with a BetterBricks Award over the years.

The other eight firms that made to the list include:

Perkins +Will , Chicago (No. 1)

EYP Architecture & Engineering, Albany, N.Y. (No. 2)

PGAL, Houston, (No. 4)

Cook+Fox, Chicago, (No. 5)

HOK, St. Louis (No. 6)

FXFOWLE, New York (No. 7)

Anshen + Allen, San Francisco (No. 8 )

DLR Group, Omaha, Neb. (No. 9)

David Cook of Behnisch Architekten, and currently the Pietro Belluschi Distinguished Visiting Professor in Architecture at the University of Oregon School of Architecture, will be speaking at the U of O White Stag Building on Thursday evening May 20th.

David Cook, Dipl. Architekt RIBA, ARB studied architecture at the Polytechnic in Manchester and obtained his Diploma at the University of East London in 1992. Together with Stefan Behnisch and Martin Haas, he has been heading the practice Behnisch Architekten since 2006. He has held teaching positions in Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, and New York and has given lectures in Manchester, London, Aarhus, Cagliari, Miami, and Beijing, among other places.

Behnisch Architekten is a leader in creating distinctive architectural solutions that are environmentally sustainable. The Stuttgart, Germany-based architecture and planning firm maintains U.S. offices in Venice, CA, and Boston, MA. Notable projects include platinum-LEED-rated Genzyme Center in Cambridge, MA; Norddeutsche Landesbank in Hannover, Germany; Cultural District Riverfront Development Plan in Pittsburgh, PA; Unilever Headquarters in Hamburg, Germany; Institute for Forestry and Nature Research in Wageningen, The Netherlands; and the Harvard Science Complex in Allston, MA.

David Cook will be speaking in conjunction with the very interesting and informative exhibit  ”Design, Ecology, Synergy”  which  redefines the term sustainability by examining how people inhabit their built environments. This exhibition which toured Europe, showcases the innovative design approach of Behnisch Architekten and Transsolar Climate  Engineering, as illustrated by several international projects and ongoing collaborations.  It is a cleverly designed exhibition that demonstrates the human senses to the built environment. Human scale diagrams show our intake of the environment and our reactions to light, material, temperature, air, and sound as conditions determined or often dictated by the enclosure system of the building. The exhibition appropriately features audio, visual, and tactile displays including large light boxes where information on each category (light, material, etc.) is printed on the surface; videos of interviews and projects; project models, and large colorful dome luminaries.

Presented by: U. of Oregon Department of Architecture

Date: Thursday  5/20/2010
Time: 6 :00 pm–Lecture,  7:15 pm–Reception
Free and open to the public

Location :
Event Room

White Stag Building
70 N.W. Couch St.
Portland, OR, 97209