That got me back into architecture full time again. As M1C2 projects were winding down, Ben bought the building on Williams and Sumner to convert into condominiums and asked me to design that. That's when he and I really sort tightened up a partnership and Path Architecture.

Q: How does Path work?

Originally we thought that Ben would be the rainmaker, bringing in most of the work through his own development projects and I'd do the designs and manage the firm. It’s turned out that we both bring in work fairly equally and we're both doing development too. I'm doing this [Park Box], we're both doing Williams Five, we're doing Project X together and we have some client work that I’ve been finding. The goal is to be our own client most of the time, do some great architecture and see if it works. (But I do still want client work. There needs to be a balance. I am really loving the projects like the Butler Residence) We want to do some urban prototype development in the spirit of Kevin Cavenaugh's 14 Parcels. Make them so good that people can't resist and inspire them to adopt some new attitudes about urban living. Project X is definitely attempting to do that.

Q: Can we get theoretical for a minute and then come back to Path and where you are now? You've use the term "challenge the human scale" multiple times during this conversation. What do you mean by that?

I learned the importance of this when I was focused on pure sculpture. What I mean is that we must make spatial moves in buildings, objects, and art that challenge our own personal size, our body dimensions and our perception of our place in space, in life. If we don’t make larger gestures, explore the potential to use our whole body to create and also experience space, then we are not making sculpture or architecture. The size of the human body is a reference point from which we can relate to the spaces and landscapes around us. This also translates into the need to push every project. It gets me in a lot of trouble but I doubt I will regret attempting to make great work, even if it seems to be killing me at times.

"Q: You've also brought up proportion a few times and that is a subject that interests me. When you walk into really good space you know it, you feel it. I've always thought this has mostly to do with proportion. The only other person who ran with this when I asked him about it was Rick Potestio. Did you get formal instruction in proportion?

Not in architecture school. There wasn't really formal training for it. It came in part from my grandmother who was a religious study scholar and an artist who spent most of her last twenty years writing and researching. She was into mathematics and cosmic proportion and nature and things they don't teach in school. She was inspiring to me. It wasn't two-dimensional in the sense that here is the golden section and you divide it and construct it on a flat wall. It hits you on a more subconscious level. A lot of people think of propotion as something that you think of two- dimensionally. Like you look at that window and see the way that it is divided, and yeah, that window has been considered in a formal two-dimensional proportional way. But three-dimensional space is more important to me and a bit more complex than that. It is more about how the volumes inter-relate. How the size of openings relate to your body. The human scale again is the foundation for all of that. Le Courbusier and all those guys started there, with the human scale. I went back to consider this stuff. Working with Potestio was a huge influence on me too. In his office we were always talking about proportions. It was two-dimensional--we were always looking at our triangles--and he would disagree with me right now that he was about two-dimensional space but what I'm saying is that's what we talked about [and that's what I took away]. So we would take the angles on our triangles and we would find these photos of Japanese Sukiya style screens and we would use those and would mark the ones that we thought were really successful on the triangle so we had these angles pre-determined and would use those when we were constructing drawings. It was really cool. And Rick is a little more loose about it in two dimensions. He’ll overlay diagonals and figure out things that are inter-related and say "oh this room is this proportion but it's offset with this other space that has this piece of another room in it that is the same proportion..." and it gets kind of crazy and you lose track of it, but it does start to embed a tension in the work that hits you .

When I concentrated on sculpture and that process I got into the idea of challenging the human scale and how a body relates to the three-dimensional space of sculpture and then on a bigger scale of relating to the landscape. It is an abstract idea, but it is something that is sensed. You can't necessarily draw it. You can't necessarily describe it. And you can't necessarily pinpoint it. There can be components of it that are two-dimensional, components of it that are scale based, but there is something way more deep about it. And I think it gets down to these ideas you were talking about-the ideas of perception and layering. The reason that the space we are standing in here is interesting is that it is much higher than it is wide and you feel the verticality of the space and you feel that it has an extension out beyond and into the outdoor space of the park and that it is layered by this tree outside the window and across to the trees in the park on the other side of the block and also to the space that is behind you.

Q: Well I think your comments are very interesting in that proportion is felt and that it is a quality not necessarily reducible to formulas. Although I suspect that if you are person who thinks in formulas, it probably is....

You can analyze anything. That's what mathematicians do. That is what science is about: trying to prove things we already know! Two-dimensional and three-dimensional proportion are inter-related and you can't really look at one without the other. All successful two-dimensional work implies a depth and an extension of space beyond that two- dimensional plane. The distance you are standing from a piece of art is implied in the the plane of the art itself as is the distance beyond that plane. That is what the Butler Residence is all about. It is about setting up a space then implying that there is space beyond, connected and interdependent with the original. The skylight right there (we are standing in the Park Box) washing that wall with light implies that there is space above and that we are connected to that space. The Butler House is really good at that. The yard, the lot line to lot line yard especially at the sides, is the container. The footprint of that ground floor plan is not huge and the plan would feel confined if it did not, because of the way the windows work, bring in the implied space that is the space that is beyond the walls. That outside space is perceived as being part of the interior space. And the space beyond the lot line is also brought in--again there is that feeling of the beyond. Even that fence at Williams Five, that dumb little fence that is louvered. It is not flat for a reason. In that tight little alley space just that layer within the fence itself implies that there is a space beyond that is much bigger; a space you can sense but not measure.

Q: Your window treatment at Williams Five knocked me out. After about three visits I just kept being more impressed. I remember you saying in an earlier conversation "no punched windows."

No punched windows.

Q: Meaning?

Punched is when there is wall all around the window. You can do it every once in awhile but it's gotta be for the right reason--it would be more about framing a view. Windows are about bringing in light. I'm really sensitive to this; bringing in light is more about creating continuity and reducing contrast than it is about looking out.

Q: So you bring an edge of the window all the way to a wall.

Bring it to a wall, bring it to the ceiling, bring it to the floor. By pushing it to a wall and or ceiling you wash that wall and that ceiling with light--you get a seamless transition from outside in, a transition that is enhanced because you don't force the eye to do this radical adjustment from bright outside to relatively dark inside. When you have a day like today with a sort of glare that comes with a bright cloudy sky, if you had a punched opening you would have this dark wall with a bright opening in it and it is really hard on the eyes. I think on a subliminal level it wears on you over time. Now there are definite ramifications to this. Structurally, especially in a bigger project like Williams Five, you've got to watch out because you're messing with shear, you're messing with the framing, you're messing with the ability of the wall to withstand wind load.

Q: Does it add substantially to the cost?

Yes. Yes. I mean that (gesturing to a window in Park Box) is a big window. But you get a lot of effect for the effort.

Q: So bring it to a wall... and as I look around all these windows here are like that. But there is is also something more, especially at Williams Five. It is a certain tautness, like it is skin as opposed to a window. Almost like there is no recess, but there is. There is the depth of the framing...

There is. but it is more of a void than an object. People look at windows in elevation as objects. They look for symmetry and how they are composed two dimensionally. But in our projects windows are more just voids between walls.

Q: And if you think from the outside in it is even more apparent...

it all comes from Japanese architecture. All of those screens are movable elements on the field in their tatami composition and they can change. That is what these walls are implying even though we can't move them. It is the same sort of idea.

Q: Where did this sensibility come from? was it U of O ? Was it working for Potestio? For Clopefil? Was it quitting architecture and doing sculpture?

I think it is sort of a combination of the art and the exploration of the landscape. The time when I was working as a sculptor I was really focused on our relationship to the landscape. A long time ago, really even before that, I realized on all of my projects that the most important thing that we can all be doing as architects is developing urban space in a way that it is attractive and inviting and inspiring so that people won't bulldoze farmland for subdivisions. I think the Maryhill project when I was working for Allied Works really underlined that desire in me. That project was all about all about the kind of connection and experience of the landscape. Brad doesn't like to call it a sculpture, but it is a sculpture. It is an experiential sculpture that challenges your human scale and your relationship to the landscape. By my definition that is sculpture. If it doesn't challenge your human scale it is really just a diorama--it's not pushing you. It's not pushing you like architecture does to kind of challenge your own size, your own physicality. And these windows are kind of a part of that because I really want every project to feel like it is connected to the landscape and that it is a place for the consideration of that. Whether it is a tight urban environment or more open. On the Park Box site the connection is obvious because it is across from this park, but at Williams Five there isn't much to connect out onto because you are on an alley. But you still feel like you are outside with ample space around you. And a punched opening in a wall wouldn't get that. It wouldn't make that connection.

Q: So it's not so much that there is a huge amount of glass but that each window implies something beyond itself. You are right--the impact is significant.

Yes. And it also includes what you were saying that there is that sense of tautness here. I think that might come from that you are feeling the structure of the building here whereas in a normal project you have these punched openings and you have headers over windows and beams and you feel like the building is stacked up sort of in a traditional vertical load-bearing way. Whereas something like this feels like it is in the process of being taken apart at the corner, at the place where you always want a building to be stout. You sense the tension of the structure more because it is being taken apart. It goes back to older pieces of furniture I was trying to do where the goal was to create a void where normally you would have strength, which is really hard to do but it highlights the points of tension in the space.

Q: Coming back to Path currently, you completed the Williams Five Condominiums in July.   Other than the Park Box and the Butler residence what is Path working on now?

The program that we are already down the road on a bit is Project X which is a 78 unit work/live building in the Mississippi area. This is a project that we hope can inspire some new ideas in the market place. Essentially these are 200 square foot units that we want to be good architectural spaces that rent for $500 a month.   In this neighborhood you can't rent a room in an apartment or house for that, let alone have a commercial space and have a business there and have meetings there. Ben and I and our partner on the project Zadeyan Family Investments are hoping that this building can be an incubator and a generator for small businesses in Portland. The idea came from years ago when Ben and I were both at the B&O Warehouse (now Olympic Mills) and it was such a sketchy and uncomfortable way to live, just squatting there. Project X is a place to keep that energy but that you know is not going to leak on you; you know is not going to get broken into; you know you're going to be safe; you know you're going to be warm. So maybe it's not 1000 square feet, but it's your space and you can afford it and you can do what you need to do there.

Q: What do you see as Path's biggest challenge moving forward?

The biggest challenge for both Path and for Kaiser is to put good architecture out there.

Q: That is a wonderfully succinct answer and in it's way a rather eloquent one.

Well that is what we want to be about. In today's economic climate and mood perhaps I should just say that the biggest challenge is to stay afloat, keep working and make money. But isn't that everybody's job every day? The challenge is always there.

Ben and I have something that we bring to the table. We have a firm with high-level conceptual ability and a pragmatic construction "worry" component based upon building experience.   Development anxiety--you need to have it. It makes you a better manager.

Q: It's nice to hear a positive attitude. Seems like every conversation I have these days is just about economic gloom and doom.

Me too. We need to be having another conversation at the same time.

Q: Anything positive you see in the current state of affairs?

Well one of the good things about what we are going through is that perhaps it inspires us to take the time to re-evaluate what is important to us and that we remember to make decisions based upon what we decide about that. This should be true for business decisions and for personal decisions.

• bob zaikoski realtor and broker specializing in architectural properties
• 503 381-3115 bob@portlandmodern.com