"Book Review: Architecture of Normal – The Colonization of the American Landscape" by Sean Ruthen
Architecture of Normal was reviewed in Toronto-based Spacing Magazine.
“Part Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and part Learning from Las Vegas, this honest portrayal of the connection between urbanization and colonization from Portland-based artist Daniel Kaven is a cornucopia of visual imagery.”
—Sean Ruthen, Spacing Magazine
"On the Road or In the Air, Daniel Kaven Sees the Journey as Destination" by Brian Libby
Daniel Kaven sits down with Metropolis to discuss Architecture of Normal and the future of cities in America.
“Architecture of Normal: The Colonization of the American Landscape reads like an enthralling textbook—a breezy history teeming with photography, original artwork, and timelines—even as its author offers a more cautionary take on what we have wrought.”
—Brian Libby, Metropolis
Richard Speer reviews Daniel Kaven’s Architecture of Normal for The Democracy Chain.
“For a tome this sobering and cautionary, Architecture of Normal is a surprisingly zippy read. The graphic design, by Kaven himself, is dynamic and snazzy, from the fuchsia foiled cover and pink-edged pages to the counterposing of sepia-toned archival images with the vivid neons of Kaven’s own photographs and digital collages. He interrupts the historical narrative with welcome personal recollections of growing up in New Mexico and his ‘vision quests’ across the West from 2017 to 2019 as he was writing the book.”
—Richard Speer
W/K partner Daniel Kaven talks Architecture of Normal with host Brandon Gaston for Season 3, Episode 2 of GRAY Magazine’s “In the Design Lounge” interview series.
“In his new book, Architecture of Normal (through Birkhäuser), Portland-based architect Daniel Kaven explores the contrast between the grandeur of the American landscape and the underwhelming architecture of its suburban strip malls, fast-food chains, motels, and tract housing.”
— Rachel Gallaher, GRAY Magazine
Daniel Kaven’s debut book is now available to North American and European markets. With pink foil stamping, painted page edges, 200+ full-color images, beautiful endpapers, plus a fascinating selection of historical photos and original art, the design and print quality of Architecture of Normal make for an incredible reading experience.
Architecture of Normal (Birkhäuser, 2022) explores the dissonance between the overwhelming American landscape and the underwhelming architecture of its strip malls, fast food chains, motels and tract housing. Part travelogue, art book and architectural survey, the book charts the patterns created by reigning modes of transportation and examines how we came to accept the bland, branded boxes lining America’s streets and freeways. Beginning with a portrait of ambulatory Native American societies and the introduction of horses by the Spanish, Kaven discusses the built environment as it has been shaped by trains, cars, planes and rockets, and looks toward a future architecture defined by autonomous cars and air taxis. This highly visual narrative includes extensive historical photography and Kaven’s own art.
Follow #architectureofnormal on Instagram for a peek inside the book.
“New York or Oregon? Thanks to Bicoastal Living, This Couple Didn’t Have to Choose” by Nancy Keates
Read the article HERE.
“The precision of the glassy, tall, white building is softened by ground-floor landscaping with trees and plants and an outdoor, fourth-floor deck garden visible from the street.”
— NANCY KEATES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Dear Friends,
In tribute to our dear friend and client David Carter, who unexpectedly passed away just days ago, I want to share with you an article published yesterday in The Wall Street Journal on the beautiful home we designed for him and his partner, Jamie Baldwin. David was both a talented artist and a tremendous patron of our work. He would have loved to see their home—filled with his own art—and the life he shared with Jamie so eloquently memorialized in print.
— Daniel Kaven
SKYVIEW DESIGN TEAM:
Daniel Kaven, Partner-in-Charge
Trevor William Lewis, Partner-in-Charge
Mike Perso, Director of Architecture
Katy Krider, Director of Interiors
Joel Dickson, Project Designer
Max Taschek, Project Designer
Lauren Bruni, Project Designer
iBuildPdx, General Contractor
KPFF Consulting Engineers, Civil Engineer
SCE Engineers, Structural Engineer
Photography by Jeremy Bittermann / JBSA
“Another dramatic architectural move is the chunk of negative space that the firm carved out between the upper and lower levels. The negative space serves as a moment between the dining area and the extending living room and is defined by an elegant horizontal structural beam. It also serves to seamlessly integrate the forest into the home and to further enhance the indoor/outdoor living experience.”
— Dwell
Read the full article HERE.
“Sitting in the lush landscape of Portland‘s Forest Park, the front facade of the home tells a story of concrete and modern living, but on closer inspection, you quickly find the majority of the home submerged and cantilevered into the deeps green and browns of the sublime forest.”
— HYPEBEAST
Read the full article HERE.
“Large expanses of glazing and 735 square feet (68.2-square-metre) of exterior deck wrap the house to overlook the deciduous site and its natural flora, which includes Douglas fir trees and vine maple. In the summer, the tree canopy is intended to mitigate the sun heating the interiors.”
— Dezeen
Read the full article HERE.
“Looming out of the verdant Oregon landscape, the Royal Residence is a cut above the conventional speculative development.”
— Jonathan Bell, Wallpaper* Magazine
William / Kaven’s newly completed Royal residence in Portland’s Forest Park is featured in the latest issue of Wallpaper* Magazine. “As a statement of intent,” Jonathan Bell writes, “[Royal] is quite exceptional, making the most of the spectacular landscape without compromising the architecture or the environment.”
Read the full article HERE.
William / Kaven’s recently completed headquarters in Portland have won an American Institute of Architects (AIA) Oregon Citation Award. Accepting the award on stage at Revolution Hall in Portland was the project design team:
Partners: Daniel Kaven and Trevor William Lewis
Project Architect: Mike Perso
Staff Architect: Max Taschek
Staff Designer: Joel Dickson
The project team additionally included KPFF consulting on the Structural and Civil aspects of the building and Shapiro / Didway on the Landscape design.
Located in a neighborhood that has been transformed in recent years by a considerable building boom, Silica is a heavy timber office and retail project that acknowledges the industrial roots of the site while contributing to the aesthetic character of the neighborhood as a whole. The site was formerly home to a single-story, un-reinforced steel fabrication shop, a history referenced in Silica’s steel and heavy-timber construction. Several of the old-growth beams from the deconstructed building were repurposed into furniture for the new lobby and common areas on the floors above, including benches that sit atop steel legs fabricated by the very manufacturing plant that Silica replaces. “Architecture of Normal,” a mural at the entrance of the lobby by Daniel Kaven, serves as a visual link to surrounding buildings in the neighborhood, many of which prominently feature exterior murals.
Silica’s program consists of ground-floor retail, office and covered parking. The base, which houses five retail spaces, is clad in board-form concrete with large glazed openings. Cantilevering out from the base sits a three-story box clad in a dramatic and highly efficient curtain wall with interstitial panels of pin-stripe fritted glass running top to bottom. Along N Williams, the cantilever provides more than 7’ of overhang to shelter a sidewalk cafe program. An outdoor terrace with a green roof and an extension of the office along the south at Level 2 serve to break down the building’s mass and scale and negotiate a transition to its residential neighbors to the south. Balconies along the west facade capture views of downtown Portland and the West Hills while providing shading and privacy to the large expanses of office window. Two concrete cores that house the vertical circulation support the building in shear while massive glue-laminated heavy timber beams with fir car-decking and a concrete topping slab span between to make up the floors.
Critical to the design of Silica was meticulous landscape integration; the terrace’s green roof and the balconies’ steel planters, along with the vine trellises and foliage at the base of the building, produce views as stunning from the inside as they are from the outside. The building was deliberately set back from the street to accommodate the sidewalk tables and a row of cork oak trees.
William / Kaven' Architecture’s Camp MINOH project (Charlevoix, MI) has been recognized with an AIA Michigan Honor Award. The 2019 jury, chaired by Matthew Kreilich of Snow Kreilich Architects, said of the project: “The restrained material palette, exposed structure and sense of craft in this home creates wonderful spaces to live while the sensitivity to massing and siting creates a powerful connection to the beautiful site.”
Last week, William / Kaven partners Daniel Kaven and Trevor William Lewis accepted the award at a ceremony held at Meadow Brook Hall (Rochester Hills, MI), the historic Tudor Revival-style mansion previously owned by the Dodge family.
As part of the trip, they took excursions to several of Detroit’s many venerable institutions and landmarks, including the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Ford Museum, the Joe Louis Monument and Mies van der Rohe’s Lafayette Park.
Thank you to AIA Michigan for this recognition. See awards announcement HERE.
Read about Camp MINOH HERE.
Kaven + Co. and William / Kaven Architecture recently unveiled additional renderings and a conceptual plan for the proposed redevelopment of Portland’s Broadway Corridor. The conceptual plan, which would provide approximately 5 million square feet of new development, consists of multiple high-rise buildings with a mix of uses that includes retail, office, hospitality and residential. The bold concept would reconnect Union Station to the Pearl District by removing the Broadway ramp and subsequently create a pedestrian-centric district organized around an extension of the North Park Blocks. Further, Kaven + Co.’s vision integrates the potential for a marquee transportation hub for high-speed rail and underground mass public transit innovations adjacent to Amtrak’s Union Station.
DESIGNBOOM, "William / Kaven's Proposal for Portland Development Includes Two Connected Skyscrapers":
"William / Kaven architecture has unveiled proposed plans for the ‘Broadway Corridor’ in Portland, Oregon — a project that includes two soaring skyscrapers and an underground high-speed transportation hub." -Philip Stevens
ARCHITECT MAGAZINE, "Broadway Corridor":
"Other elements of the plan include four residential towers, an indoor market fronting the north end of the park blocks, a museum and a block-long reflecting pool."
-Ayda Ayoubi
ARCHDAILY, "New Renderings Show Off Plans For What Could Become Portland's Future Tallest Building":
"The masterplan would add nearly 5 million square feet of new development spread across several high and low-rise buildings, including the signature skyscrapers linked by a glass-enclosed botanical garden bridge." -Patrick Lynch
THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER, "New renderings revealed for Portland’s 970-foot twin towers":
"If built according to plan, the scheme’s twin tower component would reshape the Portland skyline." -Antonio Pacheco
PORTLAND MONTHLY, "3 Bonkers Things We Learned about These Proposed Skyscrapers":
"So far, William Kaven Architecture’s ambitious proposal has made the biggest splash." -Marty Patail
Portland, Oregon–based William Kaven Architecture (WKA) has revealed the full vision behind the firm’s eye-catching proposal to add a pair of interlinked high rise towers to downtown Portland’s 32-acre mixed-use Broadway Corridor site.
Read the article HERE.
Partner Daniel Kaven discusses the recent USPS site acquisition and the potential it offers in the Daily Journal of Commerce:
"The acquisition by Prosper Portland of the U.S. Postal Service headquarters in the Pearl District was made under the pretext of immediate redevelopment by a yet-to-be-determined private group. These 12 city blocks represent an unparalleled opportunity to recast our strategy for urban design and the brand of our city in the eyes of the world."
Read the full op-ed HERE.
Portland Monthly Magazine features William Kaven Architecture's BLOCK 33 project in its article "These 4 Giant Apartment Buildings will Change Downtown Living in Portland."
Read the full article HERE.
William Kaven Architecture announces that it will be unveiling a unique virtual reality (VR) experience at the Official Closing Party for Design Week Portland on Saturday, April 29, 2017. The studio is also hosting the premiere event, capping off an inspiring, jam-packed week of design events with a memorable finale and celebration.
The Closing Party will be held at the future site of William Kaven’s Parallax project, a new 5-story multifamily project situated at the corner of North Williams Avenue and Shaver Street.
Serving as a highlight of the Closing Party, the VR will be an immersive, architectural intervention with the existing warehouse at the Parallax site. William Kaven has virtually rebuilt every aspect of the existing steel shop—grime and all—and will be introducing a gleaming modern installation into the space.
“Every guest who participates will be entirely transported upon trying on the custom William Kaven-designed cardboard headsets,” said Daniel Kaven, partner and architect at William Kaven.
In addition to the virtual reality installation, Forest for the Trees will be live mural painting from 5-7pm, and the Tamale Boys food cart and beer provided by Gigantic Brewing will also be on hand.
Join us for a lo-fi/hi-fi ending to a week of experiences that will have touched so many parts of the city, interacted with so many design disciplines, and inspired so many new connections. This is our moment to come together one last time before everything fades to memory.
WHEN
Saturday, April 29, 7-11pm
WHERE
William Kaven Annex, 4018 N. Williams, site of our future Parallax project, Portland, OR 97227
TICKETS
$10, Purchase from Design Week Portland website (account & login needed) HERE.
PECHAKUCHA ANALOG, DEC. 6, 2016, PORTLAND, OR
Analog is not a process - it is an experience - a reality.
Our work as artists, designers and architects is making The Digital, Analog. We spend our days dreaming up stories and places, building them pixel by pixel in the hope that one day they become something that we can touch and feel and in some cases walk around inside of.
But the reality is that you cannot take it with you on your Super-8 from Woodstock, you cannot listen to it on your vintage turntable, nor can you own it and hang it on your wall. Analog cannot be captured on your Instagram with a filter. You can’t tweet it. You can’t Facebook it.
Go home, put down your phone, kiss your loved one, pay attention to the people in your life and the physical world you already created. The Digital is for everyone else to remember you by.
The Analog is what is accumulated in your soul and it is the only thing you are going to take with you when you expire from this trip we call life.
-DK