Moving the Pieces of the Puzzle
A better plan for the County Courthouse and City Hall
You know those puzzles where you push one piece out of the way in order to place another? Continue reading
Jerry Diethelm
Jerry Diethelm is an architect, landscape architect and planning and design consultant. He is an emeritus professor of the University of Oregon’s College of Design where he taught planning and design for 35 years.
Author: Jerry Diethelm
Runaway City Hall
A public project has escaped public participation
The big surprise revealed about the new Eugene City Hall at the Wednesday, April 27, City Council work session was not that the cost had climbed from the original $15 million to $25 million. The surprise was that the council voted not to pause and become more knowledgeable and accountable for the situation. Councilor George Brown’s motion to hold “at least one more session” on the project’s budget, costs and financing went wanting when it failed to pass, garnering just three votes. Continue reading
Playing Offense at Kesey Square
Adapting a public space for people, not against people
What is there about Kesey Square that needs fixing? It depends on whom you ask. Even the little bird sitting on Ken Kesey’s shoulder knows that there has long been a desire by those concerned with the need to improve the pedestrian and shopping experience downtown to fill up the space with a new building. Theirs is a defensive point of view. They see the square’s present clientele as a public nuisance that seriously detracts from their shopping mall ideal. Filling in the square would move that problem to somewhere else. Continue reading
Jerry’s Predictions for 2015
From the riverfront to City Hall to Alley Oop
Ketchup (from the 17th-century Chinese kôe-chiap or kê-chiap): the Rs in Congress will be playing it for the next two years, and BO in Washington will be rampant. When Hillary Clinton is elected president in 2016, she will nominate Barack Obama to the empty Thurgood Marshall seat on the Supreme Court. Continue reading
Just Like Old Times
Razing the old City Hall and raising the new
It’s slowly dawning on people who have been busy at other things that our old block-sized City Hall is about to be torn down and replaced by a quarter-block sized structure with a three-quarter block surface parking lot. Continue reading
Informing the City County Conversations
Downtown Scenarios 0-5 for Public Consideration: the pro and cons
Foxes and Hedgehogs Foxes, they say, know many things, while hedgehogs only know one thing. And the one thing they know is that you can never do just one thing. So it has gone with the City Hall project. Continue reading
Downside of the Trade
Click for larger version. Continue reading
Eugene City Hall For All It’s Worth
The itty bitty City Hall committee weighs in
So What’s It Worth? New wrinkles have been raised about the razing of the old Eugene City Hall and the present proposal that would build anew. Architect Otto Poticha has offered to purchase an option on the old building and site. On the other hand, the city of Eugene and Lane County have announced a plan to swap part of the land where City Hall now stands for Lane County’s “butterfly lot.” Continue reading
The Third City Hall Redux
Move the Council Chamber building to Oak Street?
Rhymes with aw-shucks, but since many of you have asked me what a new City Hall on the North Park Block might look like and what would happen to the existing council chamber and mural, I propose something like this. The Council Chamber building, as it turns out, has its own separate structure and is movable. It would need to be moved nearby anyway under the present 8th Avenue scheme, and I think it would have a much more striking, important and symbolic public presence if located on Oak Street (see map) across from the County Courthouse. Continue reading
The Third City Hall
Keep tweaking it until we get it just right
I see the present City Hall design process in Goldilocks terms. The first one at $130 million by THA from Portland was too big but initially in the right place. This second round is going to prove to be too small and in the wrong place. But if we’re willing to stop and reassess, the third try could get it just right — the right building in the right place. Continue reading