Portland Architect Builds a Sense of Community
(Page 5 of 5)
January/February 2003
By Toby Hemenway
Creating the inspiration
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Intersection Repair has spread to other neighborhoods; several new piazzas now exist or are under way. And City Repair’s projects are multiplying. One is a mobile reincarnation of the T-Hows called the T-Horse, a portable café that blossoms from a pickup truck. It looks like a giant butterfly, its gauzy wings sheltering tea-sipping visitors from Portland’s frequent rain. Another is Dignity Village, an intentional community of homeless people, designed by its residents, who are creating a permanent home on City of Portland land. The self-governed tent city features organic gardens and the beginnings of water harvesting and graywater treatment, as well as solar power generation.
“Our challenge,” Lakeman says, “is to give people models of what to do. Not just to protest about cutting down trees, but to build beautiful places without cutting trees. We need ecological prototypes that are socially inspiring.”
In this vein, in May 2002, City Repair hosted a weeklong Natural Building Convergence, in which hundreds of participants created examples of sustainable building on several Portland street corners and storefronts: cob archways, walls, monuments, memorial sculptures, and a sauna; a straw bale studio; and a timber-frame cabin. Countless passers-by—from ice-cream vendors to cops and little old ladies—stopped to ask questions or lend a hand. The event exposed a huge population to the benefits of natural building, and the participants had a blast.
In his public presentations, Lakeman asks people what they want from a city. “The answers are always the same,” he says. “Feeling safe, having a voice, connecting with other people.” But most people don’t get that from their cities. “City Repair says the way Portland operates now doesn’t meet those goals. But in the village model, where those goals are being met, we have a pattern that works every single time. To me the question isn’t knowing what to do. We know what to do. It’s whether all of us working together can have enough of an effect in time.”
For more information on City Repair, visit www.CityRepair.org.
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