General Design Category

The Rain Garden of the Oregon Convention Center Expansion - MERIT AWARD
Mayer/Reed

Jury Comments:
The Rain Garden is recognized as an exemplary model of urban storm water management.

The Rain Garden’s integration into the Oregon Convention Center’s expansion is well executed and inserts a green façade into a highly visible and public environment. We were impressed with the overall integration of the program elements, too often the banality of convention center architecture, with its enormous, unarticulated floor plates, provides little in the way of site development or amenities. The very public nature of this project places it prominently as a model for stormwater management and at the same time does so in an extremely articulated and horticulturally rich, sculptural manner.

The attention to the project’s composition and detailing, as well as its functional requirements of water retention, sedimentation and biofiltration, presents a model that can be interpreted and applied at many different scales. The drama and functionality of the rain garden would obviously be heightened during inclement weather, a condition familiar to the Northwest. The Convention Center visitor will potentially come away with an increased awareness of how one can apply both an extremely appealing landscape expression with all the technical requirements in perhaps their own environment. One could apply this model at actually any scale.

This project illustrates the expansiveness and richness of our profession in which science, engineering, sculpture and horticulture intersect, and the success of the Mayer/Reed design team’s ability to interweave these elements into an engaging and aesthetically rich “rain garden.”