MulvannyG2 Designing Restaurants / Lewis Lands Contract / DLR Honored

Restaurant chain hired MulvannyG2 to design five to 10 restaurants throughout Washington and Oregon

MulvannyG2 Awarded Restaurant Design Contract

Portland — MulvannyG2 Architecture was recently awarded a contract with Waterloo Restaurant Ventures, Inc., franchisee of Romano's Macaroni Grill chain, to design a modified prototype for restaurants in the Pacific Northwest. The firm will design five to 10 restaurants in Washington and Oregon over the next two years, beginning with locations in Hillsboro and Tualatin, Ore. Construction for the initial restaurants is scheduled to be completed in September.

MulvannyG2's current roster of restaurant clientele includes Washington-based Anthony's Homeport Restaurants and Ram International.

The design team working on the restaurants with MulvannyG2 includes Interface Engineering and Tim Froelich Consulting Engineers. Negotiations are pending with SD Deacon for construction services. Each restaurant is estimated to be roughly 6,500 sq. ft.

Lease Cruncher Lewis Lands PSU Contract

Portland — Portland State University recently selected Portland's Lease Crutcher Lewis as the general contractor for the construction of Portland State's Northwest Center for Engineering, Science and Technology.

The $30 million project, designed by Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership and managed by Gerding/Edlen Development Company, both of Portland, will break ground in late May.

As general contractor, Lewis will build this new 130,000-sq.-ft., five-floor tower adjacent to PSU's Fourth Avenue Building. Together the two buildings will house the university's Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science. The new tower will add teaching laboratories, classrooms, an auditorium, offices and student services facilities.

Special requirements of this downtown project include achievement of a 20 percent participation rate of minority, women-owned, and small businesses in the construction of the building and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification.

With the new PSU contract, the firm has eleven LEED projects on its resume, having recently completed the University of Oregon's Lillis Business Complex and Clean Water Services' Administration Building, designed for silver and gold certifications, respectively.

In addition to sustainable building requirements and diversity goals, the occupied nature of this project's site magnifies its complexity. Construction of the new tower will occur atop an occupied, three-story underground structure that houses two levels of parking and an office level inhabited by Portland State University, the city of Portland and PacifiCorp, among other tenants.

DLR Group Honored by GSA for Courthouse Design

Portland — The DLR Group of Portland recently was honored by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) Design Awards program for its work on the Eugene Federal Courthouse.

The project, which received a Citation in the "On the Boards" category, was contracted to the team of DLR Group and Morphosis under the GSA's Design Excellence program. The 265,000-sq.-ft. facility includes six courtrooms, associated chambers and ancillary spaces. Construction is scheduled to be complete in June 2006.

The courthouse's design aims to redefine the architectural values embodied in the expression of the Federal Judicial Branch. The courtrooms — a series of single day-lit spaces — are arranged in three sculptural forms perched on the raised plane of the two lower office floors. A grand hall serving the courtroom level traverses this symbolic platform, offering views of the surrounding mountains, rivers, landscape and of the sister courthouse pavilions across the roofscape.