Before Mortenson Construction moved into its new Portland office in the Crane Building at 710 Northwest 14th Avenue, the space was renovated with elements of a 100-year-old barn as the focal point.
Mortenson found the barn in Colton, Ore., purchased it, and began the deconstruction and repurposing process. The Douglas fir barn was used for the 9,000-sf office’s workspaces and trim.
Photo courtesy Mortenson Construction.
Reclaimed wood from the barn was incorporated into cabinetry, workstations, the welcome desk, a bike rack, an art timeline wall, and focal piece wood walls in conference rooms. Additionally, Douglas fir barn rafters were repurposed as baseboards.
Continuing the retro look throughout the space an antique crosscut saw found in the barn is displayed in the conference room, an antique refrigerator from the mid-1920s is being used as a decorative piece on a stair cap, and a conference room table has been fashioned out of an 1890s-era door from an estate on Portland’s east side.
Photo courtesy Mortenson Construction.
Other touches include a mural painted by local artist April Mehls, exposed brick and large industrial windows, and a brick painting in the kitchenette that pays homage to the signage in the first Mortenson office.
Photo courtesy Mortenson Construction.
Photo courtesy Mortenson Construction.
Photo courtesy Mortenson Construction.
Related Stories
| Oct 12, 2010
University of Toledo, Memorial Field House
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Memorial Field House, once the lovely Collegiate Gothic (ca. 1933) centerpiece (along with neighboring University Hall) of the University of Toledo campus, took its share of abuse after a new athletic arena made it redundant, in 1976. The ultimate insult occurred when the ROTC used it as a paintball venue.
| Oct 12, 2010
Owen Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Officials at Michigan State University’s East Lansing Campus were concerned that Owen Hall, a mid-20th-century residence facility, was no longer attracting much interest from its target audience, graduate and international students.
| Oct 12, 2010
Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Gartner Auditorium was originally designed by Marcel Breuer and completed, in 1971, as part of his Education Wing at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Despite that lofty provenance, the Gartner was never a perfect music venue.
| Oct 12, 2010
Cell and Genome Sciences Building, Farmington, Conn.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Administrators at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington didn’t think much of the 1970s building they planned to turn into the school’s Cell and Genome Sciences Building. It’s not that the former toxicology research facility was in such terrible shape, but the 117,800-sf structure had almost no windows and its interior was dark and chopped up.
| Oct 12, 2010
The Watch Factory, Waltham, Mass.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards — Gold Award. When the Boston Watch Company opened its factory in 1854 on the banks of the Charles River in Waltham, Mass., the area was far enough away from the dust, dirt, and grime of Boston to safely assemble delicate watch parts.
| Oct 12, 2010
Cuyahoga County Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Cleveland, Ohio
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Gold Award. The Cuyahoga County Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument was dedicated on the Fourth of July, 1894, to honor the memory of the more than 9,000 Cuyahoga County veterans of the Civil War.
| Oct 12, 2010
Building 13 Naval Station, Great Lakes, Ill.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Gold Award. Designed by Chicago architect Jarvis Hunt and constructed in 1903, Building 13 is one of 39 structures within the Great Lakes Historic District at Naval Station Great Lakes, Ill.
| Oct 12, 2010
Full Steam Ahead for Sustainable Power Plant
An innovative restoration turns a historic but inoperable coal-burning steam plant into a modern, energy-efficient marvel at Duke University.
| Oct 12, 2010
From ‘Plain Box’ to Community Asset
The Mid-Ohio Foodbank helps provide 55,000 meals a day to the hungry. Who would guess that it was once a nondescript mattress factory?
| Oct 8, 2010
Union Bank’S San Diego HQ awarded LEED Gold
Union Bank’s San Diego headquarters building located at 530 B Street has been awarded LEED Gold certification from the Green Building Certification Institute under the standards established by the U.S. Green Building Council. Gold status was awarded to six buildings across the United States in the most recent certification and Union Bank’s San Diego headquarters building is one of only two in California.
