For our October 7, 2025 Portland BEC meeting, we have arranged an opportunity to tour the ongoing construction of the PSU Gateway Center project located at 1914 SW Park Avenue. The Art & Design project also known as Gateway Center is set to redefine the campus landscape and elevate PSU's commitment to sustainability, wellness, and excellence in higher education. One of the project's standout features is its use of 4 stories of mass timber construction as opposed to the conventional use of concrete/steel. The total project is approximately 98,000 SF. This project will be PSU's first building constructed with this sustainable and resilient construction method, championing both environmental responsibility, occupant wellness, and connection to local community. The exterior enclosure that will be visible and discussed during the tour is composed of aluminum and glass curtain wall, fiberglass punched openings, ribbed metal panel and vegetated roofs over a modified bitumen roofing system.

As this is an active construction site, our tour will need to start at 3:30pm after most trades have left the site. The tour will be approximately 1-hour long starting with a brief intro to the project at the Swinerton site office at 1850 SW 6th Ave, then breaking into groups each visiting various locations throughout the building to view/discuss the variety of enclosure systems and detailing. Personal protective equipment (PPE) will be required to be worn during the tour. Street parking is available in the neighborhood. Additionally, the project is a block from the PSU South Station on the MAX Green/Yellow lines for those wishing to take light rail. More information regarding PPE requirements and parking will be distributed in the days before the tour.

Due to space and safety constraints, this tour is limited to 30 attendees. While we recognize that this tour will be in high demand, we would ask that corporate BEC members limit participation to two (2) attendees from your organization. Please follow this link to register for the event.

This presentation is an overview of the environmental and economic benefits of a properly designed, installed, and maintained vegetated roof. We will review the generic components that comprise typical green roof systems, and we will address concerns in-depth including wind uplift considerations and how to treat drains to avoid flooding. We will also review local case studies ranging from thriving systems to outright failures, and how the design and maintenance of the systems affects the outcomes.

Liz Morris is the president of Green Up LLC, the firm she founded to work with architects, building owners, contractors and municipalities to develop and restore on-structure vegetation and amenity spaces. Liz has been working with green roofs across North America for nearly 15 years, with the majority of her project experience on commercial roofs in Portland, Washington and California. She is experienced in all phases of green roofing, from conceptual development and specification, through procurement and installation, as well as maintenance and restorations. She has presented hundreds of continuing education sessions to architects, and has trained dozens of installers in green roofing. Liz is the co-founder and past president of the Green Roof info Think-tank (GRiT) and is the Green Roof Professional Education Chair on the Board of Directors of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC).

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Oversized and super-sized glass for construction is offered in various formats across the North American and international markets. Suppliers have scaled up most glass production processes and can offer high performing glass with impressive dimensions. Scaling up glass production comes with cost and technical implications. This lecture provides an overview about the development and status of oversized glass production and the various production and processing stages involved. Critical aspects for design and specification will be explained as well as watch-it for the review of the final product.  

As a Façade Specialist, Felix advances complex façade and glass design at RDH. He is a highly creative engineer and experienced team leader with over 15 years of experience in façade consulting and structural engineering. He enjoys designing structures and façades influenced by individual materials or products. He has worked with many cladding types and specializes in structural façades, structural glass, complex geometry structures, and uncommon building materials such as ETFE and fiber-reinforced polymers.

This presentation will explore how the details of iconic historic houses, both traditional and modernist, have contributed to their durability or lack thereof, and what we can learn from their successes and failures for both preservation and new design. Case studies will include the speaker’s assessment or restoration work on these six details from six iconic houses:

1. Gropius House, designed by Walter Gropius, 1938, Lincoln MA, (window head and sill details)
2. Johnson Thesis House, designed by Philip Johnson, 1942, Cambridge MA (wall to foundation detail)
3. Zimmerman House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, 1951, Manchester, NH (clay tile roofing details)
4. Palazzetto degli Anguillara (aka Casa di Dante), c. 1450, Rome Italy (roof to wall transition detail)
5. Paul Revere House, 1680, Boston MA (enclosure form-finding)
6. Palazzo Braschi, designed by Cosimo Morelli, 1790, Rome Italy (window surround details)

Matthew Bronski, P.E., is a Principal, and the Preservation Technology Practice Leader at Simpson Gumpertz & Heger (SGH), where he has practiced for the past 26 years. Matthew has led SGH’s projects on many iconic buildings, including many National Historic Landmarks. He has published over a dozen technical papers, and has served as a guest lecturer or critic at numerous universities, including Harvard, MIT, and Yale. He also serves as an instructor in the Getty Conservation Institute’s annual international course on conserving modern architecture. He holds a Bachelor's in engineering from Tulane, and Master's degrees in both architecture and historic preservation from Penn. In 2009, he became only the second engineer in 113 years to receive the prestigious Rome Prize, which he received in the field of Historic Preservation and Conservation.

A failure of an installed curtain wall on a commercial project can be costly and time consuming. A failure can do more that physical property damage. It can have an impact on all parties involved in the project and repercussions could last years. Most failures can be tracked to simple mistakes that were preventable. Mistakes come from people rushing to complete a project; not understanding specific project conditions and how these impact the system; not understanding completely how a system performs or failing to follow the fabrication or installation guidelines provided by the manufacturer. This presentation takes a high-level look at common causes of failures that occur repeatedly. This is not intended to make all field experts but to illustrate conditions that if identified early could prevent a failure. All stakeholders in a commercial project want to see it completed successfully and last years. Identifications of potential problems early will assist in the health and welfare of the commercial building and those who utilize the facility.

Henry Taylor is a native of Atlanta, Georgia where he earned his undergraduate degree at Georgia State University and Masters at Kennesaw State University. He has been in glass & glazing for over 30 years and has experience with a commercial glass shop and national glass fabricator, and has spent the majority of his career with the Kawneer Company. Henry started with Kawneer in Field Sales working with commercial glass companies and architects designing commercial projects then moved to the corporate headquarters to start up and manage the Architectural Services Team. During this time he was on the board of the Glass Association of North America and chairman of the BEC (Building Envelope Contractors) leading three of their annual meetings. Currently Henry manages the Training Department for Kawneer where he spends time working with their customer network training field crews, project managers and estimators. He continues to work with architects through Kawneer’s support of the AIA CES program preparing and presenting AIA CES presentations and manages issuing AIA Learning Units and certificates to attendees.

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This course will review the myriad attachment methods for single ply membranes, including different membrane types, substrates, and structures. Advantages and disadvantages of the various attachment methods will be discussed as well as various criteria which may dictate a certain attachment type.

Bob Card is a senior consultant and principal of Wetherholt and Associates, Inc., Redmond, WA. Bob has been a consultant with Wetherholt and Associates since 2001, and a principal since 2005. He conducts building enclosure assessments and leak investigations, and prepares specifications and drawings for roofing, waterproofing, and exterior cladding projects. He also has provided legal and expert witness testimony.

Bob is a past president of the International Institute of Building Enclosure Consultants (IIBEC), and has attained Registered Roof Consultant, Registered Waterproofing Consultant, Registered Exterior Wall Consultant, and Registered Building Envelope Consultant (RBEC). He is a regular presenter for IIBEC education courses around the country, and also presents for other industry organizations.

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An introduction to the LBNL software THERM will be presented. Six wall assemblies commonly used from 2000-2020 are analyzed and described. Each assembly has performance positives and negatives and these can be shown by using the software.

We will discuss total R value of wall assemblies and dew point locations. There will be discussion of how to avoid mold and condensation in walls by proper analysis. Keeping the building warm and dry prevents mold, saves energy, and keeps occupants safe and healthy.

Mike Meade is an Architect with Hennebery Eddy Architects. He graduated from the University of Oregon, and has worked in Portland since the year 2000. He has been part of teams that have built several buildings in Portland, including OHSU Kohler Pavilion, Mercy Corps Global Headquarters, Cyan/PDX, the Vista North Pearl Condos, and the PDX Concourse E Extension.

Mike has a passion for building technology and is the Vice President of the Portland Building Enclosure Council.

Drawing on his experience working on the rehabilitation of major institutional buildings and focusing on early-to-mid 20th century masonry construction, the speaker will discuss technical approaches to masonry whole-façade replacement while keeping a building fully operational. The presentation will cover structural engineering, building enclosure design, energy efficiency improvement, constructability, logistical, and economic aspects of overcladding projects. In particular attendees/readers will learn about:

• Building condition assessment and investigation to form the basis of a rehabilitation design
• Building code requirements relating to building overclad design
• Building enclosure design strategies and energy saving opportunities
• Logistical and planning aspects for uninterrupted building operation
• Structural engineering requirements and design strategies
• Common masonry recladding materials and their advantages and limitations

Michael H. Chafetz joined Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc. (SGH) in 2013. He is a licensed engineer in Massachusetts with a degree in civil engineering. He manages building envelope projects for various university, architect, owner and developer clients, including large multi-year envelope restoration projects, in which SGH acts as the prime designer. He specializes in investigation and restoration of contemporary and historic buildings, as well as condition assessments, new construction design consulting and litigation support.

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One of the many challenges of innovation in building enclosure design is the risk of using technologies and materials that have limited track records. Especially when a premium is paid to attain expected performance benefits and energy savings, failure can be both counter-productive and costly. However, using only time-tested strategies and materials may not be desirable in an environment of rapidly evolving technology and accelerated construction schedules. When extensive testing data is not available, drawing from past experience can be an effective way to address this risk of uncertainty.

Through conducting building forensic investigations in the past two decades, we have observed trends in the causes of building enclosure failures that are common across a large variety of building enclosure systems. We have also noticed new and emerging issues associated with younger, “high-tech,” buildings that were not as prevalent in more traditional construction. This presentation will highlight some of our findings, discuss emerging issues through case studies of forensic investigations, and suggest design strategies to improve the as-installed performance of assemblies with limited track records.

Grace is a registered Architect and Professional Engineer in the State of Washington. She specializes in forensic investigation, assessment, and repair design of existing structures and new construction. She is passionate about finding solutions for the built environment that are practical, economical, and socially responsible. She has expertise in modeling and analyzing the behavior of building structures and enclosure systems and applying data analytics to the building enclosure practice. Grace also takes an active role in the professional community, serving as a board member on the Seattle Building Enclosure Council.

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Windspeed and wind pressures are concepts that often causes confusion and anxiety for many building professions when it comes to component and cladding design and specifications. In this course, the speaker will break down the differences between Strength Design and Allowable Stress Design approaches and discuss when each design methodology is appropriate for component and cladding design. Wind load maps for Oregon have changed in the recent iteration of the 2019 OSSC resulting in lower wind pressures in many local areas potentially lowering the cost for components and cladding systems. The speaker will discuss how these lower wind pressures can be applied to specifying windows to be more structurally efficient while maintaining separate water test pressure performance criteria. Roofing and associated components will also be explored.

Over more than 30 years, Dave Young has focused his career on building enclosure consulting, from the east to west coasts with the past 15 years in Portland, Oregon. Dave spent the first decade of his career with a structural engineering consulting firm in Canada. His experience ranges from single-family homes to large high-rise commercial, institutional, and multifamily residential buildings in new construction as well as building enclosure rehabilitation, repair, maintenance and forensic investigation.

David holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and is a licensed professional engineer in OR and WA. He is a principal of RDH Building Science Inc. and is currently Chair of the Portland Building Enclosure Council.

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