Jon to Mentor Middle School Group for CEFPI Competition

For the next two months Jon will be teaching and mentoring a group of 6th - 8th grade TAG students at Roseway Heights Elementary school in NE Portland. 

The class will provide an opportunity for students to participate in a "Design a School of the Future" competition sponsred by the Council of Educational Facilities Planners. (CEFPI)

"The annual competition, open to middle school students, challenges student teams to design their schools to enhance learning, conserve resources, be environmentally responsive and engage the surrounding community. The multi-disciplinary solution requires students to follow a planning process from the concept phase to completion of the project, with thorough documentation. The students will present their project to a jury for review".

Professionals from the design, engineering, landscape architecture, facilities planning, and local government will be invited to lecture and participate in school juries of the students work.  

Based on the outcome of those juries, one or two student groups from Roseway Heights will be selected to present their final project at the chapter level on March 14th, 2014.  

From there, select teams will be invited to present their projects at the regional and possibly the international level at the CEFPI conference in October 2014 in Portland, OR.

Jon is excited to volunteer and share his knowledge and passion for design, architecture and education.  We will keep you posted as the year moves forward.

My name is Jon Chenier and I am an architect.  I own and operate an architectural design firm called Chenier Design.  I have been drawing and designing for over 20 years.  I began my practice in 1998.  I have designed and managed many different types and sizes of projects.  Below is a short list:

·       Single family residential remodels

·       New home construction

·       Condominiums

·       Master planning single-family residential homes for development companies

·       Capital expenditure project management for a local grocery store in Portland, OR

·       Restaurant design

·       Retail store design

·       Medical office design

·       Design consultation and purchasing of furniture, fixtures and equipment for the house of Blues V.I.P. rooms and Green Rooms inside the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. 

I have taught design and architecture to college students.  From 1999-2005 I taught architecture and design at California State University Long Beach in Southern California.  While there I taught many types of design classes including:

·       Architectural drafting

·       Professional practice for designers and architects

·       Model Building

·       Building systems and codes

·       Design studios and thesis classes

·       Lighting Design

During my time at CSULB I developed a study abroad program for students who wanted to learn about the arts and architecture in a foreign country.  On two different occasions I lead two trips to Europe.  In one program I took a group of American students to England.  We lived in London for six weeks and traveled to many cities and sites throughout that country.  On a second trip, I lead a group of 22 American students to Italy.  We lived in Florence for six weeks and traveled throughout that country as well.

That was a very rewarding time of my career.  I was fortunate enough to be able to share a unique opportunity with those students.  Several of those individuals had never been on an airplane before.  To watch a young adult student stand in front of a Renaissance sculpture or inside a 600 year old cathedral that they had only seen in a text book and weep for joy was truly an honor.  I was once that student. 

While I was studying for my B.F.A. in Interior Architectural Design I traveled to Florence, Italy with Syracuse University.  I, too, felt a sense of awe, standing inside large cavernous cathedrals 1000 years old.  I realized in those moments that I was drawing inspiration from where Michelangelo, Leonardo, Brunelleschi, Bernini, and all of the other famous architects and designers since their time had lived and studied.  That experience motivated me to pursue a career, a life, in architecture and design.

When I studied for my Masters in Architecture at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCIARC) in Southern California, I worked with many talented professionals and academics from many places around the world.  I saw cutting edge design being created and talked about and knew that I was part of something unique.  The three and a half years I spent at SCIARC ratcheted up my abilities to talk about architecture and think about form in new ways.  It opened my eyes to the world around me and introduced concepts about how we perceive the world around us and apply those perceptions to how we practice architecture. 

All of those experiences have shaped the architect I am today.  I love to practice design and architecture but more importantly, I want to share the love that I have for it with others.  When I meet a prospective client I really enjoy finding out about what it is that they are interested in.  For me, it is the people that inhabit architecture that make the projects I work on interesting.  Architecture is so much more than just making a building and shaping the interior of a space.  Without people, architecture is nothing but a void. 

I have had the good fortune with working with some very intelligent and talented clients over the years.  The majority of those clients weren't only interested in completing a project just to fulfill a need to improve their property or business.  They were also interested in telling me who they were, how they lived and how they wanted their home or place of business to reflect that.  They wanted to participate in the conversation about design.  They wanted to take ownership of their project.  I wanted each client to walk away feeling proud of what we had accomplished together even though the process to get there can be messy, frustrating and time consuming at times. 

As their designer, it was my responsibility to help the client organize a series of specific needs and desires onto drawing paper and interpret the abstract visual language architects and builders communicate in.  One of my key responsibilities as an architect is to clearly communicate what the space would look and feel like and then oversee the construction process, ensuring that the feedback loop was completed.

This blog is about all of those ideas and more.  This is a place where people of all experiences can come and discuss design and architecture.  I welcome your comments and questions.

Best Regards,

Jon Chenier

Latest Short Video - Palos Verdes, CA

SW Portland Home- The First Meeting

Friday-7/13/12

Today I met with a potential new client.  They have just purchased a 1940 single story ranch style home in SW Portland.  It is nestled on the West Slope of the hills which line the Willamette River.  It is tucked into a quiet suburb amongst large pine trees.  When you walk into the backyard it feels as if you are in a forest.

The site itself is located on a cul-de-sac about about one mile in from a major boulevard.  The site is approximately 1/4 acre and is bound by houses of similar size and design on three sides.

The house was recently sold by the grown children of an elderly woman who recently had passed away.  My assumption is that it was part of a family trust.  The house is in it's original state from the day it was built in about 1943.  It is a single story ranch-style home with a low-cut roof line and a built out                                                                                                 basement.  

It sits squarely on the lot and is set-back about 25 feet from the street.  The interior is filled with walls.  The kitchen is facing the street next to the garage.  The bedrooms are located at the back of the house and are small in comparison to today's standards.  There is a living room at the front of the house opposite the kitchen.  It is in good condition but does not meet the modern standards of living nor the standards of what the client requires.

The general concept of the home is to increase the square footage by adding a master suite off the rear of the home.  Also, the client wants to add a pool.  Thirdly, the client would like to keep the bones of the structure but remove as many of the interior walls in the existing space as can be done affordably in order to open up the space and provide a seamless transition from the interior to the exterior.  In other words, they would like a modern home that still maintains it's original ranch-style appearance to the front.

Finally, the client is requesting that we avoid any steps or transitions that require stepping over (zero step)  The client has a permanent disability that requires that she use crutches.  It has been made very clear to me that this should not be the focus of the project.  In other words, no visible evidence of ADA elements.  It has been discussed that a ramp be built in order to get from the drive up to the front entry.  However, it should be done tastefully and should blend in naturally with the landscaping and home.  

The next step for me is to provide the client with a proposal and assist the client in setting up a scope of work.  It appears that the client has a contractor ready.  The contractor is a long time friend of the family.

Zero Step Residence - SW Portland

7/7/12

I received an email from a new prospective client today!!  These folks are long-time friends of a couple I am currently doing space planning and architectural documentation for.  I'm really excited to meet them.  This would be my first large scale project since i moved to Portland.  Fingers crossed!!