Cover story: Designing minds --Portola Valley residents try their hands at designing a new Town Center complex Cover story: Designing minds --Portola Valley residents try their hands at designing a new Town Center complex (June 23, 2004)

By David Boyce
Almanac Staff Writer

It's been a bumpy ride and there have been some stretches of bad road on the journey to a new Town Center complex in Portola Valley. Listening skills have been criticized in public, and motives questioned. Competing visions of the future have been vigorously aired.

The journey is far from over, but the road ahead may be a little smoother after the events of Sunday, June 13, when many of the contenders got together in one room and, with some professional guidance, collaborated on design ideas for the complex.

The 50-year-old school buildings -- now used as a town hall, library, multi-use room, and classrooms -- could fall apart in an earthquake because they sit within a fault rupture zone, as was determined by a recent geological survey. On February 18, the Town Council voted unanimously to abandon the complex and rebuild, using current building codes, on a portion of the 11.2-acre site where buildings would shake but would likely remain intact.

In a community of roughly 4,500 people, a small contingent of residents, some of whom serve on volunteer committees, have spoken out on the council's decision, some agreeable to rebuilding all the facilities on the site and others opposed, saying that the government offices should be located elsewhere, away from the athletic, educational and cultural facilities.

The council commissioned a series of four collaborative, time-sensitive, highly structured workshops in June -- a process called a "charrette" -- to gather opinions from residents on priorities, designs and costs for the new complex. The first three workshops are over; the fourth -- a special Town Council meeting -- is scheduled for Wednesday, June 30. The charrette's results will be a factor in the architect's master plan for the site, to be delivered in September.

"I'm very positive. I think people worked really well together," said resident Rebecca Flynn, after the site-design workshop on June 13.

Resident Bernie Bayuk, a previously vocal opponent of the council's plan, said the event overcame his skepticism, in part because everyone at his table was familiar with site-development issues. "I think it requires the proper kind of participants," he said, but added: "It's amazing how much came out of this. ... I'm very pleased about it."

"We might later, as a community, decide to vote this down," said Jay Jernick after someone wondered aloud why the whole site shouldn't be a park. "Today, we work with what the Town Council has decided for us."

"There will be (a) groundswell if it's either too expensive or doesn't follow the will of the community," Mr. Jernick told the Almanac.

"For the first time, I saw a very large group of people thinking about what can we do with this site as opposed to what can we get rid of," said Councilman Ted Driscoll, whose team included Mr. Jernick.

Designs by committees

In the town's large multi-use room, about 60 residents -- including four of the five Town Council members -- sat down in six groups at six round tables, each table equipped with a large map of the Town Center, paper cut-outs representing possible facilities to be built there, cost estimates for each facility, and 75 minutes on the clock.

Their challenge: On an 11.2-acre site populated with mature trees and bisected by an earthquake fault, participants were asked to develop an aesthetic and affordable plan for recreational fields, play areas, parking lots, and structures, including a library, town hall, maintenance yard and, if possible, meeting rooms, a community hall, a plaza and a preschool.

Residents were also asked to consider the shadowing effect of trees on the energy efficiency of the buildings, how to maintain views of the western hills, and whether to open up a creek that runs in a culvert under the site.

Managing the affair and answering questions were two architects -- Larry Strain and Jim Goring -- along with facilitator and Portola Valley resident Linda Weil and other professionals familiar with landscape and design issues.

Sounds of collaboration spilled out the open doors into the spring air of the late afternoon. When time ran out, the array of finished maps showed that most of the teams found room for most of the facilities at costs ranging from $11 million to $14.5 million. From each table, a spokesperson rose to explain their map, to rounds of comment and applause.

Now it's the architects' turn to craft two or possibly three site-plan candidates for the Town Council to review in a public meeting scheduled for Wednesday, June 30.

When the Portola Valley Town Council chose Siegel & Strain Architects of Emeryville to redesign the Town Center, the agreement included a commitment by the architects to run a charrette.

The word "charrette" is French for "cart" and stems from the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 19th-century Paris, according to the Web site of the National Charrette Institute. The arrival on the street of a cart pulled by a school proctor was a signal to architecture students to finish their projects and get them into the cart or risk missing the proctor's deadline.

Charrettes are widely used to engage local communities in urban redevelopment. When the World Trade Center fell on September 11, 2001, a charrette contributed to the discussion of what is to replace it.

Portola Valley's charrette is spread over four brief workshops in June, three of which have already occurred. On June 10, the architects introduced residents to the purpose and scope of the process and sounded them out on priorities.

On June 13, residents heard an overview of sustainable building practices and walked the Town Center site to get a sense of the space. Shortly after the site walk, residents reconvened at the round tables to apply cut-outs to maps with the goal of envisioning the new municipal complex.

This charrette formally ends at the June 30 meeting, when the Town Council will make its choice.

Still skeptical

The workshops in Portola Valley's charrette may have begun to modify the views of some residents opposed to the council's plans for the Town Center, principally concerning the council's decision to build a town hall and a maintenance facility there.

In an April 29 questionnaire sent by the Town Council to all residents, the council asked for feedback on how to best use the site, given limits on space and financing. Some rancor surfaced because the first two facilities listed -- the town hall and maintenance yard -- were pre-checked. Council members have said that majorities on citizen advisory committees favored Town Center locations for the facilities.

"I'm concerned when you have something designed by a committee," said Portola Valley resident Karl Bizjak after the mapping exercise. He said he saw several good ideas, but not in any one plan, and is writing a letter to the architects with his own proposal. "I think they have the flexibility and I hope they have the creativity to go and design something that's good."

Former mayor Bob Brown -- a retired building contractor and an advocate of retrofitting the current buildings to withstand earthquakes -- went so far as to create his own map that left the site largely untouched.

One resident asked whether her team could exclude a new town hall from its map. Mr. Strain, the lead architect, replied that for the purposes of this exercise, it had to be included.

This exchange prompted Bill Lane to ask residents to think of the redesign as "celebrating the governance of the town" and "the handshake we give" to contractors and new homeowners. "I put a lot of emphasis on (staff) morale, on their esprit de corps," he said. Mr. Lane and his wife Jean are donating $1 million to the project.

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