Town Center architect is on familiar ground in Portola Valley Town Center architect is on familiar ground in Portola Valley (June 23, 2004)

By David Boyce
Almanac Staff Writer

Architecture seems a natural for Larry Strain, and natural is the kind of architecture he has come to be drawn to.

Mr. Strain, who spent much of his childhood in Portola Valley, is one of two architects leading the redesign of the complex of town buildings and recreational facilities at the Town Center at 765 Portola Road. The son of a teacher and a librarian, he learned the builder's trade over many summers and weekends helping his dad and older brother expand the size of their Wayside Road home.

"Physically, (Portola Valley) hasn't changed very much, and I'm very impressed with that," Mr. Strain said. "It comes at other costs. It's a pretty exclusive community, but anybody can enjoy it by walking and driving through it."

In addition to his partnership at Siegel & Strain in Emeryville, Mr. Strain teaches architecture at UC Berkeley. He is a longtime advocate of "sustainable" building practices that minimize environmental damage during and after construction. His company has won several awards for excellence in "green design."

Mr. Strain recently led a June 13 community workshop in which about 60 Portola Valley residents separated into teams and played the role of architects as they collaborated on a new look for the 11.2 acres of the park-like Town Center site.

It's likely that new buildings there will be built with at least some environmentally sound practices, council members have said.

Early years

Larry Strain, 52, was born in Woodside, where he lived for about five years with his parents and older brother in a caretaker's house on Albion Avenue north of Woodside Road. His father taught at and was the principal of Peninsula School in Menlo Oaks; his mother was a librarian in Menlo Park.

The family moved to Menlo Park near U.S. 101 for a year or so, then relocated to 369 Wayside Road in Portola Valley just before he turned 7. "It had been incredibly noisy and all of a sudden, we were in this beautiful quiet canyon," he said.

For about the first five years in Portola Valley, he spent his summers in the woods of the 3,000-acre Neylan estate, now the Windy Hill Open Space Preserve. "It was pretty idyllic," he says.

From the age of 12, he and his brother helped their father with the addition and other construction projects. "That's how we learned to be builders," he says. "It's a nice set of skills to have."

Mr. Strain graduated from Common College, a tiny school that was located in Woodside, and says he spent time at both Foothill and Canada community colleges.

As he worked as a builder in the 1970s, his interest in making sustainable buildings grew, unlike his aesthetic skills. "I was making buildings that were energy efficient, but looked terrible," he says. "I felt I had to do something a little worthwhile with my life or I'd go crazy." In 1980, he says he enrolled in the graduate architecture program at UC Berkeley.

Green construction

Sustainable buildings are not yet the norm, but the mainstream community of developers has begun to take the concept seriously, Mr. Strain says, noting that sustainable concepts are on display regularly in trade magazine ads. "That was unheard of 10 years ago," he says. "I think there's a lot of support out there for changing the way we build."

Some statistics: Buildings consume 40 percent of the world's raw materials every year and use 25 percent of all harvested wood, Mr. Strain says. Construction of a 2,000-square-foot home generates 13 tons of waste material, of which about 11 tons are recyclable. One square foot of drywall generates 5 to 10 pounds of solid waste material, he says.

Ordinary concrete generates huge amounts of carbon dioxide as it is manufactured, Mr. Strain says, noting that concrete's CO2 output is substantially lowered if it uses "fly ash" made from the residue of coal-fired power plants.

Marketing studies have shown that homeowners are willing to pay more for energy efficient homes, Mr. Strain says, while industries are focusing on improvements in the bottom line.

Lumber that has been harvested in a sustainable manner, for example, is much more available, Mr. Strain says. In a random check by the Almanac of Peninsula lumber outlets, most replied that they did not sell it. Minton's Lumber & Supply in Mountain View and San Mateo Lumber Co. said they could order it.

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