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1875 SW Park

If you hesitate before entering the library, pondering whether you should go get a coffee or actually dig deep into that thesis project, this is the place to relax and wonder about the academic ventures PSU can offer. What better place than a cob bench overlooking the happenings in the South Park Blocks?

Students are directly involved in this design process from day one and will be working in line with established natural building sites on campus.

There is a lot of interest and enthusiasm - 56 students in two City Repair classes involved! Will it be a square bench modeled after Geometry 101, or reflect the meandering, curvaceous thoughts of senior world wonder? Come play outside the classroom and find out!

1016 SE 12th Street a block south of Belmont and 12th → More info here...

Awakenings Wellness center is proposing the beautification of their unfinished retaining wall and the painting of a mural on a 15’ by 40’ prominent wall that has already been prepped with an ocean-sky blue base coat. They are excited to reinforce the growing artistic culture of Buckman and encourage a greater ecological, spiritual and healing awareness with neighborhood partners. Mosaic walls, cob benches, and permaculture design are only a part of what this place can offer. Come for morning yoga and bring your workboots to change into!

median strip 7940 SE Hawthorne Blvd

Every community needs a heart, a pulsing pushing and receiving center of heat and vibrancy. We are building the beginnings of a nucleus for that heart, the heat, the spark that will jump start back to life a heart for this little neighborhood. We are building an oven. Imagine gathered together by their mutual amazement and hunger a group of neighbors who rarely talk to each other, or maybe used to but have since stopped because of some ancient prejudice. That is what we imagine. Come help us finish building this oven. One of the wonders of cob is its capacity as a sculptural element in addition to its structural capacities. This oven is round and has a mouth and the beginnings of a tail. What will it become? You can help give birth to it. Participants in this project will get to learn the basics of earthen oven construction as well as the hands on learning of how to make cob and the chance to sculpt.

SE 12th and Market

The site will create a small-scale permaculture nursery, demonstrate urban appropriate technology and encourage sidewalk reclamation. The site will be an information outpost with the intention of furthering the awareness of ecological design and educating people about ways to heal urban ecosystems.

SE Clinton and 61st

This site will include a cob bench, native and edible plantings, a natural building site example, repair and weatherizing of cob oven, community building workshops (mediation, site guidelines and collaboration) and potential street painting which has already been approved.

SE 9th & Sherrett

Known as the first Intersection Repair, this award winning community destination plans to fix, maintain and represent with continued inspiration. This legendary site will be re-painting the square and repairing the most beautiful fallen angel bench found here on earth, and giving her a roof to to reside under too!

*The angel has beamed in and informed us that her resurrection is postponed until June. Her vacation in New Zealand with her travel buddies (natural builders) is to be over then. Who can argue with a fallen angel?

Foster/Powell Neighborhood Associaton - 7733 SE Raymond Street

*Work delayed until after VBC

This site has been inspired and supported by the Confluence Project (www.confluenceproject.org), which is dedicated to bringing art projects to the schools that invokes the history of the Northwest from the indigenous peoples; and RACC, which focuses on the restoration of the environment and the unique cultural history that makes our home so incredible. The Marysville Pictograph Project is using art as a catalyst to bring the community together to celebrate our past and our diversity to create a foundation for future generations to enjoy. They will be building two sturgeon cob benches, the “Tongue” cob bench, and a mortar and pestle designed kiosk that will reflect the Columbia River art and culture. Over the summer these cob benches and kiosks will be decorated with different colored pigments and mosaic tile and glass bringing them to life.

E Burnside from 90th to 92nd

Mowed when necessary by the Bureau of Maintenance, neighbors across the way are wondering why they can’t better this underused area for the benefit of the community. Following their hunch, they hope to reclaim this space by tackling the chronic standing water issues, building multiple water filtrating bio-swales in collaboration with the Bureau of Environmental Services. By planting native trees and plants that will create bio-diversity, perhaps a forest of re:creation will follow. The area is two blocks long and 30 to 50 feet wide, so no project is too large for any neighborhood to undertake. Come attend a block party the first weekend of VBC to find out about this massive project that could never happen without people working together. Did we mention the bat habitat?

Mississippi District - Street-side facilities and installations in the right of way

*Not happening this year

This phased project will begin with benches and permanent gathering places eventually including a neighborhood barbecue grill in the right-of-way. Other projects to include massive rooftop rainwater catchment tanks and right-of-way garden beds.

025 SW Sherman Street (visible from Front St and the Markum Bridge)

This site will be an art structure/outdoor classroom with a living roof and a water catchment system. It will be aesthetically uplifting for the area and will also serve as a functional outdoor classroom/ meeting place, as well as as an example of sustainable building.

North Borthwick Avenue and North Dekum Street

This community project will include an intersection painting designed to bring the values and culture of long-time and newly rooted residents together at the crossroads in celebration. The community chose the penguin theme for the design after the penguins that once lived down the block at Peninsula Park.

Going Street and Mallory or Going and Garfield

*Not happening this year

This future intersection repair will include a kiosk, places to sit, and potential street painting. This design, including an eclectic sculpture, may implement oral history and will be incorporating the collaborative input of the neighborhood. This year a block party is in the works to get the community together to celebrate, hang out, and talk about a design that will work best for everyone.

4401 SE Evergreen Street

This community school project will focus on coupling a structure with a garden that will serve as a nucleus for place-based, outdoor education. The structural component will be an outdoor classroom area designed to serve multiple functions, such as a toolshed for the outdoor garden and a cob oven to teach kids early on how important it is to whip up yummy pizza (college is just around the corner). It will highlight the successful existing relationship between the FEED Project (Food-based Ecological Education Design), pioneered by Portland State University’s Leadership in Ecology, Culture, and Learning Program, and VBC’s fundamental project-based learning component. Look for many permaculture workshops here!

Woodlawn Neighborhood Triangle formed by NE Dekum, NE Durham, NE Madrona

Drawing on the historical role of this site as a town center, this project will promote the re:emergence of a new kind of town/village center. Projects for this VBC and years to come to include street painting, improved bus stops and associated art, block closures for neighborhood events, building art, murals and signage, community music and dance, hospitality and hosting of community discourse, and celebrations of culture and new directions toward more community and less waste. Look for the official flower of Portland gracing the landing pad of the bus station! This area of town is full of history!

NE 17th and NE Halsey

Untold Stories and Unsung Heroes will be the name of this cob bench designed in the neighborhood as a catalyst for a community garden and standing as a public demonstration to honor the past, present and future of the Sullivan’s Gulch neighborhood. Look for the wood block art exhibit by these amazing students at the evening event venue!

SE 72nd and Woodstock Blvd

In it’s second year, this site will continue work on a public gathering space in the public right of way that will ultimately include a 54’ long wall with a protective canopy, permaculture landscaping, and an information kiosk. This project works to connect neighbors to neighbors and people to place, create a safe and inviting public space, and cultivate a positive neighborhood identity. Who would have thought that a grubby, under-used triangle in the middle of careening cars could be a place to gather? They did, and boy are we thankful for their ingenuity.

Arleta Triangle Website

Concordia Neighborhood

This community project will include painting creative crosswalks and building kiosk-type structures along Killingsworth approaching the intersection from both directions to catch driver’s eyes and slow traffic, transforming a dangerous intersection into an attractive expression of community co-creation and safe space. Despite the flood warnings and evacuation routes that must be kept unperturbed, the residents are tired of it all passing by unnoticed. Can’t we just close the street for one day to paint? Many thanks to this community for braving the “higher ups” and doing something anyway. Keep the dream alive and keep the designs a’comen. Strong community prevails.

5800 SE Ash Street

This community will be building a cob bench in the shape of a falcon (or is that a gull?) on the school lawn adjacent to the main entrance facing Ash St. The bench will be built into the existing slope, providing informal seating for students while beautifying the grounds. Even though kids sit all day and recess is being taken away, they still want a place to play. Hooray!

6814 N St Louis → More info here...

This community will be applying doors, windows, stove, plaster and finishing to the nearly completed 20-seat cob sauna. Three adjacent lots will be developed as green commons including an edible/medicinal garden annex. A swale, pond and and rainwater catchment will address the flow of water through the site location. The view of St. John’s bridge is breathtaking. Take a walk down to the water and to the local town center for a village in the making. Our former star volunteer coordinator (rosie cheeked and pregant) is the one of the warm site hosts, so give her some love and affection for all her hard work! We promise you will adore her, and her flock of ducks and chickens.

2111 SE Madison Street Visit the Lighthouse web site!

This cob structure and community gathering space will consist of small sitting benches, a kiosk for the Lighthouse calendar and newsletter as well as community notices. The structure will rise up in a spire above the garden and front sidewalk forming a cob and recycled bottle glass “lighthouse” complete with solar powered led-lights that will shine at night.

SE 33rd and Burnside

The Faerie Teahouse at Full Circle Temple (http://www.fullcircletemple.org)is a part of the original Moonday T-Hows (http://www.cityrepair.org/t-hows.html). Originally called the Women’s Fort or the Soul, it was gifted to the Temple by City Repair in 1998. With help from Mark mOcean Lakeman, the original builder, and the loving hands of village builders, the community plans to replace the walls, roof, and portions of the foundation in a way that respects the original design. Enhancements include a living roof, an attached bench, and stained glass mosaics on the window/walls.

9th and Louisa - New Orleans, LA - 9th Ward

Ben Dantoni is a seasoned City Repair veteran leading the first VBC site outside of Portland. They will bring 10 mobile kiosks to help foster hope and provide information for returning residents. A light clay straw house will be built as a demonstration of natural solutions and Ben will be coming back with a crew of from N’Awlins to join us in time for the VBC in May!

SE 9th & Sherrett (Share-It-Square vicinity)

Adjacent to the home of the very first site (the Solar Sanctuary) that led to the Natural Building Convergence (now known as the Village Building Convergence), this will be a great opportunity to further develop the original site within the setting of a strong local culture of participatory action. The workshop will entail finishing up cob benches and applying plaster to exterior walls.

11640 SW Boones Ferry Rd.

Blazing into their third consecutive VBC with a beautifully constructed cob sauna behind them, the Farm is continuing on with a vision to provide support for an expanding infrastructure. With the intention to build capacity in a collaborative fashion, the Farmies are now braving the maze of institutional bureaucracy to put in a fully functioning, composting toilet.

30th & Hawthorne → More details here...

Continuing in line with their commitment to ecological design, as seen by the large living roof on a portion of the roof’s main house, a community bulletin board and bench with an eco-roof will emerge on the SW corner of the property. An adjacent property may provide water-catchment to connect more principles of a whole-system design. The Portland Hostel, with help from students Portland States Architectural Project Management Program, will be installing a cob bench on the corner of 31st and Hawthorne. The cob bench will be featuring a green roof to compliment the green roof on the main structure of the hostel.

SE 33rd & Yamhill

Considered to be one of the pioneers in Intersection Repair, the residents of Sunnyside Piazza are coming out to work and play again this May by re-painting the sunflower on the street and creating a new stain-glassed mosaic welcome sign. Just when you thought this was one of the most welcoming places in Portland – they keep coming together with an expanded vision!

Downtown, Oldtown More info here...

City Repair has been invited to collaborate on a project to create public toilets in this community. Involved business owners, activists, and social organizations have formed, calling themselves the P.H.L.U.S.H. Committee. They have a particular interest in the artist inspired public toilets found in New Zealand and London.

We had aspired to begin building the facility this year, but have details to work out on many levels. There are very promising conversations continuing with City officials, Portland Business Alliance, Portland Department of Transportaion, OTCT Neighborhood Association, and involved community members. There are plans to reuse materials coming out of the busmall revitalization, to build the upper structure.

There are currently plans forming to create a demonstration project together during the week of VBC events, taking our ideas to the streets. Community members are invited to get involved in many areas, in a volunteer capacity.

Not only are we venturing in to North Portland with strength in numbers and into New Orleans with distance and vision, some dedicated folks in Roseburg are now coming into the VBC cycle to offer the front lawn of their business as a community gathering place. A potential kiosk, bench, garden and even an intersection painting could get this city their first taste in the “how to” of an intersection repair. We can’t wait to help assist this project in getting together to celebrate and renew. This year we are really proving that people can set the pace and pave the way for projects to flourish outside the Portland Metro area.

Se 19th & Washington

NE 13th & Webster, Roselawn & Sumner

Common ownership means that we are all response:able- answer the call!

All Aboard! Steward:Ship Earth