This Week in the Mercury
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
News A Design Incubator in Downtown Portland... Fingers Crossed
Posted by Marjorie Skinner on Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 11:26 AM
Yesterday evening Katherine Krajnak of the Portland Development Commission sat in my living room and laid out an idea being floated that could potentially be a goldmine for Portland's fashion and design industry: an incubator in the downtown core that would be a hive of affordable work spaces, a centralized retail destination, and a venue for classes, receptions, and other related events. It's currently still in talks, and even an aggressive estimate probably wouldn't put anything into motion until the end of this year, but it takes time, and a lot of thought and consulting to make something like this launch successfully. I think this could be a tremendous boon to Portland's ability to attract and hold on to talented designers. It would show an investment, a commitment, to the design community from city institutions. It's just as important that it launches with the support of the strongest members of our community designers as much as that of the city, though, and the committee, led by member of the PDC as well as the Portland Business Alliance, can only benefit from your input to ensure that the project happens, and that it does so in a way that will effectively benefit designers, shoppers, tourists, and Portland's reputation and growth as a whole. So speak now—I'll be following the developments on this with a lot of interest, so feel free to leave comments and questions here or email me directly to swap perspectives.
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Simon
The Vershke Group
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I sincerely hope the "incubator" concept comes to fruition, and I believe the facility would be a tremendous asset for the city, as well as our various design communities. And therein lies at least one of the problems; our inability to look beyond our established silos. We need to construct a means of working together, as a collective community of designers of all stripes to discuss design in the larger context. It's not about the visual designers, the fashion designers, the architects, or the industrial designers addressing their own problems, then reaching out to local government for support. The city and its affiliated development extensions (PDC, PBA, etc.) want proof that investments such as this can work before they're willing to commit. It's an understandable position, but certainly at the core of why such strong and similar concepts tend to so regularly wither on the vine. One or two subsets of the design community will not provide the voice needed to gather sufficient momentum. Professional organizations (AIA, IDSA, AIGA, PAF, etc.), their bridging organizational parties such as Oregon Creative Industries and Creative Economic Council, and their related business and government partners can only do so much. We need to organize and engage the "non-joiners" in these efforts as well.
I can't count the number of parallel conversations that are currently underway in this town, and as often as it comes down to lack of universal support, it also becomes an unnecessary issue of ownership. Who is doing what and for whom, and why? The firms whose (philosophical and financial) support is required for success (W+K, Nike, Ziba, ZGF, and the like) have a tendency to wrestle these initiatives away from their primary focus. For better or for worse, they are the firms who the city wants to see behind (or at least in support of) these efforts. Again, the reasons for these partnerships are understandable from all perspectives, but at best they create sluggish ballast and most often, they result in unsustainable models.
The disparate discussions need to move beyond the living rooms, the conference tables, and the bar stools to an environment where these myriad (and wholly-related) goals can be combined (or at least made aware of) along with all of the others. It needs to be open and inclusive. And in order to come to fruition, will require that the self-interest of a select few be put to the side for the better of the entire design community. It's a step, to be sure. But one that needs to be taken.
I will be anxious to hear about how this conversation advances and look forward to hearing from others who will work together to knit a cohesive strategy.
Eric Hillerns
Founder, Designspeaks.
Principal, Pinch. A Design Office.
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WOW. So many good points in here.
As part of something (Supportland) that's trying to link the locally-owned community together, I agree - many of these mini movements around town have the potential for strategic collaborations that don't jeopardize their missions. My hope is that Supportland can foster some of those collaborations so the locally-owned and non-profit communities don't always have to lean on the big guys (sidenote of thanks to the big guys for all the community initiatives they've supported).
We need to start building the containers so that all the great momentum in Portland has a place to go and these awesome ideas get realized.
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