Gateway Pavilion

In the summer of 2015 the Center for Public Interest Design (CPID) led a design-build project in the Gateway community in Portland, Oregon. In preparation for a community event on the site of the future Gateway Park, a team of CPID designers and volunteers erected a giant, white, origami structure. The pavilion was an abstracted sculptural representation of a shell, which constitutes the final stage of a caterpillar’s evolution into a butterfly. This imagery foreshadows the theme that artist Horatio Law has planned for the park’s public art component. It also elicits the representation of the metamorphosis of the Gateway Park from a vacant lot into a park.

CPID is part of the team working on the new Gateway Park project led by PLACE Studio. With a shortened community engagement period due to an inherited timeline, the Center looked for other opportunities to engage the community that will be using the park. Traditionally, after the initial feedback period during schematic design, the community will likely not see the designers again until the project is complete. The CPID posed the question: What role can designers play during the period between schematic design and a project’s completion to contribute to a project’s success? Gateway is one of Portland’s most underserved neighborhoods, so the investment of the park has the potential to be a much-needed catalyst for change in the area. The success or failure of a public amenity like a park can depend upon the sense of ownership and investment a community feels in a project. This is where community engagement can play a crucial role.

The pavilion was created using large sheets of folded cardboard supported through the integration of triangular frames. In addition to the experience of occupying the pavilion, folding origami butterflies engaged community members in a tactile exchange. Trading personally constructed butterflies ordained with drawings and expressions of intended park use for premade butterflies containing plant seeds, participants engaged in a playful activity while motivating a platform for discussion and offering a survey of preferred park activities. The butterflies (with hopes for the park written on the wings) were pinned to the pavilion shell to be shared with the community. This is the first of a series of projects the CPID is undertaking between now and the park’s completion.