Portland State Magazine, Spring 2021

park blocks GLOBAL IMPACT: SUSTAINABILITY RESEARCH AROUND THE WORLD by Shaun McGillis SPENCER RUTLEDGE TAKE A ‘TOON TOUR’ OF CAMPUS HYGIENE HUB OFFERS HOPE UNDER THE MORRISON BRIDGE A NEW HYGIENE hub has taken aim at issues facing community members without shelter. Two years in the making, Hygiene4All ( h4apdx.org ) is a cluster of structures and a garden located under the Morrison Bridge in Southeast Portland. It provides a place for people to take a hot shower, exchange dirty bedding and clothing for clean, get frst aid, dump trash legally, use the bathrooms and warm up. Designed by Lisa Patterson MArch ’18, the project brought together Portland State faculty, alumni and students. Patterson worked with Todd Ferry of Portland State’s Center for Public Interest Design and team members Molly Esteve MArch ’20 and Marta Petteni on the site’s layout. Design of the structures and storage fell to School of Architecture students, with Patterson’s guidance, as part of a public interest design seminar. Several structures were also provided by the Useful Waste Initiative (spearheaded by Julia Mollner MArch ’15), which WITH BAGPIPES FLAMING , Portland’s most famous unicycling bagpiper, Brian Kidd (a.k.a. the Unipiper), installed the fnal piece of a new self-guided, COVID-safe campus tour this February.Te painted cartoon cutout of the Unipiper stands at the entrance to the Karl Miller Center, joining 23 others scattered across campus. “Every single piece has a fun little backstory based on Oregon, Portland, or specifcally Portland State,” said local artist Mike Bennett. In addition to the Unipiper, walkers can catch Victor E. Viking at Viking Pavilion, the elusive Sasquatch beside Campus Rec, or a happy streetcar outside the University Welcome Center. For details, and to see all of Bennett’s characters, go to admissions.pdx.edu/tour . When the tour concludes in June, the art pieces will be sold at auction, with the proceeds going to support student scholarships. —CHRISTINA WILLIAMS THE FUTURE OF FOREST ECOSYSTEMS CHILE In the mountains of the Patagonian region of South America, Andrés Holz, geography faculty, and Ph.D. student Paola Arroyo-Vargas study how factors including vegetation, climate change, wildfires and human activity impact the resiliency of forests, potentially rendering these ecosystems more prone to devastating burns and ecological collapse. Their research supports land management and post-fire restoration efforts in Chile, Argentina and the U.S. LISA PATTERSON facilitates the reuse of construction mock-ups as shelters rather than sending them to landflls. “It takes a village, and everyone just showed up, despite COVID, despite fres and everything,” Patterson said. “Tere was so much community support.” —KATY SWORDFISK