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The 10-Minute Architect Gives a New Look — Fast!

The Portland Society of Architects give great — free — advice in under ten minutes.

    It’s a great name: The 10-Minute Architect. It sounds like a mystery thriller novel. It’s not. It’s an opportunity to get pro bono consulation with some of the top talent in town regarding your design project. Now in it’s third year, this annual event by the Portland Society of Architects pairs up architects with people in the early stages of making a change to their building. The name is misleading because attendees really get an hour. But One-Hour Architect but it does not sound nearly as sexy as the 10-Minute Architect, says the event founder, Phil Kaplan.

    This year’s event was held at O’Naturals, with 30 architects and 30 participants. I brought my project plan and got paired with 2 (!) architects, Liz Newman and Eric Stark. My idea: put a modern, prefab addition on the flat roof of my brick house in a historic district. Uber-Dwell.

    Where I needed help: determining if this was even possible and how to reconfigure the first two floors. My house is “an architect's dream” according to Liz and Eric, because it was built originally for commercial purposes. Moving any walls would be a breeze because of the steel I-beam construction.

    What’s amazing is that I have lived there for 10 years and they helped me dream of ideas that never occurred to me. Like moving my front door to the side of my house or adding a disappearing wall made of glass. Out of my price range, but fascinating nonetheless. It was incredibly motivational and it helped me make decisions about my next steps.

    Most of the participants brought their residential plans though commercial advice was available as well. The goal of the event is to raise awareness about how darn handy architects can be when you are facing a design challenge. They come with creative problem solving skills in the third dimension and a whole new vocabulary.

    You would think that such and event would have a long waiting list as architects charge about $100 to $150 an hour but no. In fact, the organizers would like more people to take advantage of the free advice, to spread the word about what architects do.

    Not only were the architects full of good ideas, the Portland Society of Architects put together cheat sheets of how to work with a contractor, how to select an architect and average costs for construction projects.

    I’m hooked. The ideas are flowing and the walls are coming down.


Portland Society of Architects
www.portlandarchitects.org