Portland Building vs KOIN Tower

Comparing the Portland Building and the KOIN Tower is interesting because they both stand in Portland, OR, and were completed within 2 years of each other, but they were designed by different architects.

This offers a unique glimpse at how rival designers approached projects in the same city during the same era.

The KOIN Tower is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 509ft (155m) with 35 floors above ground, while the Portland Building reaches 230ft (70m) with 15 floors above ground.

Of course, each project may have faced different briefs or regulatory constraints, which we don't really know about and could also explain the outcome.

Both the Portland Building and the KOIN Tower were designed in line with the aesthetic conventions of the Postmodernism style.

At the time, this style was at the height of its popularity. So both Michael Graves and Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership followed what was in many ways expected of them, producing designs that fit comfortably within contemporary architectural norms, rather than breaking with convention.

The KOIN Tower follows a mixed-use model, combining commercial and residential. In contrast, the Portland Building has remained primarily governmental.

The KOIN Tower offers 44 residential units.

Both towers provide significant parking capacity, with Portland Building offering 75 spaces and the KOIN Tower offering 300.

Both towers share the same structural solution, a Frame system.

A frame structure uses a grid of columns and beams to carry the building's loads. This frees the walls from structural duties, allowing for flexible floor plans and larger windows.

However, when it comes to the facade, both buildings use different approaches. The Portland Building uses a Curtain Wall facade, while the KOIN Tower uses a Modular facade.

A Curtain Wall facade like the one seen in the Portland Building uses a lightweight glass curtain wall hung from the structure, while a modular facade like the one seen in the KOIN Tower employs prefabricated panels, often mixing solid surfaces with smaller windows.