When is a light rail line more than a just a transit project? When an enlightened agency like TriMet hires landscape architects and urban designers to “stitch all the component parts and pieces into a unified whole…and celebrate the distinctive character of each station and neighborhood.”
A recent Daily Journal of Commerce article highlights the role that landscape architects had in designing the MAX Orange Line. In addition to Mayer/Reed and CH2M who were mentioned in the article, several other landscape architects participated in the light rail line design, including GreenWorks who worked closely with Mayer/Reed on the east side.
The digital display used for the countdown clock is vertically oriented in a dramatic waterfall configuration, embedded in an internally-illuminated, translucent conical form, emblematic of Mt. Hood and re-imagined as a veil of watery lightness supported by a javelin shaped wooden mast. Led by Mayer/Reed, the design was a collaboration with Nancy Cheng, associate professor of architecture at the University of Oregon, whose work with digital fabrication processes to generate screens for filtering light inspired the design of the translucent cladding.