A $250 million, five-block project in a

A $250 million, five-block project in a former industrial district of Portland, Oregon, combines new urban planning, high-density, mixed-use, contextual design, and adaptive reuse. In short, the Brewery Blocks, billed as Portland’s largest private redevelopment, represents everything good about the direction of early 21st Century urban design in the US. The project fits neatly on Portland’s highly walkable, small-block historic grid. The Brewery Blocks, to be developed by Bob Gerding and Mark Edlen, includes more than a million square feet of condominiums, retail, Class A office space, and 1,360 underground parking spaces. The retail includes a Whole Foods supermarket, smaller shops, and microbrewer Gordon Biersch. The on-site brewer is appropriate, given that the adaptive reuse includes the six-story, red-brick, nearly 100-year-old defunct Blitz-Weinhard brewery.