Obermeyer and his fellow students, graduates and
undergraduates alike, are intent on reimagining Kesey
Square as an inclusive space. For now, students aren’t
constrained by reality — it’s unclear, for example, if the
buildings next to Kesey could support a second level — but
it allows for greater creativity. The class, led by architecture
professor Ron Lovinger and local architect Joe Moore,
generates ideas and fresh perspectives for the square.
“We believe that Kesey Square is essential to the
structure of downtown Eugene,” Obermeyer says.
Moore says that, in many ways, he and Lovinger left
the assignment open-ended. “We encouraged them to
define the problem for themselves,” he explains. “Their
solutions range from enhancement of the existing space to
development of the full quarter block.”
For some, though, it’s hard to look past Kesey Square’s
rough exterior.
‘I THINK OF KESEY SQUARE AND
ITS LOCATION AS BEING REALLY
CRUCIAL,’ UO ARCHITECTURE
PROFESSOR JAMES TICE SAYS
Negative Space
John Rowell, an architect with Rowell Brokaw
Architects and board member of Downtown Eugene, Inc.,
has looked at Kesey Square out the window of his office
for the past 10 years. In that time, not much has changed,
he says.
“As a square, I don’t see it as a super successful urban
space,” he says. “It’s not obvious to people that it was the
site of a nice building that was torn down for a pedestrian
mall. The square is a remnant of that, and it never got
re-envisioned. It’s paved nicely, but it doesn’t have a lot
going for it — blank walls, odd shape. It’s not a shape you
would design.”
Rowell says he thinks high-quality public space is
important, a place where people of all economic
backgrounds mix, but he questions the value of Kesey
Square as Eugene’s primary public space. “I don’t think
this one will ever cut it without some substantial
rethinking,” he says. “I guess one question is, should we
direct our energies elsewhere in downtown? We need to
really be open to rethinking it, and I think everyone will be
better off when we can get to that.”
Thomas Pettus-Czar, co-owner of The Barn Light, says
he also recognizes the need for open space in downtown
Eugene, but says he feels that Kesey Square is not a
positive space as it currently operates. Located near the
intersection of Willamette and Broadway, The Barn Light
is right across the street from Kesey Square, and Pettus-
Czar says it gives him a front-row perspective.
“I’ve seen everything under the sun take place there,” he
says. “Everything from people defecating, people just littering
and throwing trash, getting in fights, screaming at passersby,
vandalizing — just a lot of stuff. It goes on and on.”
Pettus-Czar says this doesn’t happen every day, but
more frequently in the warmer months, and sometimes
staff at The Barn Light act as first responders to notify
White Bird Clinic’s emergency response team (CAHOOTS)
or the police.
“It can distract our employees from doing what they’re
supposed to do because we’re helping customers deal with
a problematic situation across the street,” he says.
Downtown Living
Sue Sierralupe, clinic manager of Occupy Medical,
says from her time spent in Kesey Square, at least in the
evenings, drunk college students, not the unhoused, are
causing most of the obnoxious behavior and hassling. She
says drug activity can be a problem in the square, adding
that meth dealers pass through Eugene in the fall, heading
to Kesey Square and providing to students and the
unhoused.
“That is an unpleasant part of downtown living, and
I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t exist,” she says.
But, she adds, continual police and security officer
intervention can make life more stressful for people
spending time in Kesey Square.
“The very people that are targeted by the police and by
other citizens — they’re the young kids that are targeted
with the crappy drugs,” she says. “Those are the kids that
are victims of the sex trafficking, victims of the heroin
deals, the violence. They’re seen by downtown business
communities as the problem, but there’s no restitution for
the injustice that’s played on their bodies.”
Sierralupe, along with others in the Occupy Eugene
movement, started a gathering in 2012 called Kesey
Square Revival. The point, Sierralupe says, was to bring
more than food carts and customers to the square. “We
wanted it to be somewhere people could safely gather and
play chess like in other cities,” she says.
Sierralupe and local activists Jean Stacey and Alley
Valkyrie encouraged people to bring tables and chairs into
the square, gathering every Friday during the summer. She
says in many ways, the movement was successful, with
groups of people playing board games in the evenings, but
an aggressive food cart owner made interactions in the
square difficult, and in 2013, the group disbanded.
“Just in general there’s this concept that this is our own,
this is our downtown, and this space is in the heart of
Eugene,” Sierralupe says. “And yet, you can’t be down
there unless you’re physically in a store or purchasing
things.”
Squaring Off
For traveling musicians like Harrison Blackey, a lack of
downtown space to play guitar and violin is a problem. He
says that after spending three days in Eugene, he noticed
the lively street life contrasted with the heavy presence of
security officers moving people in the downtown area.
“I heard the city’s trying to shut down the square,”
Blackey says. “Out of sight, out of mind. It’s a shame,
because one of the most interesting parts of a city is its
street life.”
Blackey says he ended up spending time in Kesey
Square because security officers kept telling him to go
elsewhere. He says when he asked where he could go, the
guides told him to go to Kesey Square.
The square is the only open public space in Eugene that
doesn’t have a curfew. In May of last year, the Eugene
Police Department brought a proposal to the City Council
suggesting that the square close between the hours of 11
pm and 6 am. The Eugene City Council did not act on the
proposal.
People in the square often sit on the ground, leaning up
against buildings because, with the exception of the bench
where the Kesey statue sits, all permanent seating has been
removed.
Nan Laurence, senior planner for the city of Eugene,
says the city has surveyed the locations of benches
downtown and found that “we have seating all over
downtown, but it’s not necessarily in the right spot.”
Eugene City Councilor Betty Taylor says she’d like to
see the seating returned.
“I was really disappointed when they took out the
seating. It’s ridiculous,” Taylor says. “What they want to
do is chase away people that other people don’t want to
see. We need places to sit. There should be real benches
and real seating.”
Taylor says her main concern is that the square remains
open and public. “Don’t destroy the space,” she says. “If
they put a building there, which some people want to do,
it would destroy one of the last open spaces in the city.”
Sense Of Place
UO’s architecture students are figuring out ways to
preserve Kesey Square as an open space. Joe Moore of GMA
Architects says he’s attended stakeholder discussions on
Kesey Square for the past few years, and that’s what prompted
him to collaborate with UO professor Ron Lovinger to create
a studio that generates ideas for the space.
“I think, despite its shortcomings, it’s a really unique
space in Eugene,” Moore says. “The current perception of
the space is perhaps a little too shortsighted. It seems like
the conversation was moving toward the reasons why it isn’t
successful now, and that was a rationale for getting rid of it,
rather than figuring out a way to make it more inclusive.”
Pettus-Czar of The Barn Light, a stakeholder who gave
feedback to the architecture students at their midterm, says
regardless of which avenue of change is decided, it’s
important that the spot be recognized as a landmark.
He says the studio is “exactly what I want to see in
those kinds of conversations taking place, where you’re
involving the community to identify the problems and
propose different solutions.”
At the studio midterm, architecture grad student Colin
Poranski proposed fountains spraying water from the ground
for kids to run through in the summer, and undergraduate
Scott Carey, who says he wanted to tell the story of Kesey
through his redesign, featured lots of greenspace and glass to
make the space brighter and more natural.
“That should be a goal in revitalizing downtown —
giving Eugene a sense of place,” he says.
Bryn Davis, a first year graduate student in landscape
architecture, envisioned Kesey Square surrounded by
ponderosa pines, creating a forest grove in the middle of
town. “I wanted it to have the feel of a sanctuary,” she
says.
Laurence with the city of Eugene, who also gave
feedback to the students, says she thinks of the studio
primarily as an educational opportunity: “I’m not looking
at it as getting solutions that we’re immediately going to
implement. I’m looking at it as, ‘Why wouldn’t we take
this opportunity to take advantage of new ideas that may
come before us?’”
She says she doesn’t speak for the entire city, but she
feels there are “a number of ways to get it right.”
One thing is clear: The Eugene community cares about
the fate of Kesey Square. Creative minds at the UO seem
particularly well suited to revamp the space, if those in
power will listen.
Sometime in June, Moore says, the architecture students
will finish their designs and have their final exam, an event
which — as befits an exercise in fixing a public space — is
open for all to attend.
EW will post the date and location when information
becomes available. ■
eugeneweekly.com • May 7, 2015
13