Both culturally and ecologically, Vanport was an isolated place until it washed out by the flood in 1948 in ways described below. As a design proposal, I would like to highlight this sense of isolation at a personal level.

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Vanport was developed as housing for the people working at Kaiser’s shipyard in Portland since November 1942, soon after World War II has begun. Compared to Portland demographic at that time, the workforce living in Vanport was diverse and varied with White, Black, Asian, and Indigenous people. In other words, Vanport was the place that gathered a minority race population and was isolated from the rest of Portland in terms of the racially diverse residents. African Americans, in particular, experienced racially discriminatory practices. Also, Vanport residents did not have many transit connections to Portland or outside of Vanport except for buses to commute to Kaiser Shipyards, and it made them isolate from connections to Portland.

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During World War II, the current Portland Expo Center, which is found next to the Vanport, was temporarily a livestock exposition facility. With Executive Order 9066, because of their ancestral connection to Japan, American’s adversary in World War II, the complex was transformed into the Portland Assembly Center to house 3,500 Japanese Americans before their relocation to Minidoka internment camps. Each family had to stay in eight-foot plywood walls formed living cubicles measuring about 10' x 15' space. The cubicles had no interior walls to supply separation for privacy. Because the family cubicles had no ceilings, nighttime noises were easily overheard such as people crying, giggling, snorting, and muffled talking. The time when Japanese Americans had to wait at the Portland Assembly Center must have produced a feeling of isolation (Sakamoto, 2015).

 

Highlighting the sense of isolation reveals Vanport's history and aims to let people experience being isolated. Carving the forested area at the golf course and around the wetland creates some open space. This open space will be surrounded by tall trees and let people being themselves. Using the timbers, carved materials from the forested area create platforms. One of the platforms will be placed at Vanport wetland. This platform will be another space to feel isolated because it is enclosed with tall surrounding columns and allows to see partly outside of the platform. Moreover, this platform at wetland intends to provide the feeling of water nearby since water is associated with the flood which is one of the essential facts in Vanport history. Another way to experience isolation or segregation is the rectangular prism installation which has a partition inside dividing into four spaces. Space refers to the size of living cubicles of Japanese Americans waiting at the Portland Assembly Center. One of the installations should be placed in front of the current Portland Expo Center, and it would be isolated from the outer daily life both spatially and auditory. As a program, it enables inside exhibitions such as old pictures or videos about Vanport's history on the walls. The rectangular prism installations can be faded up at night and it would be conspicuous in the dark as well.

These design interventions will invite people to the isolated space. People will explore these spaces, reveal the history of Vanport and get a sense of isolation by experiencing it physically.

 

References

Henry Shig Sakamoto. (2015, July 14) Portland (detention facility) | Densho Encyclopedia. Accessed November 18, 2020,

file:///Users/sayaka/Zotero/storage/DYBFS8H4/Portland_(detention_facil