The 70s: It started with two drafting desks
VLMK News • May 11, 2021
Founded in 1971 in Portland, Oregon by Fred Van Domelen and Dirk Looijenga, Van Domelen / Looijenga Consulting Engineers shared a two-room office space with an interior designer before moving into an old house in a hippy neighborhood near the Ross Island Market where they were arguably the most serious-minded residents of the community.
An Oregon native, Fred had worked at four different offices before landing at the architecture firm where he met Dirk Looijenga, an engineer who immigrated to Portland from the Netherlands. “I had a great job before I started my own firm. I was working at an architect’s office as one of the key structural engineers and it just seemed to me, I could do more fun types of engineering out on my own,” said Fred. He was actively involved in the local structural engineering community and was at the forefront of developing tilt-up building design when it was first being pioneered as load-bearing structural elements.
Dirk believed that the simplest solutions were often the best ones, saving both the owner and contractor money. Dirk’s commonsense approach and easy-going manner were well-loved by those he worked with. The primary emphasis of the firm at that time was providing quality consulting structural engineering services. But Fred’s involvement in the tilt-up industry led the firm into working on Design-Build projects and later into designing industrial buildings as the prime design consultant with the help of an architectural sub-consultant, instead of the other way around as is more traditional in the A/E industry.
Fred always attributed his success in the industrial business to his steadfast promise to prospective clients that from the day you signed your contract with him, Van Domelen / Looijenga Consulting Engineers would deliver the keys to your building within nine months. He habitually asked the general contractors he worked with: what could we do differently to design our buildings to be more constructible?
“We work closely with the contractors because they are going to teach us how to put buildings together, how to do it more efficiently, and design it in a more constructible manner,” said Fred.
By the mid-1970s, Van Domelen / Looijenga Consulting Engineers grew to an office of eight people and at this time, the firm was the third largest structural engineering provider in the City of Portland.
“We thought ‘wow’ this is too good to be true! It was a slow and steady progression and we kept getting more work without ever really working at getting projects,” said Fred. “We just did what we do best and the work just kept coming in.”
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Stay tuned for next month when we expand upon the origin story of the “VLMK” in VLMK Engineering + Design.
