WATTSMAKER was AWB’s response to a competition that asked architects and landscape architects to imagine thoughtful new models of low-rise, multi-unit housing informed by community input and concern for affordability, flexibility, sustainability, and public health.
In 2021, AWB-Oregon submitted an entry to a UNESCO competition to reconstruct and rehabilitate the Al-Nouri Grand Mosque Complex in Mosul, Iraq. Made up of volunteers from Portland, New York, Italy, and Bahrain, the competition team investigated design solutions that respect the historical buildings on site, while also introducing modern and sustainable elements. AWB’s design, one of 123 from around the world, featured an upper-level walkway around a courtyard that contains native plants and a water element for evaporative cooling. The walkway also helps shade the facades of buildings adjacent to the mosque. These buildings house a school and a higher education center.
AWB submitted a proposal to a design competition for a school in Marsassoum, Senegal. The design was driven by the context, the local materials available, and the goal of providing the volunteer builders with construction techniques that can be adapted elsewhere in the area. Bamboo reeds cover the building facade and invite gentle sunlight inside without overheating or exposing the students to harsh UV-light. The main classroom building faces south with a bamboo sunscreen that wraps around the second floor. The second floor extends slightly further out than the first floor which offers shade and rain protection to the entry of the classrooms below. The roof slopes in one direction to help with the water collection system through gutters.
Architects Without Borders-Oregon was one of more than 130 design studios and individuals from 37 countries entering the inaugural cycle of the Dewan Award for Architecture competition in 2018; the competition challenge was to design a primary school in an ecologically sensitive site between two rivers in Southern Iraq. The AWB team produced a design inspired by the floating islands created by the Marsh Arabs. It features rolling hills, a dock with vehicle parking, locally sourced brick and reeds, and arched concrete forms that reference indigenous reed buildings.
AWB-Oregon participated in an exhibit organized by the Center for Public Interest Design at Portland State University and Communitecture, in partnership with the Portland Art Museum and the UO John Yeon Center, in connection with the exhibit, Quest for Beauty: The Architecture, Landscapes, and Collections of John Yeon. The call for entrees noted "Yeon's incredible life and work included investigations into affordable housing in Portland through pioneering uses of plywood, a product with origins in Portland” and called on designers to demonstrate “similar visionary thinking” to address today’s homelessness crisis. AWB’s design capitalizes on the structural capabilites of plywood by using it to form rigid, interlocking panels not requiring traditional framing. Plywood serves as structure, cladding and the interior finish surface. Plywood is also used for the furniture which is assembled from multiple identical adaptable storage crates.
Ten years after a flood destroyed the middle school in the small town of Vernonia, Oregon, local volunteers built a multipurpose shelter on the site. The structure, used for city events and as a public picnic area, was designed by AWB-Oregon with assistance from Lower Columbia Engineering. Materials include old-growth fir planks and timbers salvaged from Vernonia's flood-damaged grade school. The project was funded by a State of Oregon grant.
Located in Northeast Portland's King Neighborhood, this project is focused on redesigning the park adjoining the King Elementary School. AWB is collaborating with local organizations to research site use and history, conduct community design charettes, and create a design proposal. Current conceptual proposals include active space, nature immersion, and community gathering.
AWB-Oregon is developing a master plan for a 4-acre site for the Elman Peace & Human Rights Center in Mogadishu, Somalia. The plan brings together six EPHRC programs currently dispersed throughout this war-damaged city. Through its programs EPHRC provides services such as counseling, housing, and vocational training. AWB is also designing individual buildings at the site including a women's shelter, children's rehabilitation center, and vocational school.
AWB-Oregon is working with JOIN, a Portland non-profit organization, to design a facility where homeless people can store their possessions. During AWB's 2014 educational focus on homelessness issues, storage was identified as a critical need for people who want to engage in daily pursuits such as job interviews, personal hygiene, and securing social services. The project team is currently working on several design ideas addressing a variety of installation circumstances (church/host parking lots, vacant city lots, building interior spaces, etc.). Considerations include cost, availability of materials, ease of maintenance, staffing requirements, and aesthetics.
The 2010 earthquake in Haiti damaged thousands of structures, including a classroom building at the Bon Repos Orphanage, located in a suburb of Port-au-Prince. AWB-Oregon is working with The Good Shepherd Church of Boring, Oregon to repair this three-story building and perform a seismic upgrade. The work involves constructing a set of reinforced concrete shear walls to alleviate structural deficiencies, and moving damaged bearing walls to more structurally advantageous locations. In Spring 2014 an AWB volunteer from KPFF Consulting Engineers traveled to Haiti to work onsite with the Good Shepherd team, and another AWB volunteer trained local workers to lay concrete block. Work on the building's second story will begin in Fall 2014.
The Minzoto School in Dungu, Democratic Republic of Congo, was destroyed in the devastation inflicted on that country by the Lord’s Resistance Army. Today, the Friends of Minzoto School have partnered with Architects Without Borders - Oregon in their effort to rebuild. The project aims to create new and refurbished classrooms, latrines, and hand washing stations for 537 students and their teachers.
Wahkiakum County (population 4,000) in rural Southwest Washington has turned to AWB for help with space and site planning for its Health & Human Services campus. Located in the county seat of Cathlamet, the campus consists of five buildings originally built for the State of Washington Forestry Department. Goals for the reconfigured spaces include grouping staff to support efficient work teams, organizing services for client-friendly delivery, and minimizing construction costs.
In 2005, AWB Oregon assembled a team of volunteers to design and construct a grade school in Bata Atha, Sri Lanka. They were fortunate to arrive in Sri Lanka with adequate funding and connections to high-level government officials who facilitated site selection. The team leveraged local contributions of labor and cement for the reinforced concrete and masonry building. They worked with a well-known Sri Lankan architect and village leaders to develop the design and start the construction process.
In Fall 2012, Architects Without Borders - Oregon sponsored two design teams to participate in the Building Trust International Design Competition.The objective of the competition was to design a prototype home for a family of six in rural Cambodia for less than $2000. The winning design will be built by Habitat for Humanity- Cambodia.
AWB-Oregon's two teams: Team 1, Eric Nielsen, Abraham Rodriguez, Peter Barich,Copeland Downs Team 2, Tom Joyce, Marc Becker, Ivan Ponce and Khang Tran
AWB connected the design teams to Mony Mao and the Cambodian American Community of Oregon (CACO) for consultation on Cambodian cultural norms, geography and local building practices.
The teams submitted their projects in January 2013 along with more than 600 other competitors. Winners of the competition were announced in March. The winning entries may be viewed at http://www.buildingtrustinternational.org
The Red Sweater Project is an Oregon-based non-profit providing non-denominational, affordable secondary education to rural Tanzanians. AWB-Oregon provided a masterplan for Red Sweater’s Mungere School campus which began with 40 students in 2012 and is intended to gradually expand to include 16 classrooms for several hundred students, a dining hall, sports fields, and housing for volunteer teachers. Having a master plan both aides in Red Sweater’s fundraising efforts and provides a framework for phased, coordinated growth.
The Red Sweater Project previously constructed two classrooms, a temporary kitchen, water supply and latrine with the assistance of Engineers Without Borders. The AWB team based the master plan on prototype classroom buildings and our detailed plans for the science labs and the computer training classroom which will also will function as a community meeting room.
During the summer of 2011 AWB Oregon team members met with Sabin Community Association leaders to develop a unified design scheme for Portland's Sabin Triangle pocket park. This effort followed the community's response to an earlier AWB design charrette in May, and new designs were presented to the community on August 2 during a neighborhood gathering at the park. Attended at various times by more than 40 residents, the presentation featured potluck food, music and these images below of the new park proposal.
The general design radiates from each end of the park triangle through arced patterns of permeable paving and bioswale planters. These are shown in both a cleaner, open configuration and then again in a more full-featured set that includes community sculpture and additional planter seating.
