2025 AIA Oregon Architecture Awards
On Friday, October 24th, Street Roots and Glisan Landing’s Aldea, Beacon, and IRCO Early Beginnings Preschool received honor awards at the annual AIA Oregon Architecture Awards! These awards celebrate the power of design and the creativity of our architectural community. We are so proud of these two projects and congratulate all our partners who made them possible.
Street Roots
AIA Oregon Honor Award
Moving Forward with Hope
The new headquarters for Street Roots reimagines the historic 1926 Wax Building into a vibrant home for the award-winning nonprofit newspaper, which provides income opportunities for people experiencing houselessness and poverty. Rooted in history and oriented toward the future, the project demonstrates how a pro bono adaptive reuse project on a limited budget can uplift social, environmental, and cultural value through thoughtful design. Located in Portland’s Old Town, at Burnside and 3rd, the building restores visibility for Street Roots, serving as both a civic landmark and a beacon of dignity, equity, and belonging.
Holistic Support for Vendors
The renovation maximized the building’s compact footprint, transforming it into four program areas that align with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. A basement wellness center addresses basic needs with showers, laundry, gender-inclusive restrooms, and a beauty parlor. The first-floor resource hub offers safety and belonging, where vendors collect newspapers, access supplies, and gather as a community. The second-floor newsroom supports self-esteem, while the third-floor “School in the Sky” classroom and rooftop patio provide space for creativity, meditation, and self-actualization.
Human-Centered Design
The project’s greatest strength lies in centering dignity, equity, and inclusion. Vendors access showers, laundry, and gathering spaces designed with their needs in mind, while trauma-informed design eases transitions from public to private space. Wood details, a color palette of greens, blues, and softer tones, and the incorporation of plants throughout bring nature inside while maintaining a safe, equitable, resilient, and healthy space for all who use it. Wide circulation, wheelchair charging stations, and barrier-free access underscore a deep commitment to inclusivity.
This project embodies everything we as architects bring to the table. Being able to create a space for people that functions beautifully, preserves community, and enhances everybody and their existence...it was done so thoughtfully.— AIA Oregon Award Juror
Street Roots Partners
Street Roots (Client); O’Neill Construction (General Contractor); Froelich Engineers (Structural); SOJ (Owner’s Representative); Neil Kelly (Solar), MEP Consulting (Mechanical)
Photography by: KLiK Concepts
Glisan Landing
AIA Oregon Honor Award
Providing Stability, Community, & Opportunity
Glisan Landing is the result of a deeply collaborative partnership to create a unified campus with a continuum of housing options, allowing families and individuals to remain rooted in the same community as their housing needs evolve. The development integrates two distinct yet complementary residential buildings—Aldea, a 96-unit affordable housing building for families, and Beacon, a 41-unit Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) community for individuals transitioning out of houselessness, along with an on-site preschool. By aligning housing, services, and amenities within a single campus, Glisan Landing demonstrates how thoughtful design and strong partnerships can deliver stability, community, and opportunity for some of Portland’s most vulnerable residents.
Aldea
Providing affordable housing for families, Aldea is one of two residential buildings at Glisan Landing designed to foster a healthy, lively community. Aldea draws from a desert-inspired palette with vibrant earth tones. Ample natural light, a thoughtful material palette, and strong indoor-outdoor connections create a warm and calming environment for residents to feel at home. The building also features a range of amenities to foster community, including a community room with a kitchen, a multicultural children’s reading room, a fiber art studio, a teen lounge, a computer lab, and a fitness room.
Beacon
Beacon provides housing and support services under one roof for people transitioning out of houselessness. The building’s forest-inspired palette, featuring seasonal hues layered over natural woods and charcoal accents, along with ample natural light, fosters a trauma-informed, restorative community. Amenities aim to provide residents with access to what they need to thrive. A community room features a kitchen with a food pantry, board games, and flexible, comfortable seating fosters connection among residents. They can also access healthcare via a service-supported telehealth room and receive vocational training at Stone Soup Café, located on the ground floor in the building’s NW corner.
IRCO Early Beginnings Preschool
The IRCO Early Beginnings Preschool provides on-site, culturally specific childcare for Glisan Landing residents and the surrounding community. Designed with the health and safety of children in mind, the preschool’s two classrooms and outdoor play areas provide ample space for children to learn and thrive.
To bring something so intentionally thoughtful and high-level design to communities that typically aren’t included in accessing it is an example that deserves an award and recognition.— AIA Oregon Award Juror
Glisan Landing Partners
Related Northwest, Catholic Charities, and Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (Clients); LMC Construction (Residential General Contractor); Essex General Construction (Preschool General Contractor); GLI Advisors (Owner’s Representative); Interface Engineering (MEP); VALAR Consulting Engineering (Structural); Emerio Design (Civil); Ground Workshop (Landscape); Acoustic Design Studio (Acoustic Engineer); We All Rise (Community Engagement)
Photography by: Christian Columbres
