Boys & Girls Club | Rockwood

Facilitating youth empowerment.

The new Rockwood Boys & Girls Club brings together youth after school and on the weekends. The Club is representative of Gresham’s dedication to revitalizing outer-east Multnomah County and bringing much needed services to children and families in the area.

The club includes a secure entry with interior bike parking, gym, kids’ café, learning center, dedicated junior and teen centers, youth and family services space, and an art studio. The design balances safe outdoor spaces, visual transparency, and clear sightlines for safety with attractive, “grown-up” design. Protected ground floor spaces promote security; clerestory windows and skylights bring in additional daylight. The gym and classrooms on the ground floor feature fritted glass with supergraphics that allow views out but not in from the outside. A ribbon of yellow painted walls and ceilings leads members though the building and connects the major spaces, signaling to members of all ages that they are a part of a unified community.

The Club’s sustainable features include a courtyard, skylights, and clerestory windows that bring light to the interior spaces, an ultra-efficient building envelope, regionally-sourced building materials, VOC-free interior finishes, right-sized mechanical systems, native landscaping, and preservation of existing old growth trees on the site.

Awards

2018 AIA Portland Design Citation

2018 Gray Magazine Design for Good Award Finalist

2017 Portland Business Journal Most Transformative Projects