Portland is a dynamic urban laboratory for both students and faculty. Rapid urbanization, climate change, technological innovation, socio-economic inequity, and public health pressures demand robust and ecological approaches to design across a range of scales. Working through experiments in material performance and adaptive reuse to the design of social infrastructures, we believe the practice of architecture can advance a dialogue about the future of the city and the systems that shape it.
Programs Offered in Portland
Master of Architecture II (MArch) and Master of Science in Architecture (MS) candidates can initiate and complete required coursework in Portland to earn a degree. Master of Architecture I and Bachelor of Architecture (BArch) candidates initiate coursework in Eugene. Once those candidates complete the necessary prerequisites, they are eligible to continue on to Portland to complete degree requirements. Graduate students also have the option to pursue a specialization in Urban Design.
Collaborative and Creative Community
The School of Architecture & Environment collaborates with agencies and professionals both within and beyond architecture on issues of shared concern. We enable our partners to get out in front of issues and to envision new possibilities for making the city better.
Students have access to the wide array of architectural expertise residing in Portland. Serving alongside our full-time faculty and staff, practicing professionals are integral to our academic community and are actively involved in our classrooms and studios. Top designers from leading firms such as LEVER Architecture, Bora Architecture & Interiors, Waechter Architecture, West of West, DRAWINGS, Daniel Toole Architecture, Scott Edwards Architecture, ZGF, Holst Architecture, Opsis Architecture, GBD Architects, Plus & Greater Than, and Hacker Architects have conducted design studios, mass timber design seminars, and housing design courses across our programs, and regularly participate in reviews of student work, career mentorship programs, workshops, and lecture events.
Portland students and faculty members have worked with governmental and nonprofit organizations ranging from the Oregon Department of Transportation, TriMet, and Portland Parks & Recreation to Home Forward, Sabin SDC, and the Portland Botanical Gardens. Students also work with faculty and students in neighboring programs at UO Portland such as Product Design and the Multimedia Storytelling program in the School of Journalism and Communication. The University of Oregon also maintains close ties with many regional organizations headquartered in Portland such as the Oregon chapter of the American Institute of Architects, Design Portland, Restore Oregon, Portland: Neighbors Welcome, and the Architecture Foundation of Oregon.
Hands-on Research Environment and Urban Laboratory
The City of Portland is a vital creative hub and a national leader in urban sustainability policies. The city's downtown regeneration, urban design innovations, regional growth policies, and land-use-transit planning are considered national models. It is also a city grappling with the pressing challenges of gentrification, displacement, and the housing of its most vulnerable residents. Working on sites in and around the city, students engage with Portland as both a laboratory and a place.
Research is essential to our mission. We believe research skills complement training in design thinking and that students benefit by working on cutting-edge applied research problems on the design of buildings and cities. UO research programs such as the Institute for Health and the Built Environment, the Tallwood Design Institute, and the Sustainable Cities Institute’s Urbanism Next Center are active in Portland and offer many opportunities for guided research on the environmental and physiological performance of building systems, mass timber design, and the impact of technology on urban resiliency and livability. And, in Spring 2027, the new Oregon Acoustics Research Laboratory (OARL) will open at the Port of Portland’s new Mass Timber and Housing Innovation Campus at Terminal 2, dramatically expanding the research opportunities available to students in the city.
The Student Experience
Students and faculty in Portland work on real-world problems while aiming toward producing alternative futures. The UO in Portland hosts lectures, special events, and exhibitions that encourage thoughtful exchanges on architecture and critical issues facing the city and region. UO Portland student groups organize firm visits, building tours, networking and career events, portfolio reviews, and social outings. The UO Portland Office of Student Life and Belonging also supports student experience and wellbeing.
The Portland Campus
In 2022, coinciding with the founding of the Ballmer Institute, the University of Oregon expanded its commitment to Portland with the purchase of a campus in a neighborhood in the Northeast part of the city. As part of the planning process for the move, the university commissioned LEVER Architecture to transform an existing fine arts building into a new home for the Portland Architecture Program.
Since Fall 2024, the architecture program is based Highland Hall. Conceived as a tool for learning, connecting, and experimenting, the building houses studios, seminar rooms, offices, a kitchen, and a gallery. Highland Hall’s prominent location between NE 27th Street and the main campus quad gives the program a visible public presence, while its proximity to the campus center, recreation center, library and coffee shop, innovation building, and student housing serves students with a range of resources and amenities.
Highland Hall boasts a triple-height studio space supported by exposed bow trusses and lit from above with restored clerestory windows and from the perimeter by new timber and glass entry vestibules and a set of operable ground-floor windows that also allow for cross-ventilation. Flexible studio bays are supported by dedicated breakout spaces with digital display screens, and fabric wall panels allow most surfaces to double as pin-up surfaces. Two seminar rooms constructed from reused mass plywood panels flank the building’s main gallery, itself a space for reviews, exhibits, lectures, and informal gatherings.
Additional support spaces for architecture and the College of Design include a woodshop on the ground floor of the adjacent student center, a digital fabrication lab with 3D printers and laser cutters in the Innovation Building, a large-format review space in the Innovation Commons, and several classrooms and lecture spaces across the campus. A virtual reality lab, and video and audio production studios are also on-site.
Through strengthening connections with a diverse community in NE Portland and leveraging the abundant outdoor space at the NE Campus and Highland Hall’s prominent street presence for design activation, programming, and public art opportunities, the Portland Program is expanding its curricular offerings while building upon its foundation as a community-engaged urban architecture program with deep ties to architectural practice.
Portland News
Alumni Spotlight
Architecture Alumna Incorporates Wasted Resources in Design
Sabrina Ortiz Luna (MArch II, ’19) joined the architecture program at the UO in Portland for its focus on sustainability. Ortiz Luna was born in Mexico City, where water scarcity and a sinking cityscape are urgent issues.
“I'm really interested in how architecture can respond to water problems,” she says. For her thesis project, Ortiz Luna designed and created a model of a mixed-use industrial building meant for brewing, plastic recycling, and rock climbing. She plans to return to San Antonio, Texas, where she grew up, and help transform the city through sustainable architecture.
Enrich Your Academic Experience
Visit Us
We attract students from all over the country and the world who want to make an impact on the future of the city. We welcome you to visit the Portland NE campus to view the facilities and meet faculty members and students.
Please contact us to set up your visit.
Portland Events
SAE Lecture Series: Michelle Jaja Chang, "Resident Artist, Visiting Architect" and "On Obscurity"
6:00 p.m.
Nov
3
6:00 p.m.
Michelle JaJa Chang Director, JaJa Co Associate Professor, USC School of Architecture
Tuesday, November 3 6:00pm PT Yeon Salon – “Resident Artist, Visiting Architect” Cottrell House, Portland (RSVPs closed) Zoom Meeting ID: 959 3017 1837
Wednesday, November 4 noon PT “On Obscurity” UO Portland, Highland Hall Gallery, 6410 NE 27th Ave Zoom Meeting ID: 923 2687 6177
In "Resident Artist, Visiting Architect," Chang presents recent work from her practice, JaJa Co. She speculates on a form of peripatetic practice through four projects: one completed at the Headlands Center for the Arts, another at the American Academy in Rome, and two building designs for a new artist residency. This event is the first in a new series of “Yeon Salons” hosted at the historic Cottrell and Watzek houses, designed by John Yeon and maintained by the UO. RSVPs for this event are closed, but a Zoom option is available.
Then, in the lunch talk on November 4 in Highland Hall at UO Portland, Chang discusses obscurity, drawing from her essay “Opacity” in the most recent Log, and from her book, Also Known As (MIT Press, 2024). This event is free and open to the public, and a Zoom option is also available.