Boora Architects

Boora Architects started optimistically but humbly in a trailer in suburban Gresham, Oregon.  Today, from an award-winning design studio on the top floor of a historic building in downtown Portland, we take part in our forward-looking city’s vibrant culture and experiment with possibility.  For our progressive and idea-rich creative problem solving, Boora works throughout the United States where our critically-recognized expertise in problem-solving, innovation, and sustainability can heal the earth, improve the human condition, and provide humanity with sublime experiences of uncommon beauty.

Early days

Boora occupied its first proper office on the second floor of a corner building in downtown Gresham, Oregon, pictured in Mike Hill’s painting titled “Gresham Remembered,” which remains on display today in the Boora-designed Gresham city hall.  Called Broome, Selig, Oringdulph at the time, the firm focused on the design of schools and small commercial buildings.

"The old house"

By 1969, the firm had added partners, becoming Broome, Oringdulph, O’Toole, Rudolf, and Associates.  The expanded firm moved to an historic mansion in an established neighborhood adjacent to downtown Portland.  Built in 1908 and designated an historic landmark, the Abbott Mills Residence housed the firm for 21 years.  In “the old house,” as staff called it, the firm grew and expanded.  Many staff remained with the firm throughout this long period – some are still members of the firm today – allowing a family-like culture to develop.

The move downtown

From 1969 through 1990, Boora's staff size increased, and it became apparent that the Abbott Mills Residence was too small to hold the organization.  In 1990 the firm moved to the top two floors of the historic Morgan Building in the heart of downtown Portland.  With the change of location, the firm began to experience the rapid pace of change that took place in the 1990s.  These changes profoundly re-shaped how the business of architecture was conducted and how staff interacted with each other, with clients, and with consultant team members.  Our adaptations to these changes stimulated a new organizational attitude of continual learning and adaptation, which remains one of the firm’s core strengths today.

A thriving culture of ideas

In our new space downtown, we began to formalize what had to-date been informal partnerships with idea-focused organizations.  In 1995, we offered Portland Arts and Lectures (PAL) and the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) free space within our firm.  The organizations have incubated into Portland’s two leading forums for the generation and exchange of new ideas in culture.  This activity earned Boora a Governor’s Arts Award in 1996 for the firm’s contribution to arts organizations in Oregon.  That year Boora also received an innovation award from David Rockefeller’s Business Committee for the Arts for its support of arts organizations.

The Beach House

In 1995, we also served as our own client for the first time, building the Boora Beach House. After one year of service, Boora staff members are allocated a number of beach house days per year for personal use. We also use the beach house for client meetings and office team building activities. The house has become a source of strong shared memories among staff.

Sound Management

In a 1997 article, Architectural Record named Boora the Best Managed Medium Sized Architectural Practice in the United States, recognizing another theme in the firm’s history, a commitment to sound management.  We use a participatory approach to our organizational initiatives that closely parallels our user-centered design approach.  As a result, our culture of constant learning and innovation supports forward-looking management as well as progressive design.  Today we are actively engaged in finding ways to improve our work for our clients through such practices as knowledge management, organizational learning, and sustainable operations.

Increased urgency around sustainability

Boora had demonstrated leadership in environmental design as early as the 1960s.  These considerations increased in our work, as they did in culture more broadly, in the 1990s.  As the dialogue about the impacts of design on natural ecosystems expanded, nationalized, and even internationalized, Boora recruited a large number of new staff members who were eager to participate in, expand, and apply this on-going environmental discourse to design work. These staff began to organize programs that engaged the firm with others in the local, regional, and national communities of sustainability thought and practice leadership.

LEED Platinum Office

Today, Boora occupies a highly-flexble, LEED Platinum studio in downtown Portland.  Visitors have said the space reminds them of a design school, where pretense takes a back seat to exploration and problem-solving.  Just as we aggressively pursued sustainable design before the arrival of the LEED rating system, today our clients have asked us to explore and apply new and even more ambitious environmental performance benchmarks that include zero-energy buildings, climate neutral buildings, and living buildings as defined by the Living Building Challenge.

Geographic Range

Between 1958 and 1990, Boora had completed a total of 216 design commissions, with only 14 (around 6.5%) located outside the Pacific Northwest states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Idaho.  Between 1990 and 2000, however, the firm completed 256 commissions, taking on much more work as its reputation for sensitive, progressive, sustainable, and user-driven design expanded in an era of growth and change in the American economy.  By the end of the 1990s, Boora derived 23% of its work outside the Pacific Northwest in such locations as Calfornia, Texas, Atlanta, Miami, New York, Boston, and Honolulu. 

A new social, cultural, and economic context

The September 11th attacks and the collapse of the dot-com sector were major inflection points in our firm’s history, as they were in American history. The nineties party was over, and the economy had structurally changed. Those businesses simply waiting for the party to return would lose their relevance if they did not adapt. In 2004, we initiated a series of structured change efforts that were formalized in 2005 with the launch of a participative strategic planning process during which we refined our organizational vision and set ambitious new operational priorities. As a result of this process, we identified a set of pillars that we would strive for each of our projects to fulfill, which we call "2016" for short.

What we believe

As a form of creative problem-solving, design is a powerful process for responding to the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. These include evolving social norms, increasing resource scarcity, and the development of new technologies for communication, transportation and construction. By creating the smartest and highest performing buildings, we help our clients realize environments responsive to this context. Against the avalanche of generic space in the contemporary world, we offer places infused with sublime experience and uncommon beauty.

Our work is guided by a core set of values. We recognize that our responsibility extends to a broad set of

constituents, for we are shaping the setting for community and society. We are stewards of the environment, creating places that fit within the ecology of the natural world and contribute to healing the earth and nurturing its inhabitants. We are passionate about the craft and technology of construction. In the inherent beauty of materials and their assembly, we recognize the qualities that create places of enduring value.

The pillars of our work

We reject the signature of a formal language or predetermined style in favor of an open-ended inquiry into the particulars of any given problem.  We believe a process-based approach to design encourages new insights and nurtures innovation. We also believe

the best work emerges when clients are our partners in this process.  Our clients will be purposefully diverse in mission, but they will all be forward-thinking leaders who share our values of:

Innovation

Broad collaboration

Intense research

Sustainability

Human well-being

Conceptual rigor

Sublime beauty

Sustainable operations

Boora has also taken responsibility to mitigate the environmental impacts of our business operations while continuing to design pioneering green buildings. While we first adopted the principles of The Natural Step in 2000, we recently renewed our Sustainable Operations Plan and began implementing new strategies in 2008.  These have included a carbon neutrality program, a zero waste program, and a sustainable transportation program.

Social Responsibility

Finally, Boora has always had a commitment to social responsibility through volunteerism, community works, and service to such non-profit organizations as:

Architects Without Borders

Architectural Foundation of Oregon

Chamber Music Northwest

Harvard University Graduate School of Design Alumni Association

The One Percent

Oregon Ballet Theater

Oregon College of Art and Craft

Pacific Northwest College of Art

Portland Arts and Lectures

Portland Institute for Contemporary Art

Poverty Bridge

United States Institute for Theater Technology