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LEVER Architecture

@leverarchitecture

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We create buildings and spaces that elevate human experience. Award-winning, innovative firm based in Portland, Oregon and Los Angeles, California

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This week, Portland State University (@portlandstate) celebrated the grand opening of the new home for the Jordan Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design (@psu_artanddesign). Designed by LEVER, the four-story building is the university’s first mass timber structure, bringing Art Practice, Art History, and Graphic Design together under one roof. Located at the southern terminus of Portland’s South Park Blocks, the new facility connects the university with surrounding cultural institutions and the city.

The building incorporates cross-laminated timber floors and a glulam column-and-beam system, with 50 percent of the wood used for the glulam components sourced from regional Tribal enterprises. The design includes classrooms, studios, production and technology labs, galleries, and flexible gathering spaces. A protected outdoor courtyard provides space for creative work and community engagement, while ground-floor galleries along Broadway connect the school’s academic programs with the surrounding community.

The project integrates sustainable building strategies, including an all-electric mechanical system, a fully planted roof, and off-site timber fabrication. Developed through a design process informed by student participation, the building supports interdisciplinary learning, flexible academic spaces, and connections to the surrounding urban landscape.

For more information about this project, please click the link in bio or visit leverarchitecture.com

Photo credit [image 1]: © Jason O’Rear
Instagram: @jasonorear by @leverarchitecture

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a day ago

The Architecture Foundation of Oregon (@aforegon) recognized Vailey Oehlke, Executive Director of Multnomah County Library from 2009 to 2024, at its 2026 Honored Citizen event. LEVER was honored to join the celebration last week, recognizing her leadership in expanding library access, advancing community-centered design, and guiding the $387 million library bond initiative approved in 2020.

Among the projects developed through the bond program is Albina Library in Portland. LEVER, together with Multnomah County Library (@multnomahcountylibrary) and Noll & Tam Architects (@nollandtam), led a responsive design process guided by community input. The project combines the renovation of the original 1912 Carnegie library with a new addition.

The design incorporates a double-height timber entry, nine new community spaces, and a children’s room within the original library building. An adult reading room on the second level provides views toward Russell Street, while the addition’s brick exterior references the surrounding neighborhood.

For more information about this project, please click the link in bio or visit leverarchitecture.com

Photo credits: © Lara Swimmer / Esto
Instagram: @laraswimmer by @leverarchitecture

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3 days ago

Last week, LEVER hosted a tour of the University of Oregon’s Oregon Acoustic Research Laboratory (@uoregon) as part of Sustainable Building Week 2026 (@sustainablebuildingweek) in Portland, Oregon.

Designed by LEVER, OARL and the associated Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory comprise a mass timber facility developed to test the acoustic performance of floor and ceiling assemblies. The project will establish the West Coast’s first accredited laboratory for floor-ceiling acoustic testing, supporting broader applications of mass timber in residential and commercial construction.

The building incorporates glulam and mass plywood, with folded weathering steel cladding inspired by a spectrogram, a visual representation of sound frequencies over time. The façade’s chevron patterns change in appearance depending on the viewing angle, translating acoustic principles into architectural form.

At ground level, the offices are clad in rough-sawn juniper harvested from Central Oregon, connecting the project’s material sourcing to regional habitat restoration efforts. The use of juniper builds on strategies the firm previously explored at the Oregon Conservation Center.

For more information about this project, please click the link in bio or visit leverarchitecture.com by @leverarchitecture

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4 days ago

LEVER in collaboration with O+A (@o_plus_a) and GGN (@ggnmages) designed the adidas Performance Zone as a mass timber athletic center on the adidas North American campus. The building cantilevers over a new soccer field and connects directly to the central campus plaza, creating a setting for athletic training and community activities. Its structure uses regional Cross-Laminated Timber panels and glulam columns and beams, allowing the facility to be built above an existing parking garage.

The program includes indoor and outdoor training spaces, weight and cardio rooms, a yoga and dance studio, a cycling studio, and locker rooms. A second-floor lounge and juice bar overlook the soccer field and provide areas for gathering. Floor-to-ceiling windows bring natural light into meeting and fitness spaces, framing views of the city and surrounding landscape.

The project emphasizes wellness through access to campus walking and biking paths, a green wall, and indoor plantings. Exposed wood, natural materials, and biophilic design elements support occupant health and well-being. The overall design strengthens connections across the campus while establishing a dedicated environment for fitness and community use.

For more information about this project, please click the link in bio or visit leverarchitecture.com

Photo credit: Garrett Rowland
Instagram: @garowland by @leverarchitecture

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9 days ago

Thank you to Architectural Record (@archrecordmag) for featuring LEVER’s Portland State University (@portlandstate) Jordan Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design (@psu_artanddesign) in its 2026 Colleges & Universities issue. The new mass timber building brings Art Practice, Art History, and Graphic Design together under one roof for the first time, while connecting the school to the South Park Blocks, surrounding campus, and city.

Organized as three distinct frames around a central ground-floor commons, the building combines cross-laminated timber floors with a glulam column-and-beam system and a ribbed forest-green metal facade. More than half of the Douglas fir glulam was sourced by Timberlab from Tribally owned forests, all Sustainable Forestry Initiative certified, and mills across the Pacific Northwest. Traditional mortise-and-tenon joinery was used in the building’s assembly, with CNC fabrication supporting a quicker and more efficient process.

A 25-foot sliding glass door connects the commons to an open-air courtyard, while interconnected galleries extend the school’s public presence along Broadway. Classrooms, studios, labs, faculty offices, and communal areas occupy the upper floors, with large windows providing views of the city and neighboring academic buildings. Exposed wood is paired with blue and pink accents throughout the interiors, including the steel fire stairs and exposed seismic bracing.

For more information about this project, please click the link in bio or visit leverarchitecture.com

Photo credits: © Jason O’Rear
Instagram: @jasonorear by @leverarchitecture

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11 days ago

Designed by LEVER, Thesis Headquarters is a mass timber campus in Portland’s Slabtown neighborhood for digital creative agency Thesis (@thesis.agency). The design centers the campus as a place for community, team building, and collaboration, with connections to both city and nature. Comfortable “mid-door” spaces bring nature indoors, while the ground-level all-hands space connects directly to the street and accommodates internal and community events.

The building uses a custom mass timber structure of cross-laminated timber panels with glulam columns and beams, prefabricated at Timberlab near the site.
Regional mass timber products establish the primary structural and material character of the building. The LEED Gold design reduces energy use through abundant daylight, efficient systems, and on-site solar panels.

For more information about this project, please click the link in bio or visit leverarchitecture.com

Photo credits: © Lara Swimmer / Esto
Instagram: @laraswimmer by @leverarchitecture

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17 days ago

NBCUniversal Campus Project, designed by LEVER in collaboration with Field Operations (@fieldoperations), reconfigures the historic studio lot through a landscape-driven approach that reshapes how creative work occurs across a newly connected campus. The project restores gardens and introduces new green spaces, establishing a central green framed by existing and new buildings. Outdoor environments, including lawns and shaded areas, support a range of uses from informal gatherings to large events.

A planted paseo extends along the site as a continuous “green spine,” linking arrival areas to a central plaza and organizing movement across the campus. The Commons, a circular building with a lenticular façade informed by early zoetropes, provides indoor and outdoor amenities including a commissary, courtyards, screening rooms, and a large events space. One Universal anchors the opposite end of the paseo, integrating indoor and outdoor workspaces through a double-height lobby and an extended terrace overlooking the campus.

For more information about this project, please click the link in bio or visit leverarchitecture.com

Photo credits: Ema Peter Photography
Instagram: @emaphotographi by @leverarchitecture

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23 days ago

Designed by LEVER in collaboration with Multnomah County Library (@multnomahcountylibrary) and Noll & Tam Architects (@nollandtam), Albina Library combines the restoration and seismic upgrade of Portland’s historic 1912 Carnegie library with a 30,000-square-foot addition, expanding the facility to 41,000 square feet. The new brick exterior responds to the surrounding historic district, while its angles and palette reference the Carnegie building’s original terracotta tile roof. The addition includes a double-height timber entry lobby, adult reading room, community room opening to a courtyard, study rooms, and nine new community spaces.

The design uses the sloping site to connect the Carnegie library’s ground floor directly to the addition’s second level, integrating the historic and new structures. The original building now houses the children’s reading room, while the second-floor adult reading room provides natural light and views of historic Russell Street, the green roof, and the main lobby. The project was informed by more than 75 community meetings, including public events, focus groups, interviews, and a youth design cohort.

For more information about this project, please click the link in bio or visit leverarchitecture.com

Photo credits: © Lara Swimmer / Esto
Instagram: @laraswimmer by @leverarchitecture

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25 days ago

LEVER designed a full renovation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ 1970s headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard. The design responds to the Academy’s vision for an open, functional, and flexible workplace aligned with its contemporary mission and community outreach. The project introduces an open stair that links three office floors to a top-floor common space and boardroom, supported by new windows and a skylight that create a balanced, day-lit environment.

The renovation replaces an opaque taçade with transparent glazing, establishing a stronger public interface and providing views into the revitalized Academy Grand Lobby and Event Space. Interiors formerly defined by dark, enclosed rooms were transformed into open workspaces connected to city views. The project also includes a complete refurbishment of the 1,000-seat Samuel Goldwyn Theater, upgrading projection and sound systems to achieve maximum technical accuracy.

For more information about this project, please click the link in bio or visit leverarchitecture.com

Photo credits: © Jeremy Bittermann / JBSA
Instagram: @jeremybittermann by @leverarchitecture

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a month ago

Designed by LEVER, 843 N Spring Street transforms a windowless 1980s retail warehouse and existing parking garage in Los Angeles’s Chinatown into a hybrid mass timber office building. The structure combines CLT, steel, and concrete, using the existing foundations and parking grid to support flexible office layouts while reducing embodied carbon associated with demolition and reconstruction.

Organized around a central public garden, the design integrates landscape and outdoor space throughout the building. Developed with Field Operations, a tiered vertical garden courtyard connects the office wings, while open-air circulation, private balconies, and a shared rooftop deck extend access to the outdoors across multiple levels.

Sustainability strategies include natural ventilation, rooftop solar PV, EV charging stations, bicycle parking, rainwater reuse for landscape irrigation, and façade shading designed to reduce solar heat gain. Exposed timber panels combine Douglas fir and spruce pine, while the hybrid steel and CLT structure cantilevers to form shared outdoor balconies around the building.

For more information about this project, please click the link in bio or visit leverarchitecture.com

Photo credits: © Jeremy Bittermann / JBSA
Instagram: @jeremybittermann by @leverarchitecture

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a month ago

Designed by LEVER, T. Joyce Phillips Apartments is an affordable housing development in Portland’s Concordia neighborhood that redevelops an existing housing community to provide 187 units for residents earning at or below 60% of the median family income. Three- and four-story apartment buildings offer studios through four-bedroom units, along with resident parking, playgrounds, and a community center.

The design preserves the neighborhood’s existing character and amenities while creating pedestrian connections, shared outdoor spaces, and healthy, light-filled environments for residents. The site plan and unit design were informed by a three-month master planning process that addressed accessibility, resident services, property management, and other community priorities.

For more information about this project, please click the link in bio or visit leverarchitecture.com

Photo credit: Justin Cordova
Instagram: @jacordova.photo by @leverarchitecture

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a month ago

Designed by LEVER, Albina Yard is an office building with ground-floor retail in North Portland and was the first building in the United States made from domestically produced cross-laminated timber (CLT). The mass timber structure combines a Douglas fir glulam frame with CLT panels manufactured and prefabricated in Oregon from wood harvested in the Northwest.

The design focused on economy, simplicity, and material expression, with exposed timber integrated throughout the architecture. Off-site prefabrication allowed components to be assembled on site five times faster than a conventional wood decking system, while CLT’s two-way spanning capacity reduced the number of glulam beams required. At street level, the building connects to a private south-facing courtyard, while the upper floors provide views of Mt. Hood and downtown Portland.

For more information about this project, please click the link in bio or visit leverarchitecture.com

Photo credit: © Jeremy Bittermann / JBSA
Instagram: @jeremybittermann by @leverarchitecture

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a month ago