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A Portland-based firm’s idea to provide transitional housing and services for the homeless under Interstate 405 earned first place in a design competition hosted by the American Institute of Architects‘ Portland chapter.

The concept by an Opsis Architecture team of Joe Baldwin, Jennie Cambier, Heather DeGrella and Bryan Hollar, Jim Kalvelage, Chet Morgan and Nate Wood took the top honor in the STITCH II competition. For the contest, designs were sought to serve the needs of Portland’s homeless population on an unused space under I-405 between the Pearl and Alphabet districts.

The winning entries were announced on Tuesday during a reception at the AIA Portland‘s Center for Architecture. Vancouver, B.C.-based GBL Architects staffers Andrew Emmerson, Joey Stevens, Roberto Podda, Kelsy Whitten and Jason Smith placed second. Portland-based designer Jon Creighton took third.

The winner received $500, the runner-up received $200 and the third-place entrant received $100.

A jury of architects, construction and development professionals and government officials evaluated the 33 contest submissions, which mostly came from Oregon designers. The contest jury included Dave Otte of Holst Architecture, Don Stastny of StastnyBrun Architects, Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish, Bob Walsh of WALSH Construction Co., Jill Sherman of Gerding Edlen and Portland State University assistant architecture professor Margarette Leite.

The jury was unanimous in its decision to award first place to the Opsis Architecture team, Stastny said. Jury members liked that the design included transitional housing that also felt connected to the two adjoining neighborhoods, he said.

鈥淭heir proposal was very complete and in a lot of ways extremely well thought out,鈥� he said.

The STITCH II competition was similar to one held last year in which designs were sought for potential urban gathering spaces over a portion of I-405. Like last year, the plan is to share with the city of Portland, Metro and TriMet the ideas generated by the competition for activating underutilized urban space, contest organizer Jonathan Dunn said.

Winning designs and honorable mentions will be posted on the AIA Portland website, at .