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Several weeks of work culminated Friday with a series of resounding successes for the hundreds of people involved in the Pod Build Challenge for Kenton Women’s Village in North Portland.

Twenty-one teams from the metro area have spent that time building new sleeping pods for homeless women living at the transitional housing complex. After countless hours of work to craft and install at least 14 of the new pods at a new location at North Columbia Boulevard and Argyle Way, teams engaged in a celebration.

鈥淭oday when I came here and I saw all these people showing up it just blew my mind,鈥� said Maddy Stolowitz, director of corporate philanthropy for Andersen Construction. 鈥淎ll the builders have put so much thought and care into it, and you can just tell they were really thinking about these women. I feel like I’m hopeful that these women feel loved and cared for while transitioning out of homelessness.鈥�

Each team built its pod using one of three designs provided by SRG Partnership, Scott | Edwards Architecture and Portland State University’s Center for Public Interest Design. Teams were given freedom to express their creativity within the bounds of the floor plans.

鈥淭he guys love doing stuff like this, and for us it’s a change of pace because we’re concrete workers,鈥� said Russ LaVaque, Andersen Construction’s general superintendent. 鈥淪o, we all got to work with wood and that was great. It’s all recycled wood that came off of jobs, glu-lams that are 80 years old. The 4-by-4s underneath are all re-shores that are 40 years old. So it’s pretty nice.鈥�

Future residents of Kenton Women’s Village participated in the judging portion of the Pod Build Challenge. Andersen Construction’s pod, made largely from reclaimed timber from past projects, received the 鈥淏est in Show鈥� award.

鈥淭here are so many wonderful things that have been done,鈥� said head judge Deborah Kamprath, a project manager with Catholic Charities. 鈥淭here was a lot of love going into decorating and extra pieces and cool water saving things like the one with the gutter going into the water reclamation.鈥�

Kenton Women’s Village originally was located on a different property nearby. However, it was always intended to be temporary; that property now is being developed by nonprofit REACH Community Development Corporation. Ground was broken there in January on a three-building, 189-unit affordable housing project designed by MWA Architects and scheduled for completion in spring 2020.

鈥淲e came together as a community to play one small piece in helping (the women) transition into, hopefully, affordable housing and a better situation,鈥� Stolowitz said. 鈥淎nd (for) our team, it’s just been the most fun. We’ve had our superintendents and carpenters come together with our project engineers and our leadership team, and everyone played a role. And it wasn’t always people who have gotten to work together before, so it’s just been really a labor of love.鈥�

Pod Build Challenge awards

Best in Show: Andersen Construction

Most Creative Interior Customization: Elite Development

Most Creative Exterior Customization: D.R. Horton

Best Interior Craftsmanship: LMC Construction

Best Exterior Craftsmanship: D.R. Horton

Most Creative Material Use/Reuse 鈥� Interior: ReBuilding Center

Most Creative Material Use/Reuse 鈥� Exterior: Professional Women in Building