Two middle housing buildings are being constructed two blocks apart on Division Street in Portland. The projects, E and Hutch, are designed by a small firm made up of two experts in multifamily housing.

The two architects, founder Armin Quilici and partner Keith Fugate, partnered last year on Quilici’s firm, Quilici Architecture, which is now QUAD Architects. Both architects have a combined 50 years of experience in multifamily housing.

QUAD Architects is a small firm that specializes in multi-family development and provides a range of services, from initial feasibility studies to comprehensive architectural and planning services. The firm is mainly focused on projects in the Portland area.

Quilici and Fugate first worked at Bora Architecture & Interiors in the late 1990s and moved on to different firms in the early 2000s.

Quilici started his firm, Quilici Architecture, in 2016 when Portland developer Jim Winkler, of Winkler Development Group, asked for help on a Southwest Portland project, The Gabe. Quilici said he always liked the idea of starting his own firm and liked smaller firms.

“It’s just a little bit more exciting to do all aspects of a project rather than specializing on part of a project,” Quilici said.

The project was put on hold but came back online around 2020 and was twice as big as originally proposed, with 121 residential units. Quilici was looking for some help and Fugate started doing contract work for the firm when construction began.

“We found that we both fill out each other’s weaker spots,” Fugate said. “He’s more the designer; I’m more the project manager.”

The two became official partners and transitioned the firm to QUAD Architects in the fall of last year.

Fugate said multifamily housing is the firm’s “bread and butter.” The firm also works on smaller tenant improvements, some single-family housing and education projects, such as student housing.

“The way things are in Portland, (with the economic downturn), we’re really focused on smaller TIs and things like that, which are kind of backfilling what was multifamily housing over the past 10 years,” Fugate said.

Fugate said the firm is always in contact with developers they have worked with historically and continues to check in with them about work, which lately has been improvement projects. Because of its smaller size, the architects can work directly with clients at each step of a project.

On the boards, the firm has a couple of warehouse tenant improvements, potentially a wine bar project in Dayton and some food cart studies.

Quilici said the firm has seen a demand for middle housing lately. The firm’s middle housing projects, E and Hutch, are currently under construction. The E and Hutch are two separate buildings located two blocks apart, with the same floor plans. The E is at 2515 SE 30th Ave. and the Hutch (also known as 32D) is at 2508 SE 32nd Ave.

These buildings fulfill the need for middle-housing, which is defined as more denser development than duplex housing, but smaller than the more typical four- to five-story double loaded corridor style housing, according to the firm’s website.

The three-story buildings are 12,500 square feet each with 11 residential units, plus 3,000 square feet of ground floor retail space that could be a café or similar use. The buildings include a single staircase. Quilici said the design could be replicated on other lots, with different exteriors.

“The idea of this design is that you can repeat the basic layout in different lots,” Quilici said.

Quilici said it is a simple and efficient smaller-scale apartment building and that the basic layout makes sense for the 5,000-square-foot lots.

The project team includes civil engineer Humber Design Group Inc., structural engineer Aman Structural Engineering and owners/developers and general contractors Don Mutal and Aaron Jones. QUAD Architects led landscape design.

The total project cost is $7.12 million. Construction began in the fall of 2024 and is on track for a Dec. 31 completion.

“We know coming out of this housing and construction recession we’re going to be building more middle housing, small-scale apartments,” Quilici said. “We can help out.”

The post Small Portland firm finding the middle ground for housing projects appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.