Portland-based InkBuilt Design is an architecture firm rooted in sustainability and resilience. Specializing in residential, commercial, and community projects, the firm integrates Passive House principles and prefabrication to enhance energy efficiency and long-term durability.

InkBuilt’s portfolio includes projects like the Beaverton Shelter, which provides 24-hour, year-round emergency housing, and the Timber Ridge development, offering intergenerational affordable housing. The firm also played a key role in the renovation of Heartwood Commons, supportive housing that prioritizes community and sustainability.

Driven by the belief that architecture should serve both people and the environment, InkBuilt’s designs emphasize adaptability, affordability, and high performance. The firm’s deep expertise in sustainable building practices helps clients reduce energy consumption while creating spaces that remain functional and livable for generations.

InkBuilt collaborates with nonprofits and community groups to advocate for equitable housing and responsible development. Their work on the Josephine, a mixed-use residential building in a historic district, exemplifies their approach to balancing innovation with practicality.

As a woman-owned firm, InkBuilt emphasizes design-build collaboration, focusing on efficiency, affordability, and performance. Through projects like these, InkBuilt Design continues to explore new ways architecture can address housing challenges while promoting sustainability and community well-being.

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Beaverton’s first permanent emergency shelter is in the works.

The year-round shelter will provide a safe place for people experiencing homelessness to stay and access assistance with housing. Construction crews broke ground on the shelter earlier this month.

The shelter will include space for 60 guests, three meals per day, showers, laundry, clinic space and supportive services available 24 hours a day, every day of the week. Housing navigation and supportive services will also be provided, as well as a dedicated clinic space. The site will add capacity to Washington County‘s growing shelter program, which currently offers more than 400 beds in the county, according to a press release.

The 12,000-square-foot building, at 11380 SW Beaverton Hillsdale Highway, is in a business area, centrally located near transit and within walking distance to grocery stores and social service agencies. The city owns the building that is being renovated for the shelter, City of Beaverton spokesperson Dianna Ballash stated in an email.

Open Door HousingWorks was selected to operate the shelter through a contract with Washington County. Ink: Built Design designed the project for the city. The project team also includes KPFF for civil engineering, Studio Wild Landscape Architecture for landscape design, PCS Structural Solutions for structural engineering and P&C Construction as the general contractor.

“The shelter will be built with an emphasis on trauma-informed and sustainable design, including natural materials, calming light controls, inclusive furniture and abundant natural light,” Ballash stated.

Trauma-informed design principles implemented through the design include clear wayfinding, a folding area with seating outside of laundry space with windows for visual access of the laundry area, flexible spaces, covered and uncovered private outdoor areas, individual beds (not bunk beds), a calming color palette, amenities and provisions for pets, and more.

The project is on track to achieve Energy Trust of Oregon’s Path to Net Zero. Sustainable features include the reuse of the existing building and concrete flooring, a solar array that will supply 22 percent of the shelter’s energy, EV charging station, no fossil fuels (except emergency generator), all electric appliances, low flow plumbing fixtures, all LED lighting fixtures, additional daylighting with an added skylight and solar tubes, and more.

Amenities include a kitchen, showers, an enclosed landscape backyard with covered structure, individual sleeping pods, a coordinated care space for mental and physical health, and flexible spaces for group or individual support.

The shelter is made possible through availability of new funding sources for shelter acquisition and operations through $5 million from the voter-approved Supportive Housing Services measure. The city of Beaverton is also expecting to receive approximately $9 million in state and federal funding, including American Rescue Plan Act funds.

The total project cost is $11.9 million, including the purchase of the building.

Intake will be by enrollment through Community Connect, the Washington County coordinated entry system. Case managers will be able to help their clients enroll and there will be a central phone number for unhoused community members to call.

The shelter will be an adult shelter for guests 18 and older. Families with children will be referred to other partner agencies in Beaverton/Washington County, according to the project’s website.

The new shelter is expected to open in late summer 2024.

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A proposal for an eight-story mixed-use building in Portland’s Central Eastside drew skeptical responses from members of the Historic Landmarks Commission this week.

An 85-foot-tall structure would rise at 1006 S.E. Grand Ave., and incorporate the U.S. Laundry Building – a contributing historic resource constructed in 1907. The project, valued at $9.8 million, is being pitched by ARCOA Partners, a limited liability company. Ink:Built Design of Portland is providing design services.

The project team received design advice from the Historic Landmarks Commission on Monday. Commissioners raised a number of issues with the scale, boldness and materiality of the proposal.

“I’m not against something more modern – and we have voted for more modern expressions – but not this large,” Commissioner Matthew Roman said. “It seems like it’s well out of scale with the adjoining context.”

Difficulties have arisen for heavily residential proposals in historic districts, where a need for more housing often clashes with stakeholders’ desire to maintain existing character. The Central Eastside is increasingly being targeted by developers looking to build relatively close to downtown.

Commissioners referred to precedents, including Grand + Belmont – a 131-unit apartment building nearby.

“We supported Grand + Belmont at about this height, and that was a bridgehead project, and I came around to voting for that because the applicant really sought a more compatible building,” Roman said.

Commissioner Maya Foty also said the building, as proposed, would clash with the context of the neighborhood.

“I feel like this is trying to be a statement building when it needs to be more of a background building,” she said.

The proposed height would be within the 100-foot limit for the property, but not necessarily suitable, according to Foty.

“The height, to me, it’s very large,” she said. “It’s very tall in this location.”

The building would offer studios and apartments with one or two bedrooms on upper floors. (The number of units was not included in project materials). The ground floor would have retail space, amenity spaces for residents, and mechanized, stacked parking.

Neighbors requested the building include as much parking as possible, Ink:Built Design principal architect Nate Ember said.

“The neighborhood really needs it,” he said, “especially if we have the Green Loop – we won’t have as much on-street parking.”

The building would adjoin the planned Green Loop on Southeast Sixth Avenue. That may pose an obstacle for alignment of the parking entrance; proposed access would be from Sixth Avenue. The Portland Bureau of Transportation is discouraging construction of new curb cuts along the Green Loop, said Teresa Montalvo, the bureau’s land-use review development supervisor.

“Because of the Green Loop, because we don’t have the standards yet – but we know fragmenting it all along the loop with driveways and creating conflicts is not going to give us what we have envisioned for this great park-like facility through the city,” she said. “So we’re starting to say if you’re on that frontage, and if you have another frontage you can go on, then we’re not going to permit off the top that driveway along the Green Loop alignment.”

A return for the project team before the Historic Landmarks Commission for a design review hearing has not been scheduled yet.

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