LEVER Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News

As 2023 comes to an end, the future of our landscape is filled with visionary imaginations as a result of a year of forward-thinking design competitions. From revitalizing historical gems to designing new buildings, these global contests have pushed innovation further in the architecture industry. In fact, with each new competition, the boundaries of our living were challenged, reimagining what the future may accommodate or encourage.

This past year has been a showcase of architectural innovation, with award competitions surpassing the boundaries of traditional industry. Winning designs feature a deep embodiment of cultural heritage, communal aspirations, and environmental stewardship. In fact, the three categories of competitions that established firms participated in were cultural landmarks, mixed-use towers, and master plans. In each category, the winning design reimagines what these concepts stand for in 2023 and beyond, designing not just new buildings but new ways of living.

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Despite the bad reputation of public housing in the United States, organizations, planners, and architects in Portland, Oregon are determined to create affordable housing that does not sacrifice quality or aesthetic appeal. While Portland has developed a bad reputation regarding its homelessness problem, in the past four years resources have flowed in the right direction, and designers have taken this in stride to design livable and striking buildings, within very restrictive budgets. Through innovative and creative approaches to construction and design, these organizations and designers have utilized federal, state, and city resources to make these types of projects a reality.

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LEVER Architecture has been selected to lead the design team for the campus expansion of the Portland Museum of Art. The project aims to not only expand the existing campus but also to create a unified identity for the institution, one that ties together all the architecturally significant buildings on site. The winning proposal is primarily a mass timber structure inspired by Maine’s communities, history, and culture.

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Four teams have been declared the finalists in the competition to design the Portland Museum of Art campus expansion located in Portland, Maine. The finalist teams are led by Adjaye Associates, Lever Architecture, MVRDV and Toshiko Mori Architect + Johnston Marklee + Preston Scott Cohen. The project includes a 60,000 square feet expansion in the form of a six or seven-story structure planned to accommodate an increase in the number of visits and a growing collection of art. The museum is now asking for public feedback on the designs, as the projects are on view at PMA until December 11^th.

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The Portland Museum of Art, along with architects from Dovetail Design Strategists have announced four renowned architecture firms shortlisted for the unification and expansion of Portland Museum of Art’s new campus in the heart of Downtown Portland, Maine. Under the theme of "Art for All", PMA’s mission, vision, and commitment to Sustainability and Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusivity were the basis of the value proposition guiding the museum unification and expansion, with a goal to "reflect a challenge to museums and cultural institutions to do more to create centers of belonging and foster social change".

Selected from 69 submissions from 10 countries, six international firms were shortlisted for the design competition of the future Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation at the University of Arkansas.

Practitioners have finally begun taking a more nuanced approach to the carbon emitted by new buildings. Are they too late?

I’ve started calling them come-to-carbon moments—the inner alarm bells that sound as you begin to register the devastating ecological costs of every man-made surface around you. Every sidewalk you’ve ever walked on, every building you’ve ever walked into, and every material inside those buildings, too. It’s the kind of thing you can’t un-see once you’ve started looking, the kind of knowledge that can transform a worldview, or a practice.

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Oregon has become the first state in the U.S. to allow timber buildings to rise higher than six stories without special consideration. The recent addendum to the state's building code is the result of Oregon’s statewide alternate method (SAM), a program that allows for alternate building techniques to be used after an advisory council has approved the “technical and scientific facts of the proposed alternate method.” The decision stands as a precedent for future construction across the United States.

The United States’ first mass-timber highrise (defined by Emporis Building Standards as a building with an architectural height of 115-328 feet, or between 12 and 40 floors) has been granted planning permission, allowing construction on the landmark project to begin. Located in downtown Portland, Oregon, the building known as Framework will cap out at 12 floors and approximately 128 feet, ushering in a new era of tall building construction in the US.

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