Design Research Office specializes in projects with complex technical, financial, or urban conditions where architecture must reconcile competing constraints to create meaningful places for people.
Our work includes affordable and mixed-income housing, infill residential development, master planning and adaptive reuse, including the first permitted office-to-residential conversion in Portland, the Oregon Casket Building.
DRO has successful experience leading Integrated Project Delivery projects ranging in size from 200 square feet to one million square feet and is familiar with both Trauma-informed and Universal Design practices.
DRO is licensed to practice architecture in Oregon, California, Connecticut, Washington and British Columbia and is a registered Emerging Small Business (ESB) in the State of Oregon.
Team
Principal
Principal
COLLABORATORS
We believe meaningful architecture depends on collaboration.
We regularly partner with a diverse network of collaborators, including engineers, landscape architects, fabricators, artists, contractors, and specialized consultants.
These relationships are not peripheral to our process—they are central to it. Each collaborator brings distinct knowledge that expands the possibilities of a project, challenges assumptions, and sharpens outcomes.
Our Approach
We believe architecture today requires engagement beyond the traditional boundaries of the profession. Our work extends into development, entitlement, finance, construction systems, and long-term operations in order to better align design ambition with real-world delivery.
The name of our firm reflects how we deploy this breath of practice to provide unique solutions to each project
Design is an act of creation. Through design, we find opportunities in constraints and find novel solutions to competing priorities. Design embraces narratives, stories, and subjective experience. Good design celebrates both pragmatic and poetic solutions in a clear, enduring, and timeless way.
Research is an exercise in learning and listening. Research is a systematic process of gathering information, establishing facts, and understanding relationships. Research strives for impartiality, as any preconceived notion of the outcome can compromise the integrity of the conclusions.
The interaction between Design and Research is iterative and continuous throughout our design process.
We search for new facts and opportunities; test our observations against the project’s needs; and pursue collaborative, sensible, and beautiful design solutions.
Our buildings establish strong relationships with the places and communities they serve, and at the same time, speak with a singular identity and voice that reflects the unique story of each project.
