BORA

Located in the renowned Pearl District, The Cosmopolitan is the tallest residential building in Portland and is the city’s premier address. The development firm Hoyt asked us to design this building on a remarkable site between 2 city parks.Our task was to make the Cosmopolitan stand out from other residential buildings in Portland. To that end, Hoyt wanted a 28 story “point-tower” with a small footprint on a podium base. Parking was to be above grade as soil conditions made underground parking infeasible.Bora’s design team envisioned this project as a singular form rather than the typical tall building comprised of a tower clearly sitting atop a podium. The tower and base are clad entirely in high-performance reflective glazing to create o... More

As the first new building on CCD’s campus since its institution in 1967, the Confluence Building capitalized on the opportunity to establish a new identity for the college both externally and internally. The building is located on the Auraria Higher Education Campus, and houses bright classrooms along with its function as a “one stop” student services center.Sitting on the edge of campus, the building is flanked by a major campus thoroughfare to the north and an historic park preserving small houses to the east. Our design response was a varied massing speaking to the dual-nature site context. We also introduced a new landscape plaza to the south, creating outdoor gathering spaces and connecting with the park. Facing this, a two-story “back... More

This independent college preparatory school for grades 6-12 has a culture that revolves around small class size, personal attention, hands-on learning and community service. To further their academic mission, a new middle school was proposed on a dramatic site in Belmont Canyon. Since this site is not physically adjacent to the main campus, one of our core project goals is to unify the student experience across both locations.Our design team has structured the new middle school as a series of buildings organized along a formal axis, linking outdoor spaces with indoor academic and social functions. The Academic Center is the main structure on campus, housing two floors of classrooms on each side of the Great Hall. Capitalizing on the panoram... More

The new 135,000-square-foot PK-8 Faubion School represents a unique partnership with Portland Public Schools (PPS), Concordia University (CU), Trillium Family Services, Basics, and Kaiser Permanente. For three years, Bora worked with these entities to design a pioneering facility that co-locates CU’s College of Education and the Faubion School, providing both hands on learning for emerging educators and a wealth of mentors and tutors for young students. Additionally, the building includes spaces for essential wrap-around services: a student health and wellness clinic (partially staffed by students from CU’s College of Health and Human Services), reduced-price food market, offices for non-profit social service agencies, and communi... More

GIX is an international partnership between the University of Washington and Tsinghua University, with founding support from Microsoft, that establishes a new model for higher education dedicated to developing leaders in innovation. Bora crafted an academic environment uniquely tailored to the new master’s degree in technology innovation, equipping students to combine design thinking, user experience strategies, and entrepreneurial training for truly global impact.The original program called for two buildings to accommodate academic growth over ten years. Through creative space programming and scheduling analysis, we found efficiencies that allow the first two academic programs to fit into one structure, significantly extending the impact o... More

The original McHenry Library was designed in 1968 by John Carl Warnecke as an object at the campus center and is a lasting campus icon. To accommodate growth, bring the library into the 21st Century, and provide seismic retrofits, the university commissioned Bora to renovate the Modernist library and add over 120,000 square feet of space.Our approach to the new wing respects the integrity of the existing building while continuing the balance between building and context. We extended the lines of the original building into the addition, while reinterpreting their texture, proportion and rhythm. The regular pattern of glass and concrete is echoed in the addition, but now reflects internal program elements.A new interior ‘street’ organizes pro... More

The first phase of Airbnb’s Customer Experience Hub in Portland inhabits space on two floors in the historic Blagen Block building. Working with the Airbnb environments team we redefined a traditional customer service call-center to revolutionize the way people work.Using employee surveys and observation we learned Agents value variety in their work environment and amenities that make them comfortable. We factored that into our design, providing employees with options for active or focused settings, working at a table, lounging or standing, instead of having assigned workstations.Custom elements like standing height “Landing Zones” create a home base for teams, accommodating the need for personal storage and providing an alternate work conf... More

In 2014, OSU established a satellite presence in Bend to address the vacuum of higher education opportunities for Central and Eastern Oregon residents. This long-awaited institution is the state’s first new, four-year public university to be founded in 50 years and directly responds to the rapid social and economic growth sweeping the region. Bora designed the inaugural 45,000 GSF academic building as a Swiss Army knife, accommodating every department and educational use on the Cascades campus.The high desert climate and residents’ rugged determination to innovate, without losing their deep connections to the landscape, laid the foundation for an ambitiously sustainable project – a Net Zero-ready building, whose industrial nature, and inten... More

The Walton Arts Center is the seat of arts and culture in Northwest Arkansas, drawing a broad spectrum of touring artists and performances, and hosting four resident companies. Originally built in 1992, the regional venue has seen significant attendance growth over the past two decades, and found itself straining against a lack of space and heavy, closed-off aesthetic. We were tasked with revitalizing and expanding the facility to create a welcoming, inviting environment – knitting it into the community fabric and showcasing the vibrancy within.Our first challenge was the building’s orientation. Slightly elevated, and set at a 45 degree angle to the city grid, it felt disengaged from downtown Fayetteville’s street life. Dark tinted glass an... More