School of Architecture and Allied Arts in Portland
The School of Architecture and Allied Arts at the University of Oregon in Portland connects in multiple ways with the city and the metropolitan area through teaching, research, creative work, and service activities in one of the nation's most vibrant and dynamic cities. Portland is an extraordinary urban laboratory for the University of Oregon and the school's engaged and active students.
Professional education in the arts, planning, and design requires access to national and international examples in urban design, regional planning, sustainability, community development, arts and culture, and historic preservation. The school partners with citizens, neighborhood organizations, and city officials to:
- Explore urban design initiatives
- Design housing, arts, and commercial centers
- Plan for new transportation systems and develop inventive, sustainable products
- Innovate and create in art, digital media, and animation
- Present and sponsor community designs, lectures, and symposia
- Research energy efficiency in buildings
- Establish professional internship experiences for students
Our first dean, Ellis F. Lawrence, founded the school in 1914, and traveled by train each week between Eugene and his office in Portland. The school continues to link Oregon's urban centers and its rural communities. The new facility at the White Stag Block in Portland will energize that tradition with 21st-century goals and aspirations.
ACADEMIC PROGRAMS
Architecture
Architecture
With the move to the White Stag Block, the Department of Architecture builds on more than twenty years of connecting students with professionals in the community with coursework in Portland both at graduate and advanced undergraduate levels. Students with a four-year pre-professional degree in architecture can complete all of their degree requirements in Portland. Undergraduates and beginning graduate students can transfer to Portland afterthey have completed the department’s core curriculum in Eugene.
For more information on the Master of Architecture degree (Option II & III) as well as the Bachelor of Architecture degree, click here.
Digital Arts
The Department of Art's Digital Arts Program offers a fifth-year bachelor of fine arts degree in Portland in the White Stag Block. The Digital Arts Program provides courses in animation, design, and the use of emerging technologies to create artwork. For more information on the program and how to apply, visit darts.uoregon.edu.
Product Design
A new bachelor of fine arts degree in product design is offered in Portland in the White Stag Block. The degree is designed for students continuing on from a design-related four-year B.A. or B.S. program or earning a second bachelor's degree. For information about the program, including how to apply, visit pd.uoregon.edu.
Energy Studies in Buildings Lab
The Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory's (ESBL) research projects are directed at understanding how buildings and related transportation and land use systems determine energy or resource use. The lab's goals are to develop new materials, components, assemblies, and whole buildings, and to assist designers, builders, developers, and communities in improving building and systems performance. Design tools have been developed by the lab to enable professionals to design more efficient communities and buildings. The staff includes architects, engineers, and computer scientists with experience on a broad range of projects. As a UO research center, the lab also can draw on other university faculty members in physics; planning, public policy and management; business; economics; landscape architecture; architecture; and other research groups as necessary to address the unique requirements of each project. The ESBL facilities include a computer simulation laboratory, two artificial skies, a heliodon, and a boundary layer wind tunnel.
John Yeon Center for Architectural Studies
The Watzek House is one of two houses in Portland that comprise the John Yeon Center for Architectural Studies. The George and Margaret Cottrell House, one of Yeon’s last residential projects, is also part of the Yeon Center.
The center is a program designed to foster research and appreciation of architecture, interior design, historic preservation, art, and landscape architecture by students, faculty members, professional architects, and designers. The John Yeon Center for Architectural Studies was founded in 1995 by Richard Louis Brown with the gift of the Watzek House to the University of Oregon. The Cottrell House was donated to the UO in 2000 by Margaret Cottrell.
The Shire: The John Yeon Preserve for Landscape Studies
The Shire is a unique landscape, sensitively designed by John Yeon, which occupies a seventy-five-acre waterfront site in Skamania County, Washington, in the heart of the scenic Columbia River Gorge. It is directly across from Multnomah Falls. The Shire is a carefully designed landscape with a sculpted lawn, a series of meadows, wetlands, vista points, river bays, and walking paths that John Yeon created over three decades. The John Yeon Trust donated the Shire to the University of Oregon in 1995.
The Shire, while being preserved as an example of landscape design, is a center for Pacific Northwest landscape studies. It provides an educational site for the study of landscape preservation, design, ecology, and management that creates opportunities for individuals and study groups to engage in research and discussion of landscape architecture, planning, conservation, and preservation issues associated with the Columbia River Gorge, the Pacific Northwest region, and the nation.
For further information or to schedule a tour, field trip, or visit, please contact the Yeon Graduate Research Fellow or call (541) 346-2072.
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Presentations, gallery exhibitions, public lecture events, student design presentations, and guest speaker talks also will be available at UO Portland for the public and area professionals. Some programs offer continuing learning credits for area professionals
For more information, please contact:
A&AA in Portland Office
70 N.W. Couch St., Floor 4R
Portland, OR 97209
(503) 412-3718