Julia West House

Julia West will be a new 59,000sf, 12-story, mass timber (Type 4B) apartment building located on a 5,000 square foot site in Portland’s West End. Designated as affordable senior housing, the tower houses more than 50,000 square feet of housing, amenities, and services within its small footprint, providing 90 units (60 studios and 30 one-bedroom) of Permanent Supportive Housing.

The building will feature exposed cross-laminated timber (CLT) ceilings in all units and fully exposed timber frames in prominent public spaces. Participating firms performed Life-Cycle Assessments of multiple structural system options during early schematic design to aid decision-making. After construction, Julia West will be the tallest mass timber building in Portland at the time of its completion.

The goal of the project is to create a building that reflects the heritage of its inhabitants and honors the values that tie its community together. One of the ways this is achieved is by expressing the communal spaces on the façade of the building as large carve-outs in its massing. Much like the historic communities who remained connected through traveling the ancient waterways of the Columbia River, these spaces are connected through a single, basalt-like crack that travels between them and adds a subtle articulation to the façade.

The wood structure benefits the environment with a lower carbon footprint than concrete or steel and also contributes to the warm, natural material palette on the interiors—an important aspect of Trauma-informed design. Wood ceilings and glulam columns are left exposed on the building's interior, contributing to a warm material palette inspired by the local ecology of the Pacific Northwest. This extends into the units where natural light is prioritized to help create a calm and comfortable urban living experience.

The building will house on-site support services provided by the Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest (NARA Northwest) and the Northwest Pilot Project. NARA Northwest is an Indian-owned and operated nonprofit that provides support for the “emotional, physical, spiritual and mental health of our Indian people.” Northwest Pilot Project provides support for low-income seniors, with a focus on housing, transportation, and advocacy as its core programs.

See the Mass Timber in Affordable Multi-Family Housing paper by WoodWorks.