Beebe Skidmore Architects

122 NW Third Ave Suite 207
Portland, OR 97209
info@beebeskidmore.com
(503) 222-6580

Projects

About

about

Beebe Skidmore 

is an architecture studio based in Portland, Oregon. Heidi Beebe and Doug Skidmore established this business as a creative partnership in 2007.

We take a methodical and resourceful approach to design. It is our goal to maximize the architectural potential of each commission and exceed the expectations of every client.

Beebe Skidmore provides comprehensive architectural services for both commercial and residential projects. Since establishing the firm, we have completed projects throughout the Pacific Northwest and in Idaho, California and New York. Our solutions have navigated zoning challenges, public design reviews and tricky construction logistics.

We welcome creative collaborations, team efforts, and all projects regardless of type or size. In our experience, complicated or unusual parameters lead to unique and unexpected solutions.

"within the limits, the variety is endless" -Merce Cunningham

Heidi Beebe AIA, LEED
is a registered architect in Oregon and Massachusetts. She has 15 years of experience in design, planning and project management. Heidi received her Master of Architecture from Princeton University.

Prior to establishing Beebe Skidmore, Heidi practiced at Thompson & Rose Architects and Machado and Silvetti Associates in Boston, Massachusetts, and at Paden Prichard Design and Allied Works Architecture in Portland, Oregon. 

From 2002 to 2007, Heidi was project manager for the $60 million expansion of the Seattle Art Museum. Her other responsibilities included a Programming and Pre-Design document for Disney's Feature Animation Facility in Glendale, California, and an urban Master Plan for Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. In addition to institutional projects, Heidi has worked on housing, hospitality and numerous residential projects on Long Island, Martha's Vineyard, Wyoming and Oregon.

Heidi has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Oregon, Portland State University and Boston Architectural College, where she taught design studios and seminars on formal analysis. She has been an invited critic at Tulane, University of California Berkeley, Northeastern and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Her academic work investigates perceptions of surface depth and decoration. 

Heidi also holds a Bachelor of Arts from Williams College in English and East Asian Studies. She is currently a member of the Multnomah County Library Advisory Board and the Pittock Mansion Society Board, administering a historic property belonging to Portland Parks and Recreation. Heidi is originally from Boise, Idaho.

Doug Skidmore AIA, LEED
is a registered architect in Washington State. He has 16 years of experience in architectural design, detailing and materials. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Oregon Clark Honors College.

Before establishing Beebe Skidmore, Doug was a Senior Associate at Allied Works Architecture where he worked from 1996 until 2007. During that period, he served as project architect for several high-performance facilities for visual art, ranging from the Seattle Art Museum's 16-story downtown addition and modern art galleries, to an intimate adaptive re-use gallery for pdx Contemporary Art in Portland, Oregon. 

Doug was also project architect for several noted timber-frame structures at Camp Caldera in central Oregon, and a residence in Sun Valley, Idaho that received a 2004 Honor Award for Craft from the American Institute of Architects for its use of site-cast concrete.

Doug was awarded the Richard A. Campbell Traveling Scholarship from the University of Oregon in 1993. He conducted an eight-month research project on courtyard architecture in India and Pakistan. In 2010, he will begin an advanced course of study at the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, Michigan based on his practical experience to date. Doug is from East Liverpool, Ohio and was raised in Oregon.

Staff Credits 2007-present
Mollie Buhrt
Matt Bunza
Alison Davies
Seth King
Kathryn Shotzbarger

Website Credits
Katie Andresen, Design
Rian Callahan, Website Builder (riancallahan.com)
Ethan Jackson, Architectural Photography

 

Other Projects

Climate Canopy: An Evolving Memorial


San Jose CA
2008
 
Beebe Skidmore collaborated on a technological public artwork with artist Maggie Orth of International Fashion Machines and Josh Smith of Intel. The project is a response to the San Jose Climate Clock Initiative: an international competition aimed at using art and technology to communicate local climate data.
 
Our proposal creates a 200-foot long open-air gathering place in downtown San Jose. Climate change data is depicted overhead on the horizontal surface of this lightweight canopy structure. A robot suspended from a recycled industrial gurney slowly etches circular patterns in the carbon-laminate panels that form the canopy ceiling. Bigger circles represent cleaner air. Smaller circles represent current pollution levels. Over time, as the atmosphere gets cleaner, the structure will be increasingly perforated with daylight.
 
Our team was selected as a finalist and presented the project at an invitation-only colloquium for artists and scientists held at San Jose State University. Other finalists included artists Bill Fontana, Mel Chin, Chico MacMurtrie and Usman Haque. 


NEW PROJECT North End Modern Addition


Boise ID
2011 (construction)

This project will transform the rear half of a two-story prairie foursquare located in a historic conservation district near downtown Boise. The glassy design will include a new kitchen, master suite, bathrooms, exterior spaces and a free-standing studio/garage.


NEW PROJECT Trout Lily Screen Porch


Dundee Hills OR
2010

Beebe Skidmore is designing a practical, economical, and expressive outdoor dining space with 270° views over a working vineyard and south-sloping pasture in Oregon wine country.


Sagacity Media Headquarters


Portland OR
2008
 
Beebe Skidmore teamed with Lorraine Guthrie Architect on this 20,000 s.f. corporate office and event space for SagaCity Media, Inc., publishers of Portland Monthly, Portland Spaces, and Seattle Metropolitan. The space is located on the top two floors of a converted warehouse and is an anchoring component of a LEED Gold, adaptive-reuse, mixed-use development.
 
The loft-like design organizes writers, producers, and business staff around dynamic open work areas--striking a balance between private and collective workspaces. Open areas are subdivided by sculptural pin-up walls to be used for magazine layout. The project also includes an indoor/outdoor event space on the roof level with a commercial kitchen and broadcasting platform.
 
We provided architectural details for glass office enclosures and a dramatic internal staircase, along with facility programming and selections for finish materials and furniture systems.


Ladds Circle Addition


Portland OR
2009

Beebe Skidmore designed this two-story addition to fit neatly behind a 1920 craftsman style cottage located in a Portland conservation district, and cited by the U.S. Department of Interior as a contributing architectural property. The design features a modern backyard-oriented family space with an operable window wall, and a second floor bedroom suite in a cozy pyramidal roof form.


Hybrid Kitchen


Portland OR
2010

This contemporary design combines pre-fabricated, modular cabinetry with site-built shelving, countertop slab, lighting elements and period hardware. The result is a custom fit with a clean, efficient appearance and unobstructed flow of daylight.


Air Force Village Chapel


San Antonio TX
2009
 
This design competition called for an 11,500 s.f. non-denominational chapel at the center of a park-like retirement community located near San Antonio, Texas. The design is intended to serve as a symbol of the community and a focal point of the grounds.
 
Given the site and stated budget, we took an economical approach to the problem: re-purposing portions of the adjacent buildings as much as possible and using a conventional construction system (of lightweight steel framing and boxed beams) to create light monitors that form a volumetric and luminous gathering space. The light monitors are organized in an overlapping and ascending composition that evokes flying in formation.


AstMOCA


Astoria OR
2009

The Astoria Museum of Contemporary Art is a creative initiative to establish an international art destination in the historic maritime town of Astoria, Oregon. Due to its broad wharfs, downtown Astoria has a tiered structure resulting in numerous vacant lots located on the "main drag"--many with steep grade changes and dynamic ramped platforms. The proposal identifies a network of these underutilized urban sites as well as formal strategies for how they might be occupied and organized into a decentralized sequence of outdoor art venues and galleries. 


Celilo Falls Reconstruction


Columbia River
2007

This proposal seeks funding to underwrite research and production of a measured architectural drawing of Celilo Falls - a vanished fishing ground that was inundated by water in 1953 after the construction of The Dalles Dam. During its heyday, it was populated by a seemingly chaotic collection of cantilevered fishing platforms, cable trolleys, and fishing wheel rigs.

We suspect there was some order to the chaos. In the tradition of archeological drawing, we would reconstruct a record of what was – drawing from both scientific imaging and oral history, tying actual geography with educated conjecture about structural extents.


Laurelhurst Kitchen


Portland, OR
2009

Phase one of this budget-conscious project tackled the need for a complete kitchen update and improved circulation through the house. Subtle shifts to existing interior walls, a relocated powder room, a small encroachment into the garage, and a carefully planned cabinet layout created an L-shaped kitchen that is coherent, bright and open. We worked around an existing staircase, structural walls and a useful old laundry chute.

The project also visually connects the front of the house to the back yard by converting a closet into an open passage. Phase two will add a room-like front porch, improving the function of the front yard and adding a stylish note to the facade.

The general contractor was Mooney Construction and Development working with Kevin Roggenkamp cabinetry. Carolyn Woofter Interior Design consulted on material selections, and Laura Baughman administered construction.


Houseboat


Columbia River
2007

This economical design for a modern houseboat accommodates a two-person family with 5 dogs and 4 kayaks. The project starts with a pre-engineered floating boathouse kit of the type widely used for year-round storage of marine vessels. The structure is sliced open and in-filled with light frame construction to create a mix of durable indoor and outdoor spaces held together under a single roof.


Portland Courtyard Housing


Portland OR
2008

The City of Portland organized this ideas competition to explore ways of creating greater density and affordable housing within the existing city grid – which is heavily oriented towards detached single-family structure.  Submissions were required to provide a minimum of 6 houses on two standard lots with off-street parking and a common yard.

Our scheme recognizes the deep-rooted appeal of individual ownership and aims to create a balance between private and collective space. The houses are not identical. Rather than forming a singular block, the building mass is shifted to allow light to passes through. Each house has its own private garden and ground floor indoor/outdoor flex space. For safety, comfort and market feasibility, the scheme splits the courtyard requirement into two functional zones: one for cars, and one for people.


Sandy's Kitchen


Boise ID
2009

Multiple rooms pin-wheel off of this bright eat-in kitchen located at the center of a historic house. This active space is lined from the floor to ceiling with carefully coordinated custom cabinetry and shallow shelves designed to hide clutter and display a colorful collection of ceramic pitchers and potato mashers. A tall slim pantry opens into the room allowing cross light from the west. Finish materials include limestone flooring, marble countertops, glass and ceramic tiles, a tin ceiling and antique light fixtures. A secret door is incorporated into the cabinetry. We worked with Wallace Renovations as contractor and Tree City Woodworking as cabinetmaker.


Union Station 2020


Chicago IL
2008

Our proposal for the biannual Burnham Prize transforms the traditional urban shed over this major train station into a sprawling, vertically oriented framework populated with commercial and civic functions. The competition called for the radical transformation of the historic Union Station from a terminal station into a connection point for new underground and high-speed regional trains. Our scheme forms an optical prism that projects shimmering reflections of trains onto the vertical surfaces of the building, making what is often hidden below ground into an animated part of the Chicago skyline.


Wychus Creek Farm House


Sisters OR
2008

Beebe Skidmore provided floor plans and elevations for a carefully proportioned addition to a 100 year-old farmhouse located on a high desert pasture. Responding to abundant southern light and views of a nearby lava rock ridge, the design features a double height screen porch and floor-to-ceiling wood windows.