HDC Member Highlight: BUILD LLC
BUILD LLC is a multi-disciplinary architectural design firm with a diverse portfolio of work that demonstrates elegance, integrity, and simplification of the complex. With over 20 years of experience rooted in integrated design and a working knowledge of construction, BUILD partners with commercial developers, corporate and facility managers, institutional and educational planners, and residential clients to create projects that provide lasting value. BUILD’s focus is on thorough research, accurate program design, ensuring client value, and solving the right problems.
They have the experience and expertise in everything from master planning, feasibility studies, and project cost analysis, to full design documentation and various permitting and entitlement processes. The BUILD team has developed and built nearly every type of project, and always brings an unmatched, robust, construction administration service during the crucial phases of project building, implementation, and commissioning.
BUILD is truly a full-service firm, and their foremost attention is in relating to clients on a fundamental level, and ensuring that they handle each client and project with respect and care.
BUILDing a Foundation
BUILD’s founder Kevin Eckert and his longtime partner Andrew van Leeuwen began their careers at Swenson Say Fagét engineers where they learned the nuts and bolts of construction, and designing and permitting from the engineers perspective. Not surprisingly, when Kevin subsequently founded BUILD, the firm offered design and construction services; although BUILD no longer provides the latter, the team brings this sensibility and know-how to all of their projects—every line they draw is executed with a deep knowledge of the complexity that goes into putting buildings together and their commensurate construction costs.
BUILD brings their collaborative and education-driven values to HDC. At the heart of BUILD’s philosophy is the sharing of information, and the widely-read BUILD blog allows the team to engage in a dialogue — ideas, insights, concerns etc. — with a global audience. The architectural paradigm of the past incentivized architects to keep their ideas, methods, and processes to themselves, which resulted in an exclusive system of design. This is antithetical to the very nature of an affordable and equitable society, and social media offers design professionals the opportunity to create a new transparent model. For the last 15 years, through its various social media platforms, BUILD has been able to foster communication and collaboration with the public and within the profession.
BUILDing with Values
“As architects concerned with our collective future, and who care deeply about community, we aspire to make projects that ensure a high quality of life for current and future generations. This begins with having a home that meets our basic needs; we know that being able to feel secure contributes to an entire household’s well-being and sense of belonging, particularly the most vulnerable: our children. According to BUILD, “We also appreciate that all other forms of security (nutrition assistance, employment, relationships…) flow from having stable and dependable housing. We continue to advocate for removing barriers to providing more access to affordable housing through our work, our widely read blog, and in our communities.”
BUILD is working on several projects through its satellite office in Sisters, Oregon, which include workforce housing that will allow families to reside within walking distance of their employers and schools, and the opportunity to purchase their homes—and by default, to build equity. This kind of work excites BUILD. Additionally, BUILD was asked to design and develop a series of prototype cottages and townhomes for multiple sites within and on the edge of the current Sisters Urban Growth Boundary. Projects of this scale further underscore BUILD’s commitment to creating affordable home options for local families and local businesses.
BUILDing Community
BUILD LLC considers it a priority to create impactful philanthropic programming, and to engage with, enrich, and bolster various non-profit organizations.
In 2020, BUILD launched its Humanity in Action Racial Equity Scholarship to support entrepreneurial high school students focused on inciting change. As a company that provides urban planning and design services, BUILD has the opportunity to shape our physical environment and influence locales throughout the Northwest. The BUILD staff continually strive to make places that are accessible for all, and to do so in a socially- and racially-just manner. In the midst of the most powerful social movement our country has experienced in decades, BUILD’s scholarship recognizes the important work so many are performing in support of racial and social equity. The first scholarship was awarded in 2021.
From 2009 to 2019, BUILD hosted and participated in a yearly charity ride from Seattle to Vancouver, the revenue of which supported two organizations each year, raising an annual average of $22,000 and a ten-year total of $206,000. For 2019’s 188-mile ride, proceeds benefited Seattle’s Bike Works and Team Gleason. Post-pandemic, they fully intend to resume this impactful, team building, and fun program!
Entering HDC membership during the current health crisis, BUILD is navigating – professionally and personally – the intersection of health and housing. “While we at BUILD have a deeper understanding of disease transmission and how to design buildings and systems that will reduce potentially negative health outcomes, over the last 15 months we have been confronted by the systemic racism and inequalities that are embedded in our culture, and by extension, our industry. We are no longer conducting business as usual; we have made personal commitments to continue educating ourselves on the myriad inequities and injustices that pervade society, and the roles we may play in eradicating them—for each other, for our clients, for our profession, and for our world.”
Welcome to the HDC movement, BUILD!
