Portland Alley Housing

In 2023, w+b Principal Jonathan Bolch was awarded a Van Evera Bailey Fellowship from the Architecture Foundation of Oregon to explore possibilities provided by the Residential Infill Project code changes to innovatively add residential density along Portland’s 76 miles of alleys.

The Fellowship’s generous funding supported him in researching and developing a design vision for creating affordable, sustainable alley housing and investigating the potential for new types of urban living and connections within these traditionally underutilized spaces. The study included documenting the existing characteristics and conditions of Portland’s alleyways as well as research trips to London and Kyoto to learn first-hand from notable alley house precedents.