Waechter Architecture

We’re honored to be included in Best-In-State Residential Architects list for the second year in a row.

Our work is rooted in making spaces that are open, enduring, and full of character. We’re grateful to our clients and collaborators who make that work possible, and to Forbes for recognizing our practice alongside so many talented firms across the state.

Thank you to everyone who has been part of it, and congratulations to all the firms included on this year’s list.

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Piquette Hotel is taking shape, with completion expected this November. Stay tuned!

Owner:
Builder:
Photos by the project manager

At Enfilade House, the house unfolds as a sequence.
One space leads to the next, with wood thresholds, framed views, and shifting light creating moments of connection and pause.
Simple in its idea, the enfilade gives the house a quiet rhythm, revealing the landscape and spaces of the home gradually, one moment at a time.

General Contractor: .work
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Landscape: Michael Shultz
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At the Golden Gate Heights residence remodel, materials speak for themselves: exposed, honest, and tactile. The result is a space that feels calmer, clearer, and more whole.

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Arrival is a moment of transition. A chance to leave behind the pace of the outside world and enter a different rhythm.

At Society Hotel, a sequence of thresholds, shifting light, material, and moments of pause gradually leads you into the courtyard. Each threshold offers a moment of discovery, creating a sense of anticipation as one space quietly reveals the next.

We find echoes of this in places far beyond our own projects. While teaching and traveling through Italy, Ben photographed passageways and courtyards that capture this same quiet magic: moving through one space only to discover another beyond it. It is these small moments of transition that make a place feel memorable, inviting us to slow down, look around, and feel where we are.

Society Hotel Photo by
Threshold Photos by Ben Waechter

Last week, we stepped away from the studio for our annual retreat in the McKenzie River area.

Surrounded by the forests and rivers of the Oregon Cascades, we spent our time rafting, cooking and sharing meals, hiking to a waterfall, and having long conversations around the table.

Collaboration is at the heart of how we work. It happens within our studio and, importantly, with our clients throughout the design process. We value the exchange of ideas, questions, and perspectives that comes from working closely together. Our clients bring their own experiences, aspirations, and ways of living to each project, making the process a shared exploration rather than a one-way conversation.

Time together, whether around a drawing or a dinner table, creates space for that exchange.

900 SF Ground-Floor Space for Rent at Mississippi Workshop

We have approximately 900 SF of ground-floor space available for rent at Mississippi Workshop in Portland, and we’re looking for someone creative to make it their own.

The space could work well as an artist or maker studio, gallery, creative workspace, yoga or Pilates studio, workshop, or another small creative practice. We’re also open to ideas we haven’t thought of yet.

One of the unique aspects of the space is its connection to a shared courtyard with our neighbors at Coffee. The courtyard has hosted classes, concerts, workshops, and community gatherings, including classes by Studio, creating an opportunity for the space to be part of an active and creative community.

The space has access to shared restrooms in the common hallway. It was once our own workshop and exhibition space, and later became home to WildCraft Studio.

If you’re looking for a place to make, work, teach, move, or gather, we’d love to hear what you have in mind.

Interested, or know someone who might be a good fit? Send us a message to learn more or share this post with someone who might be interested.

Pickathon is a music festival set within the forests of Happy Valley, Oregon, where music, art, and architecture come together to create an immersive experience. Each year, site-specific installations become part of the landscape, shaping the way people gather, explore, and experience the festival.

For this year's festival, we designed the Windmill gathering spaces as places for both connection and retreat. A simple timber module becomes a forest room, a gateway, and a DJ stage, creating spaces to socialize, pause, and look up through the canopy before returning to the music. Built in collaboration with Pete Rust of the Port Townsend Shipwrights for Pickathon 2026.

Outdoor living is shaped by the site as much as the building. We consider it from the earliest stages of every project. The goal is to create spaces that feel natural to use in every season.

Photography in order:
Meadow House -
Trilogy House - .enriquez
Autocamp Sequoia -
Mississippi Workshop -
Society Hotel -