For architects, a threshold marks transition, a bridge between spaces.

For residents of Everyone Village, a transitional community for unhoused people in west Eugene, it’s a way to connect to the city while delineating their community — an intentional in-between gathering space unhoused people often lack.

During the transition between summer and fall classes, 14 University of Oregon students created a new threshold for Everyone Village during the two-week Bruton Design Intensive.

Undergraduates majoring in architecture, landscape architecture, interior architecture and environmental studies joined forces to design and build the project. Organized by the College of Design, the program brings accomplished professionals to campus who lead students through the theory and practice of a design/build project.

Now in its third year, the Bruton Design Intensive offers students an immersive, full-time learning experience outside the routine of an academic quarter. For two weeks, students push creative boundaries and engage in problem-solving that spans disciplines.

They also wear hard hats, saw lumber and stick to a budget.

Past the threshold of campus, west of downtown, where prairies blend with industrial zones, the design/build team spends a hot September day at Everyone Village looking, listening and learning. The students meet with villagers, as they call themselves, and tour the 3.5 acres with 70 tiny homes.

Everyone Village started in 2022 on donated land. Today, 65-70 villagers participate in the transitional housing community. High school students throughout Oregon have helped build the homes, which villagers call “cottages of hope.”

The village is self-governed and includes a garden, plus a shared kitchen and laundry facilities. A warehouse serves as an entryway, gathering space, computer lounge, dining hall and more.

After learning more about the needs — and the life stories — of their clients, the students will design and build a threshold for the warehouse. Their structure will extend the two current gateways into the village: a large sliding garage door and the people-sized door next to it.

Students gain hands-on experience designing a project then constructing it, said Ursula Hartig, one of two visiting professionals who led this year’s intensive. Throughout the demanding process, everyone joins in the decision-making as well as the physical labor.

Sriram Nathan and Liliya Zagorski cut one of four hundred two-by-fours used to construct a new threshold for Everyone Village.

group1

“You can't do life without collaboration,” said Hartig, who has more than 24 years of experience with academic design/build projects. “If you work together, you can achieve much more than you if you just add pieces.”

This collaboration has been multifaceted and multidirectional, added Marta Petteni, who helped with the Bruton Design Intensive in 2023 and joined as a coleader this year. That includes her partnership with Hartig, their engagement with the university, the interactions among the students and their collaboration with the villagers.

“This process represents a complex and dynamic convergence of diverse groups and stakeholders,” Petteni said. “We’re all working collectively toward a shared vision that addresses the needs and desires of the villagers.”

Petteni has worked on design/build projects worldwide and currently runs her own design firm in Portland.

The visiting professionals who lead the program make it work, said Michael Zaretsky, associate professor and department head in the Department of Architecture in the College of Design. They bring experience and fresh energy to an intense, enriching experience beyond classrooms and studios.

The day after the students visit the village, a group of villagers comes to campus. The weather’s turned cold and rainy, and gray daylight fills a studio in Lawrence Hall with high ceilings and spacious windows.

They discuss the drawings covering the walls and review their goals, such as adding a welcoming entryway, making the village more visible and creating a gathering space. They ruminate over shade, shelter, security, flowers and electric lighting.

The students must balance lofty aspirations with the realities of time and money — and the laws of engineering and physics.

Liam Martin, Raman Bajwa and Denali Cuevas Ullibarry present their design ideas to residents of Everyone Village and the other participants in the Bruton Design Intensive.

group1

Most days run 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. throughout the week, plus some time on weekends. Some days, especially toward the end, go longer. Plenty of food and coffee is provided, and the work spills into mealtimes.

“Sometimes I get tired, but I’ve enjoyed every single day of the program,” says senior architecture major Raman Bajwa.

The students distill all the ideas, aspirations and priorities into one first draft. The conversations are candid, but productive. They don’t always agree, and that’s expected. Excellence, not ego, is paramount.

After refining the key concepts, the students break into three teams: structure, interiors and landscaping. Each team creates several drawings, presents them to the group, then polishes them into a final draft.

However, as anyone who’s remodeled a home can attest, surprises can derail the best of plans.

For example, the disappointment in the room was palpable when Petteni announced that a swath of concrete could not be removed where the landscaping team had planned a garden space. Expect the unexpected. Embrace plan B.

“This program reflects the real world, just at a smaller scale,” says Larry Bruton, a 1967 UO graduate and retired partner with ZGF Architects. “You don't need a large budget to do something extraordinary. The real trick is to do something extraordinary with ordinary materials.”

Larry and Janice Bruton had already given generously to the UO faculty when the idea for the design intensive was first conceived in 2021. Larry spoke with Zaretsky and College of Design Dean Adrian Parr about inviting professionals to campus.

Asking a busy, successful architect to teach at a university for three months seemed unrealistic. But a two-week visit has turned out to be feasible.

The smell of fresh sawdust and the sound of applause fills the woodshop in Lawrence Hall. Environmental studies major Liam Martin has just cut the first of 400 two-by-fours with a miter saw.

It’s a good thing classes haven’t started yet, because the back of Lawrence Hall is full of bustling students shuttling two-by-fours — the only type of lumber used for the project — to different stations.

They measure, mark, move, stack, mark again, cut again and label each one. Like at a summer camp, the quiet reserve of the first day has dissolved into laughter and camaraderie.

The precut puzzle pieces are trucked to Everyone Village for assembly, where students in green and white hard hats assemble the structure. Over several long, busy days they transform their sketches into reality.

There are more surprises, like discovering the warehouse it connects to isn’t perfectly square. They adapt.

It’s a rush to finish up before the Saturday afternoon ribbon-cutting. But the students form a well-oiled machine.

Some predrill the pieces with screws. Others call out the type of piece according to the catalogue codes they developed. Students with squares and levels double-check everything. All the pieces fit into place.

Minutes before the Saturday afternoon ribbon cutting — two ribbons, symbolizing the dual nature of a threshold — students scramble to put the final touches on the garden space. For fun, they test the rain chain with a bottle of water. A villager places a vase of sunflowers on one of the shelves of the new threshold.

Symbolizing the dual nature of a threshold as both an entrance and an exit, two ribbons are cut during the dedication ceremony at Everyone Village.

group1

Gabe Piechowicz, the village’s executive director, recounts the story of a recent newcomer who arrived seeking a safe space but was skeptical about entering the door of a nondescript warehouse.

“Now you’re going to be coming up to this beautiful, welcoming threshold,” Piechowicz says. “We will never be the same at Everyone Village, from today forward.”