Often modular, always hands-on: a conversation with Base Design

Base Design's Cait Sylvain, Drew Shreiner and Kegan Flanderka (Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

One of the narratives I've always enjoyed following in local architecture is when talented firms beget other talented firms. Design is mostly a team sport, and it's not always guaranteed that magic at one place will happen at another. It takes the right set of conditions for people to flourish.

But whether it's former Allied Works employees starting award-winning firms like Lever, Waechter, Beebe Skidmore and Weil Bixby, or how a generation earlier the Portland office of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill saw its employees form firms like GBD, YGH and Crandall-Arambula, it's fun to follow these sort of architectural family trees. I suppose it's like following the Bill Walsh or Bill Belichick coaching trees in football, or that old yarn that while only a few people were in the audience at the Velvet Underground's first show, they all went on to form famous bands of their own.

With that preamble, I give you Base Design, whose founders have ties to some of Portland's most acclaimed firms. It began as a partnership between Kegan Flanderka, formerly of Works Progress Architecture and Drew Shreiner, who came from Jones Architecture, itself a quality firm but also one founded by longtime Holst Architecture veteran Alan W. Jones. Then another WPA (and Waechter Architecture) veteran with a Holst-employed spouse, Cait Sylvain, joined Flanderka and Shreiner.

[A brief side note: if you're an architect reading this and think my affection for firms with local pedigree seems annoyingly chummy or like a clique, it's still all about the work! Get in touch and send me a link to your portfolio. Let's talk!]

The upcoming Holgate modular housing project (Base Design)

When I visited Base Design a couple weeks ago, they had only just moved into their first office, a tiny little stand-alone storefront on Southeast 28th Avenue. For the firm's first year or so, they'd been working remotely. "You didn’t have that time of sitting together and working through things," says Flanderka. "We work on things more collectively now."

Flanderka and Shreiner first met at a series of holiday parties and other family events at Holst Architecture, where both their partners (and Sylvain's) work. "We both ride motorcycles and started riding together, and continued the conversations over rides," Flanderka recalls. About the same time, Shreiner had taken ownership of a small contracting company when its original owner left town. "I wanted to go after the dream of design build on my own," Shreiner says. "We had a small crew and have done a few design-build projects."

Design-build and the broader notion of architects working collaboratively with builders is a big deal for Shreiner and Flanderka, and a "base" of the firm. "Having a thorough understanding of that process and what it can allow, we really want to cross-pollinate our build team and our design studios," Shreiner says. And, adds his partner, "It really influences our design work. Drew and I will get out there and swing hammers. You really start to realize what your drawings translate to and don’t translate to. It’s greatly improving our design work."

The other important part of the equation for Base Design is modular construction. One of Flanderka's last projects with WPA was the MODS Willamette housing project, which took advantage of this method. Located in St. Johns and achieving net-zero energy usage, its six apartments are comprised of four prefab modular structures. The rectangular wood frame structures were fabricated in the nearby MODS PDX warehouse, then shipped and craned into place within a single day. MODS and founder Nathan Young have become Base Design's most important client.

Works Progress Architecture's MODS Willamette (Joshua Jay Elliott)

"It’s really a custom build operation, but it’s done within a factory. It’s all conditioned and has the tolerances of casework," Flanderka says. "I’m proud to say modular is 30 to 40 percent of our work. It’s a fun little niche."

They also think modular is destined to become more than a niche. "I definitely see it, just given the amount of projects that have come up over the last year. Especially in the Northwest, where you have the cost of labor going so high, it’s now making modular more cost-competitive. And when you factor in the savings on time and the quality of the build, I think you’re going to see more and more of it. Nathan Young at MODS would tell you it’s the only way construction is going. As jurisdictions get more used to it, that will expedite the regulatory process. Everything will shift over from there. From a cost standpoint, it’s measuring out."

House exhibit at International Builders Show (Base Design)

In February, a Base Design-designed modular project for MODS was exhibited at the International Builders Show in Las Vegas: a 3,700-square-foot house. The house was fabricated in North Portland and shipped to Las Vegas, built and displayed at the event, and then shipped to a private site in Las Vegas for an agreed-upon owner.

"This was our first modular single-family home," Shreiner says. "But it's led us to a 2,500-square-foot single family prototype for next year’s show that will really be aimed at a net zero energy with an emphasis on our design and aesthetics. What was interesting about being that that show was being architects there with a bunch of developers. They were looking at it more as a product than a process. It’s interesting to explore if we can create a prototype that’s repeatable. There’s a market for that. We want to design something that’s efficient to build and beautiful space."

Renderings of a proposed modular cabin (Base Design)

Here in Portland, Base Design has a handsome-looking new 28-unit multifamily modular housing project about to begin construction this summer in Southeast Portland: another partnership with MODS called Holgate. The trio has also produced a modular cabin in collaboration with MODS equipped with a skylight for that coveted combination of light and privacy. But the firm will continue to be about more than just building buildings.

"We all share a desire to test some new ideas and see how those work," Shreiner says. "We’re nimble and small, but really wanting to try some different things. That’s important us."

And the more they test, the more Base Design can be hands on. Says Flanderka, "It’s also an opportunity to impact all the steps in the process."