News - Page 2 of 55 - Mayer Reed

Celebrating a Modernized Benson Polytechnic High School

Community members and local dignitaries joined students, staff and project team members in celebrating the official reopening of a modernized Benson Polytechnic High School. The September 14 ribbon cutting marked a new era of innovation for Portland Public Schools’ 1916 career and technical education (CTE) campus.

The modernization, led by Bassetti Architects, balances historic preservation with expansion, increasing space for state-of-the-art, hands-on learning. Mayer/Reed’s site design respects the campus’s classic symmetry while introducing universal accessibility and adding student-centered outdoor spaces throughout.

Visitors to the grand opening event toured the building and explored new and redesigned outdoor spaces including the main entry landscape, a new central courtyard adjacent to the student commons and the multi-functional CTE courtyard with outdoor workspaces for construction, applied geometry, manufacturing and automotive workshops.

Benson is the sixth high school to be modernized or rebuilt through the PPS School Improvement Bond program—all with landscape architecture by Mayer/Reed.

We Moved!

We’re excited to announce our new studio location in the heart of downtown Portland. You can find us at:

Mayer/Reed, Inc.
920 SW 6th Ave, Ste 425
Portland, OR 97204

Read more about our move to the Power + Light Building here.

“We Speak Your Language” Wayfinding at the New Holgate Library

Multnomah County Library and the Southeast Portland community recently celebrated the grand opening of Holgate Library. The bright, modern facility, designed by Bora with multilingual wayfinding by Mayer/Reed, is the first new, permanent library to open in the Multnomah County Library network in more than a decade. At 21,000 square feet, it’s one of the largest.

With an emphasis on accessibility and inclusion, Multnomah County Library commissioned Mayer/Reed to design wayfinding with five languages and unique icons to invite visitors to explore the collections, programs and services. The driver for this work — the “we speak your language” approach — is a milestone change in how the library communicates with patrons. Multnomah County is the first library system in the nation to commit to this level of multilingual signage.

The comprehensive rollout across the entire library network is funded by a 2020 voter-approved bond. By the Spring of 2026, Multnomah County will see the new signage system in major renovations/replacements of seven branch locations, refreshes at other locations and a large, new East County Library (around 95,000 square feet).

Moving Closer to an Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge

In the next month, Multnomah County will select a bridge type for the new earthquake ready Burnside Bridge. Up for consideration are three cable-stayed and three tied-arch options. As urban design lead on the bridge replacement project, Mayer/Reed is working closely with the county, engineers, architects, contractors and a public advisory committee to evaluate the six options and move into final design phase.

Why replace the bridge? Of the eight vehicular bridges over the Willamette River in downtown Portland, Oregon, none are expected to be immediately usable following a major earthquake in the Cascadia Subduction Zone. The historic Burnside Bridge is a central artery within the city and region, linking Gresham to Washington County, and a new bridge will provide a critical lifeline for emergency services (and daily use) for the next 100 years.

Results of an extensive analysis by the Citizens Design Advisory Group (CDAG) and recent public outreach will inform the county’s upcoming decision. Acting as a liaison to the Portland design community, Mayer/Reed prepared preliminary criteria and guiding principles for the CDAG meetings. We are advising BEAM Architects, HDR, Inc., Burnside Bridge Partners and the county on visual impact, character, urban context, pedestrian spaces and active transportation connections. Replacing a downtown bridge is no small feat and involves thinking well beyond the bridge footprint. We’re working to preserve existing park spaces on either side of the Willamette River in Tom McCall Waterfront Park and the Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade, including restoration of public spaces and landscapes that are disrupted by bridge access, staging and construction over a five-year period.

You can stay involved and up-to-date on this complex, city-shaping project at www.burnsidebridge.org.