"Housing Innovation in Oregon" Celebrates Opening of MMHF Shared Assembly Space for HIVE Units

MMHF CEO, Nate Wildfire, welcomes attendees to Housing Innovation in Oregon.

On Monday, October 5, as one of the opening events of Sustainable Building Week in Portland, the Missing Middle Housing Fund celebrated the opening of the MMHF Shared Assembly Space at the Port of Portland's Mass Timber and Housing Innovation Campus at Terminal 2. A full house turned out for Housing Innovation in Oregon, a morning highlighting innovation's importance to regional sustainability and prosperity, and the two things innovators need most: capital and customers.

Setting the stage

The program opened with welcome remarks from Kimberly Branam of the Port of Portland, Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (OR District 1), and MMHF's Nathan Wildfire, who emphasized the importance of making Oregon a leader in housing innovation. The Port is transforming Terminal 2 into a 39-acre campus in Northwest Portland for manufacturing, research and development, skills training, and flexible industrial space to help drive housing innovation.

Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (OR Dist. 1)

Hearing from the innovators

Housing innovators and partners also spoke about how their work is shaping the future of Oregon's housing and workforce development, including Ryan Olsen, Eliot Kahn, Dayne Littlewood, Marcus Kauffman, Kegan Flanderka, Adrienne Fainman, and Emily Dawson. The companies and programs featured were:

• Elemental Building Technologies, building non-combustible, climate-resilient housing with steel frame systems that exceed seismic and energy standards while reducing embodied carbon.

• MODS PDX/HONE, integrating Mass Plywood Panels into modular construction in partnership with Freres Engineered Wood.

• Building to Scale, Oregon's first residential builder training program in modular and mass timber construction, a program of the Homebuilding Foundation led by Mods PDX.

• HumanKind Homes, using automated on-site assembly of carbon-negative concrete masonry to build fire-, flood-, and hurricane-resistant homes faster and for less.

• CedarStone Design & Build, advancing sustainable mass timber homes and prefabrication systems.

• Single Widget, turning forest harvest residuals into breathable, fire- and moisture-resistant building exteriors made from mineralized wood wool.

• Oregon Mass Timber Coalition, creating good-paying rural and urban jobs with mass timber products grown and manufactured in Oregon.

• DL Viz, helping teams see a project before it exists, with renders, animations, and interactive tours.

  
  

Base Design + Architecture and HONE's Kegan Flanderka provides an overview of the Building to Scale workforce training program.

Together, their solutions span fire- and climate-resilient design and construction, mass timber products, modular and off-site construction, and renewable resources from Oregon.

Seeing it in person: a tour of HIVE

After the program, we took more than 40 housing and innovation leaders on a tour of HIVE, the Housing Innovation Village Experience, in Newberg. HIVE is Oregon's first innovation cottage cluster, designed to make housing more attainable through innovations that reduce the time and cost to build. Walking the site with this group and talking through what it will take to scale these ideas, was a highlight of the day. DLCD Director Brenda Bateman spoke about her agency’s efforts to streamline housing production, and Mayor Bill Rosacker highlighted the rapid change the City is making to their processes due to the HIVE project’s influence.

DLCD Director, Brenda Bateman, provides a housing initiative update to attendees touring HIVE in Newberg.

Gratitude

Thank you to our partners who helped stand up the shared assembly space: the Port of Portland and Prosper Portland. The Oregon Mass Timber Coalition and the Port of Portland provided financial support that made the event a huge success. The Dragonfly Coffee House and Elephants Delicatessen kept attendees well-caffeinated and fed, and Rachel Trice and FINN Partners provided event support. Thanks also to Congresswoman Bonamici and every speaker who joined us.

As MMHF's own Ryan Olsen put it: Why can't Oregon lead the nation in housing innovation?

To follow HIVE's progress, find us on Instagram and TikTok at @letsbuildhive.

Elemental Building Solutions begins production for HIVE in the MMHF Shared Assembly Space at the Mass Timber and Housing Innovation Campus at Terminal 2.