Tour one of Portland’s newest affordable and accessible housing projects. Designed by Holst. Tour led by the design team.
This event is part of our Pre Oregon Design Conference Events. Want to learn about ODC? Click here
No PPE is required for this tour
1 AIA LU|HSW
Beyond the Checklist: Touring Inclusive Design at 73Foster
What does inclusive design look like when it's not a diagram, but a finished building? Affordable housing is one of the built environment's highest-stakes typologies for access: residents often live with disabilities, chronic illness, and fixed incomes, and they can't simply choose a more accommodating building down the street. 73Foster, a new 64-unit REACH CDC community in Portland's Foster-Powell neighborhood, was designed by Holst Architecture with this reality in mind. Rather than treating ADA as a ceiling, the project team used feedback from disabled people and The Kelsey's Inclusive Design Standards — a 300-plus element framework built with disabled stakeholders — to push past code minimums. In this tour, we'll walk the site and building that resulted and be honest about what it took to get there: the documentation, the trade-offs, and the case-by-case conversations with The Kelsey that led to 73Foster earning a Focused Certification in Site and Interior Spaces. We'll also see how PCEF-funded systems, careful material choices, and community-informed programming show up as real, touchable design decisions, not abstractions.
Learning Objectives
Recount how 73Foster's site design uses thoughtful design beyond the ADA requirements to give residents with sensory, cognitive, and mobility disabilities equitable, dignified access to outdoor space.
Describe how clear navigation is a matter of safety and well-being, not just aesthetics, and identify how 73Foster puts that principle into practice through color-differentiated zones, high-contrast directional signage with pictograms, and murals used as wayfinding landmarks. These features help residents with low vision, cognitive disabilities, and memory-related conditions orient themselves and move through the building with confidence.
Identify the range of accessible bathroom choices made throughout the 73Foster units and community space that contributed to the project's Interior Spaces Focused Certification. By providing features like towel bars that operate as grab bars, roll -in showers in select units, options for left - and right -oriented bathrooms in the building, people with an array of needs can find a unit that meets their specific toileting needs.
Determine next steps for applying The Kelsey's Inclusive Design Standards inclusive design best practices to future affordable housing projects .