Lecture: Thomas Robinson

March 9, 2020, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM

Thomas Robinson is the Founder of LEVER Architecture, a design practice based in Portland, Oregon that is dedicated to the creation of buildings that elevate human experience. The firm works closely with mission-driven clients and has a body of work that includes student housing for the Pacific Northwest College of Art, campus planning and design for leading creative companies, and the L’Angolo Estate Winery. LEVER is nationally recognized for material innovation and pioneering work with mass timber construction. The firm designed Albina Yard, the first building in the US made from domestically-fabricated Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT); and their research and testing for the Framework Project led to the first successful permitting of a wood high-rise in the US. Recent and current mass timber projects include a renovation of The Nature Conservancy's Oregon Headquarters and a major campus expansion at Adidas’ North American Headquarters.

In 2017, LEVER was named to Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard and the Architectural League of New York’s Emerging Voices. The firm’s work has been published in the Atlantic, New York Times, Surface, and Dwell among others; and was featured in Timber City, an exhibition at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC.

Prior to founding LEVER, Robinson led cultural and institutional projects for Allied Works and Herzog & de Meuron. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master in Architecture with Distinction from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Robinson has lectured throughout the US and Europe, and in 2018 served as the USDA Forest Service Wood Innovation Grant Visiting Professor at the University of Arkansas’ Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design.