Our office culture is open, inclusive, and collaborative. We think of ourselves as a perpetual Portland-based architectural start-up.

This mindset keeps us enthusiastic, collaborative, experimental, and fun. It also keeps our firm ethos front and center: “People First. Design Forward.”

Kelly J. Edwards Architecture Scholarship

In 2020, Scott Edwards Architecture launched an architectural scholarship to honor the firm’s late co-founder, Kelly J. Edwards. The focus of the scholarship, in partnership with ACE Mentorship, is to support underrepresented students that reflect what Kelly stood for as they pursue an architectural education. SEA is elated to have awarded scholarships to four women of color pursuing an architecture degree.

Read more about the scholarship and our latest awardees!

We’ve been supporting non-profits since our founding.

Our firm’s commitment to our community is evident in the type of work that we do—our very first project was the renovation of a dental clinic for Virginia Garcia Memorial Health and our partnership with non-profits and community organizations has only grown from there. Since our founding, SEA has worked with over 90 non-profit organizations and at any given time this work typically makes up a third of our active projects. We have a passion for empowering others through architecture and look for ways to push our designs to the farthest reaches of possibility.

Volunteering

Volunteering is also a large part of our commitment to the community. SEA hosts volunteering efforts at least once a quarter, with an emphasis on directly benefiting underrepresented communities. Some of our more recent efforts include working with Rebuilding Together, SOLVE, Habitat for Humanity, and several school supply, food, and clothing drives.

We have also been a part of the sleeping POD Program since 2018, a partnership between the City of Portland, Multnomah County Joint Office of Homeless Services, and Do Good Multnomah, providing pro-bono design services and volunteering time to construct PODs for Kenton Women’s Village and St. John’s Village.

SEA Lab

SEAlab is a fun, fast-paced, and productive design incubator. Held once a month and lasting an hour, staff work together to produce as many design solutions or ideas as possible for an active project that is ideally in Schematic Design. Any staff member faced with a design challenge can bring their project to SEAlab. Working as a group, small 2-3 person teams, or as individuals, our teams tackle the presented design challenges in a charrette format.

Creating a safe space to collaborate and solve problems, discuss strengths and weaknesses in the design, and generate new ideas keeps our team comfortable discussing each other’s work. SEAlab strengthens the bonds between us as an office and above all elevates our design work through critical creative thinking, giving design the place of importance it should have in all our projects.