Values

Our design approach is rooted in collaborative, interactive decision making and encourages design input from our clients and all staff members. This collaboration results in projects that exceed their original goals in terms of design, programmatic response, and sustainable solutions. Our design philosophy is rooted in our core firm values.

Listen and ask why, before committing to what

Active listening is fundamental to our philosophy. We actively engage our clients, stakeholders, and facility users throughout the planning and design process. Our first role is to listen and learn in order to develop a deep understanding of our clients and their vision, mission, and goals.

Edit to the essentials

We edit design solutions to their essentials, selecting long-lasting materials appropriate to the locale, and then limit that materials palette to the fewest necessary.

Foster delight in the human experience

At Hennebery Eddy, we are inspired by design solutions resulting in buildings and places that make their users feel special and are adaptable and flexible enough to serve multiple generations — when we design and build structures with these characteristics today, they become culturally significant historic buildings worth preserving in the future.

Make places that are tied to their region and site

How design relates to, reflects, and interprets its context and surroundings is the most important feature in creating a lasting sense of place. Great places are not created from a vacuum but come from responses to large- and small-scale conditions.

Take personal ownership

Our architects and designers take personal ownership of their work. Little things mean a lot to us in our relationships and spaces we design.

Think long term

Our design philosophy is rooted in long-term thinking. Our process is an inquiry into how the built manifestations of ideas, sketches, and models will be direct and clear, engage and stimulate, foster deep environmental responsibility, be economically viable, relate to the land and their context, and establish a sense of place — today, and in 20, 50 or 100 years.

Make others successful

We build strong relationships with our staff, clients, consultant team members, contractors, users, the community, and regulatory staff to engage all parties and create ownership in the success of each project effort.

“It is extremely satisfying to work with a design consulting group that is not locked into a ‘this is the way we do it’ mode of approach to projects … I believe this willingness to explore a challenge rather than just follow a practiced process says a lot about the confidence that Hennebery Eddy has in its talent base as well as its general spirit of cooperation.”

— Gary Will, former Construction Project Manager, Oregon Dept. of Administrative Services

How We Operate

Hennebery Eddy’s operations are reflective of our long-standing commitment to net-positive design, social responsibility, and workplace equity. Our LEED Gold-certified Portland design studio, in the historic Pittock Block, is also a City of Portland Sustainability at Work gold-certified workplace. Hennebery Eddy Gives is our way of engaging and giving back to the community around us. And we voluntarily disclose a range of organizational and employee-related metrics as part of the Just program.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

We are architects and designers, and we stand for the power of design thinking in building diverse, inclusive places and communities free of violence of any kind. We acknowledge that we are each responsible and each of us carries bias, whether we recognize it or not. As a firm, Hennebery Eddy vows to fight all bias, injustice, and inequity in our daily practice, in our hiring, and in our design work. We vow to build community through our projects and to continue to grow Hennebery Eddy’s team so that it better reflects the mostly black and brown world community. We stand for everyone having an equal opportunity to succeed and live free of the burning anxiety and unjust weight of systemic racism.

Since our founding, Hennebery Eddy has valued establishing and maintaining diversity in the workplace, and we continue to provide opportunities for minority and women employees to excel within our firm and on our teams. Hennebery Eddy has a formal equal employment opportunity policy; is an EEO-certified firm with the City of Portland; and our ongoing professional development, recruiting, and training efforts are guided by a comprehensive Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan.

A Just Organization

Hennebery Eddy is committed to transparency in our client work and in our workplace, and we are driven to become a leader in workplace equity. The firm’s policies are in line with the International Living Future Institute’s program for “Just” organizations, a set of 22 social and equity indicators that fall into six categories.

Our voluntary disclosure of these metrics is our public pledge to evaluate areas for continual improvement with regard to our business practices and personnel policies. In October 2017, we received our first Just label — which is like a nutrition label for equitable organizations — and renewed the label in 2019 and 2021 using the rigorous Just 2.0 standards.

As part of the process of earning that label, the firm formalized existing policies and implemented new programs that promote Just values. Using the six Just categories, we continually examine and improve our practices that contribute to greater social justice and equitable treatment of all — from how we treat employees to where we make financial and community investments.

As a Just organization, we also advocate payment of a living wage to our suppliers, vendors, consultants, and other partners. More information on the Just program is available at justorganizations.com.

“Hennebery Eddy does an excellent job at not just listening but taking it a step further. They become part of the community, putting values of the owner in their work.”

— David Lageson, former Director of Facilities, Eastern Oregon University