Adidas East Village extension

The North American headquarters of adidas, the multinational sports apparel company, is located north of downtown Portland, Oregon, along the eastern bank of the Willamette River, which flows through the city. Although essentially made up of two sections separated by a busy main road – Greeley Avenue – the campus forms a compact unit, joined by an elevated walkway across the thoroughfare. It fits comfortably into its urban setting, the segment to the west near the river surrounded by the dense vegetation lining the bank, while the eastern volume abuts onto a densely built quarter of detached family homes.

One of the goals posited for the new campus extension was to further improve the way the whole adidas complex blends with the city by adding a new public access on its eastern side. This requirement led the architects to decide on two new volumes, the Gold Building and the Performance Zone Building, located at opposite ends of a large soccer field close to the residential district.

The competition called by the client was swiftly concluded, with Lever Architecture winning the brief along with the firms Studio O+A and GGN. The budget and delivery date specifications were particularly challenging: adidas required a construction whose architecture reflected its corporate culture and commitment to quality, authenticity and innovation but which had to be completed within 24 months.

Having identified the best way to connect the two new volumes to the existing campus and the surrounding neighborhood, the project developed following the brand’s design principle of working “from the inside out”, i.e., creating sports apparel to fit the shapes and needs of the human body. Similarly, the extension’s architectural design is based on the way people work, at times as a collaborative team, on other occasions alone, but always with the same goal: to conceive, prototype and develop new products.

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