Every building begins
as a single line.

PORTLAND · OREGON 122.6784° W — THE MERIDIAN DRAWING SET NO. 011

Meridian Works is an architecture studio of eleven. We design houses, archives and public rooms the way we draft them — slowly, precisely, and in the open.

DWG · MW-24-011 · REV C LARKSPUR HOUSE · HOOD RIVER OR CL 8 400 7 250 15 650 O/A 4 850 3 400 RIDGE +7 850 40° N SOUTH ELEVATION SCALE 1 : 50 · ALL DIMENSIONS IN MM DRAWN M.E. · CHECKED T.R.
FIG. 01 — LARKSPUR HOUSE, SOUTH ELEVATION DOUGLAS FIR FRAME · STANDING-SEAM ZINC · COMPLETED 2025 SHEET A-201
GRID 64 × 64 · SUBGRID 8

A drawing is a promise. Before concrete, before steel, before anyone signs anything, there is a line on paper that says: this is where the wall will stand. We take that promise seriously.

01 Project Index 6 ENTRIES · 2022 — 2025
011 Larkspur House A gabled family house tuned to the Columbia Gorge wind — deep eaves, a masonry spine, and one room tall enough to hold the weather. 2025Hood River, OR
Residence
009 Tidewater Archive A regional maritime archive under a sawtooth roof. North light falls on reading tables; the collection sleeps in the dark below the tide line of glass. 2024Astoria, OR
Cultural
008 Northlight Studio A painter's workroom with a single mono-pitch gesture: the roof lifts toward the north sky and a clerestory pours even light onto the easel wall. 2024Whidbey Island, WA
Workspace
007 Fold House A roof creased like a contour map, following the pitch of the valley floor. Each fold shelters one act of the day — cooking, gathering, sleep. 2023Methow Valley, WA
Residence
006 Cedar Meridian Pavilion A circular public shelter of twelve cedar columns set on the 123rd meridian. A compass you can stand inside; a roof that reads as a drawn line. 2023Vancouver, BC
Public
004 Quarry Line A decommissioned aggregate works remade as maker halls. We kept the silo, the gantry rail, and the dust-softened light; everything else is new and quiet. 2022Bellingham, WA
Adaptive reuse
FULL ARCHIVE ON REQUEST — 47 BUILT WORKS SORTED BY SET NUMBER, DESC.
02 Philosophy 4 PRINCIPLES · HELD SINCE 2011

We draw before we decide. Not because drawing is faster — it isn't — but because the hand hesitates where the mind bluffs. A pencil finds the honest dimension of an idea long before a render does.

P—01

Measure twice, mean it once.

Every dimension in our sets is a decision someone stood behind. We don't publish a number we haven't walked, paced, or mocked up at full scale in the yard behind the studio.

P—02

The site is the first author.

Wind rose, water table, the neighbour's plum tree. We survey before we sketch, and the survey stays pinned above the drafting table for the life of the project.

P—03

Ornament is earned by structure.

If a line doesn't hold something up, keep something out, or let something in, it doesn't get drawn. What's left tends to be beautiful without trying.

P—04

Buildings are drafts that got built.

We return to every project at one year and at five, redlines in hand. The best details in our current work were corrections learned from the last one.

03 The Studio 11 PEOPLE · 4 SHOWN · 1 DRAFTING TABLE EACH
REF · A1

Mara Ellison

Principal

Founded the studio in 2011 with a borrowed drafting table and a survey of her grandmother's orchard. Still draws every first line herself.

REF · A2

Tomas Reyes

Design Director

Trained in Valparaíso, where buildings argue with hills. Keeps a section cut of every project taped inside his sketchbook cover.

REF · A3

June Okafor

Technical Lead

The person who makes the poetry stand up. Ran envelope design on Tidewater Archive through two hundred-year storm models before approving the glass.

REF · A4

Anders Vik

Landscape & Research

Maps how buildings age: rain paths on cedar, moss lines on concrete. His weathering studies decide which way our façades face.

04 Contact RESPONSE WITHIN 3 WORKING DAYS

Bring us a site.
We'll bring the lines.

We take on six projects a year — enough to draw each one properly. Write to us with a place, a budget range, and the thing you're hoping the building will make possible. We read everything.

Start a project→
Studio 1140 SE Meridian Yard, Bay 4
Portland, Oregon 97214
Mail studio@meridianworks.example
Phone +1 (503) 555 · 0184
Weekdays 09:00 – 17:00 PT
Visits By appointment
The drafting floor is open to clients every first Friday.