Alex Salazar is principal of Salazar Architect, a small firm focused on creating big social and environmental impacts by working collaboratively with clients and community-based organizations. His architecture and urban design work draws upon contemporary precedents and neighborhood context to create unique, meaningful places rich in architectural character while affordable to build. Alex founded the firm in 2007 in the San Francisco Bay Area and opened a Portland office in 2014. His work has won numerous design awards including AIA San Francisco’s Young Architect Award and AIA California’s Community Housing Award.

Current work includes designing the NW 14th / NW Raleigh development for Innovative Housing Inc., in collaboration with LRS Architects, an affordable housing development which will serve extremely low-income / formerly homeless families. The 12-story, quarter-block building will have upwards of 92 units of housing, community rooms, social service office space and a gracious roof deck / open space with views of the Pearl District's North Park Blocks.

Alex will discuss his unique perspective on affordable housing, covering 25 years of design explorations that combine architecture with community empowerment efforts. He will review his current design practice and projects that address issues of power and inequity, his activist bent developed in San Francisco and Oakland while collaborating with tenant and homeless rights campaigns, and his formative year as Graham Foundation Fellow working on post-earthquake housing in rural India.