The US Custom House in Portland, Oregon, built in 1901, currently sits dormant on the North Park Blocks, as it has since 2004, after being vacated by the US Army Corp of Engineers. Several proposals for its re-use have been submitted to the government: the possibility of its metamorphosis into: a boutique hotel, an international school and finally the world headquarters for a Portland based national real estate management company have all failed to realize. 

In analyzing the most appropriate use of the building, and recognizing that capital gain cannot solely drive the adaptive re-use of architecture, this thesis focuses on cultural memory.  Cultural memory as a study of the past and the present situation of the US Custom House has bred a self-designed methodology composed of three elements: Archive, Communications, and Performances. This methodology created a body of knowledge of the building that had not previously existed, leading the building to manifest itself as a Center for Cultural Exchange.

To generate this exchange, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency of the federal government was identified as the agency to occupy the building, based on the original use by the US Customs Service. I.C.E. would be paired with a cooperation of Non Governmental Organizations in order to support a mutual goal of fair and amicable immigration practices.

The building as a Center for Cultural Exchange has come to house public programs that offer up to Portland the cultural richness that a diverse population manifests, gathering individuals to: share, learn from and teach customs from their own cultural back ground.  Through main design principles informed by both internal and external conversations, as well as cultural memory, the architectural intervention of the US Custom House, once slated for federal “disposal,” has become a place where the immigration process of the United States celebrated through cultural diversity.