Museum Place and Safeway

Located in the heart of Portland’s West End Cultural District, Museum Place Lofts & Townhouses established an innovative mix of residential and retail to become the fast-growing downtown district’s heart.

Ambitious in its size, sustainability, and unique residential/retail mix, Museum Place Lofts quickly became the standard bearer for quality apartments in the West End Cultural District and catalyzed this unique area anchored by the Portland Art Museum and Oregon Historical Society.

Knot Studio’s placemaking/wayfinding program features one-of-a-kind graphics for the Museum Place Lofts & Townhouses. Perched above a 47,000-square-foot Safeway store, the 140 loft-style apartments provide an essential resource for downtown grocery customers. Elizabeth Anderson hand-lettered the Museum Place logo applied to metal canopies above the housing entries. The custom logo was also used on the Knot-designed sconces at the housing entries and the unit signs in the building’s interior. Knot Studio designers worked closely with Safeway representatives to apply the signature red letters to a curved wire mesh marquee bisected by a vertical fin capturing the “S” logo mark. The mesh surfaces provide visual form by day, transparency by night, and extend the building surface to street corners. By inventing a signature logo style, Knot Studio helped brand the innovative development with an artful solution befitting the city’s Cultural District.