Julia is an American architect, designer past farmer and future winemaker. She has designed over 67 restaurants & breweries, over 62 homes, and over 28 retail projects over a creative period of 31 years, and counting. Design scopes include national roll-out prototypes, ground-up builds, tenant improvements and remodels. She believes in designing in harmony with the environment, with a philosophy she calls Pride of Place. Her projects are sustainable by creating timeless style with local materials that are expressions of the locality.
Julia has been a pioneer in designing all aspects of her food-centric projects including commercial kitchen design, lighting design, interior design, and signage design that includes a interweaving the essence of the brand into the architecture to create a feeling of wholeness and sublimity. This wholistic approach supports her clients businesses to operate efficiently and thrive.
She creates wealth for her clients by finding creative ways to add value to the project. Clients repeat “Julia, you’re worth every penny.” Julia has been selected to speak about her unique approach to design and sustainability in restaurants at state and national conferences.
example: Adding 1500 square feet of living space to a home without adding floors or footprint.
example: Saving twice her fee by asking one question that the Water Bureau that resulted in a private water service for half the cost of the recommended shared system.
example: redesigning a Sears & Roebuck plan book house that then appraised at twice the value of the purchase price & remodel combined.
example: doubling the number of chairs thought possible at a salon to increase sales.
example: adding 3,000 square feet of event area without adding area to the program by simply adding a roof between tasting and office buildings.
Julia’s passion for food and farms and the urban rural connection is evident through her community service work as a leader with boards for non-profits like Portland Farmers Market and historic Lake Oswego Hunt Club.
Raised in rural Southern Oregon, Julia studied architecture at the University of Oregon, including the Rome Architecture summer program. She apprenticed at small and large firms in Eugene and Portland before launching her firm Litmus in 2000, then established a private studio in 2010.
Design Bureau 100: 2014
Restaurant of the Year: 2008, 2004, 1995 Finalist
Root Awards from Portland Spaces Magazine 2008
I highly recommend working with Julia Wood. As a General Contractor in the PDX area, we run into working with alot of architects & designers. No where else have I seen the level of detail, skill, and overall pleasing design. Julia works hard to create a design that fits her clients needs. Thank you Julia for creating a design that not only looks good, but it functional, and pleasing to build. -Art and team at JDI Construction
JDI Construction NW