Over the last decade, significant attention has been focused on housing across the nation, however accommodations for agricultural workers are often overlooked. Through her project, PIVOT’s 2026 Fellow will explore how architecture can support, preserve, and celebrate the vibrancy of the communities of agricultural workers.
Aileen Carrillo, a fourth-year Interior Architecture student at the University of Oregon, will investigate models of agricultural worker housing through her project, Transborder Homes: Rethinking Agricultural Worker Housing.
In many of the Northwest’s agricultural regions, workers are provided with housing which acts as a temporary home during seasonal work. Current agricultural housing models are often lacking the basic resources needed to support daily life, such as fully-equipped kitchens or areas for gathering, cooking, and maintaining cultural routines.
Aileen seeks to explore new models of flexible, community‑centered agricultural housing with spaces that are shaped by the people who inhabit them as well as connected to the land they work and the cultural networks that support them. By reimagining what migrant worker housing could be, this project aims to move beyond notions of adequacy and toward environments that foster dignity, comfort, functionality, and beauty.
Drawing from firsthand observations of migrant worker conditions while growing up in cherry orchard communities in The Dalles, Oregon, Aileen seeks to challenge long-standing assumptions about temporary labor housing and propose alternatives that better support the people who inhabit them.
She will examine how these environments can be reimagined to support a diverse range of residents—from single workers to multi-generational families from disparate countries—while fostering a sense of belonging and cultural continuity.
Through the lens of transborder communities—social and cultural networks that extend beyond geographic boundaries—Aileen aims to design housing that reflects and celebrates the identities of migrant workers. Her research will include case studies of agricultural housing in the Pacific Northwest, analysis of Oregon’s regulatory framework for labor housing, and interviews with workers to better understand the social and cultural dynamics that shape the daily lives of agricultural workers.
By integrating these insights, Aileen will explore flexible, community-centered housing models that move beyond minimum standards toward spaces that prioritize comfort, connection, and resilience. Her work seeks to demonstrate how architecture can support not just shelter, but the well-being and cultural expression of communities whose labor is essential to the region.
The PIVOT Fellowship is a means of fostering original thought about issues outside the daily routine or obvious future trajectory of the firm’s thought process. PIVOT selects fellows based on the nature of their project proposal and other factors. It is a paid position and the term runs from June until September. The fellowship is open to students for the summer preceding their final year of study at the University of Oregon. The fellows’ projects constitute half of the candidates’ responsibilities. Fellows are also incorporated into PIVOT project teams for the duration of their term, gaining real-world experience working side-by-side with design teams.