An upscale RV camp breaks ground in Coos Bay, Ore.

A Building Team led by R&A Architecture + Design has broken ground on The Camps at Coos Bay Lagoon, an RV camp and cabins park encompassing 103 acres along Camp Arago Highway in the Barview area of coastal Coos Bay, Ore.

The project—which was designed in collaboration with its client NBP Capital, a commercial real estate fund—is scheduled for completion next April.

The property on which the camp is being built had been a lumberyard and mill that were decommissioned in the 1970s. Remnants of a pier from that mill could be rebuilt in phase two of this project.

Because this land wasn’t suitable for traditional building foundations, the Building Team proposed instead a series of smaller structures for the campsite. Overlooking more than a mile of private beachfront, 180 campsites, modeled on an archipelago, will be organized in a way the harkens back to the Bay’s riparian past of marsh islands separated by numerous streams.

The Camp will be built on coastal property that once was used for a lumberyard and mill. Image: RA Architecture + Design

The campsite will include a new, V-shaped wood-and-glass clubhouse that can be used year-round. It will offer an indoor swimming pool, recreation rooms, meeting and entertainment spaces. The clubhouse will also feature outdoor terraces and decks.

Walking trails that lead to water and beachfront activities will connect the campsites. What had been parking areas have been converted to private camping areas with landscaped greenspaces for outdoor play and games. The campsites are also relatively close to Charleston marina.

The Building Team on this project includes McSwain & Woods Architects (associate architect), Nishkian Dean Structural Engineers (SE), Pacific Community Design (CE), and Strata Design (soils engineer).

“We worked diligently to preserve the natural beauty of the site,” says Christian Robert, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP, a co-founding principal at RA. “We were able to design a project that is respectful of its surroundings while remaining beneficial to the client.”

The Camps at Coos Bay Lagoon was the Popular Choice winner of Architizer’s 2017 A+Awards in the Unbuilt Hospitality category. RA, which launched in 2013, has several other small- and large-scale hospitality projects in development in West Hollywood and Napa Valley, Calif., Utah, and China.