“The best ideas come from interdisciplinary collaboration.”

Tomas Amadeo is a freelance mechanical engineer, design consultant, and the founder of ATMOS — Portland’s newest collaborative workspace for designers, engineers, and creators. A Portland resident for nearly seven years, he has spent the better part of his career working at the intersection of making, teaching, and community building, guided all along by a single conviction: that the most powerful solutions emerge when people with different skills and perspectives work shoulder to shoulder.

His path into engineering began at age eleven, when he joined his school’s robotics club after hearing rumors it was building robots from Lego — one of his all-time favorite things. The club sparked a lifelong fascination with how things are designed and why they work. Today, his projects range from custom hydrophone systems for a diver-filmmaker who records ocean soundscapes around the world, to medical training tools designed to improve healthcare training in rural, low-income communities. On any given day, various strange and intriguing objects jostle for space on his desk and shelves — each one a chapter in an ongoing story about what it means to build things that matter.

That same spirit of purposeful design has shaped Tomas’s work across Portland’s creative and technical communities. He’s taught workshops at makerspaces throughout the city, from “Introduction to 3D Printing” and “Fundamentals of CAD” to a hands-on class on hydroponic gardening — always meeting makers where they are and helping them to go further. ATMOS is the natural next step: a space purpose-built for skilled practitioners who want not just a desk or a workshop, but a community of peers alongside whom to grow.

Fitted out with a full suite of technical amenities for benchtop R&D, and nestled in the heart of Portland between the East End and Old Port, the space is designed for the kind of work that doesn’t fit neatly into any one category — and for the people who do their best thinking in the company of others. Tomas brings to ATMOS not only his engineering expertise, but also years of experience building community through teaching, collaboration, and an openness to going wherever his work takes him — even, in fact especially, when it takes him in unexpected directions.

He invites Portland’s makers to bring their skills, their curiosity, and their ideas — and see what becomes possible when they share a room.