6 • The Southwest Portland Post
NEWS
September 2011
OHSU previews Schnitzer campus building design
By Lee Perlman
The Southwest Portland Post
A development team from Oregon
Health and Sciences University has
discussed their plans, and given the
public a preview, of their proposed Col-
laborative Life Sciences Building, the
first structure on their new Schnitzer
South Waterfront campus. In two ses-
sions before the Portland Design Com-
mission, the west side remains an issue.
The project, known as the Collab-
orative Life Sciences Building is, as its
name suggests, a collaborative project
by OHSU, Oregon State University and
Portland State University. It will be
situated at Southwest Moody Avenue
and a future Porter Street, immediately
north of a future Light Rail station.
It will house classrooms, lecture halls,
research facilities, a student lounge,
cafeteria, and ground floor retail. It
will be the first building on the future
Schnitzer campus, a 19-acre tract do-
nated to OHSU by the Schnitzer family.
The building will comprise 470,000
total square feet. It will have 470 space
parking garage below a 75-foot high
podium housing most student ac-
tivities. Above the podium will be two
EarthTalk
(Continued from Page 2)
wood can be re-used by someone else
or recycled much more efficiently than
plastic when it does reach the end of its
useful life to you.
Wood products and other items
crafted out of plant material—even so-
called “polylactic acid (PLA) plastic”
made from plant-based agricultural
wastes—can be composted along with
your yard waste and food scraps, either
towers, one six stories tall on the south
end and another rising to 14 stories on
the north; this will house the research
facilities.
The main entrance will be at the
southeast corner behind a pedestrian
plaza. The building will face a future
pedestrian promenade down the
middle of the campus, architects Paul
Zajfen and Carol Mayer Reed said.
OHSU vice president Mark Williams
said the project had been made possible
by some “extremely generous gifts,”
including an anonymous $40 million
donation.
Among other things the new build-
ing will replace the existing Dental
School, which Williams said was “a
testament to deferred maintenance. It
would cost us $20 million to meet code
and keep it open, and it wouldn’t be
money well spent.”
The development team showed the
project to the Portland Design Com-
mission in July at a Design Advisory, a
voluntary, informal review in advance
of a formal design review application.
In general, Commission members
seemed enthusiastic about the project.
Their strongest criticism was of the
western façade, which they found to be
too stark and uninviting a wall.
OHSU’s Collaborative Life Science Building (Courtesy Jim Newman, OHSU)
Commission member Andrew Jansky
said, “This will be the main frontage
that most people will see who come by
car. We need a building with striking
visual interest.”
At a subsequent session in August,
landscape architect Carol Mayer Reed
proposed making the west frontage
a “linear park,” with landscaping
separating it from both the side of the
building and the roadways and light
rail line to the west.
Some of the Commission members
were critical of this approach. Com-
mission member Kathryn Schultz said
the area between the landscaping could
become a “dead zone that people will
pass through, not want to hang out in.”
Commission member David Wark
said, “Not every street frontage has
to have the same level of activity, but
Moody will have such a huge invest-
ment in infrastructure.”
Commission chair Gwen Millius told
the development team to make the west
side “not look like a sewer space.”
in your backyard or, if your town or city
offers it, through your municipal collec-
tion system. Happy reducing, reusing
and recycling!
C O N TA C T S : E a r t h 9 1 1 , w w w .
earth911.com; EcoCycle, www.eco-
cycle.org. EarthTalk® is written and
edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug
Moss and is a registered trademark of E
- The Environmental Magazine (www.
emagazine.com). Send questions to:
earthtalk@emagazine.com.
PoSt A to Z BuSINESS cARD DIREctoRy 503-244-6933