OHSU Targets South Waterfront For 'Life Sciences Collaborative'

In today's Daily Journal of Commerce, Tyler Graf reports that Oregon Health & Sciences University is seeking to turn its approximately 20 acres of riverfront property just south of the Marquam Bridge (and on the northern edge of the South Waterfront condo forest) into a collaborative project with the state's other major universities (UO, PSU, OSU, UP, OIT) called the Life Sciences Collaborative.

The new Collaborative center would house programs and research efforts and would also provide space to private research firms. It would be approximately 300,000 square feet. OHSU and its partners are seeking $250 million from the state board of higher education to fund construction. In Graf's article, the Los Angeles architecture firm Perkins + Will is mentioned as "working on the project," although I'm not sure if that means they've already been chosen for this one. Perkins + Will previously designed the Patient Care Facility at OHSU next to the upper aerial tram station. It's pretty nice looking, I think, although inevitably a bit bland and corporate.

OHSU has a mixed record as architectural patron. The Casey Eye Institute on the Marquam campus was originally a design by the legendary architect Richard Meier, but his firm pulled out before the final design, which I believe is by GBD Architects. The BICC computer library from the early 1980s was designed by Thomas Hacker Architects and included contributions from both Brad Cloepfil and Rick Potestio, who worked for Hacker at the time. The BICC is a real gem that stands the test of time pretty well.

In the South Waterfront, OHSU and its development partners initially seemed to be going with Brad Cloepfil and Allied Works when the neighborhood was being proposed, but then they went with GBD. Cloepfil has been on record numerous times, most recently in a Bright Lights talk with Randy Gragg of Portland Spaces, as using phrases like "bait and switch" to describe what happened with OHSU. Still, GBD's resulting building, the Center for Health and Healing, is probably my favorite building they have done.

Regardless, having something built between the Marqam and Ross Island bridges will provide the connection South Waterfront needs to downtown. Once this Schnitzer campus is built, SoWa will feel less isolated.

Comments

[zilfondel]

Where are they going to bury I-5? Under the Schnitzer campus?

Just curious if anyone is thinking this far ahead, even though we are talking a minimum of 20-30 years out.

[Emily]

Just to clarify something - the BICC Computer Library is really the Biomedical Information Communication Center. It includes Medical Informatics, Educational Communications and a large Health Sciences Library.