Recently the American Institute of Architects announced the recipients of its 2009 National Healthcare Design Awards, honoring two built projects and one unbuilt project. And both of the built projects are located here in Portland: the Providence North Portland Clinic on Interstate Avenue, designed by Mahlum, and the Peter O. Kohler Pavilion at Oregon Health & Science University on Marquam Hill, designed by the Los Angeles office of Chicago-based Perkins + Will.
I wrote about the awards for this week's issue of Architecture Week magazine, which you can read here.
The Providence clinic is a departure for the client. "All the rest of their clinics have red brick," Anne Schopf, a principal at Mahlum, told me for the story. "We really wanted to create a new face for them, a new attitude."
The building is more contemporary than other Providence clinics, with an expansive glass facade along Interstate. Rick Potestio, the acclaimed Portland architect who was working for Mahlum at the time, also told me, "We believed that the site, on Interstate Avenue, merited a civic-scaled building, not a one-story building that looked like it could be a pancake house." The solution was a single-story building with a butterfly roof in which the east and west elevations reaching two stories in height.
The butterfly roof form allows daylight into the middle of the building, which is divided into three clinical pods centered on open nurses' stations, trading some privacy for openness. The pods are faced with murals visible from the street through a floor-to-ceiling glass wall.
The Kohler Pavilion at OHSU didn't even have a site when the design began. A site had to be carved out of Marquam Hill by replacing an existing roadway. Now, however, the building acts as the visual face of the hilltop campus as it looks out to the east. The Kohler has a striking glass facade, and one's eye is also drawn to the building because it acts as the upper terminus for the Portland Aerial Tram.
The new building houses an intensive care unit, operating rooms, and treatment suites, and the new Center for Women's Health. The pavilion's arrival court includes a large garden area sitting atop a 450-space parking structure. "One of [then-OHSU president] Peter Kohler's strong directives was he didn't want to look down and see cars parked," Nick Seierup of Perkins + Will said in the story. "So any view looks out over greenery." Cascading landscaped roof decks provide intimate gardens as well as terraces for the public to enjoy the panoramic views.
Both projects also reflect a strong trend in healthcare design towards interiors that aid in the healing process, P+W's Seierup added. "Studies actually prove patient outcomes are improved by access to views and natural daylight. And it's proven to have a lasting beneficial effect on staff. They make fewer errors; they're able to read charts better. There's a whole trickle-down of effects."
It's funny, I've been admiring the building on Intestate for some time but had not realize it was a new, purpose built structure. I simply thought it was a remarkably nice example of late Atomic Age architecture that had been reused. The windows and it's efficient use of light are probably the things that stood out to me most.
(Obviously, I've never walked up close to the building or would have noticed some of the newer details such as that wire barrier.)
Congratulations to the folks who were at Mahlum at the time. They succeeded in bringing a building to Interstate that is both contemporary *and* fits with the Atomic style of the neighborhood's commercial strip. It blends without being a mockery, a nostalgic trip, or a bland "context" building.
Posted by: Alexander Craghead | September 11, 2009 at 01:15 PM
Mahlum does great work!
Posted by: R. | September 11, 2009 at 03:01 PM
Potestio does great work!
Posted by: robert | September 11, 2009 at 09:15 PM
Somehow the architecture at N Interstate feels less impressive after you've sat in their waiting room for 2+ hours with a screaming baby.
Posted by: EB | September 12, 2009 at 11:44 AM
Mahlum project, although it looks great, the envelope is horrible from a sustainability perspective. The large west facing glass facade with the sun shades that are designed for the south don't work and therefore the building is a magnet for the intense afternoon sun. Whenever the sun is out the internal shades are shut, the lights are all on inside,and I'm sure the HVAC is going overboard. Probably LEED Gold.
Posted by: Ken | September 13, 2009 at 09:38 PM
Not mentioned in the article above, is that local firm PKA Architects was responsible for the interiors of the Kohler Pavillion. Truly good work done by local people.
Posted by: A Nonny Mouse | September 14, 2009 at 08:23 PM
Brian,
The person to whom the P+W quotes is attributed is Nick Seierup in the article, and Eric Aukee on the blog...
Posted by: DE | September 21, 2009 at 09:57 PM
Sorry DE, the quote should be attributed to Nick Seirup.
Posted by: Brian Libby | September 22, 2009 at 10:22 AM
The use of imagination and creative work of both Mahlum and Potestio is impressive. The views that were achieved by their design skills benefit the employees and the patients. These two buildings received a well deserved AIA National Healthcare Design Award and I congratulate them on bringing life and energy into the Providence North Portland Clinic on Interstate Avenue and the Peter O. Kohler Pavilion at Oregon Health & Science University on Marquam Hill.
Posted by: Amber | October 08, 2009 at 09:50 AM