EUGENE, Ore. — The University of Oregon (UO) in Eugene announced plans and unveiled renderings for its Knight Campus for Accelerated Scientific Impact on Oct. 27. The groundbreaking is planned for early February 2018, with construction on the project expected to start next spring.

New York-based Ennead Architects and Bora Architects of Portland, Ore., are the architects on the project, with Hoffman Construction of Portland, Ore., serving as the general contractor on the project. Plans are to complete construction on the project in 2020.

The first phase of the project — which was designed by Ennead Architects — will be completed in phases, the first of which will be a 160,000-square-foot $225 million set of buildings connected by a glass terrace. This initial part of the project will be built along the north side of Franklin Boulevard between Onyx Street and Riverfront Parkway. The UP Board of Trustees approved UO spending for this phase during the last week of October.

The overall project cost of the Knight Campus is $1 billion. In addition to the $225 million that UO approved in October, UO Graduate and Nike Founder Phil Knight and his wife Penny donated a gift of $500 million towards the project’s development and construction. Additionally, $50 million in state bonds will serve to fund the project. The university still must raise $500 million from other donors.

“Penny and I are thrilled with the progress that is being made with this new campus,” Knight said in a statement. “We have high hopes that these buildings and the people inside them will do great things for our university and the state.”

The new Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact has a goal to fast-track scientific discoveries into innovations that improve the quality of life for people in Oregon, the nation and the world, according to a statement from UO. The new campus is intended to transform student education through discovery-driven learning, engage the public in the excitement and creativity of scientific research, and foster diverse perspectives and participation in scientific research.

Todd Schliemann — one of the lead architects at Ennead on the project — said the new complex will provide researchers and students with a compact, collaborative space that far surpasses the potential scientific collaboration of previous projects, according to a recent interview with KLCC. The glass-and-steel building will also include a skybridge over Franklin Boulevard connecting to other research facilities on the Oregon campus and will create a gateway corridor between Eugene and Springfield.  

The architectural renderings and three-dimensional models that were revealed on Oct. 27, “represent months of intensive work by our terrific architectural team and on-campus building user group,” according to Patrick Phillips, acting executive director for the project and professor of biology at UO, in a recent statement on the university website. “The architecture itself reinforces the Knight Campus goals of supporting innovative, interactive and high-impact research in an open, cutting-edge space.”

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EVERETT, Wash. — Washington State University North Puget Sound at Everett recently completed the new Everett University Center. The new academic building will serve as an engineering and STEM facility, and is seeking LEED Gold certification.

SRG Partnership was the architect on the project, with Hoffman Construction serving as the general contractor; both companies have offices in Seattle. McKinstry (also of Seattle) was the engineering firm on the project and was responsible for implementing the energy and water conservation measures into the 95,000-square-foot facility. The project had a budget of $65 million, and the building was completed in May 2017 after three years of construction.

With many of the degree programs at this campus focused on engineering and STEM, it was important for that to be reflected in the buildings standards. The facility is equipped with a living laboratory that will provide a real-world learning environment, giving students in the region the skills they need to compete in local and global economies.

The Innovation Forum is the heart of the building as a four-story atrium that links major entry points for students and provides access to the full range of activities within.The Forum also serves as a pre-function space and a gathering place for university and community events.

“Like an interior street, the Forum is fronted by key student support elements with multiple ‘storefronts’ for student services, a tiered lecture hall, a media-rich classroom and the Capstone Studio — an upper-division lab providing students and industry partners a place for invention and innovation,” said Tim Richey, project lead and senior associate at SRG Partnership. 

In total, there are 13 classrooms and nine engineering labs. To the west of the Forum, faculty offices and conference rooms surround a central, light-filled triangular atrium, which provides a place for faculty interaction.

The design team sought to set a high standard for energy performance with the design of the new Everett University Center, and it will now serve as a baseline for future campus development, according to Richey. The thermal envelope far exceeds the state energy code standards, using a rain-screen façade of brick and a metal panel with R-35 insulation and thermally broken cladding supports. A full-building air leakage test revealed a combined average of 0.217 cfm/ft2 at 75 Pa, which is 45 percent better than the Washington State Energy Code, according to Richey.  

Additionally, a low-energy VRF system conditions the classroom and faculty wings. The central Innovation Forum of the facility incorporates mechanically operable windows and louvers, providing fresh air ventilation and natural cooling. During winter months, heat energy is harvested from the building’s data center and reused in the Forum’s hydronic radiant floor. A 75 kW array of photovoltaic panels at the roof is dramatically exposed as the building’s cornice, cantilevering beyond the south façade.

Below the Capstone Studio is a 20,000-gallon cistern that captures rainwater and repurposes it for 100 percent of the toilet and urinal flushing demand between September and June, diverting the surplus to site irrigation. The new facility also boasts a complete LED lighting package. The LEED certification application for the facility is still in process, with certification expected for sometime in 2018.

“One of the unique aspects of the new Washington State University Center is that it’s the first building of what promises to be an extensive branch campus in the future,” said Richey. “Rather than comparing it to projects that have been completed in the past, this building is setting the standard in design character and performance for future campus development that is sure to follow.”

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