| The Peter O. Kohler Pavilion is spectacularly sited on Marquam Hill, the mountainous OHSU campus overlooking the city of Portland and the Willamette River below. Part of an aggressive growth strategy to expand the patient care capacity of the existing hospital, the new Peter O. Kohler Pavilion acts as hub between patient care areas, teaching facilities and the research and development zones of the existing campus and will be linked to planned new research and clinical development in the city below by a proposed aerial tramway.
An overarching goal in the design of the building was to incorporate all the disparate elements in a simple, singular and elegant way. The current campus is linked across the varied terrain of the hilly campus by what is termed the “9th floor superhighway”, a unique publicly accessible circulation spine that interconnects many of the buildings on the campus. Kohler Pavilion will become a critical destination and circulation facilitator along the 9th floor superhighway, creating access to major new public spaces and gardens that will serve the public and patient population. Great care has gone into maximizing opportunities to create appropriately scaled outdoor spaces that range from large quadrangles, to public overlooks of the great landscaped vistas beyond, and intimate healing gardens associated with the clinical activities inside the building.
The building is articulated in four main components, each of which relates metaphorically to unique site determinants.
“The Forest” extends the forestation and vegetation of Marquam hill upward to cover the four-level open-air parking structure, integrating it invisibly into the hillside.
“The Mountain” acts as a four story base, with a larger floor plate, housing main vehicular entry, patient treatment and surgical suites. Clad in stone with organic fenestration patterning, ”the Mountain” expresses the hilltop site and volcanic origins of the region.
“The City” tower contains ambulatory clinics and inpatient nursing rooms, and is flexibly planned to facilitate conversion either way. Clad in floor to ceiling steel/aluminum and glass curtainwall, the tower posits a forward looking image to the city and maximizes views southward to Mount Hood and the Willamette River below.
“The History” of OHSU is reflected in the north facing facade, which looks into the historic core of campus (dating to the late 1800’s) and responds with punched windows in massive brick walls and relates the new building to the old through material, color, scale and rhythm.
The massing of the new building responds to the site, its relationship to Terwilliger Boulevard, the constraints of the Campus Drive location, Sam Jackson Park Road alignment, rock profile, and the need for floorplates enabling various programmatic functions. In addition, the massing of the building attempts to maintain the view angles from the existing hospital, and the view corridor and view plaza. Opportunities afforded by the spectacular siting of the building include minimizing the height of the structures into the hillside, views and light for all levels of the building, and connections at multiple levels.
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