A new mass timber building at the University of Oregon‘s Portland campus aims to train a new workforce and advance a new model of childcare.

The two-story, 54,000-square-foot will replace four outdated buildings at the UO Portland campus, 2800 N.E. Liberty St.

The new building will house the Ballmer Institute and Prevention Science Institute.

“The mission of the building is one of the main inspirations for the project,” said Braulio Baptista, design partner at ZGF Architects. “It’s humbling to be part of the design of a project that will carry out such important work.”

The building, currently under construction, replaces four recently demolished buildings totaling 44,000 square feet.

According to the university, Elizabeth and Weber halls were used as student housing when Concordia operated the campus before UO purchased it in 2022. The adjoining building, Mary Neils, served as administrative office space. The fourth building was a vacant, single-family house.

The UO Portland project was designed by ZGF Architects. The project team also includes civil engineer CAPITAL Engineering & Consulting LLC, structural engineer KPFF, mechanical engineer PAE, landscape architect Walker Macy and general contractor Skanska.

Launched in 2022 through a lead gift from Connie and Steve Ballmer, the Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health includes a training program that equips students with the skills to identify behavioral health challenges early and implement interventions that prevent issues from escalating.

The facility will allow the UO to enroll up to 300 students annually in their final two years of the program, according to a UO press release.

The three components of the programming are education, research and clinical training. With the new building, the Ballmer Institute and the Prevention Science Institute will have their first identifiable physical location, Baptista said. The Ballmer Institute has previously been operating in a variety of buildings throughout the Portland campus and nearby since its launch in 2022.

The inclusive design will include welcoming spaces for children and families to access free behavioral health services, modernized classrooms and instructional spaces, a behavioral health clinic and a telehealth center to deliver services to youth in underserved and rural communities across the state. The design will include elements of biophilia – design centered on natural element, including plants – and plenty of daylight.

Baptista said it was important to find a balance between institutional and familial elements in the design.

“It will be a mass timber building, which we’re very excited about,” Baptista said, adding that it will be the first new mass timber building on the campus. “The interior of the building will leverage as much of the mass timber as possible to add warmth.”

The exterior materials are primarily metal with custom corrugation. Baptista said the metal emulates the reddish stones of the brick building elsewhere on the campus.

The main organization of the building creates a central space, called the student hub.

“We have research, education and clinical spaces that sort of pinwheel around the central space, creating a very clearly demarcated heart to the building where everybody comes together,” Baptista said.

From that space, students can go into classrooms or research wings.

Baptista said privacy is an important consideration in a building like this, particularly in the training clinic and research areas. There were strict requirements for sound isolation between rooms, from intervention rooms to telehealth spaces.

Baptista said the building’s location was chosen from the master plan, which ZGF helped with, that will create the fourth defining edge to the central quad of the campus. Baptista said it will be kitty-corner from the library, which currently acts as a center piece of the campus.

Landscaping includes a sensory garden and other areas of respite.

The project is expected to cost $83 million. Funding includes $53 million from the state, a $15 million lead gift by the Tykeson Family Foundation and additional gifts of $5 million from other donors, according to the UO.

Construction broke ground June 11 and is expected to be complete in early 2029.

On the Boards is a 91��Ƶ feature offering a look at projects in Oregon and Southwest Washington being tackled by local architecture firms. To have your firm’s projects considered, contact 91��Ƶ reporter Hilary Dorsey at hdorsey@djcOregon.com.

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As mass timber pushes into more project types, contractors and advocates are pursuing its inclusion in designs for one of the few construction sectors showing growth: health care.

Mass timber has long been used in office buildings and residential structures as supporters credit it for appealing aesthetics, faster tilt-up times, and competitive costs and performance. Health care is a tougher sector to crack, with strict code requirements for hospitals and unique considerations related to patient health.

Yet those hurdles have done little to dissuade mass-timber backers, who see a growing health-care sector that comprises one-sixth of the $30 trillion U.S. economy while commercial real estate has pulled back dramatically.

“We’re going to see more (mass-timber) projects that are health care, and we’re going to see larger portions of the projects that are mass timber,” said Dean Lewis, director of mass timber and prefabrication at Skanska, one of the large contractors working with the material.

Health care was a central topic at this week’s International Mass Timber Conference in Portland. Lewis covered health care as an emerging market for mass timber, while University of Oregon researcher Mark Fretz discussed “Mass Timber in Health Care and Infection Control.”

It makes sense for contractors and other industry insiders to pursue health care projects, said Iain Macdonald, director of the Tallwood Design Institute, a collaboration between Oregon State University‘s colleges of forestry and engineering, and the UO College of Design.

“Commercial is kind of a stagnant construction sector, and life sciences is one that’s growing,” he said.

While clients continue to rely on traditional concrete-and-steel construction for key hospital functions, the use of cross-laminated timber (CLT) and similar products in health care facilities is growing.

On the Oregon Coast, ZGF Architects‘ design for the Columbia Memorial Hospital expansion in Astoria uses mass timber for the entryway’s roof and other structural elements. The 183,000-square-foot facility will also include safe refuge areas in the event of a tsunami and acute care patient rooms on upper floors. The expanded hospital is slated to open in 2027.

The foyer of the new St. Charles Cancer Center in Redmond, a 53,000-square-foot facility that will open later this month, is made from mass timber.

The University of Oregon’s $71 million Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health, a 54,000-square-foot building under construction in Portland and designed by ZGF, will feature mass timber extensively, as does a $47 million building designed by Hacker for Mosaic Community Health in Bend.

In Lakewood, Washington, a behavioral health facility designed by HOK topped out in March.

“The mass-timber design serves a number of goals,” Loren Supp, HOK’s design principal in Seattle, stated in a news release. “It highlights the natural beauty of western Washington and its evergreen forests. It reinforces the state’s commitment to environmentally friendly design, and it creates a warm and calming environment that benefits well-being.”

Advocates point to the well-studied psychological benefits of inhabiting timber buildings. UO researchers last year published a study finding CLT had fewer viable bacteria than a plastic sample. The researchers also found that volatile organic compounds in CLT decreased over time.

Industry and UO researchers are studying the possibilities for expanding use of mass timber in hospitals.

“You’re not going to have it in the (operating rooms), but there are distinct advantages to having it in patient rooms, waiting areas and that sort of thing,” Macdonald said.

Industry officials are also studying mass timber’s potential for other uses, including warehouses, data centers and military bases.

Portland has long been the epicenter of mass-timber construction in the United States. Portland is home to notable projects such as the Mississippi Building, an all-wood office structure designed by Waechter Architecture; the 12-story Julia West House, designed by Holst Architecture; and Carbon12, an eight-story mixed-use building designed by Kaiser + Path.

Extensive use of CLT in the new Portland International Airport terminal marked a new chapter for mass timber in major public projects. And even some never-built concepts, including Framework and the Spar, led to important research for building tall wood structures.

In health care, Skanska’s Lewis said clients don’t need to be persuaded — they’re eager to build with mass timber.

“A lot of the clients, especially in the Pacific Northwest, harken back to our affinity for wood,” Lewis said.

Clients point to sustainability and valuing the experience of being inside the building.

“It seems like the ones that want to do timber are really invested in trying to create a space that they feel is above what they’ve seen in the market,” Lewis said.

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