An Oregon State University marine research facility under construction in Newport is engineered to be resilient in the face of the worst conditions nature has to offer.

The three-story Marine Studies Building at the Hatfield Marine Science Center was designed to stand up to a magnitude 9.0 subduction zone earthquake and subsequent tsunami, which could bring waves up to 31 feet in height.

“As far as resiliency goes, there hasn’t been a building built like this on the west coast,” said Dave Raleigh, OSU‘s project construction manager.

The university is also hoping the unique facility will be draw hundreds more full-time students to its growing campus on the Oregon coast.

Andersen Construction is the general contractor on the $61.7 million project, which was designed by Yost Grube Hall Architecture. KPFF Consulting Engineers is performing structural engineering work.

The facility consists of a pair of steel-framed buildings linked with a seismic joint. The taller of the two buildings will serve as a tsunami evacuation site and will be accessed via a reinforced concrete ramp.  It will be one of just two vertical evacuation facilities in the Pacific Northwest, and will have capacity for 900 people.

Combined, the two three-story buildings will have some 72,000 square feet of floor area split into academic and research wings, along with a two-story community space with an auditorium and laboratories.

“Because it’s built to codes that are not yet in place, it’s extremely robust,” said Andersen Construction Superintendent Mark Reusser, referring to proposed Universal Building Code additions governing tsunami and earthquake resilience.

The key to withstanding a magnitude 9 quake, KPFF Principal Josh Richards said last year, comes from honeycomb-style, deep-soil foundation columns reaching over 100 feet below the sandy surface soils. The overlapping grid-like foundation is mutually supportive when experiencing lateral stress, such as that caused by an earthquake or tsunami.

In addition, deep soil mixing, which has been used in Japan since the 1950s and in California since the ’70s, uses cement-like materials to fill or blend with native soil. This increases soil strength and compressibility – as well as earthquake survivability.

“We’re not really trying to demonstrate anything,” said Raleigh. “We’re just trying to make the building safe for the community user. We’re taking a lot of things into consideration; what’s going to cause a tsunami is a huge earthquake, so that’s really what this is based on, that 2,500 year event.”

Crews began work on the project in March 2018, and since then structural steel work has been completed and steel decking has been placed on the second and third floors in preparation for slab-on-deck concrete pours. Last week saw the first pour of the slab-on-deck concrete roof, a process that should be completed on the second and third floors by mid-April. The final slab-on-grade pour by should be completed by the end of next month.

“We’re pouring from the roof down and then pouring the slab-on-grade afterward,” Reusser said. “Mainly that’s to protect against the weather here and the polished concrete floors, so that the polished slab-on-grade concrete floors would not get trashed by the heavy construction work of installing the structural steel.”

Substantial completion of the project is expected by March 2020, with OSU staff moving into the new facility that spring in preparation for the start of classes that summer.

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Just how does one make a large structure resistant to one of the most damaging forces of nature? That’s the central challenge at hand for general contractor Andersen Construction as it embarks on a $50 million expansion of Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport.

A ground-breaking ceremony last week kicked off a project several years in the making. OSU is hoping the new world-class research facility will attract hundreds more full-time students to its growing campus on the Oregon coast. The structure also is planned as just the second vertical tsunami evacuation site in the United States.

Portland’s Yost Grube Hall Architecture, a firm currently working on a U.S. embassy in Mozambique and another in Turkmenistan, designed the new OSU facility. It will actually be a pair of steel-framed buildings linked with a seismic joint. The taller of the two will include the evacuation site, and be built to withstand a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and a resulting tsunami wave up to 31 feet in height.

Combined, the two buildings will be some 72,000 square feet. The rooftop evacuation site, 47 feet above ground, will have room for up to 900 people.

“What we heard was that there needed to be a vertical evacuation feature, because not all people can walk the 12 to 20 minutes that will be required to get out of the area (in the event of a tsunami),” said Steve Clark, OSU vice president for university relations and marketing. “So we (planned) the building with the idea that this would serve not only as a resilient building and sustain the impact of the earthquake and the inundations of the waves that come into the bay, but also serve as a point of relief for evacuation for those who can’t get to Safe Haven Hill.”

No existing facility is like the one now being built, KPFF Engineering structural principal Josh Richards said. The only other vertical tsunami evacuation facility in the United States was built in 2015 for the Ocosta School District in Westport, Washington, and it is distinctly different in design and capability.

“There are no current examples that the facility is explicitly modeled after,” he said.

The latest expansion plans were revealed by OSU in November. Set for completion in fall 2019, it will feature a three-story academic and research wing, along with a two-story community space, an auditorium and laboratories. An emergency ramp will connect the ground level with the top of the auditorium and the academic wing’s roof. There, the evacuation site will provide space for people unable to reach Newport’s Safe Haven Hill a half-mile south of the science center.

Following widespread criticism in 2016 that the site was unsafe for its intended purpose, OSU President Ed Ray appointed a committee to come up with additional safety requirements for the new facility. As a result, the proposed building had to be able to survive a magnitude 9 earthquake and a tsunami expected to move at an estimated 30 mph.

But making this innovative building come alive is no ordinary design-and-build job.

“Oh, that’s for sure,” Andersen Construction Superintendent Mark Reusser said.

His company is tasked with building the Hatfield expansion on a man-made sand spit that already holds the rest of the science center, as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Operations Center – Pacific. This presents some serious geotechnical challenges because during an earthquake local soils are expected to liquefy and cause widespread surface instability.

The key to withstanding a magnitude 9 quake, Richards said, comes from honeycomb-style, deep-soil foundation columns reaching 100 feet or more below the sandy surface. Instead of traditional support columns, the overlapping grid-like foundation is mutually supportive when experiencing lateral stress, such as that caused by an earthquake or tsunami. Even as the soil liquefies, the entire building is designed to remain intact and upright.

In addition, deep soil mixing is also in play. Used in Japan since the 1950s and in California since the ’70s, this technique uses cement-like materials to fill or blend with native soil. It increases soil strength and compressibility, allowing for greater stability during a seismic event.

“There’s about a million pounds of cement that’s going to be mixed in the ground to complete the deep soil mixing for the foundation,” Reusser said. “That sets that building up so that it won’t float away. It can’t wash away. You can’t wash the ground out from underneath it and it can’t settle too much.”

The deep soil mix used for the Hatfield project consists of a cementitious grout mixed with existing soil through an auguring process, Richards said. This creates hardened soil columns, which in turn support concrete spread and mat footings as part of the deep soil grid.

“The perimeter deep soil mixed columns also protect from soil scour and loss of support that would occur around the building during the tsunami event,” he said.

“It’s essentially a grid or a matrix type of structure that goes down that deep,” added Jerry Waters, associate principal and senior project designer for Yost Grube Hall. “They (foundation supports) are all connected, and it’s a grid … you can kind of visualize a honeycomb system, so it will act as one big monolith.”

After an earthquake’s tremors subside, a tsunami wave 30 feet or taller would be expected to strike the new facility. Both buildings will feature steel framing with concrete core walls and slabs built to resist lateral seismic and tsunami loads, Richards said. Designers used Federal Emergency Management Agency documents produced after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan to create a pair of structures able to provide plenty of redundancy against collapse.

“The criteria used are the same as required for U.S. embassy or other federal facility designs,” Richards said. “It includes removing select columns and other large load-carrying elements in the structure, and requires adequate detailing and member design in order to maintain load path continuity for these conditions.”

That will be critical for any quake survivors taking shelter atop the building.

“It has more robust than normal connections,” Waters said. “But at same time the steel has a better capability of sort of some flexure compared to concrete.”

Even with substantial modeling and testing, only a real earthquake will offer proof of survivability. But designers and engineers are confident in their work.

“First, you have to withstand the potential seismic event, and then you have to be resilient enough to potentially withstand a tsunami,” Waters said. “And, again, it’s somewhat unknown, but obviously there has been quite a bit of data used to simulate and estimate the magnitude of damage the building will receive.”

The final result should showcase world-class engineering as well as maintain Oregon’s role as a premier destination for scientific research, Clark said.

“We wanted to demonstrate a commitment to Oregon’s coast and throughout the world, that, actually, this can be the location for important public features,” he said. “And if they’re built correctly, and in the right location and in the right way, our coastlines aren’t closed for business.”

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Designing an educational facility for a university usually isn’t like designing a U.S. embassy. But an expansion of Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport presented Yost Grube Hall Architecture many challenges similar to those posed by a government building on foreign soil.

“We do a lot of work for U.S. State Department,” YGH principal Tom Robbins said. “With embassies, you design for a bomb going off. In both cases you have to design for things you don’t want to happen.”

What OSU officials don’t want is for an earthquake and resultant tsunami to kill or injure people in or near the facility. That risk is a major concern for the new $50 million, 72,000-square-foot building that will sit on a man-made sand spit in Yaquina Bay. The site sits squarely inside the expected inundation zone in a sizable seismic event.

A three-story core space will connect to a two-story wing that will have an auditorium, an innovation lab and community space. The building is designed to serve as a “vertical evacuation” site. The only similar structure in the U.S. is Ocosta Elementary School near the Pacific Ocean in Westport, Washington.

“I would say this has been more intriguing (than an embassy project) because it has not been done before,” Robbins said. “It’s been harder due to the defining criteria. I would also say it is also much more exciting.”

The building had to be able to withstand a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and resultant tsunami. Such an earthquake would likely cause liquefaction, softening the land directly underneath. Then a predicted 30-foot-tall wall of water would hit the building at 30 mph. The inundation zone would likely extend beyond OSU’s Newport campus.

“The tsunami is the attention-grabber,” Robbins said. “The building is designed to take an impact. We did a number of computer simulations on debris flow. We do kind of benefit from the location. The site likely won’t have a lot of debris.”

In order to address the likelihood of liquefaction, the building’s foundation will extend more than 100 feet below the surface – more than twice the 45-foot height above ground. A progressive collapse system will keep the building upright even if two of its columns collapse.

The building will also serve evacuees unable to reach Newport’s Safe Haven Hill site, which is approximately a 15-minute jog from the city. A ramp will allow people to reach the roof, and two staircases inside will be built within a hardened shell. Also, an elevator within the shell will rely on a separate power source.

“You have to pay attention to everything from the foundation as well as scouring from the tsunami,” said Robert Cowen, director of the Hatfield Marine Science Center. “We will have large items striking the building. Engineers have looked at all of the aspects.”

General contractor Andersen Construction, structural engineer KPFF and geotechnical engineer GRI all oversaw design elements. That information was then checked by OSU’s own engineers.

“It has been examined by a large number of engineers,” Cowen said. “We had a suite of engineers with an oversight committee examine how the data was being looked at and interpreted.”

That work gave OSU officials confidence that the site could accommodate a structure able to serve students and the five state and federal agencies currently on the campus, but also survive an earthquake and tsunami. The idea was to allow different disciplines to work in a combined environment. It will have rolling whiteboards, an auditorium, classrooms and office space.

“We have designed it with open laboratories,” Cowen said. “You might find a physicist next to a marine biologist next to a resource economist. We are trying to meet the needs of a broad group.”

OSU is also hoping to prove critics wrong and show that a safe building can be built in a seismically active coastal area.

“We want to make this building a demonstration project of how to build responsibly in a tsunami zone,” Robbins said. “Our team is excited about that.”

On the Boards is a 91��Ƶ feature offering a look at the projects in Oregon being tackled by local architecture firms. To have your firm’s projects considered, contact 91��Ƶ architecture and engineering reporter Kent Hohlfeld at 503-802-7224 or khohlfeld@djcOregon.com.

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Portland City Council tentatively overturned a Portland Design Commission denial of the Ankeny Apartments project by a 4-0 vote on Wednesday.

The seven-story, L-shaped complex at 1122 S.E. Ankeny St. will wrap around two single-family houses, and will include 16 apartments and ground-floor retail. The design has drawn criticism from neighbors but won praise from the City Council for efforts to make the project a net-zero energy building.

The latest change from earlier versions of the building was the adoption of setbacks ranging from 18 inches to three feet from the property lines on the south, north and east sides of the structure. The original design left the structure built up to the property line on all sides, which had concerned neighbors.

“I want to thank the applicant and the neighbors who spent a considerable amount of time going back and forth on this, and I think coming to a very solid and amical resolution,” Mayor Ted Wheeler said before casting his vote in favor of the project.

After the hearing, project developer Landon Crowell applauded the efforts of the city’s staff, especially Grace Jeffreys and Tim Heron of the city’s Bureau of Development Services. He also gave a nod to his development team, which included Jerry Waters of Yost Grube Hall Architecture, Tim Ramis of Jordan Ramis and Greg Vik of Vik Construction.

Other changes in the project from previous versions evaluated by the Design Commission included the addition of wood siding material on parts of the structure and a slight reduction in tower height.

“I have no standing to say this, but I think the revised building is an improvement over the original building,” Commissioner Nick Fish said.  “I congratulate you for balancing the neighborhood’s concerns,  but also having a building that is quite distinctive.”

The development team also volunteered to add a construction mitigation plan as a condition of receiving City Council approval. The plan will require an assessment of surrounding properties before and after construction to identify any damage that might occur during construction.

“This project has gone from being a zero lot line project to one that has setbacks,” said Ramis, who served as Crowell’s  legal counsel. “That distinction has allowed us to address things like maintenance questions and construction issues.”

The development team  also agreed to avoid any pile driving during construction. The issue had been a sticking point with neighbors who  feared the process would damage their properties.

“We will use an auger system where we will drill a hole in the ground and inject concrete,” Ramis said. “If we tried to do (pile driving), it would be a violation of our construction plan and we couldn’t do it.”

The road to approval has been a long one for the project. First proposed in February 2016, it went through five Design Commission hearings and four City Council hearings before finally winning approval.

“I am really reluctant to reward a process that has had five hearings at the Design Commission and (four) hearing before us,” Commissioner Amanda Fritz said before casting her vote. “I appreciate the neighbors having been responded to at the end; it would have been better to have respond to them at the beginning.”

Wednesday’s vote was tentative. A staff report will be needed to finalize the updated design and construction plan before final approval is given. The final vote on the appeal will be held Aug. 31.

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Travelers seeking to park their motor vehicles at Portland International Airport will eventually have more spaces to choose from. They just won’t be available until 2020.

That is when a $246 million, seven-story, long-term parking garage is scheduled to open at the airport. The project is in the early design phase, with Yost Grube Hall Architecture at work.

Insufficient airport parking has become plainly apparent, according to Port of Portland spokeswoman Kama Simonds.

“In the last two to three years our long-term parking garages have been full a lot, especially on Tuesday and Thursday with business travelers,” she said.

When long-term parking spaces fill, there is a ripple effect: drivers tend to head to short-term spaces, which forces more cars into the economy parking lot.

“The short-term lot is intended for people picking up passengers or those who have business at the airport,” Simonds said.

The new garage will include approximately 2,400 public parking spaces. The facility will also include a customer service lobby and 724,000 square feet for rental cars.

“It is our goal to have 100 percent of rental cars on site,” Simonds said. “Right now, some (companies) shuttle out to remote sites. Getting them close in is something that our customers have asked for.”

Money from taxpayers won’t be used to pay for the new garage, according to Simonds. People who rent and park cars at PDX will pick up the tab.

Flexibility is something that Yost Grube Hall Architecture was told to include in its design.

“We need flexibility with regards to technology,” Simonds said. “Maybe in 20 years or even two years self-driving cars will be in use. Then there is car sharing. We want to accommodate all of the different ways that people use cars. We have to be able to produce flexibility in the facility.”

Despite the frequent parking crunch, Portland International Airport ranked as one of the top airports in the country last year. PDX in 2016 saw a 9 percent surge in traffic to nearly 18 million fliers. Port officials are seeking to better serve those travelers via the new garage.

“Our goal is to have as many spaces as possible up front where people can walk to the terminal,” Simonds said. “That is something that is important to our customers.”

PAE Engineers, KPFF Consulting Engineers and DKS Associates are providing engineering services for the project. JE Dunn Construction will build the facility.

Design work is expected to continue through the third quarter of 2018. Construction is likely to begin in the fourth quarter of 2018 and last through the second quarter of 2020.

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Terrorism, espionage and international diplomacy rarely factor into building designs. But for a small cadre of architecture firms that design U.S. embassies, those issues indeed present challenges.

Starting in 2000, Patrick Boyle, an architect now with Hennebery Eddy Architects, worked on four major embassy projects while employed by ZGF Architects.

“Trying to connect the priorities of the people trying to serve a mission in a foreign country with the people who are tasked with maintaining that entire pool of properties and buildings is tough,” he said. “It was a difficult client, not from the people side of it but the process side of it.”

One of the ZGF projects was a new embassy in Suriname, in South America.

“This is the fun part,” Boyle said. “You get a call from the (U.S. State Department) asking if you would be interested in working on a project in Suriname. In your head, you are trying to figure out where that is.”

Few firms are on the State Department’s list of those approved for indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts. After being vetted thoroughly, firms are on the IDIQ list for five years. The State Department three weeks ago initiated the latest round of evaluations for firms interested in being added to the list.

“The Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) selects architecture and engineering teams through an established process that complies with federal procurement laws and regulations,” said Christy Foushee, OBO director of external affairs.

For each project, Foushee said, prospective firms are evaluated. Officials examine firms’ portfolio submissions, qualifications of the proposed multidisciplinary teams and subcontractors. Also, key personnel are interviewed.

A firm that manages to make it through that process then has to navigate a myriad of regulations and paperwork that can total hundreds of pages.

There are reasons why firms must jump through so many hoops. When the U.S. decided to build an embassy in Moscow during the Cold War, Russian designers and construction workers were allowed to work on the project, according to a story in The New York Times.

The U.S. believed that American officials on the ground would be able to easily detect any listening devices planted in the structure and remove them before occupancy, the newspaper reported. But the completed embassy was riddled with bugs, some even woven into cement. The structure was so compromised that it was never occupied.

“Security at an embassy construction site is tighter than when it is completed,” Boyle said. “You can do a lot of bad things then.”

But for firms that end up working on embassies, the rewards can be substantial and long-lasting.

“For me, it’s great to actually be able to go somewhere and do something that makes people’s lives better,” said Nels Hall, a principal at Yost Grube Hall Architecture. “Making their life safer and engaging the local culture is great.”

YGH Architecture has been involved with international work since the 1990s. After 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. embassy in Pakistan became a busy place. YGH was chosen to work on an expansion.

“That was an existing large building that tripled in size,” Hall said. “That cost almost $800 million in construction and lasted for six years.”

Years before, in 1999, the State Department adopted Standard Embassy Design (SED) model of construction. It called for generally squat, unremarkable structures that could withstand blasts from 2,000 pounds of TNT, surrounded by green lawns. They were often built far from city centers, in areas that planners hoped would be safe from would-be attackers.

Page Southerland Page, a national firm, has worked on embassy designs since the 1980s. James Wright, a principal with the firm, said that reduced construction times and costs were benefits of the SED model. However, it soon lost favor.

“The SED never quite blossomed into what the State Department wanted,” he said. “They wanted a three-sizes-fits-all design for large, middle and small embassies.”

The problem was that oftentimes the template didn’t fit the area context.

“We were the first to implement it in Phnom Penh (Cambodia),” he said. “It had to be seriously modified.”

Restrictions on everything from walls to window size were also a challenge, Wright said.

“One of the long lead items is the windows,” he said. “So what the government decided to do was to preorder them. Designers were stuck with two or three basic windows.”

The result was that U.S. embassies around the world looked nearly identical.

Following the election of Barrack Obama as president, the SED model was scrapped in 2009. The State Department adopted a philosophy of emphasizing design excellence. In addition to security, high priority was given to openness, transparency and civic engagement.

“We have seen a complete evolution,” Wright said. “Where we are (design wise) is not that different from where we were 30 years ago.”

The new philosophy comes with a high cost. The new U.S. embassy in London has a price tag of $1 billion – nearly $100 million over budget. Use of unique, blast-proof glass contributed substantially to that result.

“The pendulum tends to swing one way and now it has swung back,” Boyle said. “We are trying to put forth the image and values of the United States.”

Balancing security with embassies’ many other functions isn’t limited to the building architects. Landscape architects have to address the same challenges when trying to figure out the types and configuration of plants to use.

“When it is most challenging is when there is a high security threat,” said Marilee Hanks, a principal at Anderson Krygier Inc. “The State Department takes great precautions to make sure we obey security policies. Sometimes we can’t travel outside a certain boundary, which can make the research of native plants a challenge.”

Despite such challenges, U.S. government officials expect top-quality design, Hanks said, and plans are reviewed meticulously.

“In terms of design review, I have never experienced anything like it,” she said. “It’s about as tough as you can get. You have sometimes three different panel reviews.”

Despite all the headaches, embassy and consulate projects remain favorites for many architects who work on them. They afford designers a chance to visit remote parts of the world and experience foreign cultures.

“There is the inspiration of the people that have really dedicated their lives to the mission of diplomacy overseas,” Boyle said. “They were trying to represent the United States and work diplomatically to make the world a better place.”

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The latest chapter in the saga of the Ankeny Apartments project played out Wednesday afternoon during the Portland City Council‘s meeting. The council ultimately decided to continue its hearing on developer Landon Crowell’s appeal of the Portland Design Commission‘s denial of the project.

The hearing is scheduled to resume May 11, when a final decision is expected. In the meantime, the council urged the developers, neighbors and city staffers to meet and try to hammer out an option agreeable to everyone.

The proposed L-shaped building for 1122 S.E. Ankeny St. would include 17 luxury apartments and be the city’s first and nation’s seventh net-zero-energy multifamily structure. It would produce as much or more energy than it uses.

“If Portland wants density, net zero (energy use), diversity and equity as we propagate, we have to make tough decisions,” Crowell said. “Nonetheless, we hope to find common ground with the neighborhood association and the neighbors and build Oregon’s first net zero multifamily building.”

City commissioners on Wednesday listened to nearly three hours of testimony concerning the project’s viability and adherence to design guidelines.

Neighboring residents spoke of their fears of effects the 70-foot-tall structure would have on their homes.

“We bought our house over 40 years ago,” said Priscilla Sturges, whose home at 113 S.E. 12th Ave. would fall in the shadow of the proposed building. “Now we are faced with a huge apartment complex for high-income renters. Affordable homes should not be displaced for wealthy short-termers. This borders on elder abuse.”

Other people said they see the project as the wave of the future and a way to break with ill-advised building policies of the past.

“Portland is a strong city with a vision of what its future should be,” citizen Kristen Malone said. “With so much concern placed on policies that were phased out long ago, the homes that are remaining from those policies are anchoring us to something that we have decided we don’t want to be tied to.”

City commissioners warned neighbors that limits on new building heights are set to increase to 125 feet next year. Denial of this project could lead to a taller proposal in the near future.

“It’s in the best interests of the neighbors to get to yes,” Commissioner Amanda Fritz said.

Net zero energy use would be dependent on the placement of solar cells with access to enough sunlight to produce electricity. Both the City Council and the Design Commission warned that if existing single-family homes were replaced at some point by even taller buildings, Ankeny Apartments’ net zero status would be at risk.

“This is at 75 feet, and with the new comprehensive plan (set to take effect in 2018) the height limit goes up to 125 feet,” Fritz said. “Keeping the single-family homes is kind of necessary for your design. If those were to go, and a 125-foot building was to be put there, it would change your access. In 10 years are we going to be hearing from this developer that someone is taking their sunlight?”

Though that could be an issue, said Bob Zimmerman, an architect with project designer Yost Grube Hall Architecture, the development team believes photovoltaic cells at that time will be advanced enough to compensate for any reduction of incoming sunlight.

The project has been a source of controversy since it was proposed in February 2016. The project team appeared before the Design Commission five times, the most recent slightly more than two months ago, when the proposal was denied for failing to meet the city’s design guidelines.

“We work very hard to get to yes,” Design Commission Chairman David Wark said. “This is the first Type III review that was denied in my time on the board, and it was unanimous.”

The council was highly appreciative of the project team’s efforts to achieve net zero energy use, but acknowledged issues with the design and location.

“This is almost a perfect storm,” Mayor Ted Wheeler said. “It’s almost two worlds colliding. This is the kind of development the city has been trying to encourage particularly close in. I love this project as it is a nod to the future, and I hate it represents rapid change. We are somewhat wistful as to what we are leaving behind.”

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When architect Gauri Rajbaidya was 17, he left his native Nepal after winning a scholarship to United World College-USA in New Mexico. There, he and other international students were given the charge to “go out in the world and do something good,” he said.

Rajbaidya has taken that to heart, and joined other volunteers from Architects Without Borders‘ Oregon chapter to help design a seismically-sound schoolhouse prototype. BuildOn, an international nonprofit, will rely on that model when it soon starts constructing the three-room structures in western Nepal.

After living in this country for 22 years, Rajbaidya, a SERA Architects associate, became a U.S. citizen earlier this year. He had to give up his Nepal citizenship, but his love for his country of origin has endured. Rajbaidya has participated in other pro bono projects, but this collaboration was different.

“This one is from my heart,” he said. “It’s where I grew up. It’s a very proud moment for me to give back, and we wanted to see this built. But it’s taken a long time.”

Such efforts move slowly in Nepal, Rajbaidya said. He took plans for a seismically-sound schoolhouse to Nepal in 2013, two years before a devastating earthquake killed more than 8,000 people, left approximately 3.5 million people homeless and seriously damaged Rajbaidya’s mother’s home in Kathmandu. Now, projects are being approved by local authorities, and Nepalese craftsmen and local resources are lined up. BuildOn plans to construct about eight to 10 schoolhouses each year in Nepal; no maximum number has been determined.

In addition to Rajbaidya, the prototype design team included John Medvec, associate principal at Yost Grube Hall Architecture, and Craig Totten, principal at KPFF Consulting Engineers. Medvec, architect and project manager for the team, said Architects Without Borders worked with buildOn to design school buildings in Haiti after an earthquake there in 2010 killed more than 100,000 people. About 30 of the Haiti schoolhouses – designed to withstand both earthquakes and hurricanes – have already been constructed by buildOn, he said. More schools will be built in the coming years, he added.

The challenge in Nepal, Medvec said, was learning to use local materials and resources, which can be scarce. Concrete will be mixed on site and bricks will be formed by hand, he said.

“We used a lot of manual labor (in Haiti) and the same is true in Nepal,” he said. “We came up with a system that’s easily built and will withstand the seismic forces we see in this area.”

The Nepal schoolhouses will have no plumbing, heat or electricity, Medvec said, which presented more design problems. But the team first had to adapt to local technology.

“We had to redesign the trusses a couple of times because of the steel shapes that we could get and the quality level of the steel,” he said. “In more remote areas it’s often difficult to get the same kind of materials you would expect to get in a more urban environment.”

Nepal has experienced “massive deforestation,” Rajbaidya said; only the school’s door will be made of wood.

The design has gone through many iterations, Rajbaidya said, mainly to save money. Although his team worked for free, the cost of the 1,180-square-foot building is assumed by the local community and buildOn.

The first schools will be built in Dhangadhi, a town of about 100,000 near the border with India. The climate there is much milder than in Nepal’s mountainous areas; however, in the winter, with no heat, kids just bundle up, he said. Schools close during the harshest winter months. But during the summer months, temperatures can reach the 90s.

“At one point we did a shed roof system with a fairly interesting truss system, but the budget came out too high,” Rajbaidya said. “We also had more clerestory openings for the wind to move through in the hot summer, but we had to take those out to bring the cost per school down.”

Despite those adjustments, the seismic ability of the building is sound, Totten said. Consigned masonry construction, with concrete columns and beams, will ensure that schoolhouses withstand an earthquake.

“It will give the same performance as a reinforced masonry wall,” he said.

The final design was completed in June, Totten said. Building permits are in process and construction should start by the end of the year.

Design Beyond Borders is a 91��Ƶ feature offering a look at the projects outside of Oregon being tackled by local architecture firms. To have your firm’s projects considered, contact 91��Ƶ architecture and engineering reporter Beverly Corbell at 503-802-7224 or beverly.corbell@djcOregon.com.

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SUBMITTED?BY: LEASE?CRUTCHER?LEWIS, TBG?ARCHITECTS +?PLANNERS AND YOST?GRUBE?HALL?ARCHITECTURE

The University of Oregon’s journalism and communications school building, Allen Hall, had outgrown its original design. The university settled on an expansion and upgrade that would play to future needs while retaining the character of the school as a premier educational facility.

The design by TBG Architects, in association with Yost Grube Hall Architecture, maintained the primary design integrity while creating spaces that address the ways that digital and multimedia resources are shaping journalism and communications.

The building was design and constructed, with Lease Crutcher Lewis as the general contractor, to meet sustainable standards equivalent to that of LEED silver-rated buildings. Green building materials, energy-efficient HVAC, and an airy, open design in the atrium and new office expansion create a feel of modernity and comfort.

The building also pays tribute to journalism’s past. The project team repurposed student-designed sculptural reliefs from the 1920s as a reminder to students and visitors alike that even as journalism changes, the principles on which it rests remain solid and constant.

PROJECT?TEAM + STATS:
Location: Eugene, Oregon
Cost: $11 million
Start date: June 2011
Completion date: January 2013
Owner/developer: University of Oregon
Architects: TGB Architects + Planners (architect of record), Yost Grube Hall Architecture (design architect)
Landscape architect: Cameron McCarthy Landscape Architecture and Planning
Engineers: Branch Engineering, Glumac, KPFF Consulting Engineers
General contractor: Lease Crutcher Lewis
Other associates: Roberts Surveying

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, like other higher education institutions in the region, is now investing in permanent structures. is designing multiple projects – including a 60,000-square-foot machining and electronics building – for the Salem-based college.

“This is really going to establish a new district on their campus,” said Mark Stoller, a YGH principal. “They previously had a lot of modulars. This will get rid of the temporary buildings and get some new ones.”

YGH previously designed a satellite campus in Yamhill County for Chemeketa. In addition to the machining and electronics building, the firm is designing a renovation for the college’s welding building. Together, the projects will cost $24 million.

Chemeketa is using money from a $92 million bond measure that Marion County voters passed in 2008.

The new building will include classroom space, product-testing rooms and one large shop space. The structure is expected to help Chemeketa teach students about the applied sciences industry, Stoller said.

The shop space will feature hands-on equipment and computer numeric control machinery. The entire building will include natural ventilation and natural lighting to mimic the design of a large fabrication warehouse.

“One of the desires is to have the teaching environment similar to what they have out in the industry,” Stoller said. “Now they will have adequate space for equipment and tools so they can teach the way they want to.”

The building is designed to achieve a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design silver rating.

helped complete the planning, architecture and interior design for the project. Construction is expected to start in summer 2013.

“On the Boards” is a weekly feature that spotlights local firms’ best design work. Submissions from architectural and engineering firms are encouraged. Please call 503-802-7240 or email ontheboards@djcOregon.com.

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