client

Pacific University

 

location

Hillsboro/Forest Grove

 

team

Chris DiLoreto

Chris LoNigro

Tracy Orvis

 

imagery

di loretoARCHITECTURE

di loretoARCHITECTURE

Pacific University’s first structure was a log cabin erected in Forest Grove before Oregon was Oregon. Now it is a small multi-faceted university in expansion.

College of Optometry

Hillsboro, Oregon

As its College of Optometry grows in reputation the university finds itself short on space and presence at its Hillsboro campus. The new structure’s design identifies and evolves the aesthetic theme of the existing buildings, and so solidifies a sense of campus and community.  In our plan we aimed to incorporate both present and prospective spacial needs (laboratories, administrative offices, the student-run eye clinic, a new student union) into a structure that establishes the university’s presence as a campus by creating an interrelatedness with the college’s existing two buildings. Our program envisions a flow through the entry points of all three structures’ and is anchored by a light-filled atrium that acts as a central gathering space for students and faculty.

Massing Study

Student Center

Forest Grove, Oregon

In Forest Grove our mandate was much the same. How best to nurture a sense of community while meeting very real spacial needs. Here we imagined a central node to receive and welcome students and to then encourage their gathering and interaction. We designed a transparent structure through which adjacent dorms relate to classrooms across the grounds. Inside would be all communal; the cafeteria, the student union, the campus bookstore, and outside would be an amphitheater and directed pathways—all in the service of campus and community.

Fitness Center

Forest Grove, Oregon

The third and final phase of our plan to enhance the community and interactions of Pacific University took the form of an addition to the fitness center on their Forest Grove campus. The most common complaint by far on student feedback surveys regarded the inadequate, undersized, and dated athletic facilities at the University’s Stoller Center; Town Hall discussions at the City of Forest Grove consistently raised the current physical conditions of the center as a blight on the city. The existing facilities are housed in a one-story, minimally-windowed, concrete structure with all the provisions and modern technology of 1970. We saw opportunity.

We took it from minimally-windowed to maximally-windowed and used transparency as a sort of visual invitation to the surrounding community. The plan engulfs the center in glass, including a graded, paneled window system at the roof covering an indoor ball field. We grew the structure from one floor to three, adding approximately 50,000 square feet, and incorporating space for a main-room rock-climbing wall, a rowing room, and other more modern sporting activities popular in our Northwest. We opened the parking plan and pedestrian flow to increase the center’s connectivity to the campus and student populace. And its site at the street, in concert with its welcoming transparency, extends its presence to the city itself to take advantage of shared opportunities to promote wellness with Forest Grove at large.