Honoring our past, building our future.

The new OHSU School of Medicine combined a restoration and reuse of the historic Library and Auditorium with a very modern and flexible

Academic wing, and an organically shaped special structure that housed a Patient Simulation Laboratory and Alumni gathering spaces. Between the historic and new structures was a glass enclosed Atrium   that had sinewy, intertwined ramps and stairs to encourage people pass-bys, and comraderie. The form of the ramps was a reference to the human circulatory system and muscles.

The main entry of the School of Medicine was directly onto the Atrium. The academic building was super flexible, acknowledging that teaching and learning spaces, and technology, change frequently, so the interiors are easily modified. Servant spaces, in the parlance of Louis Kahn, and like Kahn, are on the outside edges of the building to keep the interiors free of obstructions. The Academic Wing’s skin shows the functions of the building and allows people to look in. A transparent new School of Medicine building welcomes people and new ideas.