- Project last updated by Scott Barton-Smith, AIA LEED AP BD+C on 09-20-2024
Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact at the University of Oregon
Eugene, ORThe Phil & Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact (KCASI) is a new initiative to expand the University of Oregon’s strengths in interdisciplinary scientific research and dramatically shorten the timeline between discovery and societal impact. Made possible by a $500 million lead gift from Penny and Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike, who earned a business degree at the UO in 1959, the first phase of this ambitious project is a 160,000-sf world-class facility embracing research, training, and entrepreneurship in a nimble scientific enterprise.
The design features two L-shaped towers that face each other as “clasped hands,” cradling an elevated terrace and courtyard, and are joined above by a transparent connector. On the southern façade, a skin of folded glass panels emulates water cascading over rock formations and provides shading for the glass curtain wall behind. Counterbalancing the activity of the public-facing façade, the northern sides of the two towers embrace simplicity in an unadorned glass curtain wall system that reveals the building structure. The design emphasizes transparency, exposing the impact of science to the community.
Inside, the building program is hyper-flexible, enabling research groups to shift focus depending on where discoveries lead, with innovation spaces, collaborative spaces, core labs, research labs and work areas. Double-height research floors allow for a floating faculty office mezzanine, offering an opportunity for greater interdisciplinary exchange, and glass storefronts under deep overhangs at the ground level invite passers-by to approach. A glass-enclosed pedestrian bridge across Franklin Boulevard connects the core campus to this new district, making an elegantly impactful announcement of the campus across this busy thoroughfare.
Mass timber is featured in the circulation spaces particularly in two stair elements.
Project Details
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Year Built
2020
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Number Of Stories
4
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Bldg system
Mass Timber
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Square footage
20,000
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Construction Type:
I-A
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Building Type:
Educational
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Material Types:
Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT)
Hybrid (wood with steel or concrete)
Project Team
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Bora Architecture & Interiors Architect
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Holmes Mass Timber Engineer
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Swinerton Timber Furnish and Install
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Thornton Tomasetti Structural Engineer
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Timberlab
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Christopher Evans Mass Timber Director
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Eric McDonnell Design-Build Mass Timber Engineer // PIC
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Graham Montgomery Mass Timber Technical Director
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Zachary Brehm Project Manager
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Alex Wuebben Project Engineer
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Ennead Architects Architect
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University of Oregon Owner
- Project last updated by Scott Barton-Smith, AIA LEED AP BD+C on 09-20-2024