Oregon State University Gladys Valley Marine Studies Building
Client
Oregon State University
Location
Newport, Oregon
Typology
Education
YGH designed this 72,000 SF lab and classroom building on the OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center campus in Newport. The building will serve the Marine Studies Initiative, a new interdisciplinary program involving all 12 OSU colleges with a goal of providing “access to the sea” for OSU students, faculty and staff. The building will have a three-story academic and research core, connected to a two-story wing that includes community space, an auditorium, an innovation laboratory and other facilities. Collaborative labs support a new teaching and research model with a curriculum that blends natural and social science, providing a rich environment for cross-disciplinary discovery, collaboration, and expression. Design of the building included a master plan effort the involved all seven entities (NOAA, OSU, USFWS, ODPW, EPA, USGS) to determine building siting and development of vehicle circulation and parking for other state agencies.
The new building uses state-of-the-art architectural and engineering techniques to serve as one of the first ‘vertical evacuation’ tsunami sites in the United States, designing above current code. A ramp will lead from ground level to the top of the auditorium, and from there to the roof of the three-story structure. The height of the roof of the building was determined by computer tsunami modeling to serve as a vertical evacuation site for more than 900 people.
Video: Rising from the Shore - Marine Studies Building on the Oregon Coast
Renderings
Drawings
