The Patient Care Facility is spectacularly sited on a hillside of the OHSU campus overlooking the city of Portland and the Willamette River below. Part of an aggressive growth strategy to expand the patient care capacity of the existing hospital, the new Patient Care Facility acts as a hub between the patient-care areas of the existing campus and the research and development activities of the north campus, and it will be tied to the new research and clinical development in the city below by an aerial tramway.


The driving force in the design of the building was to fulfill the need to connect all of these elements in a simple, singular, and elegant way. The current campus is linked across the varied terrain of the hilly campus by what is termed the “ninth-floor superhighway,” an exciting and unique publicly accessible circulation spine that travels through all of the main buildings on the campus. The Patient Care Facility will become a critical destination and circulation point along the ninth floor superhighway.

Integrating the ninth-floor circulation path into the public hub of the new building will create connections to major new public spaces and gardens that will serve the public and patient population. Great attention and effort have gone into maximizing the opportunities to create appropriately scaled outdoor spaces that will range from public viewing areas of the great landscaped vistas beyond and intimate healing gardens associated with the clinical activities inside the building.

Project category: Project in progress (October 2006)

Chief administrator: Peter Kohler, President, (503) 494-8252

Firms: Perkins+Will, (213) 270-8418; Petersen Kolberg & Associates, (503) 968-6800

Design team: Robert Cull, Principal-in-Charge; Jean Mah, Planning Principal; Paul Kelsey, Project Architect; Nick Seierup, Design Principal (Perkins+Will); Steve Kolberg, Principal-in-Charge (Petersen Kolberg & Associates)

Total building area (sq. ft.): 321,085

Construction cost/sq. ft.: $376

Total construction cost (excluding land): $120,578,126