LCC Health Professions Building

Sunrise over the Lane Community College campus.

I have enjoyed the opportunity to work on a variety of significant projects throughout my career. The latest is the new Health Professions Building (HPB) for Lane Community College. Now under construction, it has proven to be one of the most rewarding assignments I have ever had the pleasure to be involved with.

Lane County voters passed a general obligation bond in May 2020 to fund the project, as well as an assortment of campus-wide improvements addressing classroom needs, safety and accessibility deficiencies, workforce retraining, and Career Technical Education. The HPB will provide space for the college’s Dental Assisting and Dental Hygiene programs, Medical Assistant program, and Emergency Medical Technician program, in addition to the administrative offices for the Health Professions Division. Beyond providing the programs with state-of-the-art teaching facilities, the key project goals include prominently showcasing the LCC health & wellness community and improving visual and physical connections with the overall campus.

My office, Robertson/Sherwood/Architects pc (RSA) teamed with our frequent collaborators at Mahlum Architects to secure the project. RSA is serving the role of executive architect/architect-of-record, providing project oversight, technical expertise, and leadership to ensure an integrated project process, while Mahlum provided the design muscle. As with our previous collaborations, the split of project duties and our associated fees shifted from greater involvement by Mahlum during programming, Conceptual Design, and Schematic Design, through a more equal division of labor during Design Development and Construction Documents, to heavier responsibilities for RSA during the permitting and Construction Contract Administration phases. For all intents and purposes, we have functioned as a single office on the Health Professions Building project rather than as two separate firms.

Our team additionally includes the following consultants:

• CAPITALEngineering (civil)
• Cameron McCarthy Landscape Architecture & Planning (landscape)
• Catena Consulting Engineers (structural)
• Interface Engineering (mechanical/plumbing)
• Stantec (electrical)
• Brightworks (sustainability)
• Studio Pacifica (accessibility)
• Rider Levett Bucknall (costs)

The first phase of the project involved site selection, extensive stakeholder engagement, confirmation of the functional program, and conceptual design. LCC formed a Steering Committee—comprised of college and Health Professions Division administrators and Facilities & Maintenance staff—to function as the decision makers. The entire project team developed a mission statement, which reads as follows:

“The new Health Professions Building will be a center for excellence, supporting Lane County in the responsible stewardship of our investment to co-locate critical applied learning programs, to train the health professionals of tomorrow, and to center equity and inclusion as a core value in the process.”

A touchstone throughout this initial phase was LCC’s metrics for success. These metrics were:

• The degree to which the new building succeeds as a tool for teaching and learning.
• Whether the project effectively reflects LCC’s core values.
• The project’s visibility and accessibility; and
• Whether the community’s bond dollars were spent efficiently and wisely.

Campus map showing the various sites considered during the site selection process.

The site selection process proved eye-opening. We studied several candidate sites, but the Steering Committee ultimately chose one that wasn’t initially on anyone’s radar screen. While more challenging to work with than the others, Site N.3 (as we dubbed it) offered the potential of being “transformational” for LCC. Its potential as a highly visible and symbolic gateway on the north side of the core campus, while providing clear circulation and visual connections to it, proved most compelling. Constructing the building there would reinforce and more clearly reveal the existing campus open space framework. Site N.3’s limitations (which included its constrained area, narrow proportions, and web of existing buried utilities) were not so onerous as to outweigh its considerable promise.

Mahlum’s resultant design concept is largely shaped by the selection of Site N.3. Circulation to and through the building from all directions is a primary form-giver, with both north- and south-facing main entry porches linked by a central lobby. The scale of the north porch is grand, a two-story tall portico providing a vast canvas for a future mural that will be prominently visible from 30th Avenue. The south entrance leads to a new campus plaza and a soon-to-be-installed pedestrian bridge connecting to Bristow Square in the heart of the campus.

Rendering of the north-facing elevation. Note the proposed mural within the portico.

The second phase of design developed this concept in detail. Our team went to great lengths to optimize the program areas, while being attentive to budget limitations exacerbated by cost escalation within the construction industry (the project’s current Guaranteed Maximum Price is $26,588,920). We organized the building’s layout, structural system, and exterior expression in accordance with the 40' grid that overlays the entire campus, an artifact of the mid-century planning principles that governed its initial form. Mahlum further broke the 40' grid down to three sections of 13’-4”. This smaller module presents a more human-centered scale, further subdivided into 4' segments that better align with typical building product dimensions and construction practices. The overall design effect is at once unique but also consonant with the new building’s campus neighbors.

Inside, the design further emphasizes connections and crossovers between the Dental Assistant, Dental Hygiene, Medical Assistant, and EMT programs, which are arrayed across 31,280 square feet on three floors. Space for breakout groups and chance interactions between students will be available throughout the building. The second phase of the design process afforded the Steering Committee the opportunity to reassess and refine programmatic needs considering budget factors, departmental relationships, scale, and the appropriate sizing of spaces.

LCC set a goal of LEED certification at the Gold level, utilizing design strategies that are practical, cost-effective, and low maintenance. Toward this end, our design emphasizes indoor air quality and thermal comfort, optimizes use of materials with limited life-cycle impacts, takes advantage of daylight and quality views, and maximizes energy performance. The HVAC design consists of a Dedicated Outside Air System (DOAS) with energy recovery and fan-coil units for zone heating and cooling. Interface Engineering used computer software to model the performance of the mechanical system, which is projected to provide annual energy savings of 22 percent compared to a comparable multi-zone variable air volume system. Overall, the project is on track to achieve LEED Gold certification.

Rendering of the proposed multipurpose classroom.

Rendering of the future dental clinic.

Fortis Construction is the Construction Manager/General Contractor (CM/GC) for the project. From the outset of their involvement at the beginning of Phase 2, the company provided invaluable cost estimating, value engineering, constructability review, and design coordination assistance. They’ve been tremendous and exemplary team members; I cannot commend them highly enough. Their technical savvy is second to none: Fortis exploits the benefits of digital coordination and collaboration tools, including clash detection software, reality capture on the construction jobsite, and customizable markup, measurement, and document management processes.

Construction progress - December 2023 

Thanks to Fortis’ diligence, the HPB is on schedule for completion in May of this year, coinciding with my planned departure from professional practice. Once in use, I am confident it will long and beneficially serve the Health Professions’ students, faculty, and the broader Lane County community, fulfilling the vision outlined by LCC. Because this is the last substantial project I will have a major hand in, I am especially grateful to have been part of its genesis and realization. The LCC Health Professions Building is a design truly marked by collaboration, innovation, and a shared commitment to excellence.