Erected in the South Waterfront, the 650,000-square-foot building is the result of a unique partnership between Portland State, Oregon State University and Oregon Health & Science University. Approximately 3,000 students from the three universities are expected to attend the CLSB daily. The project is the first of its kind to combine the efforts of multiple institutions to provide students of different sciences the opportunity to learn and collaborate under one roof.
The building’s first floor is home to PSU’s largest lecture hall and will hold over 400 students in auditorium-style seating. Dr. Jason Podrabsky, professor of biology at PSU, explained the design of the room.
“The lecture hall is set up to be collaborative. The first row of seats in each tier swivel so the students can turn around and have discussion groups,” Podrabsky said.
A projector screen occupies a full-length wall of the room, allowing students expansive views of lessons and presentations. The lecture hall also includes cameras and large televisions to enable distance education learners to interact with classmates and professors in real time.
“We can do distance education,” Prodrabsky said. “There is a camera with a screen so you can see what the other students are seeing, or you can see yourself, depending on what you prefer.”
PSU’s new state-of-the-art teaching labs are located on the building’s second floor and will offer students the opportunity for interdisciplinary collaborations. Dr. Ken Stedman of PSU’s department of biology is excited about the design of the labs.
“The labs are very much designed for group work and the space is very flexible so we can exchange all kinds of different things here,” Stedman said. “We have a plant lab, we have our aquarium, and the idea is that this open, central space will allow us to have much more interactions.”
Perhaps the main attraction at the open house was OHSU’s Interprofessional Simulation Center. Guests viewed both a simulated birth and a simulated surgery while OHSU Associate Professor of Medicine Dr. Jeffrey Gold shared his thoughts about the new facility.
“We finally have a place where everybody in the university system can train together,” Gold said. “We are no longer training the doctors separately from the nurses, separately from the pharmacists. If we’re going to act as a team, if we’re going to work as a team, we have to train as a team.”
The open house featured animated displays of the sustainable aspects of the new building, as well as a film that detailed the 32-month construction period. Anticipating a LEED Platinum certification, the CLSB’s design features green roofs, storm water collection, energy efficient lighting and climate control systems.
Located at the end of the new Tilikum Crossing bridge, the building will be accessible by the Portland Streetcar. Students from PSU can also take a 17-minute walk to the CLSB, or a short six-minute bike ride. Trimet bus lines 35 and 36 also run near the new facility.
Biology and chemistry departments will begin holding classes at the building in fall 2014.
