UO buildings LEED the way

View photo gallery (2 photos)

One of the University of Oregon’s two ongoing signature building projects will host legions of sports fans who will loudly support their favorite college hoops team while wearing green and gold ensembles.

The other building will welcome graduates returning to their Eugene stomping grounds.

While the Matthew Knight Arena and the Ford Alumni Center seem different, they do share design schemes predicated on sustainability. The 400,000-square-foot arena, for the school’s basketball teams, could earn LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. It would become of one few arenas in the nation to receive the distinction. LEED refers to Leadership in Energy and Design.

Along the same lines, the 60,000-square-foot Ford Center will likely set new standards in energy efficiency. The center will provide the headquarters for the UO’s Alumni Association, Foundation and other university relations operations. It’s expected to hold 600 recruiting and information sessions that will host 17,000 guests yearly.

Because the two structures share an east campus boundary at roughly 13th Street and Franklin Boulevard, the $200 million arena and $32.5 million alumni center will provide a new UO gateway for students and visitors.

"These two buildings will provide a new front door, a green front door, into the campus," said Bob Thompson, design principal for Portland-based TVA Architects, the architect for both projects.

The alumni center and the arena are set to open in January. While the buildings’ envelopes are complete, workers are completing landscaping chores.

Matthew Knight Arena

Portland-based TVA Architects has worked on the 12,546-seat Matthew Knight Arena for eight years. The firm shaped the building’s architecture scheme, the interior public concourse design and the overall site plan.

TVA’s design stresses simplicity and, naturally, sustainability.

"We wanted to address not the past but the future, with flexibility that would allow it to function as a performing arts center as well as a basketball arena," said Thompson. "In short, we came up with a state-of-the-art facility that’s essentially a 'theater for basketball.'"

Thompson’s team incorporated the latest technology in conservation and energy management.

"We were still able to bring tremendous transparency to the key building elevations," Thompson said.

Portland-based Walker Macy, the arena’s landscape architects, added plants and irrigation systems that will slash the site’s irrigation water usage. The site will require less than half the water to maintain the landscaping than traditional designs.

Hoffman Construction Co., the arena’s contractor, also recycles more than 80 percent of its construction waste.

Kiosks throughout the arena will tout the Knight Arena’s sustainable design features while explaining the structure’s contribution to the green-building realm.

TVA also wrapped the arena bowl in rift-cut white oak panels that form an architectural shroud. The touch creates what Thompson calls "a building within a building" that will bring warmth, texture and a rich elegance to the spectator experience.

Oregon officials believe the building is made for the long haul.

"The University of Oregon has been here for 130 years, and we expect to be here for at least another 130 years," said Christopher Ramey, the school’s associate vice president for campus planning and real estate. "Ideally, this means our buildings will also last as long. Building sustainably ensures that our buildings (will last and) also will operate in efficient and cost effective ways."

Matthew Knight Arena’s sustainable features include:

• Photovoltaic solar panels that will generate electricity for the arena and send any energy surpluses back into the public utility grid.

• A roof that captures rain water and channels it through elaborate stormwater bioswale planters on the building’s front face.

• Consolidated on-site parking, in a below-grade, 370-car three-level parking structure, that eliminates large expanses of surface asphalt traditionally found with on-grade parking.

• A site itself that became an improved brownfield after workers eliminated hazardous and contaminated materials from the ground.

• Single-ply white membrane roof surfaces that reflect direct sunlight, reducing the building’s temperature.

• A ratio of glass to solid skin that falls below 30 percent. The strategy minimizes energy loss through the building’s envelope.

Ford Alumni Center

TVA is also providing architecture expertise for the Ford Center, which sits just north of the arena. The building’s floor plan consists of two simple rectangular floor slabs flanking a central four-story skylit atrium.

The atrium will serve as the structure’s central congregation point and offer a circulation spine running north to south. The center’s north-south orientation helps minimize the effects of southern exposure while capturing mountain views to the east and campus views to the west.

The center will feature solar tube screens at the south end of the atrium and the building’s southwest corner. The screens deflect high-angle sun rays from the south in summer months while allowing low sunlight to penetrate the building during the winter. Aluminum mesh solar scrim panels serve the same function on the building’s west elevation.

The building also includes high-performance glazings and insulation. As with the arena, TVA kept the overall glass-to-solid skin ratio below 30 percent. The structure also relies on photovoltaic solar panels that, as with the Knight Center, will provide power to the building and return power to the public grid.

Thompson believes the buildings will collectively demonstrate how even larger facilities can become energy-efficiency icons.

"If you look at how much energy is used in heating and maintaining buildings, it’s pretty shocking," Thompson said. "We’re obligated to design buildings that are very cost efficient and energy efficient. The more we can commit to that, the more we can provide a great educational tool."

agiegerich@bizjournals.com | 503.219.3419