Every city in the world has spaces that are under utilized, ignored, or even unknown. This project proposes a way to humanize the scale of one such space beneath the freeway. The design reinterprets the monumental flowing geometry of the freeway down to the scale of the building. The site is currently a parking lot adjacent to OMSI’s exhibit building shop and is partially covered by I-5.
The building masses takes their form from the shapes created between the freeway columns and the curving geometry of the roadways above. Curving forms are then used throughout the building to the guide people along, through and over spaces. Highly transparent curtain walls allow visual connection between the buildings and the freeway columns and roadway becomes a secondary structure hovering above and around each building.
Status: School Project
Location: Portland, OR, US