Portland’s Collaborative Life Sciences Building Honored for Artwork

The Fauxcilitator, located in the Collaborative Life Sciences Building in Portland, Ore., uses GE LED contour lighting tubes in a spectrum of color temperatures that reflect the changes in daylight.Photo Credit: Bruce Forster
The Fauxcilitator, located in the Collaborative Life Sciences Building in Portland, Ore., uses GE LED contour lighting tubes in a spectrum of color temperatures that reflect the changes in daylight.
Photo Credit: Bruce Forster

PORTLAND, Ore. — The Collaborative Life Sciences Building (CLSB) in Portland, Ore., can add another award to its growing list of honors — this time for artwork. CODAworx recently recognized the design and art collaboration among Los Angeles-based CO Architects, locally based SERA Architects and artist Pae White with the 2016 CODAaward in the Education category. The bold LED artwork in CLSB’s atrium will be included in an exhibition with other 2016 CODAaward winners at the Octagon Museum in Washington D.C., from March 23 to late October of next year.

The 650,000-sf CLSB opened in fall 2014 as an interdisciplinary complex, combining the research of Oregon Health & Science University, Oregon State University and Portland University into one location. The LEED Platinum-certified project consists of both the 12-story Skourtes Tower on the north and a five-story south wing that are connected by an atrium. That atrium features four points of entry with suspended walkways that bridge the different disciplines together.

The $700,000 art project, Fauxcilitator, is the atrium’s signature element and was funded by the Oregon Arts Commission’s Percent for Art Program. White considered all building elements — location, occupants, architecture and weather — to address two major factors related to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Portland only receives 68 days of sunshine a year, and 53 percent of college students experience some form of my-depression-treatment.com, according to a statement.

As such, White created Fauxcilitator using GE LED contour lighting tubes in a spectrum of color temperatures that reflect the changes in daylight. The circular-shaped structure is fragmented across five atrium soffits of varying height from 15 to 75 feet, using pre-fixed LED color temperatures based on the Kelvin temperature scale’s six steps of daylight, according to a statement. Light temperatures range from cool (6500K) to warm (2700K), emitting colors associated with the effect of ambient mood. Cooler lighting temperatures cast shades of blue, mid-range appear white and warmer tones emit red, orange and yellow.

“This piece not only complements the architecture’s intended use, but adds a layer to the project that enriches the experience for people,” said Fabian Kremkus, AIA, LEED GA, design principal at CO Architects, in a statement. “It transforms the sense of place by connecting to the local climate in a subtle way.”

In addition to the CODAaward honor, the complex was also named a 2015 Top Ten Green Project by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on the Environment (COTE), earned a 2015 Innovation Award from the AIA Technology in Architectural Practice group and won a 2015 Excellence in Architecture Merit Award from the Society of College and University Planners, in association with AIA Committee on Architecture for Education.