This thesis project aims to discover the possibilities of a riverfront lot at the corner of SE Water Avenue and SE Clay Street in Portland’s east side industrial district directly north of the OMSI Campus. The site’s dominating characteristic are monolithic columns punctuating the ground plane and soaring roadways framing the sky. The program I have selected for this site has the potential to bring people of all ages every day of the week to a site that once lent its views to cars only. The Science Education Resource Center will be a dedicated facility for educators in need of professional development courses to home school students and their parents wanting to check out a kit of scientific tools to do at home experiments.
The site also culminates the re-design of SE Clay street and the massing of the buildings are oriented to direct the visitor to the river visually and physically. A science and research oriented facility grants an opportunity to dedicate the landscape to didactic uses: providing testing grounds for water treatment, a living machine and a variety of other uses that could directly educate the public and create a more beautiful environment beneath a structure that is not traditionally viewed as habitable.
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