Project profile: Portland Community College Newberg Center

Portland Community College (PCC), Oregon's largest institution of higher learning, serves residents in five counties.

As part of a bond measure to expand classroom space, PCC purchased a 15-acre site in Newberg, a small town in the Willamette Valley, to develop a new educational facility. The 13,500-square-foot PCC Newberg Center is the initial building in the master plan. A required street extension through the site and a future bypass right-of-way led the design team to position parking south of the street, adjacent to the bypass, creating a pedestrian-only campus to the north.

As the first building on the site, creating a welcoming sense of place was critical to the success of the campus. The large, south-facing roof reaches beyond the building’s shell to create a sheltered entry plaza – the front door to the campus. Organized around a central circulation spine, three classrooms and an administrative suite flank the north side. Multi-purpose rooms to the south shift and rotate to create a dynamic central commons for student, teacher, and community interaction.
(2012 AIA/COTE Top Ten Green Projects recipient)