Opsis is committed to design excellence, sustainable practices, and working in an open environment where shared ideas are the foundation of our collaborative visionmaking process. Founded in 1999, Opsis is a 60-person design studio. Our practice has grown with the intention to create and maintain relationships with clients who are aligned with our commitments to sustainability, cultural and community diversity and inclusivity.
With our depth of higher education and science experience combined with open, active listening, we bring our clients an ability to think, plan, and build facilities together that are relevant to the challenges faced by today’s institutions. Our work is crafted with an understanding that successful buildings and spaces reflect the ideas, values, and character that make each context unique.
Today’s Universities are in the process of reinvention like no other –reconsidering the role and experience of the next generation of students. “Why come here? Will I fit in? What will it be like and what will I gain from it?” The solutions demand innovation and fresh thinking about what it means to be multi-disciplinary/trans-disciplinary, interconnected, and how to build places and cultures that foster team building, social connection and a sense of belonging.
SHILEY-MARCOS CENTER FOR DESIGN & INNOVATION
UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND
Shiley-Marcos Center for Design & Innovation at University of Portland
The Shiley-Marcos Center for Design & Innovation is a pioneering hub dedicated to hands-on learning and discovery, fostering a new era of creativity and innovation. It provides interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation spaces designed to bring new inventions to life. This facility includes innovative educational space including classrooms and maker-space tailored to spark creativity among students from diverse majors—engineering, business, nursing, education, and liberal arts—and is the cornerstone for those enrolled in the University’s Innovation Minor program.
The design team engaged deeply with University of Portland staff, industry partners, and other stakeholders during the programming phase to capture the spirit of project namesake Donald P. Shiley, a University of Portland graduate renowned for his hands-on experimentation and collaboration. Leadership from the School of Engineering and other departments collectively shaped the vision, positioning the building as a campus-wide resource, integrating engineering with art studios, nursing, and other programs to share breakout and social spaces, embodying the University’s mission to engage minds through sciences, arts, and practical work like prototyping and robust mock-ups.
Fostering Collaboration Across Disciplines
The building is designed to foster collaboration, featuring open spaces, study lounges, and offices for faculty and staff, encouraging students to achieve professional excellence and discover their true purpose. This campus-wide resource supports design thinking and making, featuring areas for ideation, rapid prototyping, arts, capstone projects, industry partnerships, and workshops. Each floor is equipped for invention, with features like the Propulsion and Combustion Lab, various shop spaces for fabrication, and digital media labs, making it a premier learning environment for current and future generations.
“ The Center for Design & Innovation is paying it forward to the students, the faculty, the people that are truly at the heart of this University. It’s the students who will literally print our future. They’ll do it with imagination, innovation, skill and compassion for their fellow man.”
- Darlene Shiley
Performing Arts Building at Reed College
The Performing Arts Building creates a vibrant, cross disciplinary home for the arts and new public front door to the intimately scaled collegiate gothic campus. The facility is organized around a central atrium lobby and informal learning space that provides an address for each program and four performance venues.
“ The building allows different ways of engaging.”
- Peter Ksander, Theater Professor
Center for Multidisciplinary Science at Reed College
Envisioned as a fully integrated facility, the Center for Multidisciplinary Science is designed to encompass a wide range of teaching and learning spaces for biology, psychology, physics, neuroscience, data science and other disciplines. With the aim of serving both science majors and non-science majors, the facility will feature a combination of spaces, including offices, classrooms, labs, and the necessary support spaces typically found in any science facility. Additionally, it will incorporate co-curricular spaces such as a flexible science outreach studio, informal learning areas, shared break-out spaces, and an auditorium designed for larger classroom instruction as well as community-focused science events or conferences.
Location
Portland, OR
Project Size Options
Base: 40,000 sf | Expanded Concept: 55,000 sf
2028 Cost Opinion
Base: $60M | Expanded Concept: $85M
The conceptual vision is a facility that lives and breathes interdisciplinary scientific exploration. A place of open, shared information exchange where the pursuit of knowledge is not about the ownership of ideas.
John J. Hemmingson Center at Gonzaga University
The LEED Gold Hemmingson Center is a transformational step in creating a Gonzaga community that reinforces the institution’s “whole and rigorous” vision for student development. The building plan grew out of an understanding of the site as a crossroads, resulting from pedestrian patterns approaching the site from each corner. The centerpiece is the Global Commons, a campus living room anchored by the Commons Hearth that serves as the key campus meeting place.
Location Spokane, WA
Project Size
168,971 sf
Design-Build Team
Hoffman Construction
Bernardo Wills (Associate Architect)
Standing at the center of the Commons, surrounded by curving balconies and transparent walls, one can see all the building’s key programs on all three levels–campus ministry, academic programs, student organizations, meeting rooms, food service and recreation.
ALLAN
PRICE SCIENCE COMMONS & RESEARCH LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
Allan Price Science Commons & Research Library at University of Oregon
A complete renovation and addition to an underground library, with 4,358 sf of new construction above-ground and 36,537 sf of renovation in the existing underground space, the library needed to remain open throughout construction. Challenges included an aging plaza ‘roof’, a constrained and difficult site between adjacent buildings, and the complex interaction of nearby buildings interconnected at multiple levels.
Project Priorities
Priorities identified included abundant natural light; more space for users; new classrooms and learning spaces; creating a science commons for interdisciplinary interaction for students and faculty; and technology infrastructure to support the Maker Space and visualization laboratory. By moving around the courtyard, users can find quiet spaces to study away from the bustle of the desk. Clear glass panels surrounding the courtyard assure maximum light exposure.
“ This is such a beautiful and inviting project…a relatively small building has transformed a rather undesirable void into an oasis of community and study."
- AIA Award of Excellence, Jury Member
Straub Hall at University of Oregon
With the University’s goal of adding a significant number of classroom seats in the heart of campus, this project transforms a 1928 men’s dormitory into one of the most sought-after learning spaces on campus and creates new contemporary academic facilities by surgically inserting new programs into previously unused courtyards and service spaces. Opsis was the Design Architect partnered with Architect of Record, Rowell Brokaw Architects.
The project created intimate, interdisciplinary spaces, allowing for functional reorganization of academic spaces, and facilitating effective instruction, research, advising and tutoring. Daylit learning spaces support modern pedagogies and technologies while highlighting the effectiveness of sustainable architectural practices.
North Academic Complex at Central Washington University
To support the Humanities and Social Sciences department, the team is designing new spaces and renovating existing facilities as part of the North Academic Complex project. The project creates a symbolic gateway for the rest of student’s collegiate career as one of the primary freshman occupied facilities and will provide a welcoming and inclusive physical space that serves as a hub for academic and community gathering and conversation.
WA
Student Experience Center at Oregon State University
The Student Experience Center (SEC) creates a central home for student’s out-of-class experience. Bringing together more than two dozen core student programs in a new 93,000 sf facility, each receives a clear address on a central, transparent atrium space. With a focus on student success, the SEC re-imagines traditional departmental designs to embrace highly flexible, technology-infused places for students to create, find support and connect.
The SEC is home to wide ranging programs including student government, multicultural center, student legal services and the Orange Media Network. Our team met with over 30 user groups to plan the facility. Joint meetings during the schematic design phase evolved into individual meetings for each group during design development. A full range of engagement opportunities were offered to the campus population, ranging from a very active website and blog to one-on-one meetings.
