Commercial

Salem, Oregon public works building provides a welcoming workplace

Designed by Portland-based Hacker Architects, the city of Salem, Oregon’s new public works facility is a municipal operations center with an unusual cross-section of users.

The two-story-tall, 50,000-square-foot structure accommodates desk workers such as planners and administrators as well as people who work mostly in the field that come to the City of Salem Shops Public Works to receive work assignments. The field workers maintain the sewer, fire, water, trees, landscaping, and parks systems throughout the city—not your typical office clientele. “We called it a mix of typical modern workplace, but also muddy boots—a lot of people coming and going from the field,” Hacker Design Principal David Keltner says. “Figuring out how to make a space that was conducive to both was really important.”

City of Salem Shops Public Works

Photo Credit: Lewis Williams

The design of the building’s exterior fits its context: a campus filled with basic industrial shapes built more for function than form. “This sits in the middle of their operations center, and it’s surrounded by industrial metal buildings that have little gable roofs or Quonset huts,” Keltner says. “[But] while we were fitting with this very industrial campus, once you get into the building, we wanted an environment that felt really good to be in.”

The plan is divided into three parallel zones with a central entry/reception leading to shared break and lounge spaces behind. The two outer wings hold the administrative offices in a combination of open workplaces and private offices. In the north wing, a large inclusive locker room with private toilets accommodates storage for the nomadic field workers.

The three zones are enclosed under a glulam-supported gable. Stained wood and black metal panels sheath the building. Hacker Project Manager Jen Dzienis explains that they chose juniper for the exterior cladding, which was sourced from forests in eastern Oregon where juniper is an invasive species. “There’s a lot of work to restore prairie lands,” she says. “Juniper was harvested from those efforts and for this project.”

City of Salem Shops Public Works

Photo Credit: Josh Partee

City of Salem Shops Public Works

Photo Credit: Josh Partee

Wood feels good

Inside, the client wanted a space that promotes employee well-being through materiality, movement, and biophilic design, and wood was key to achieving the positive occupant experience the project team desired. Exposed glulam columns and beams support wood decking that’s been carefully coordinated to incorporate all MEP systems. Conventional wood framing was used for the shear walls and the exterior walls. Wood accent walls and wood-topped worksurfaces add to the warmth of the interiors, as do the exposed plywood ceilings.

The key question at the center of the design strategy was: “How do you create an environment that’s going to help people really perform and be their best selves?” Keltner says. “That had to do with surrounding them with materials that feel really good to be around [and] wood is hard to beat for that.” The glulam beams and columns, plywood, conventional framing, exterior walls, and shear wall panels are all Douglas fir—in fact, “the only thing that’s not softwood is the treads on the stairs,” Hacker Project Architect Daniel Childs says.

It’s hardly unexpected that Salem—Oregon’s state capital—would embrace wood for a municipal facility. But here, Hacker Architects used wood to elevate what could have been a mundane and utilitarian structure into a rich and varied new center that is both simple and sophisticated—without sacrificing function.