The Public Works Building is a two-story mass-timber structure that provides the City of Salem’s Public Works Department with a creative office environment for their 187 staff who work in the park operations, street maintenance, utilities and engineering division. The 50,000 square-foot building will replace an aging 1950s warehouse and provide over 300 all-user locker rooms for the Public Works field and office employees. The design team balanced the need for creating an open and accommodating point of access to the public with site challenges, like development in a 100-year flood plain and addressing contaminated soils.
The building is organized into three gabled volumes with the central volume serving as the primary public and employee point of access. The landscape design blends functionality with an immersive garden experience, celebrating utilitarian elements like boot wash stations within larger shared common spaces. A generous staff courtyard contains flexible seating and outdoor cooking stations and is flanked by a lawn panel which serves as informal space for team-building activities. The project’s plant palette celebrates many of the Willamette Valley’s native species.
Ground Workshop is proud to be part of a collaborative team that includes Hacker and Howard S. Wright Construction. This project anticipates a summer 2023 completion.
Ground Workshop team: Tommy Solomon, Ryan Nicholson, Tom Wortman