The Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute – a collaborative research effort between select Oregon University System institutions, private companies and government labs – is closer to getting its underground building on the University campus.
The underground building will be located between Huestis Hall and Deschutes Hall.
The Campus Planning Committee reviewed the location this summer.
The building will be underground to keep the lawn as green space and to minimize the impact above-ground noise and vibrations can have on the sensitive research inside, chemistry professor Jim Hutchison and University Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies Rich Linton told the Emerald in May.
Linton wrote in an e-mail that the architectural firm SRG Partnership has been hired to design the new building.
SRG Partnership, which has offices in Portland and Seattle, has taken on many projects related to universities and science and technology institutions in the Pacific Northwest. It designed the University’s Lillis Business Complex and renovated McKenzie Hall and the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, according to its Web site.
SRG representatives have met with campus administrators and faculty representing the core planning group to develop designs that will come to the Campus Planning Committee for review and approval, Linton said.
“The current plan is to move through the design and approvals processes over the course of the next academic year, with site preparation to begin next summer and the opening of the new facility in about two years from now,” Linton said in an e-mail.
“Our concentration at the moment is on understanding the program that will go into the building and analysis of the site and budget,” SRG Partnership principal architect Dennis Cusack said in an e-mail. “We don’t have any sketches yet and probably won’t for several weeks.”
The new building will be one story,
Charlene Lindsay, a project manager for facilities services at the University, said in an e-mail. It will house research facilities and no classrooms.
In addition, the new facility will include space for collaboration between University faculty and other ONAMI partners, such as faculty from other universities and staff from industry and national laboratories, Hutchison wrote in an e-mail.
Along with the new building, ONAMI may get some new federal grants.
U.S. Senators Ron Wyden, D-Ore. and Gordon Smith, R-Ore. announced in a Sept. 29 statement that the Senate Appropriations Committee approved at least $109 million in funding for defense-related projects in Oregon.
This included $5 million for ONAMI’s Nanoelectronics and Nanometrology Initiative, which develops materials and methods for producing future generations of electronic devices and circuits; $3.5 million for ONAMI’s Safer Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing program, which designs and produces nanomaterials that are safe for humans and the environment; and $3 million for ONAMI’s development of Miniature Tactical Energy Systems, which are lightweight, portable cooling and energy-producing systems.
According to the statement, these funds are now included in the 2006 fiscal year Defense spending bill, and will be sent to the U.S. Senate for approval.
“Oregon is a leader in using new technologies like nanotech for the benefit of the U.S. defense community,” Wyden said in the statement. “The funds included in this legislation will support many new and ongoing projects to both enhance our national defense and boost Oregon’s economy.”
Hutchison said that the University is participating in all three of those efforts and is leading the Safer Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing initiative.
“In addition to providing base funding for these research efforts, federal funding is helping to bring the ONAMI faculty together in interdisciplinary groups that are essential to being successful on the challenging projects we are carrying out,” Hutchison wrote.
Hutchison said the final word on the congressional funding will be delivered in a month or two, adding that ONAMI also pursues funding from federal agencies and private foundations.

Contact the business, science and technology reporter at [email protected]