World class research, a campus to match.

Oregon State University’s North Willamette Research and Extension Center (NWREC) has been a cornerstone of applied agricultural and horticultural research in the Pacific Northwest since its establishment in 1957. Today, the Center supports nationally recognized programs in horticultural research and education, yet as the scope and sophistication of its work has grown, the physical campus has not kept pace. Most facilities dated to the early 1960s, and the 2021 OSU Master Plan formally acknowledged what staff had long experienced: the existing buildings were nearing the end of their useful lives and were constraining the Center’s ability to operate as a modern, world-class research environment.

NWREC leadership recognized that the need to replace aging infrastructure was not simply a facilities challenge — it was an extraordinary opportunity. The Center sought to establish a bold, inspiring vision for its future campus: one that matched the excellence of its research, strengthened its identity and visibility, and could rally donor investment and partner engagement. The vision needed to be aspirational to excite stakeholders, yet credible to support a serious fundraising effort.

TVA partnered with NWREC to transform that ambition into a clear architectural direction and compelling visual narrative. Our work began with a half-day, on-campus design charrette, bringing together NWREC leadership and key advisors to ground the vision in the real aspirations and priorities of the people who know the Center best. From that foundation, TVA developed a series of aspirational renderings to communicate the spirit and potential of a reimagined NWREC campus. Through an iterative series of design reviews, we refined those concepts to produce final visualizations suitable for donor presentations, fundraising materials, and public engagement.

The result is a donor-ready vision that positions NWREC as a vital statewide resource and a true “farm of the future”, a compelling story told in images and narrative that can attract the attention and investment needed to carry the Center into its next generation.