Randall Children's Hospital: Terracotta Rainscreen
The custom terracotta rainscreen at Randall Children’s Hospital brings color, movement and energy efficiency to the nine-story pediatric facility in Portland, Oregon. Designed by ZGF Architects, the building combines glazed white terracotta panels with glass, stone and aluminum to create a distinctive façade that responds to Portland’s architectural history and the changing light of the Pacific Northwest.
Beauty and Performance in a Terracotta Façade
The 334,000-square-foot Randall Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel consolidates pediatric services within a family-centered care environment. The facility creates a new identity for the children’s hospital while serving as a prominent new entrance to the Legacy Emanuel Medical Center campus. Its 165 private inpatient rooms support acute care, neonatal intensive care and pediatric intensive care. The hospital also includes a pediatric emergency department, a short-stay unit, the Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorder Unit, a pharmacy and a rehabilitation gym.
Outdoor spaces are integrated into the healing environment throughout the hospital. A garden located off the first-floor lobby extends the garden culture already established across the Legacy Emanuel campus. On the third floor, a terrace garden offers a variety of settings for play, conversation and quiet contemplation. These spaces complement the hospital’s family-centered approach while bringing light, nature and moments of respite into the patient experience.
The architecture of the building features a carefully composed exterior of glass, white terracotta cladding, stone and aluminum panels. Large glazed areas open the family and public spaces to the surrounding campus and residential neighborhood. From the beginning of the design process, Kip Storey of ZGF had a clear vision for how the hospital façade would come alive and become part of the Portland landscape. Terracotta panels installed as a ventilated rainscreen system were selected to provide both the visual character and building-envelope performance required for the Pacific Northwest climate.
The white terracotta façade also creates a visual connection across the Willamette River to the historic white terracotta buildings of downtown Portland. Rather than simply replicating that history, ZGF used custom profiles, colors and glazes to reinterpret architectural terracotta in a modern and dynamic way. The texture and reflective surface of the panels respond continuously to changes in daylight, making the building appear different throughout the day. This shifting effect helps bring the façade to life while visually scaling the large hospital to its neighborhood and the Portland skyline.
Custom Glazed Terracotta Panels
Developing the final terracotta rainscreen panels required an extensive sampling and collaboration process between ZGF, Telling Architectural Systems and the specialists at Argeton. The final selection was a 30-millimeter-thick terracotta panel with a custom profile, three custom color combinations, a clear glaze and an iridescent glaze. Although the panels share a consistent base color, they appear to shift in tone as sunlight moves across the face of the building.
More than 200 samples were produced by Argeton’s laboratory experts before the desired combination of profile, color and glaze was achieved. The resulting terracotta cladding is bright, optimistic and constantly changing. Its appearance supports ZGF’s original design vision of a building that would feel alive while creating a welcoming identity for a modern children’s hospital.
The project demonstrates the level of customization possible with architectural terracotta. Panel dimensions, profiles, textures, colors and glazes can be developed together to create a façade with depth and variation while maintaining the efficiency of a manufactured rainscreen system. At Randall Children’s Hospital, this flexibility allowed the project team to translate a computer simulation and a series of color studies into a practical terracotta wall system that could be produced and installed within the project’s budget and demanding construction schedule.
Terracotta Rainscreen Energy Efficiency
The hospital was designed and constructed in accordance with the Green Guide for Health Care. Its high-performance building envelope exceeds the minimum requirements of the Oregon Energy Code, supporting the facility’s long-term energy-efficiency goals. The ventilated terracotta rainscreen contributes to this exterior wall assembly while helping manage moisture in Portland’s wet climate.
Construction took place within tight quarters and immediately adjacent to a fully functioning hospital. Day-to-day patient care, emergency services and trauma operations needed to continue throughout the project. The construction schedule, labor coordination, scope management, material handling and site logistics were therefore constant concerns. The ability to manufacture the custom terracotta panels efficiently and install the rainscreen system quickly was an essential part of meeting the project’s architectural, operational and budget requirements.
What the Project Team Said
Kip Storey, Principal, ZGF
“When we started working with Telling on the terracotta for the building, we had a long list of wants. It had to be optimistic, connect to Portland’s history of white terracotta buildings, demonstrate it was modern and dynamic like the institution it houses, be able to be installed quickly only feet from a functioning trauma hospital, help scale the building with its older, smaller neighbors, and meet a budget.
“We developed a computer simulation sketch of the building that included a time-lapse film of the site. The simulation changed as the light changed. It was living, bright and optimistic. With this and simple models of profiles and paintings for color, we went to Telling to begin collaboration on the panels.
“Telling provided us access to the experts that make the glazes and panels. They educated us about their manufacturing process and made sample after sample for us. Ultimately, together, we created a panel that they could manufacture efficiently and has met all of our expectations for the project.”
Brenda Alexander, Operations Manager, Hoffman Construction Co., General Contractor
“This was our first project with the Argeton terracotta products. Telling Architectural was very instrumental in helping our team find solutions to achieve the architect’s vision of texture and color while maintaining the owner’s budget and desire for a 100-year building envelope.
“The Randall Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel is a landmark project for the North Portland skyline. Hoffman looks forward to working with Telling and Argeton on future projects that will again push the boundaries of innovative design.”
Steven J. Collins, Vice President, Telling Architectural Systems
“More than 200 samples were made by the laboratory experts at Argeton to achieve the effect desired by ZGF. This was a demanding process, but worth the effort. The results are a spectacular and dynamic combination of colors, glazes and tile profiles.
“We are pleased to have participated in the development of such a customized and sophisticated design and to be able to present it to the children’s hospital in Portland.”
About Argeton Terracotta Rainscreen Systems
The Argeton terracotta rainscreen system is an architectural exterior cladding system made from natural fired clay. Developed in Germany more than three decades ago, Argeton has been installed on thousands of projects worldwide. Its terracotta panels are available in a wide variety of dimensions, profiles, colors, textures and glazed finishes, providing architects with extensive flexibility for custom façade design.
Sometimes referred to more generally as terracotta siding, Argeton is an engineered ventilated rainscreen system designed for durable, high-performance building envelopes. Telling Architectural Systems has distributed Argeton products for more than 20 years, providing architects, contractors and installers throughout North America with technical information, design assistance, detailing guidance and installation support.
Explore Argeton terracotta rainscreen panels or contact Telling Architectural Systems to discuss a custom façade.
