Title: Education Building
Location of Proejct: Raleigh, North Carolina
Project Completion Date: April 25, 2022
Firm Name:

Short Description: The Education Building is proposed as a hub for the NCSU College of Veterinary Medicine campus, hosting office, classroom, laboratory, library, café, and dining hall. The sloped roof scheme embraces to the iconic standing seam metal roofs of the original campus, and the scheme recognizes the modularity of the original hospital through a repeating module in plan. The project extends green space from the adjacent quad through stepping terraces. A central atrium is activated by bridges and a central stair. The site has a challenging solar orientation, resolved with passive shading devices that create diverse lighting conditions throughout the day.

Architect's Statement: The project aims to create an inspirational facility focused on the students, moving away from educational silos towards a flexible education model for the future. The project intends to be a social hub for the CVM, having both scheduled and unscheduled spaces; to mark arrival on campus from the main road through the CVM, William Moore Dr., and a future entrance from Trinity Road; to encourage outdoor activity by relating to existing and planned hearth areas; and to improve walkability and circulation, and prevent compartmentalization between campus facilities.

The NC State College of Veterinary Medicine is located in Raleigh, North Carolina, at the intersection of Hillsborough Street and Blue Ridge Road, west of NCSU’s main campus. The CVM has been developed on and around the original university dairy farm, and features pastoral views across rolling pastures.

The campus development literature locates a CVM education building on what is currently a surface parking lot on William Moore Dr. This is a centralized location in the campus, and is adjacent to existing hospital and research buildings.

The site neighbors a State Highway Patrol property to the west, which is used for operations and fleet parking. Part of the SHP property is a large communications tower. The property for both the SHP and the CVM are owned by the State of North Carolina. Consequently, the design embraces the relocation of SHP facilities and equipment.

The design originates in analytical site diagrams, with the objective to recognize the existing campus and create something new yet appropriate. Creating spaces that brings people to the Education Building, and to the CVM, a national competitor in the field of veterinary medicine, was carefully evaluated throughout the design process.

The academic and administrative program is balanced with public and unprogrammed spaces. The project has fourteen laboratories, nine classrooms ranging from small seminar to large lecture hall, and almost fifty individual offices for faculty and staff. The library is accessible on the ground level, as is the café. The dining hall is the jewel of atrium located on the top floor, with panoramic views north and easte across the CVM and Raleigh. A large bicycle storage facility and lockers are on the ground level, contributing to the vitality of the ground level and activation of the streetscape.

The program is arranged around a central atrium, which is modulated by bridges. The more private, administrative program is found in a wood mass, and across the bridges are the more public classrooms and laboratories. Intermediate spaces such as meeting and seminar rooms also are in public view to the atrium. Unprogrammed space is found in the terraces and ground level. The terraces are occupied in the interior, featuring seating that looks both into the atrium, and on the exterior with views to the rest of the CVM. Vegetation is are both inside and outside of the building.

The structure is highly expressed in the building out of necessity, and as metaphor. Expressed structure is present in the existing campus library, where clerestory lights admit filtered light through exposed trusses. The decision to expose structure is also a call to the vocation of the CVM users. Seeing the skin and bones of the project is intentional. The deep mullions on the east glazing, and the southern louvres are light and delicate, while the columns and beams are heavy and robust.

A service floor system was selected for the project. Facilitating the routing of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing to spaces in the building, especially laboratories, was a key concern, as well as the ease of changing the spaces in the future. The service floor is used for under floor air delivery, which can lead to improved air quality and reduce energy costs versus conventional systems. The service floor is also beneficial for the construction of the large terraces, where the structural concrete slabs can be continuous inside and outside, making the implementation of the interior and exterior floors virtually the same.

The large standing seam metal roof surface provides ample opportunity for photovoltaics and rainwater collection, which is stored in cisterns under the western exterior patio. To bring indirect daylight into the western side of the building, south facing sawtooths are proposed. Through daylighting, material, and space, the design proposes an education building full of life and learning.