RALEIGH—The Fitts-Wollard Hall has thrown open its doors to students following a collaboration between North Carolina State University and Clark Nexsen, who acted as both the architect and engineer on the project. The $150 million, 225,000-square-foot engineering building sits on the college’s Centennial Campus, which is largely devoted to scientific research.

Fitts-Wollard Hall represents the latest iteration in the college’s Think and Do campaign, meant to marry prominent ideas with practical execution. Accordingly, the new building is meant to showcase “engineering on display” via extensive glass windows allowing more sunlight to penetrate the interior of the four-story building. Entry lobbies at the south and north ends of the building are connected to one another via open corridors that allow passersby to peer directly into the engineering labs.

The Fitts-Woolard Hall represents the first time NC State has utilized a public-private partnership to underwrite constructing an academic building. Half of the funding came from a 2016 bond referendum and the rest from private donors—the most prominent of whom were alumni Edward P. Fitts Jr. and Edgar S. Woolard Jr., whose $25M joint gift was recognized with naming rights.

“Fitts-Woolard Hall is an engineering hub that provides critical infrastructure for catalyzing new innovations and developing tomorrow’s workforce,” NC State Chancellor Randy Woodson commented.

Flanking the engineering building’s south entry are a structural testing lab, senior student project space and large-scale driving simulator, all of which are visible as people walk through the building. The building’s educational spaces and openly visible structural engineering elements are meant to inspire students and educators to look to the future at tomorrow’s challenges.

“The concept of engineering on display takes the work being done inside the building and celebrates it by making it visible,” Clark Nexsen principal Shann Rushing said of this paradigm. “You get a visual connection to the research and instruction happening in the building.

“The steel-plated monumental stairs have an exposed truss design that is structurally expressive,” Rushing added. “The stairs weave upward alongside a feature wall designed to reflect the diverse engineering studies housed in the building. The form of the stairs also creates a variety of gathering and collaboration spaces.”

Fitts-Woolard Hall will bring together under one roof the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering and the Fitts Department of Industrial and System Engineering. The hall will offer 100 classrooms and laboratories. Additionally, teaching and research spaces in the building will support global tech firms in sectors including manufacturing, robotics and sensor technology, transportation and logistics, and bioengineering. On the second floor, an open area known as the “hearth” will allow for student-faculty interaction.

The engineering building’s campus neighbor is the James B. Hunt Jr. Library, designed by Clark Nexsen and Snøhetta.

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Foster + Partners served as the design architect, while IBI Group Gruzen Samton was the architect of record. Both companies have locations in New York.

The facility design places Yale’s faculty departments in a single location, which offers a high level of transparency to the traditionally enclosed college courtyard. The green space is visible throughout the school, creating an inviting space for the campus community.
Foster + Partners designed the facility using feedback from the university’s faculty members. The design team even produced full-scale mock-ups to allow teaching staff to experience the lecture space, said said Nigel Dancey, senior partner with Foster + Partners.
The classrooms are contained within 16 double-height oval drums, which frame a central courtyard. The five-story building incorporates several social spaces, guided by the principle that casual interactions are just as important as classroom-based learning. This design encourages collaboration and promotes a sense of school spirit.
The social spaces — a coffee shop, media library and a large common room — are located on the ground level. The second floor houses classrooms connected by a wide internal circulation “cloister.” The glazed facade around the courtyard follows the curves of the blue classroom drums, creating bays where students can sit and gather. The third floor is pulled back from the facade to form a mezzanine, opening visual connections between the different levels.

The 16 classrooms were designed to support a variety of different learning styles, including team-based working lectures, group discussions and video conferencing. The facility features advanced technology such as simultaneous translation, filming, multimedia displays and enhanced acoustics.

Other highlights of the facility include the second floor semicircular Beinecke Room, which provides a flexible events space with an 80-person capacity. It is also connected to a large curving terrace featuring views that overlook the natural landscape to the east. Located below the Beinecke Room, there is a 350-seat auditorium for the university to host its high-profile lecture series. The auditorium continues the visual connection with the courtyard outside, as opposed to more traditional auditoriums that are closed off.

“Another important aspect of the project is the integration of works of art, which complement the architecture,” Dancey said. “These include murals by Sol LeWitt, which bring the circulation spaces to life in swirls of color, and a site-specific installation by the Swiss artist Adrian Schiess, whose 90 painted panels appear to magically change color as the viewer moves around them.”
This project is seeking LEED Gold certification. Chilled beams serve as a displacement system of ventilation and solar shading, which complement the building’s high-performance envelope that employs solar responsive shading that naturally reduces energy demand. Plus, slender columns hold the roof in a way that shades both the façade and wide entrance plaza below.

“Every decision as the design evolved was taken with carbon reduction and a holistic approach to environmental issues in mind,” Dancey said. “This was a natural way of ensuring a sustainable approach that would fit the unique needs of the project, rather than having a prescriptive environmental agenda drive the design.

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