Duda|Paine Architects completed the Western Campus for the North Carolina School of Science & Mathematics in Morganton, North Carolina.

The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM)—founded in 1981 as the nation’s first public residential high school for science, technology, engineering and math—has grown to be a global leader in STEM education. Students at the new Morganton campus will be immersed in a rural living/learning model that extends NCSSM’s existing urban campus in Durham to create the first program in the world to offer STEM learning in separate urban and rural locations.

Formerly part of the North Carolina School for the Deaf, the 60-plus-acre campus includes adaptive reuse of four existing buildings. In collaboration with Belk Architecture, renovations to the Cattle Barn provide a 450-seat multipurpose venue overlooking the Historic Broughton Campus. Other existing structures serve administration, facilities and classroom functions. Two new buildings include a student commons and residence hall. Together, these facilities provide a collaborative living and learning model for 300 students. NCSSM-Morganton is also the first UNC System campus in the area.

Creating a new campus for the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics presented a rare opportunity to shape an entire campus as an adaptive reuse project. Critical to the process of designing two new buildings and renovating four was enacting a strategy to define the school’s identity and reinforce its sense of community. The design process focused on the site’s topography and an understanding of how the amalgamation of buildings would work together.

The concept of an academic street placed along the highest ridge on the site is a unique characteristic of the masterplan. All campus buildings are oriented inward, with main entries off the street, to support their function as an organizing element that ties together green spaces, iconic building features and primary gathering spaces on the building interiors. The library, cafeterias, dining hall, academic buildings, student commons and residence halls are all situated along this shared thoroughfare to activate and enliven the campus experience. The site’s primary historic structure, Goodwin Hall, frames the primary campus lawn, while the converted barn now serves as performance space. The buildings negotiate steep terrain to allow sweeping views of surrounding mountains from within and between the structures.

Design: Duda|Paine Architects
Design Team: J. Scott Shell, Heidi Kippenhan
Contractor: Barnhill Contracting Company
Photography: Tzu Chen Photography