Building Inspiration

In Summer 2007, the North Carolina General Assembly approved $17 million to plan the James B. Hunt Jr. Library on Centennial Campus, and the Hunt Library Building Committee initiated the selection process for the lead architectural design firm for the project. Proposals from qualified architectural firms were solicited, and six finalist firms were invited to make presentations highlighting the relevance of their previous work. A design charrette was added to the selection process to provide a window into the creative process of each firm and assist the Building Committee to envision a working relationship with them. A charrette is a collaborative session in which a group of designers drafts a solution to a design problem.

This led to the selection of Pearce Brinkley Cease + Lee, a North Carolina firm based out of Raleigh and Asheville, as executive architect and Snøhetta, an internationally recognized firm with offices in Oslo, Norway, and New York City, as lead designer.

This exhibition will take a look at the charrette process and examine the approach, vision, process, and values Pearce Brinkley Cease + Lee and Snøhetta bring to the development of the new Hunt Library.

  What is the James B. Hunt Library?

The James B. Hunt Jr. Library will serve as the intellectual and social nexus for the rapidly growing population on NC State's Centennial Campus, a community of academic, corporate, and government partners. The library will primarily house collections supporting the multidisciplinary research and teaching activities on Centennial Campus. The Hunt building will also house the Institute for Emerging Issues, which former North Carolina governor James B. Hunt Jr. was instrumental in establishing.