Creating a common ground

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill envisioned a dynamic, functional, and inspiring environment for the dental sciences building. With this new facility, the institution will be able to recruit top-tier students and faculty, while furthering the development of a health sciences precinct on campus.

Key elements of the design include: respectfully working with the scale and historic character of the university's academic precinct; creating meaningful interior and exterior spaces for students, faculty, and researchers; establishing state-of-the-art instructional spaces to accommodate evolving technology and instruction methods; and creating flexible and efficient research environments that are not only connected to clinic spaces, but designed to encourage collaboration among disciplines.

The resulting design meets all of these goals. The facility, which is composed of two wings, includes clinical, research, and educational spaces, an internal, sky-lit "Main Street," and a dental commons area.