NC State Celebrates Opening of New Engineering Building
North Carolina State University has opened a new building on Centennial Campus that provides a state-of-the-art platform for NC State students and faculty to make the next generation of mechanical, aerospace and biomedical breakthroughs.
More than 200 people attended an event marking the opening of Engineering Building III on September 15.
The event included a reception and student-led tours of the 248,000-square-foot building, which houses the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Joint NC State-UNC Department of Biomedical Engineering. Speakers included Rep. Joe Hackney, speaker of the NC House of Representatives; Lawrence Davenport, chairman of the NC State Board of Trustees; NC State Chancellor Randy Woodson; and NC State mechanical engineering alumnus Jim Yocum, a former student body president who is now executive vice president for DestinationRx, Inc., which specializes in healthcare decision-support software (read the text of Yocum’s address).
The new building contains approximately 80 laboratories, two wind tunnels, a flight test cell, anechoic chambers, and classrooms and offices for faculty and graduate students. Much of the space vacated by engineering on Main Campus will be renovated for use by other NC State academic programs.
The facility also has the first “green” roof on Centennial Campus. The unique feature, which tops the building’s high bay annex, features drought-resistant plants and is projected to save an estimated 25-50 percent on heating and cooling costs. The roof is part of a university-wide effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
With the building’s opening, approximately two-thirds of the College of Engineering is now located on Centennial Campus, a 1,334-acre site adjacent to NC State’s main campus that is home to a unique combination of education, research, industry, government and community spaces.
Perkins+Will and Skanska USA Building were the architect and construction manager for the new building, respectively.
