SC State 1890 Research & Extension Center

SC State needed a new home for its Research and Extension Center on Charleston's peninsula. The site it found came with conditions that would shape every decision that followed. Below grade, abandoned foundations from the Grace Memorial Bridge, which once spanned the Cooper River, presented both a structural obstacle and a geotechnical risk: the surrounding soil was identified as susceptible to liquefaction in the event of an earthquake. New pile foundations were carefully detailed to be driven around the abandoned bridge foundations, addressing both issues within a single engineered solution. Above grade, strict stormwater detention requirements on the peninsula demanded a large retention structure - a constraint that became the building's foundation. The building itself was placed on top of the retention structure, lifting its occupants to harbor views that a grade-level solution would never have achieved.

The regulatory environment proved equally demanding. Charleston's Board of Architectural Review required an extensive review and approvals process, and USDA funding introduced an additional layer of federal requirements that shaped the design throughout. Each layer of oversight added time and complexity, but the cumulative result is a building that responds to its site with unusual specificity - open, light-filled, and oriented toward a waterfront view that its constraints ultimately made possible.

This project was completed by Hunter McKenzie while serving as project architect at Goodwyn Mills Cawood.