Pettigrew Visitor Center

Creswell, North Carolina

Pettigrew State Park hugs the banks of Lake Phelps, the state’s second largest natural lake, in forming a rich environmental band teaming with flora and fauna. Pettigrew is also home to Somerset Place, a pre-Civil War era plantation and North Carolina Historic Site, and Native American artifacts dating back over 4,400 years. In the midst of this diverse, historic, and beautiful landscape, the new visitor center provides a welcoming front door to the park and its myriad activities, ecologies, and histories.

Program
visitor center

Status
proposal

Awards + Recognitions
2020
aia south atlantic region - merit award unbuilt

2019
aia triangle - merit award unbuilt

Credits

The park’s remote setting—15 minutes from a town of only 300 people—and agrarian context highlight the dynamic relationship between humans and the natural environment. The lake’s organic edges and crystal-clear waters feed painstakingly created canals that enrich a vast geometric patchwork of soybean fields. Rather than recreate the past, the new visitor center transforms cues from the surrounding context into a strikingly modern design. The building is conceived of as a large porch—a traditional Southern staple that provides shelter, encourages relaxation, and welcomes visitors.

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