Architect: McMillan Pazdan Smith Architecture

Location: Charlotte, NC

Fretwell Café is a bustling classroom building and home to UNC Charlotte’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The project replaced an underutilized classroom tucked behind an interior precast concrete “drum” with café service to create an open living room with access to natural light that had been previously blocked. The precast drum was carefully modified to open but allow the strong form to remain and read through. Floors, walls and ceilings were planned to extend the existing tartan grid with a lighter touch to transition from an institutional to a relaxing environment for students, faculty and staff to relax.