Ethan Hall Wins the 2026 Pendulum Prize at NC State

Earlier this year Pendulum set aside three awards of $2,000 for architecture students. One goes to each city where the practice keeps an office. We called it the Pendulum Prize. The reasoning was plain. The best thinking in this profession usually shows up in a studio first, years before anyone pays for it. That thinking deserves to be seen.

The first of the three 2026 Pendulum Prize awards has now been given.

Ethan Hall is the 2026 NC State recipient. He is a fifth-year student in the School of Architecture at North Carolina State University, and he won for Forest Branch Library, a public library he proposed for a floodplain in Durham, North Carolina. The NC State College of Design announced it on October 20. Recipients at Morgan State University and the University of Missouri–Kansas City will be announced separately.

A library that begins in a floodplain

Hall did not draw an easy site. It sits inside Forest Hills Park, on ground that floods, between two neighborhoods with very different economic histories. One of them was redlined. Most students would treat all of that as a set of constraints to design around. Hall made it the subject instead.

“When I first visited the site, I was struck by the contrast between the activity and noise of University Drive and the stillness of the park as I moved further into it,” he says. “That transition became an important influence on the design.”

In the end, what he built from that contrast is a library that hands the park back more ground than it takes. A green roof slopes up out of the landscape and carries Forest Hills Park over the top of the building. A constructed wetland runs the width of the site and absorbs the water that used to be the problem. An elevated walkway spans the length of it and does two jobs at once. It holds back flooding, and it gives visitors their view of the library and the park from above.

Inside, meanwhile, the plan opens at a south entrance and then divides three ways. An activities wing holds the maker space and the technology. An open plaza climbs toward the green roof. Three reading rooms serve children, teens and adults.

“Many cities, including Durham, offer public buildings and public parks as separate services,” Hall says. “By designing a library that integrates both into a single experience, I would hope people see it as an invitation to feel more connected to Durham through nature and human connection.”

Why the 2026 Pendulum Prize went to this project

Plenty of student projects open with a strong idea. Far fewer, however, carry it all the way to the end. That was the difference here.

“Ethan’s project stood out because its ambition carries all the way through the work,” said Jonathan O’Neil Cole, Pendulum’s founding principal. “There is a strong civic idea at its center, grounded in the social and environmental realities of the site, but he does not stop there. He works through landscape, circulation, structure and building systems with enough resolution to show how that idea could become architecture. That combination of purpose, beauty and technical rigor is very much what we value at Pendulum.”

Cedric Lowe, associate principal and leader of the firm’s Southeast practice, saw the same quality from the North Carolina side.

“Having worked across both architecture and construction management in North Carolina, I am always excited to see student work that pushes design ideas while also remaining grounded in the realities of the built environment,” Lowe said. “NC State continues to produce students who understand that those things do not have to be in conflict. Ethan’s project is a great example. It takes on difficult questions while remaining focused on how a building actually works, performs and serves the people who will use it.”

Through an approach rooted in accessibility, environmental resilience and public connection, Hall’s work explores the evolving role of libraries in our communities.

How Hall got here

Hall came to architecture through drawing, and then through an interest in putting creative and technical thinking in the same room.

“I chose architecture for the combination of creative and technical thinking that leads to designs that serve others,” he said. “I have grown to be particularly interested in the way architecture intersects with both the environment and surrounding communities and how those factors can influence one another for positive social outcomes and change.”

He developed Forest Branch Library in ARC 302 under faculty Edwin Harris and Billy Askey.

What the 2026 Pendulum Prize recognizes

The Pendulum Prize is an annual student design award. Pendulum gives three prizes of $2,000 each year, one for each partner region. For 2026 the partner universities are North Carolina State University, Morgan State University and the University of Missouri–Kansas City. The Prize looks at three areas that match where the practice leads: sports and recreation architecture, library and learning spaces, and public interest design.

There is no entry fee and no reformatting requirement, and that is deliberate. The Prize reads studio work the way the student made it, so it rewards design intention rather than graphic polish. For more on how it came about, see our earlier post on the Pendulum Prize and the next generation of designers. The Pendulum Prize page carries the current details.

Beyond the Prize

Still, the money is the smallest part of this. Todd Ferry and Janae Wilson spent time at NC State in spring 2026, giving a lecture and sitting as guest critics. That engagement carries into the coming academic year through reviews, lectures and collaborative research.

Pendulum is probably best known for ballparks, including the new Wilson Warbirds stadium in North Carolina. The firm’s leadership also carries long experience in libraries, higher education and public interest design. That breadth is exactly why Hall’s project landed the way it did with the review committee.

This is stewardship of the discipline rather than sponsorship. Nineteen years of built work is only worth something if it reaches the people who will carry the work next. Hall’s library is a good argument that it is reaching them.

Project images: Ethan Hall, courtesy of the NC State College of Design.

Two more 2026 recipients to come. Congratulations to Ethan Hall, to Edwin Harris and Billy Askey, and to the College of Design at NC State. Read the full announcement on the NC State College of Design site.