NOLAN SMOCK

Research Triangle Park (2018-2023) is a years-long photo survey of the largest tech park in the US. At 7,000 acres, it’s a suburb for office parks. Conceptualized in the ‘60s as a reaction to “brain drain” (NC grads leaving a largely agricultural and industrial North Carolina for science and tech work elsewhere) it largely sits empty today, moreso after a pandemic.

Despite that, it’s in the midst of rapid construction and still growing; at the start of making photos here, there were hundreds of thousands of empty square feet of office space. When I finished the series (we’ll see) in 2023, the amount of empty space was closer to three million square ft, with two million more on the way. In retrospect, the series serves as a real-time document of overdevelopment that led to a commercial real estate crisis while also a warning to the empty promises of a tech industry that feels even more pervasive today.

It is (was?) a developer’s paradise, with North Carolina eager to please, and a home to government, healthcare, bio-ag, pharmacutical, and tech industries along the same winding, wooded roads. The privacy is part of the appeal and as a result, the images reflect this lack of access.

<---back to main