Adolescents surged through the doors of Durham School of the Arts 10 minutes early at 8:35 a.m. on Feb. 19 to ogle their new, two-story, $6.8-million building the day it opened.

"It's a lot bigger and has sinks so you can do better labs," says Brittany Frost, an eighth grader. "It seems easier to learn things in here."

"Wow!" was eighth grader Savannah Draughan's first reaction. "It seems a lot cleaner. It's easier to learn."

"People feel like they've died and gone to heaven," says first-year Principal David Hawks, 51.

About 400 eighth and ninth graders fled the downtrodden Carr Building for the yet-to-be-named new facility, which also houses history classes and two computer labs. The 31,000-square foot building of glass and brick is patched onto the south side of Weaver Auditorium and the back of the media center. The classrooms are more than 850 square feet -- double the size of those in the Carr Building.

"This building is light years of difference [from the 1911 vintage Carr Building]," says Hawks, who arrived from Franklin County Schools this past year.

Light is everywhere, from the glass blocks in the stairwells to 18-foot long classroom windows overlooking the softball diamond and soccer field. The centerpiece is a 25- by 50-foot, two-story atrium adjacent to the auditorium. A glass wall separates the atrium from an enclosed courtyard.

"We'll probably have small recitals and receptions after concerts" in the atrium, says Hawks, a band director for 19 years before he turned to administration.

The newness is palpable, from the smell to the gleaming red, blue and green interior color schemes.

On the first day in the building, ninth-grade English teacher Amy Rublein asked students to run their hands over the shiny, new desktops, and then under.

"They said there was no gum," she recalls. "I said, 'Don't put any under there.'"

The teacher's lounges on each floor of the southwest corner have already been dubbed "skyboxes" for their view of the athletic fields.

No one can discuss DSA's new digs without recalling the old, Carr Building.

Rublein, a third-year teacher, sighs and offers a "My gosh" when recounting the escape from her second-floor classroom. In her first year, she pulled out a bucket to catch leaks when it rained.

Science classes were equal parts learning and creative engineering. Since there were no lavatories in the classrooms, students fetched water from bathrooms. More often than anyone likes to admit, the results of an experiment went out the window.

The Carr Building's peeling paint, the radiators that ran at 90 degrees or nothing and the plethora of mold definitely did not add up to "character" for the people who worked there.

"More than anything, the [new] building is about improving children's learning experience," says Stephanie Kraft, an eighth-grade science teacher with 15 years experience. At Carr she worked in a classroom one third the size of her current room. "It was extremely difficult to do experiments."

While almost everybody swoons over the new building, two seniors planning to study design in college remain fond of the Carr Building's architectural character and aren't exactly fawning over the new DSA addition.

"It's all right," says Sasha Somer. "Not bad," adds Lilli Fish.

Construction began two years ago. Completion was delayed about three months due to soil that was incapable of bearing the building's weight, says Robert McCredie, project manager for Durham Public Schools. Clean fill and stone were brought in to stabilize the 3-foot deep footings. Even the sidewalks required fill.

Two floors of the Carr Building will remain in use for another year or two until an $18 million renovation begins thanks to passage of the 2007 bond referendum. The new building makes a total of eight in the complex on North Duke Street that educates 1,400 students spanning grades six through 12.