Architects are constantly analyzing different sizes and shapes. For Tor Glendinning and the new additions at Lincoln Academy in Newcastle, it’s easy to see how things have come full circle.

“You know, it’s funny,” Glendinning said. “I can remember going in as a new student my junior year and talking to the headmaster at the time, a guy named Christopher Frost, about what my interests were. I told him mechanical drawing and he said ‘well we have a great program here for that’.”

Years later, Glendinning is a distinguished architectural alum of Lincoln Academy. He established his firm 44 Degrees North in 2002 and has designed a number of residences in Midcoast Maine. Although he specializes in ocean and lake-front properties, Glendinning has also worked on projects such as the Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library, the Lincoln Home dementia unit, and the new lobby at the Maine General Hospital in Augusta.

“It’s just one of those stepping stone kind of things.”

Now Glendinning finds himself in charge of designing the new additions to the academy. The two new buildings, an applied technology and engineering center as well as a new dorm, will be the first new freestanding buildings added to the school in almost 180 years.

Glendinning didn’t always intend to end up back in Midcoast Maine — in fact, he had no idea he would. But after college at the Wentworth Institute of Technology and a stint in Portland, he was offered a job in Damariscotta and was happy to return home.

“If I had to say anywhere was home, it would be South Bristol,” Glendinning said.

His parents spent their summers on the island since the ‘60s, and eventually settled there permanently when Glendinning was in high school. Soon enough, he was enrolled at Lincoln Academy.

“I actually went to school in the predecessor curriculum,” Glendinning said. The new Cable-Burns Applied Technology and Engineering Center will allow future students to learn a vocation and pursue a passion.

The project and its proximity to home clearly make it an important one to Glendinning. “Regionally, this an incredibly important curriculum in the state. Kids are going to liberal arts schools and expecting to find jobs when they graduate, and it’s a struggle.”

“This program is a way of giving kids tools of learning and a potential vocation,” he said.

The dorm will house an additional 56 international students, up from the 24 who are currently able to live at the school. The applied tech and engineering center will feature equipment for computer drafting, digital fabrication and other digital arts, as well as three shop labs — one for welding, one for automobiles and one for general use.

Combined, the additions will add 40,000 square feet of new building to the Lincoln Academy campus. Both buildings are on schedule to be completed by February of 2015.

Soon, students will be able to follow in Glendinning’s footprints in a new, state-of-the-art facility.

Glendinning pointed out one difference, though. “We were working on boards, not computers,” he said, laughing.