Archives for January 2008

University of Arkansas Community Design Center Dominates 2008 AIA Urban Design Awards

Here’s one list with Arkansas at the top: the American Institute of Architects has selected three projects by the University of Arkansas Community Design Center to receive 2008 national honor awards for regional and urban design. A release by the American Institute of Architects noted that the Community Design Center “won three of the five awards in this category, displaying an unprecedented concern and devotion for improving the quality of their urban environment.” Only a handful of organizations have matched the near-sweep by the design center in the award program’s 59-year-history, winning three or more honor awards in one category in a single year (they include Chicago powerhouse firms Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, which won multiple awards in 1967, 1998 and 2000, and Murphy/Jahn, which won three architecture honor awards in 2004). The Community Design Center, an outreach of the University of Arkansas School of Architecture, is the only entity from Arkansas to win a national honor award in regional and urban design from the AIA (the design center also won national AIA honors in this category in 2005). (more…)