Creative Corridor Project Short-Listed for 2013 World Architecture Festival Award

Little Rock project in masterplanning category

A collaborative project between the University of Arkansas Community Design Center and Marlon Blackwell Architect has been chosen for final consideration in the 2013 World Architecture Festival Awards, the world’s largest architecture design awards program serving the global community. 

More than 300 projects from almost 50 countries were short-listed across 29 individual award categories for the festival, to be held this week in Singapore.

The Creative Corridor: A Main Street Revitalization for Little Rock is one of eight short-listed projects in the Future Projects – Masterplanning category. This project represents the United States in this category.

The Creative Corridor project retrofits a four-block segment of historic Main Street in downtown Little Rock. The proposal features economic development driven more by the cultural arts than the street’s traditional retail base.

The project is intended to spur comprehensive revitalization of historic buildings and transform a segment of Main Street’s streetscape into a visual and performing arts district in Little Rock, which has a metropolitan area population of about 700,000. The city of Little Rock is the lead partner, and additional partners include nonprofit arts organizations, such as the Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Ballet Arkansas and the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Little Rock Downtown Partnership and Reed Realty Advisors.

“Little Rock’s Main Street was a classic American urban icon and the central destination for the nation’s largest streetcar system in cities of its size category in the early 20th century,” said Steve Luoni, director of the Community Design Center and a Distinguished Professor of architecture in the Fay Jones School of Architecture. “Rather than mimic historic precedents to create continuity, our organizations devised a ‘townscaping’ approach that recombines architectural frontages, landscapes, public art and signage, and shared street geometries to ensure compatibility in the built environment.”

“Townscaping as a tactic inverts the hierarchy between buildings and their urban ornaments to create pedestrian-oriented urban rooms from a traffic corridor,” he added. “It makes a virtue from the unevenness between old and new, and posits an exemplary human-centered design approach applicable in urbanizing environments globally.”

For this project, the Community Design Center partnered with Blackwell’s Fayetteville-based firm. Blackwell is also a Distinguished Professor and head of the Fay Jones School’s architecture department.

The initial phase of the Creative Corridor project is slated for implementation in early 2014 with construction of the 500 and 300 blocks of Main Street. These blocks integrate low-impact development technologies for the ecological management of stormwater runoff, featuring a tree-lined allée and landscaped gateways with rain gardens. A $1.5 million capital grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission support this Phase 1 implementation. Since the beginning of the design process in 2011, more than $60 million in building renovations have occurred or are under contract, including the introduction of loft condominiums and apartments to Main Street.

Through integrated and inclusive planning, this design develops brand identity; connects the Creative Corridor as a cultural hub to the rest of downtown; and generates iconic, destination architectural design.

Project planning was partly funded by a $150,000 Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and by the city of Little Rock.

Large and small firms will compete as equals when presenting their designs to international judging panels and festival delegates at the World Architecture Festival in Singapore from Oct. 2-4. Luoni will travel to Singapore to present this project. The winner of each category will advance and give a presentation Oct. 4 to the festival’s superjury for the two overall festival awards, World Building and Future Project of the Year.

The Community Design Center was founded in 1995 as part of the Fay Jones School of Architecture. The center advances creative development in Arkansas through education, research, and design solutions that enhance the physical environment. It has provided design and planning services to more than 45 communities and organizations across Arkansas, helping them to secure nearly $65 million in grant funding to enact suggested improvements. In addition to revitalizing historic downtowns, the center addresses new challenges in affordable housing, urban sprawl, environmental planning, and management of regional growth or decline. The center’s professional staff members are nationally recognized for their expertise in urban and public-interest design, and their work has received more than 90 design awards.

American Architecture Awards Recognize Two Community Design Center Projects

Little Rock, Fayetteville designs shine in competition

Two projects by the University of Arkansas Community Design Center have received 2013 American Architecture Awards from The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies. Out of hundreds of submissions from the best architecture firms across the United States, the 65 award winners were new buildings, commercial and institutional developments, and urban planning projects designed or built since 2010.

The Community Design Center collaborated with Marlon Blackwell Architect for the first project, The Creative Corridor: A Main Street Revitalization for Little Rock. The project retrofits a four-block segment of historic Main Street in downtown Little Rock. The proposal features economic development driven more by the cultural arts than the street’s traditional retail base.

Project planning was partly funded by a $150,000 Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and by the city of Little Rock.

The second project, Fayetteville 2030: Transit City Scenario, poses the question: What if 80 percent of the city’s future growth was given an incentive to locate around a six-mile streetcar system for Fayetteville’s now auto-dominated commercial arterial? Since 50 percent of the built environment projected to exist in Fayetteville by 2030 has not yet been built, this project envisions changing the direction of growth from sprawl to high-value urban neighborhoods.

Project planning was partly funded by a $20,000 Access to Artistic Excellence grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, along with support from the city of Fayetteville.

“We hope the international recognition that both projects have received over the past year gives the cities of Little Rock and Fayetteville the confidence to move ahead with their projects,” said Steve Luoni, director of the Community Design Center. “Both projects are urban regeneration proposals which underscore the quality of cities in Arkansas – though underutilized as in most mid-American cities. Both proposals offer urban design concepts that are universally appreciated and capable of implementation everywhere. The Fayetteville proposal features new retrofit concepts for suburban neighborhoods, while the Little Rock proposal illustrates how a traffic corridor can be reclaimed to once again make a great pedestrian environment.”

The American Architecture Awards, founded 15 years ago, is a centerpiece of The Chicago Athenaeum and the European Centre’s efforts to identify and promote best practices in all types of architectural development and to bring a global focus to the best new designs from the United States. It is the only national and global program of its kind. This year’s jury consisted of architecture professionals in Greece.

“The American Architecture Awards program showcases the best of new American building design and urban design-oriented research by the nation’s foremost visionary designers,” said Christian Narkiewicz-Laine, museum president of The Chicago Athenaeum. “The American projects selected by the Greek jury exhibit conceptual strengths that solve critical aesthetic, civic, urban and social concerns, as well as the requisite functional, environmental and sustainability concerns. The selected projects for 2013 demonstrate the highest regard for vision and aesthetic image-making, which has traditionally defined the United States as a leading design nation in this decade, as well as the previous decades of the 21stcentury and in the history of modern architecture.”

The award-winning projects will be premiered at the 14th International Biennial of Architecture, which opens today and continues through Oct. 15 at Centro Cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The exhibition later will travel in Europe.

The University of Arkansas Community Design Center was founded in 1995 as part of the Fay Jones School of Architecture. The center advances creative development in Arkansas through education, research, and design solutions that enhance the physical environment. It has provided design and planning services to more than 45 communities and organizations across Arkansas, helping them to secure nearly $65 million in grant funding to enact suggested improvements. In addition to revitalizing historic downtowns, the center addresses new challenges in affordable housing, urban sprawl, environmental planning, and management of regional growth or decline. The center’s professional staff members are nationally recognized for their expertise in urban and public-interest design, and their work has received more than 90 design awards.

Three Design Center Projects Net State American Planning Association Awards

Projects for Little Rock, Fayetteville recognized

The University of Arkansas Community Design Center received three awards from the Arkansas Chapter of the American Planning Association in its 2013 awards program. These awards were for revitalizing urban spaces in Little Rock and for a unique planning approach for a transit system in Fayetteville.

The Community Design Center is an outreach program of the Fay Jones School of Architecture.

The center’s project Pettaway Neighborhood Revitalization for Little Rock, completed for the Downtown Little Rock Development Corporation, received an award for Achievement in Urban Design. This 60-block revitalization effort to rebuild complete neighborhoods in this historic streetcar neighborhood was funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and by Community Development Block Grant funding from the City of Little Rock.

The Fayetteville 2030: Transit City Scenario Plan received an award for Unique Contribution to Planning. The scenario plan, generated with assistance from the City of Fayetteville, posed the question: What if 80 percent of the city’s future growth was incented to locate around a six-mile streetcar system for Fayetteville’s auto-dominated commercial street, College Avenue? Since half of Fayetteville’s built environment projected to exist by 2030 has not yet been built, Transit City envisions the retrofit of sprawl to high-value urban neighborhoods. The National Endowment for the Arts provided funding for this project through an Access to Artistic Excellence grant.

The Creative Corridor: A Main Street Revitalization for Little Rock, done in collaboration with Marlon Blackwell Architect, received an award for Achievement in Urban Design. The Creative Corridor retrofits a four-block segment of Little Rock’s downtown Main Street through economic development catalyzed by the cultural arts rather than Main Street’s traditional retail base. Project planning was funded by an Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the City of Little Rock.

“We are very pleased that the state’s professional planning organization has recognized our work in urban regeneration,” said Steve Luoni, director of the Community Design Center. “While many mistakenly think of Arkansas as a rural state lacking the capacity to sustain a vital urban culture, our work is focused on amplifying the intelligent urbanism that is in the DNA of our communities.”

Awards were presented last week at the annual conference of the Arkansas Chapter of the American Planning Association, held at the Fayetteville Town Center.

Founded in 1995, the University of Arkansas Community Design Center advances creative development in Arkansas through education, research, and design solutions that enhance the physical environment. The center has provided design and planning services to more than 45 communities and organizations across Arkansas, helping them to secure nearly $65 million in grant funding to enact suggested improvements. In addition to revitalizing historic downtowns, the center addresses new challenges in affordable housing, urban sprawl, environmental planning, and management of regional growth or decline. The center’s professional staff members are nationally recognized for their expertise in urban and public-interest design, and their work has received more than 89 design awards.

Design Approach for Housing in Kigali Wins Residential Architect Award

U of A Community Design Center receives Grand Award

A holistic design approach for a neighborhood in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital city, earned the University of Arkansas Community Design Center a 2013 Residential Architect Design Award.

The Community Design Center received a Grand Award in the On the Boards category for Building Neighborhoods that Build Social and Economic Prosperity: Manual for a Complete Neighborhood.

Thirty-four projects were selected from more than 600 entries for recognition in the magazine’s 14th annual design awards competition. This is the most comprehensive housing design awards program in the country, according to the magazine’s website.

Across 13 categories, this year’s jury selected 10 Grand awards and 23 Merit awards, plus one Project of the Year award. The winning projects appeared in the May/June issue of Residential Architect, and they are available at www.residentialarchitect.com.

This Grand Award is the third Residential Architect design award received by the Community Design Center, an outreach program of the Fay Jones School of Architecture.

The Kigali project, which features a proposed design for the Kimichanga neighborhood at 200 units per hectare, doubles as an instructional manual on hillside development for the Ministry of Infrastructure in Kigali. The challenge facing the ministry is to transition land settlement from informal patterns to formal neighborhood patterns based on closed-loop, sustainable principles responsive to low-resource environments, alternative energy production, regenerative landscapes, waste recycling and local food production. Urban redevelopment during Rwanda’s recovery since 1994 has been underwritten by foreign entities based on suburban and capital-intensive models unsympathetic to local settlement patterns.

“For fragile and severely resource-challenged environments like Rwanda, there is no choice. Holistic design thinking is the only option for recovering a sense of prosperity and sustained security,” said Steve Luoni, director of the Community Design Center. “Our proposal features advanced systems for building community resiliency that draw from the resources of the place, allowing residents to readily adapt to unforeseen challenges. Ironically, the design approach will eventually become the model for wealthy, but fragile, communities who share the same ongoing challenges from climate change, peak oil, food production, and the demand for a lower carbon future.”

This manual was a collaboration between the Community Design Center, the Fay Jones School, the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology, and Peter Rich Architects. It also has won a 2012-13 ACSA Collaborative Practice Award and the Grand Prize in the 2013 Charter Awards, sponsored by the Congress for the New Urbanism.

Jury members for this year’s Residential Architect design awards competition were E.B. Min of Min|Day; Todd Hansen of Albertsson Hansen Architecture Ltd.; Robert M. Cain of Robert M. Cain Architecture; and Brian Messana of Messana O’Rorke. Cain is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects.

Several other winners in the design awards competition have connections to the Fay Jones School:

• Tom Kundig was the 2010 John G. Williams Distinguished Professor for the school. His Seattle-based firm, Olson Kundig Architects, won the Grand Award in the Custom Home (more than 3,000 square feet) category for Studio Sitges in Sitges, Spain.

• Larry Scarpa was the 2008-09 Fay Jones Chair in Architecture. Brooks and Scarpa Architects of Los Angeles won a Merit Award in the On the Boards category for Make It Right in New Orleans.

• Joel Sanders presented the Mort Karp Memorial Lecture, sponsored by Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects, in the school’s 2012-13 lecture series. His New York-based firm, Joel Sanders Architect, won a Merit Award in the Renovation category for Bedford Residence in Bedford Corners, N.Y.

• Brian MacKay-Lyons will present the Charles Thompson Memorial Lecture, sponsored by Cromwell Architects Engineers, in the school’s 2013-14 lecture series. MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects in Halifax, Nova Scotia, won a Merit Award in the Custom Home (3,000 square feet or less) category for Sliding House in Upper Kingsburg, Nova Scotia.

Rwandan Neighborhood Design Wins Top Honors in Charter Awards Program

Creative Corridor for Little Rock’s Main Street also earns award

A collaboration between the University of Arkansas Community Design Center, the Fay Jones School of Architecture, the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology, and Peter Rich Architects took the Grand Prize, the top professional honor, in the 2013 Charter Awards, sponsored by the Congress for the New Urbanism.The Congress is the leading international organization promoting walkable, mixed-use neighborhood development, and sustainable communities. The Charter Awards recognize excellence in urban design.

Building Neighborhoods that Build Social and Economic Prosperity: Manual for a Complete Neighborhood – a holistic design approach for a neighborhood in Rwanda’s capital city, Kigali – received a $5,000 award, sponsored by Target.

The Community Design Center, an outreach program of the Fay Jones School, was also a collaborator, with Marlon Blackwell Architect, for design ofThe Creative Corridor: A Main Street Revitalization for Little Rock. The project won a Charter Award in the Neighborhood, District and Corridor category of the awards program.

Winning projects fulfill and advance the principles of the Charter of the New Urbanism, which defines the essential qualities of walkable, sustainable places from the scale of the region down to those of the neighborhood and the building.

The 13th annual awards program attracted a competitive field from around the world, and 14 projects from a pool of more than 100 submissions were recognized with awards and honorable mentions.

The Kigali project, which features a proposed design for the Kimichanga neighborhood at 200 units per hectare, doubles as an instructional manual on hillside development for the Ministry of Infrastructure in Kigali. The challenge facing the ministry is to transition land settlement from informal patterns to formal neighborhood patterns based on closed-loop, sustainable principles responsive to low-resource environments, alternative energy production, regenerative landscapes, waste recycling and local food production. Urban redevelopment during Rwanda’s recovery since 1994 has been underwritten by foreign entities based on suburban and capital-intensive models unsympathetic to local settlement patterns.

The Charter Awards jury praised this project for the way it approached Kigali’s challenging terrain, where most of the city’s population lives in informal hillside settlements. “The landscape prohibited a simple block format,” said architect and jury member Vanessa September, also a resident of Africa. “So they were very creative and innovative in the way they took that form and rolled it over the landscape of Kigali.” The frames of the buildings are designed to be modular, with modules that can be arranged and modified to fit the needs of the users. The project also provides general tactics for hillside development applicable to the city as a whole.

Jury member Jason McLennon noted the project’s sophisticated treatment of infrastructure such as transportation and water. Careful project siting and features such as vertical gardens and solar chimneys are elements of an approach that emphasizes distributed, multi-use infrastructure. The jury concluded that the project exemplifies how developing countries like Rwanda, one of the world’s poorest nations, “can transition from informal to formal settlement patterns with an eye towards resiliency, sustainability, and local social vitality.”

“We are so pleased to have been recognized with CNU’s coveted top honor and trust that this strengthens our team’s case for implementing place-based development that better serves Rwanda’s interests,” said Steve Luoni, director of the Community Design Center.

The Little Rock Creative Corridor proposal retrofits a four-block segment of endangered historic downtown Main Street through redevelopment catalyzed by the cultural arts rather than Main Street’s traditional retail base. Knowing that developers will build large infill structures based on contemporary aesthetics rather than historical Main Street styles, the retrofit creates compatibility through unique townscaping structures that frame a new, land-use ecology of residential, tourism, work and the cultural arts – a new identity for Main Street.

The initial design planning for this project was sponsored in part by a $150,000 Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2011. In developing the plan, designers worked with more than 30 organizations, including real estate developers, art institutions, local businesses and public agencies.

Jury member Colleen Carey praised the project for exemplifying how urbanists can work with areas larger than a block but smaller than an entire neighborhood. While focused on particular public realm enhancements, each enhancement is rooted in this larger transformation of the area’s function in the city.

Jury members appreciated that the plan focused on incrementalism, acknowledging the complex community and market realities of fostering change in an existing neighborhood. The proposal provides for discrete phases, each of which brings positive benefits to the area.

“The design framework taps into many years of diligent work and focused community organization by the city of Little Rock,” Luoni said. “The Creative Corridor is now seeing tens of millions of dollars in new investments from both the public and private sectors, which is terribly exciting. Little Rock has the chance to create a national model demonstrating the centrality of the arts in broad-based economic and social development.”

These award-winning projects were featured at CNU 21, the organization’s annual congress, held in May in Salt Lake City. Award winners and honorable mentions, along with full project descriptions and images, are listed on the CNU 21 website. CNU will also publish a book of award-winning projects.