U of A Community Design Center Recognized in National AIA Honors and Awards Program

The U of A Community Design Center is being recognized with two top awards in the American Institute of Architects' 2022 Honors and Awards Program. The center is a recipient of the Collaborative Achievement Award, while the center's Re-Live Downtown Pine Bluff project has won an Honor Award for Regional and Urban Design.

The AIA Honor Awards program is the top design awards program nationally for architecture, urban design and interior architecture. This year's award-winning projects and other honorees will be celebrated at the annual AIA Conference on Architecture and Expo held June 22-25 in Chicago. 

At this summer celebration, Marlon Blackwell also will formally receive the 2020 AIA Gold Medal, which was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Blackwell, a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, is a Distinguished Professor and the E. Fay Jones Chair in Architecture in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the U of A, where he has taught since 1992.

Blackwell, founder of Marlon Blackwell Architects, is the second architect practicing and teaching in Arkansas to be awarded the Gold Medal since the program began in 1907. Fay Jones, FAIA, a longtime professor and founding dean of the Fay Jones School, received the AIA Gold Medal in 1990.

The AIA's Collaborative Achievement Award recognizes and encourages distinguished achievements of design professionals, clients, organizations, architect teams, knowledge communities and others who have had a beneficial influence on or advanced the architectural profession. The U of A Community Design Center joins Joseph P. Riley, Jr., Hon. AIA, and the AIA New York Unified Task Force City and State as recipients of 2022 Collaborative Achievement Awards.

During his 10 four-year terms as mayor of Charleston, South Carolina, Riley transformed the city into a top cultural destination and positioned himself as one of the country's most visionary and effective leaders. In 1986, he founded the Mayors' Institute on City Design, which has helped transform communities through design by preparing mayors to be the chief urban designers of their cities. Trinity Simons, a Fay Jones School alumna, is executive director of the institute.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the AIA New York Unified Task Force City and State was assembled in just 24 hours in response to an urgent call for assistance from design professionals. A group of AIA New York and AIA New York State architects worked through the night to identify buildings that could be used to expand bed capacity and alleviate the strain on New York's overwhelmed hospitals.

The U of A Community Design Center was recognized for its more than 20-year track record of excellence in striving to make a significant impact on communities facing daunting challenges. The center was founded in 1995 as a research and outreach center of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design. It is directed by Stephen Luoni, a Distinguished Professor and the Steven L. Anderson Chair in Architecture and Urban Studies in the Fay Jones School.

"The national AIA recognition of the U of A Community Design Center's accomplishments confirms the overall educational mission and public service ambition of the Fay Jones School: to strengthen Arkansas and the nation through design for the greater good," said Dean Peter MacKeith. "Our long investments in the leadership and staffing of the UACDC have been of ultimate benefit to the citizens of the state, as much as to our students and the reputation of the school and the university. I congratulate Professor Luoni and all UACDC staff past and present, and will look forward to similar if not surpassing impact in the future."

Under the leadership of Luoni, just its second director and principal designer since 2003, the center's work has achieved national recognition and positioned it as one of the most highly respected authorities in urban design and development. Luoni has molded the center into one of a few design-based teaching centers in the country with a professional design staff — a missing infrastructure in the design professions. Students from all disciplines in the school collaborate with the center's small, full-time professional staff on project development and public interest scholarship.

Despite its important work outside of Arkansas, the center's primary mission is creative development in the state and for the state through a combination of design, research and education solutions. The center works within multidisciplinary frameworks to address the "triple bottom line," simultaneously solving for social, economic and environmental challenges in the built environment for project sponsors.

In her nomination letter for the Collaborative Achievement Award, Marleen Kay Davis had praise for both Luoni and the center he's directed for nearly 20 years. Davis, FAIA, is former dean of The University of Tennessee, Knoxville's College of Architecture and Design and is an ACSA Distinguished Professor.

"I have been consistently impressed by how he has leveraged every opportunity to use his role as a faculty member in a state university to make a major impact, nationally and regionally, with projects both large and small," she said. "The work is an impressive, and invaluable, national resource for architectural educators and communities. As you learn about their work, you will be impressed with the range of imaginative design innovations, the high standards of design excellence and long-term impact."

Through its design and planning services, the center has addressed design challenges in more than 50 communities and organizations, including those in Little Rock, Fayetteville, Greers Ferry, Texarkana, Conway, Maumelle, Vilonia, Mayflower, Hot Springs and Bentonville. The center's urban design projects have won more than 180 design and planning awards, and the center's work has helped clients and sponsors to secure more than $70 million for improvements.

"The long-term investment by the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design into the Community Design Center has given us the infrastructure and the human resources to sustain design leadership nationally on the big challenges of urban design, including resiliency, disaster recovery, affordable housing, agricultural urbanism, watershed urbanism and place-based economic development," Luoni said. "Like the teaching hospital, the teaching design center bridges together academia and practice as it synthesizes the necessary knowledge, skills, values and opportunities for action unavailable in a pure classroom setting. Though we are one of only three or four such centers in the nation, design centers are what universities owe to their publics, and I am proud to be part of this Arkansas idea."

Re-Live Downtown Pine Bluff was one of four projects honored in the 2022 Regional and Urban Design Awards program, which recognizes the best in sustainable, inclusive urban design, regional planning and local development. The four-member jury considered how the projects accounted for the built environment, local culture and available resources — modeling architecture's promise and true value to communities.

The Re-Live Downtown Pine Bluff plan aims to revitalize Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the country's fastest shrinking city, through a housing-first approach to help reverse the impact of widespread demolition that has occurred throughout the last 40 years.

The project focuses on building neighborhoods, not discrete projects for housing, to help Pine Bluff achieve aspirational capital development goals. More than 400 units of "missing middle housing," which includes communal micro-apartments, multigenerational housing and congregate housing that reflect the social needs of the city, will be built around neighborhood green nodes. The plan offers 28 walk-up housing prototypes of varying scopes that would be ready for potential owners.

The framework also outlines streets and signature projects that support the residentialization of Pine Bluff's downtown core by supporting an experience economy.

The living streets platform converts oversized one-way corridors to avenues of non-traffic social services, such as public art, dining and recreation. Signature public works will include the redevelopment of the city's theater district and the creation of the Delta Blues & Bayou ArtWalk, which will celebrate Black artists who routinely performed in Pine Bluff.

This is the first time Pine Bluff has a plan and revitalization effort built by and for Black constituencies. The city has committed $700,000 to acquire 5.25 acres of downtown property for phase I development and more than $3 million for blight removal.

"The high regard for the Re-Live Downtown speaks to the necessity for it to be implemented," said Ryan Watley, CEO of Go Forward Pine Bluff, Inc. "Site control on the first neighborhood was cumbersome, but we got it done. Subsequently, we are actively searching for partners to assist in constructing the initial subdivision."

This is the 14th AIA Honor Award the U of A Community Design Center has received; all have been in the Regional and Urban Design category.

AIA Names 2022 Collaborative Achievement Award Winners

The Institute selected three winners exhibiting a "beneficial influence on or advanced the architectural profession."

By Madeleine D'Angelo

The American Institute of Architects announced three winners of its 2022 Collaborative Achievement Award, honoring the AIA New York Unified Task Force City and State, the University of Arkansas Community Design Center, and Joseph P. Riley, Jr., Hon. AIA, for "distinguished achievements of design" and their "beneficial influence on or advanced the architectural profession," according to a press release from the Institute.

The Winners

AIA New York Unified Task Force City and State
Assembled in just 24 hours in the spring of 2020, the AIA New York Unified Task Force City and State worked hand in hand with the state government to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, transforming existing building into facilities that helped mitigate the strain on New York's overwhelmed healthcare system. The team of design professionals, which came from AIA New York and AIA New York State, sourced over 1,000 buildings capable of providing additional life-saving beds and medical services to individuals infected with COVID-19.

As the pandemic has progressed since 2020, the task force has remained active, dynamically responding to the pandemic's evolving challenges.

The University of Arkansas Community Design Center
Founded in 1995 as the outreach arm of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, the University of Arkansas Community Design Center is a national authority on urban design and development. Led by Stephen Luoni since 2003, the Community Design Center has received awards and recognition for projects including Rebuilding a Local Food Economy: Oahu, Hawai'i on the island of Oahu, Hawai'i, Re-Live Downtown Pine Bluff in Pine Bluff, Ark., and Building Neighborhoods that Build Social and Economic Prosperity in Kigali, Rwanda. The organization also received a 2014 Progressive Architecture Award for Fayetteville 2030: Food City Scenario.

Since its founding the Center, which also serves as an cross-disciplinary education hub for U of A students, has assisted over 50 communities and organizations across the nation with planning and development, helping secure over $70 million in funding for the improvements.

Joseph P. Riley, Jr., Hon. AIA
Elected the mayor of Charleston, S.C., in 1975, Joseph P. Riley, Jr. helped shape the city's transformation from a shrinking urban center to a vibrant cultural and social hub. Riley has maintained a strong focus on the city's public realm and urban fabric, encouraging the development of Charleston's Waterfront Park, the redevelopment of its Gaillard Center, and the currently under construction International African American Museum, designed by Moody Nolan and Pei Cobb Freed & Partners.

“Often architecture is thought elitist, that you’ve got to be schooled or have a special interest,” said Riley in a 2015 interview with ARCHITECT. “But not long after I was elected, I’d see visitors in town. They looked like they were retired blue-collar workers, and you’d see them admiring buildings. Beauty has no economic litmus test. It’s a basic human need and instinct.”

The jury for the 2022 Collaborative Achievement Award comprise chair Ryan Gann, Assoc. AIA, in Chicago; Shannon Gathings, Assoc. AIA, Duvall Decker Architects, P.A. in Ridgeland, Miss.; Joseph Mayo, AIA, Mahlum in Seattle; and Katie Swenson, Assoc. AIA, MASS Design Group in Boston.

Link to the full announcement:
AIA Names 2022 Collaborative Achievement Award Winners

AIA Names Winners of the 2022 Regional & Urban Design Awards

The institute selected projects by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, CBT, the University of Arkansas Community Design Center, and Jensen Architects as this year's award recipients.

By Madeleine D'Angelo

Today, The American Institute of Architects announced the winners of its 2022 Regional & Urban Design Awards, honoring four projects that exemplify the "best in urban design, regional and city planning, and community development," according to an AIA press release. This year's winners were Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in Chicago, CBT in Boston, the University of Arkansas Community Design Center in Fayetteville, and the San Francisco–based Jensen Architects.

The jury for AIA's 2022 Regional & Urban Design Awards comprised chair Saundra Little, FAIA, Quinn Evans in Detroit; Jeffrey Huber, FAIA, Brooks + Scarpa in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Lan Ying Ip, AIA, Sasaki in Watertown, Mass.; Michael Davis, AIA, Sanders Pace in Knoxville, Tenn.; and Erin Olson Douglas, City of Des Moines in Iowa. In addition to analyzing how the projects collect and distribute resident renewable resources and energies while enhancing quality of life and promoting social equity, this year's jurors also evaluated submissions based on criteria including how well the design addresses environmental, social, and economic issues through sustainable strategies.

Link to the full announcement:
AIA Names Winners of the 2022 Regional & Urban Design Awards | Architect Magazine

Community Design Center Housing Project Wins 2021 American Architecture Award

A U of A Community Design Center project, "Markham Square Housing District," was recently recognized in the 2021 American Architecture Awards, the nation's highest public awards given by a non-commercial, non-trade affiliated, public arts, culture and educational institution. The project received an American Architecture Award in the Multi-Family Housing category.

The Community Design Center is a public design outreach program of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the U of A. Stephen Luoni, who directs the center, is a Distinguished Professor and the Steven L. Anderson Chair in Architecture and Urban Studies in the Fay Jones School.

Now in its 27th year, the American Architecture Awards program is organized by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies, which jointly present this prestigious annual program for design excellence and for the best and next contributions to innovative contemporary American architecture. More than 120 buildings and urban plans were recognized in one of 23 categories, celebrating the best new architecture designed and constructed by American architects and by international architects with offices in the United States.

The "Markham Square Housing District" project is a downtown regeneration proposal for an industrial brownfields site, a former scrap metal yard four blocks north of Conway's main commercial street, re-imagined as a new square surrounded by a mixed-use residential district. The vision for this new square features "wilded," or natural, landscapes that will help manage stormwater runoff and control flooding. It also proposes multifamily housing with distinct frontages — including two-story screened porches, balconies, terraces, patios and courtyards — that line the edge of "green" streets incorporating stormwater treatment landscapes.

The housing types consist of affordable walk-up residential multifamily typologies — rowhouses, bungalows, triplexes, courtyard housing and townhouses — that have not been built since the dominance of 1950s suburban policy. These housing typologies, also called missing middle housing, are compatible with single-family housing. They are affordable types (between 900 and 2,100 square feet) that are key to revitalizing small and mid-sized downtowns without the population dislocations that accompany gentrification.

The Markham Square proposal connects street and square as a continuous civic space, with a design that combines pedestrian-friendly "slow streets" with the square's plazas that showcase public art. The goal is to create an iconic downtown gathering place while introducing downtown housing options for which there is demand but no supply. Markham Square could become a choice downtown neighborhood for an underserved market desiring downtown residential living in Central Arkansas.

"Like pre-World War II neighborhoods characterized by high levels of informality, neighborhood services and social capital, housing that serves future populations well will have to be conceived at the level of the neighborhood rather than the individual project," Luoni said. "We are grateful that the American Architecture Awards recognized the same beauty we see in getting social, ecological and aesthetic systems to work harmoniously toward shaping ordinary places."

The "Markham Square Housing District" project was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts under its Art Works program and the city of Conway. It was a collaboration among the Community Design Center staff, the Department of Architecture students, Conway's planning and transportation departments, citywide stakeholders and the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission.

The design team includes Luoni, Claude M. Terral III, Adriana Ramos-Hinojos, Tarun Kumar Potluri and Kacper Lastowiecki, all with the Community Design Center, as well as Fay Jones School student interns Isabelle Troutman, Jala Jones, Molly Dillard, Bryan Murren, Mitchell Pickering, Urbano Soto, Bethany Stanford, Dayton Thurn and Garrison Weaver.

In addition, Adohi Hall, completed in 2019 on the U of A campus, received an American Architecture Award in the Schools and Universities category. Adohi Hall is a 202,027-square-foot sustainable residence hall and living-learning community, as well as the nation's first large-scale mass timber project of its kind. The innovative project was conceived and designed by a design collective led by Leers Weinzapfel Associates of Boston, Modus Studio of Fayetteville, Mackey Mitchell Architects of St. Louis and OLIN of Philadelphia. Nabholz Corporation of Rogers was the general contractor.

All award-winning projects will be featured in the American Architecture Awards Yearbook, to be published by the Metropolitan Arts Press. This is the Community Design Center's 16th American Architecture Award.

More information about the 2021 American Architecture Awards can be found on The Chicago Athenaeum website. 

Design Publications Recognize Two U of A Community Design Center Projects

Two University of Arkansas Community Design Center projects that rethink housing and other building types have garnered recent accolades from The Plan and Fast Company magazines.

"Wood City: Timberizing the Standard Real Estate Product Types" received an Honorable Mention in the Cities category in Fast Company's 2021 Innovation by Design Awards. It also won the Special Projects Future category in The Plan Award 2021, an international design awards program in architecture and urbanism sponsored by The Plan magazine. "Markham Square Housing District" won the Housing Future category in The Plan Award program.

"Wood City" was designed by the U of A Community Design Center, working in collaboration with the U of A Resiliency Center, and was sponsored by the Weyerhaeuser Giving Fund. Some of the work was done during a fall 2020 studio at the Community Design Center, led by the center's director, Stephen Luoni.

The Community Design Center is an outreach center of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the university. Luoni is also a Distinguished Professor and the Steven L. Anderson Chair in Architecture and Urban Studies.

"The Wood City studio is a great example of how design and creativity can help transform what is possible in our built environment," said Ara Erickson, vice president of corporate sustainability at Weyerhaeuser. "I am looking forward to the day when we can all look up and see cell towers built from wood and buy our groceries surrounded by the beauty and warmth of wood."

"The national recognition of the UACDC's 'Wood City' project underscores the value of the Fay Jones School's design-centered public service mission," said Peter MacKeith, dean of the school. "Our design work specifically on behalf of Arkansas' forests, timber and wood products industries is of demonstrable state and national value, and we are pleased to partner with Weyerhaeuser in this ongoing initiative."

"Wood City" takes 19 standard real estate products — which make up about 75 percent of the built environment — and looks at a new way of designing and building them to steer development toward a low-carbon future. These are building sectors that largely shape American cities but are ignored by high-culture design — including fast-food restaurants, big-box grocers, single-family homes, self-storage facilities, hotels and neighborhood shopping centers. 

The project proposes making these common building typologies from wood — the only building construction system that sequesters carbon and can be engineered to be "energy positive." The project turns to mass timber engineering — glulam and cross-laminated timber (CLT) technologies — as an alternative to more traditional materials of concrete, steel and light-framed wood construction. Because they store carbon, mass timber buildings become a form of climate protection.

Cross-laminated timber (CLT) is one type of mass timber. A CLT panel is made using odd-numbered layers of stacked lumber, with the wood grain running in alternating directions. Those layers are then bonded with structural adhesives and pressed to form a solid, straight, rectangular panel that can serve as both structure and the finished surface in low-rise buildings.

Another type of mass timber is glulam (glue-laminated), whose pieces are bonded together with the wood grain of the layers running parallel rather than perpendicular, as CLT panels do.

In addition to addressing climate issues, mass timber products are fast and easy to install and generate almost no waste on the construction site.

Using cross-laminated timber (CLT) prefabrication and glulam technology, "Wood City" develops sustainable pattern languages for these structure types that are the building blocks of low-density metropolitan sprawl in the United States. While patterns are aligned with new development trends redefining each product category, each pattern can link up using grammar-like rules to create new possibilities for placemaking.

The "Wood City" project was designed by Stephen Luoni, Assoc. AIA, and Claude M. Terral III, AIA, Tarun Kumar Potluri, Kacper Lastowiecki and Joshua Levy. Fay Jones School students in the "Wood City" studio include Jacob Caylon, Alford Keturah Bethel, Mary Grace Corrao, Matthew A. Scott and Wenjie Zhu.

The other Plan Award winner, "Markham Square Housing District," was sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts under its Art Works program and the City of Conway. This project took the site of a former scrap metal yard four blocks north of Conway's main commercial street and re-imagined it as a new square surrounded by a mixed-use residential district. The vision for this new square features "wilded," or natural, landscapes that will help manage stormwater runoff and control flooding. It also proposes multifamily housing with distinct frontages — including two-story screened porches, balconies, terraces, patios and courtyards — that line the edge of "green" streets incorporating stormwater treatment landscapes.

The proposal connects street and square as a continuous civic space, with a design that combines pedestrian-friendly "slow streets" with the square's plazas that showcase public art. The goal is to create an iconic downtown gathering place while introducing downtown housing options for which there is demand but no supply. Markham Square could become a choice downtown neighborhood for an underserved market desiring downtown residential living in Central Arkansas.

"What conceptually links both projects is the focus on the everyday environment and design's role in solving for ecological, social and economic bottom lines simultaneously," Luoni said. "Our oral presentations to The Plan jury confirmed that, within the profession globally, there is a real concern over these matters of livability and resilience. In the case of Wood City, we show the benefits of timberizing the supply chain of suburban buildings as many of these building sectors are undergoing their own transformations in the real estate value chain. In Conway, we propose that challenges in affordable housing and gaps in urban infrastructure that lead to flooding can be addressed at the meso-scale of neighborhood design integrating city, landscape and house. The message linking both projects is that pragmatic solutions to daunting challenges can also deliver beautiful high-quality environments."

Winning projects for The Plan Award 2021 will be featured in The Plan's special year-end publication in December and can be found on The Plan's website.

The 10th anniversary of Fast Company's Innovation by Design Awards, which can be found in the magazine's October 2021 issue, recognize people, teams and companies that transform businesses, organizations and society through design. Winners, finalists and honorable mentions in the awards program are also featured on Fast Company's website.

One of the most sought-after design awards in the industry, Innovation by Design is the only competition to honor creative work at the intersection of design, business and innovation, recognizing the people, companies and trends that have steadily advanced design to the forefront of the business conversation.

The "Wood City" project was previously awarded a 2021 Green Good Design Award for Green Research/Technology by the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum for Architecture and Design.