Springdale Church, Pocket Housing Win National Honor Awards from AIA

Winning projects by Blackwell firm, Community Design Center

A metal shed transformed into a church in Springdale, Ark., and an affordable pocket housing plan for Little Rock have both earned national 2013 Honor Awards from the American Institute of Architects.

The award-winning works were designed by faculty and staff of the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas.

The AIA awards are considered the highest national professional honors to be granted to design projects in architecture, urban design and interior design. Twenty-eight awards were granted this year in the categories of architecture, interior architecture, and regional and urban design, chosen from more than 700 submissions.

The St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church in Springdale, designed by Fayetteville-based Marlon Blackwell Architect, won an Honor Award for Architecture, one of 11 awarded. This is Blackwell’s second AIA Honor Award.

According to the AIA website, the Honor Awards for Architecture program “recognizes achievements for a broad range of architectural activity to elevate the general quality of architecture practice, establish a standard of excellence against which all architects can measure performance, and inform the public of the breadth and value of architecture practice.”

Blackwell is a Distinguished Professor and head of the architecture department in the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas, as well as an AIA Fellow.

The St. Nicholas project entailed the transformation of an existing metal shop building into a sanctuary and fellowship hall in Springdale. The sky-lit tower pours red light down into the transition between the narthex and the sanctuary, giving worshippers a moment of pause before entering. A narrow cross is suspended on the western side of the tower, backlit by the morning sun, itself a beacon for arriving parishioners. The exterior of the building uses box rib metal panels, common in local industrial buildings, while the interior finishes are kept simple. The church is visible from Interstate 540.

“This transformation of a humble former welding shop into an elegant work of religious architecture is an inspiring example for our profession and especially for small practitioners,” the jury noted. “The project makes the most with the least, displaying deep resource efficiency as an integral part of its design ethos – something more architects should be thinking about and practicing.”

Jury members praised the development of flexible space by creating a maneuverable wall between the worship and fellowship spaces. They also called the ability to maintain the sacredness of the space with strategic use of color and light “inspiring.”

The church has also received other honors, including being named the World’s Best Civic and Community Building by the World Architecture Festival in 2011 and receiving a 2011 American Architecture Award and a 2012 AIA Small Project Award.

An Honor Award for Regional and Urban Design was awarded to “Rock Street Pocket Housing,” a design by the University of Arkansas Community Design Center, an outreach program of the Fay Jones School. It was one of eight awarded. Fifth-year architecture students collaborated with staff on this project. This is the center’s 10th national AIA Honor Award for Regional and Urban Design.

The Regional and Urban Design Honor Awards “recognize distinguished achievements that involve the expanding role of the architect in urban design, regional and city planning, and community development,” according to the AIA website. “The awards identify projects and programs that contribute to the quality of these environments.”

“This is a great integration of inventive architecture and sustainable urbanism into a traditional, low-income fabric. The project does a very interesting and successful job of comingling variations of public and private space,” the jury noted. “By creating variations in the housing typology, building placement on the site and landscape treatments, the development proposal has appeal to multiple household types, creates private and shared space, and it completes the urban context of the neighborhood.”

Jury members said the individual house designs admirably handled the double duty of negotiating fronts to the street and the communal space.

“It is thorough, achievable, and detailed with a fresh design approach that is also supportive of the context,” the jury noted.

This design project was prepared for the Downtown Little Rock Community Development Corp., and funded by planning grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the city of Little Rock.

Designers took the five adjacent parcels for housing in the Pettaway neighborhood and, rather than placing one home on each parcel, they suggested combining the parcels to create a pocket neighborhood. The move nearly doubled the density, placing nine homes around a shared space that includes a community lawn and playground, community gardens, a shared street and a low-impact development storm water management system.

Affordable pricing for the homes – about $100,000 – comes from standardized dimensions and materials, said Stephen Luoni, director of the center. Luoni is also a Distinguished Professor and the Steven L. Anderson Chair in Architecture and Urban Studies in the Fay Jones School.

This design also won a Grand Award in the “On the Boards” category in the 2012 Residential Architect design awards program.

In addition, other designers with connections to the Fay Jones School received AIA recognition. Olson Kundig Architects won an Honor Award for Architecture for Art Stable in Seattle and an Honor Award for Interior Architecture for the Charles Smith Wines Tasting Room and World Headquarters in Walla Walla, Wash. Kundig, principal and owner at Olson Kundig Architects in Seattle, was the 2010 John G. Williams Distinguished Visiting Professor for the school.

VJAA won two Honor Awards for Interior Architecture – for the Blessed Sacrament Chapel and Abbey Church Pavilion in Collegeville, Minn., and for Chicago Apartment. Vincent James and Jennifer Yoos, both principals at VJAA in Minneapolis, were the 2012 John G. Williams Distinguished Visiting Professors for the school.

The winning projects in this year’s awards program will be exhibited at the AIA convention in Denver in June and published in Architect magazine, the official magazine of the AIA.

Dreaming Big: Little Rock Unveils Plans for Main Street Creative Corridor

Mark Carter, Arkansas Business
Source

The City of Little Rock and the Downtown Little Rock Partnership publicly unveiled a big-picture vision for the Main Street corridor on Wednesday.

Roughly 200 filled the Cindy Murphy Auditorium at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre for the unveiling that entailed comprehensive plans for a four-block “creative corridor” focused on the arts. Plans also included residential and retail units. In all, the corridor would extend two blocks north and south of Capitol Avenue, potentially growing to include Markham and South Main streets.

City officials said the plan would be posted to the mayor’s page at Little Rock.org by the end of the week. Some designs are available here.

The vision entails the relocation of cultural arts organizations such as the Little Rock Film Festival, the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and others to the corridor. Nothing has been set, but DLRP director Sharon Priest said those organizations have expressed interest in being part of an integrated arts district.

Priest said that over the past year, $60 million has been invested in Main Street. The west side of the 500 block of Main is being developed into retail and loft space by a venture led by Little Rock lawyer Wooten Epes.

City officials believe the first domino has fallen in the big picture of redeveloping Main Street into a thriving arts district that would serve as home to a new resident population, retail, restaurants and nightlife.

Priest said streetscapes will be added within about 18 months with “demonstration projects” going up between Second and Third streets soon.

“We can do this,” Priest said. “I’m optimistic. Will we ever realize the full vision? Maybe not, but you have to dream and you have to go after that dream.”

The plans were drawn up by the University of Arkansas Community Design Center, part of the renowned Fay Jones School of Architecture, and the nationally recognized Marlon Blackwell firm of Fayetteville.

Steve Luoni, director of the UACDC, cited studies that say 75 percent of college graduates are relocating to urban centers. He suggested Main Street revitalization is critical to the long-term future of the city.

The corridor would include an extension of the existing Central Arkansas Transit Authority streetcar line, as envisioned by Metroplan. Mayor Mark Stodola couldn’t place a timetable on when such a corridor could be completed, and stressed that it depends on private development.

Downtown residents and business leaders liked what they saw on Wednesday, including Little Rock architects Jennifer Herron and Jeff Horton of Herron Horton Architects. Herron and Horton are committed to downtown and even built their home and office near the Governor’s Mansion a few blocks off Broadway.

“For me, it’s about finally having a study like this to help provide the vision for the urban core and imagine what it could be, which starts the dialogue between us all,” Herron said. “I love the idea of the arts coming together and building upon each other’s programs, further becoming aware of what each one does.”

A $150,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts funded the creative corridor plans, and Priest said about $1.6 million in federal grants currently is in play around Main Street projects.

Priest said NEA officials have encouraged Little Rock to continue to apply for more grants, and she believes more private investment will flow once the initial redevelopment projects are complete.

Luoni Named Ford Fellow in United States Artists Fellowship Program

Stephen Luoni, director of the University of Arkansas Community Design Center, recently received a $50,000 fellowship grant from United States Artists (USA).

A 2012 USA Ford Fellow, Luoni is one of 54 artists to receive a fellowship from United States Artists, a national grant-making and advocacy organization, which recently awarded 50 unrestricted grants of $50,000 each. This year’s recipients were announced at a Dec. 2 ceremony hosted by actor/director Tim Robbins, which also featured performances by new and former fellows, held at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Luoni is a Distinguished Professor of architecture in the Fay Jones School of Architecture. The Community Design Center, an outreach program of the Fay Jones School, specializes in interdisciplinary public works projects combining landscape, urban and architectural design, with a focus on shaping urban design approaches to issues of sustainability.

Luoni shared the spotlight with other USA Fellows who included author Annie Proulx, choreographer Tina Brown and jazz musician Jack DeJohnette.

“To be selected as a USA Fellow is certainly an unexpected and truly humbling honor, considering the stature of the other fellows – some whose work I have looked up to and admired for quite a while,” Luoni said. “It should be understood that this work is possible because of the talented associates at UACDC who are as dedicated as I am to design excellence in the public interest.”

Luoni said his USA Fellows grant will go toward the Community Design Center’s staff budget to support the advancement of projects that are unfunded or underfunded. This could include publishing Food City: An Urban Agriculture Design Manual; developing a housing project proposal for special populations; and possibly participation in a design competition with an important public interest issue aligned with the center’s expertise.

“I am not only privileged to have such co-workers in the development of this work, but also to have the university’s special support of the center, for which the work would not have been possible,” Luoni said. “Work like ours depends upon a supportive infrastructure within both the school and the university. The right chemistry of talent, organization and values allows the University of Arkansas to be a national leader in public interest and community design.”

This award is the largest that Luoni has personally received. In the seven-year history of the USA Fellows program, this is the first year for Arkansas to be represented. In addition to Luoni, Leon Niehues, a renowned craftsman whose basket-making studio is in Huntsville, was also named a fellow.

This year’s fellowship recipients are based in 19 states, range from 31 to 81 years of age and represent the most innovative and influential artists in their fields. Reflecting the diversity of artistic practice in America, they include cutting-edge thinkers and traditional practitioners from the fields of architecture and design, crafts and traditional arts, dance, literature, media, music, theater arts and visual arts.

USA fellowships are awarded to artists at all career stages who demonstrate artistic excellence, unique artistic vision and significant contributions to their fields. Since the USA Fellows program started in 2006, it has named a total of 371 fellows from 46 states and Puerto Rico, putting $17.5 million in the hands of these creative leaders.

“The USA Fellows for 2012 are not only incredible artists, they also give back to their communities and engage with the most pressing social issues of our time,” said Katharine DeShaw, USA executive director. “We are proud to honor 54 of this country’s greatest living artists and celebrate their extraordinary contributions.”

For more information about the 2012 USA Fellows, visit www.unitedstatesartists.org/.

Design Center to Partner with City, Local NGOs to Create Urban Agricultural Scenario Plan

$15,000 award from the AIA launches design studio

An interdisciplinary team at the University of Arkansas will work with the City of Fayetteville and local non-governmental organizations to create Fayetteville 2030: Food City Scenario Plan. This urban agricultural plan will be designed for a city that is expected to double in population over the next 20 years.

The plan is based on a funding proposal developed by the University of Arkansas Community Design Center, an outreach center of the Fay Jones School of Architecture. The design center recently received $15,000 in seed money from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to begin the project.

The award is part of the Decade of Design awards sponsored by the AIA in partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. The goal of the Decade of Design program is to engage architecture schools to participate in research that addresses problems facing urban, suburban and rural communities in the United States and the world. When completed, Fayetteville 2030: Food City Scenario Plan will serve as a national and international model for agrarian urbanism, said Jeffrey Huber, assistant director for the Community Design Center and adjunct professor in the Fay Jones School.

“Although in recent years there has been a greater emphasis – and actual development – on infill as a solution to some of our urban problems, Fayetteville’s current model for growth is sprawl,” Huber said. “And sprawl places more strain on the land available to grow food for the local population. Currently, we need about 100,000 acres of agricultural production to support about 50,000 people. There is a lot we can do to reduce this ratio. As designers, it is our responsibility to address what the local food movement is trying to do – to support a local, urban food network.”

The local food movement – in Fayetteville specifically but also nationwide – is a response to an industrial-based system of food production. Since the 1950s, American agricultural production has become an increasingly concentrated and industrialized enterprise, so much so that most Americans have forgotten where food comes from or how to grow it, store it and preserve it. Many in the local food movement believe the industrial-based system is unsustainable and environmentally irresponsible. Huber points out the average food product travels more than 1,500 miles from producer to consumer, and in that time it has lost 80 percent of its nutritional value.

With assistance from food-law experts at the University of Arkansas School of Law and food scientists in the University’s Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences and the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, project designers and students at the design center will work with the City of Fayetteville and local organizations such as Feed Fayetteville to design infrastructure for the purpose of growing, storing, preserving, distributing and selling food locally. Through these relationships, they will create an urban plan for healthy and safe food systems at a local scale. The goal, Huber said, is to build agrarian urbanism, where everything is designed around production of food and how people live.

“The whole project is based on this question,” Huber said. “What if 80 percent of Fayetteville’s new development provided an incentive to develop around a local, urban agricultural network?”

So how does a food city work? Imagine Fayetteville’s Wilson Park as an agricultural asset, an orchard with apple trees or a mini farm with lettuce, green beans and strawberries growing in gardens along the walking trail. That is a small part of what a food city looks like, Huber said. From window boxes with tomato plants to large-scale industrial farms, the goal is to imbed agrarianism back into the urban environment. The urban landscape includes right-of-way gardens, residential “grow streets,” greenhouses, agricultural subdivisions, urban orchards and agricultural parks. Low-impact irrigation and water cycling would be integrated into these spaces. The food city could also include animal husbandry and processing facilities.

Such a change would create an “edible landscape,” as Huber calls it, a shift from the ornamental to the productive, and in this scenario, the city of Fayetteville could become a food utility, not unlike its current role as the water and sewage utility. But this would be only part of the overall plan. Private citizens, neighborhood cooperatives and both small and large farms and orchards would be integrated into the system. The challenge for the designers will be to develop a plan for infrastructure that will support all these components.

Huber said the center will finish the design of a food scenario plan by summer 2013. The University of Arkansas Community Design Center will present its work at the AIA national convention.