FOR RELEASE: Thursday, January 10, 2008

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

The proposed light rail system would check sprawl and ease traffic gridlock in Northwest Arkansas.
The proposed light rail system would check sprawl and ease traffic gridlock in Northwest Arkansas.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - 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).

"It was delightful to see such thoughtful urban design thinking coming from the academy," said Harry G. Robinson, a professor of urban design at Howard University and principal of TRGConsulting who chaired the jury. "Their use of urban design as a sustainability strategy at several scales of intervention affirms the possibilities of the discipline to impact positively the environment and how the earth is inhabited. The UA design center is a model that other architecture programs should follow in engaging their host communities."

The three projects recognized include:


Parks and gardens foster community and treat stormwater in the Habitat Trails development, cutting infrastructure costs by more than one-third.

Habitat Trails, a sustainable neighborhood for the Rogers chapter of Habitat for Humanity. The five-acre low-impact development includes 17 dwelling units and preserves a third of the site for parks, gardens and meadows that treat stormwater while fostering community. The jury praised the project for demonstrating "how a sustainable landscape can blend seamlessly with good urban design and architecture." Community design center staff collaborated with Marty Matlock in the department of biological and agricultural engineering, Mark Boyer in the department of landscape architecture, and 12 architecture and engineering students to develop Habitat Trails, which is currently under construction.


Cars, pedestrians, cyclists and wildlife share green space in the design center's campus plan.
In Campus Hydroscapes, community design center staff and students developed an ambitious slate of proposals for the "Athletic Valley" on the southwest edge of the University of Arkansas campus. Planning focused on remediating the College Branch stream, which is prone to erosion, flooding and pollution due to surrounding development. Solutions ranged from stormwater gardens to the transformation of a nine-acre parking lot to a marsh coupled with a multistory parking garage, visitors' center and transportation hub that would provide a needed campus gateway. The jury noted that the project provides "multiple opportunities to control the ecological footprint of the campus infrastructure and turn the river's adjacent surfaces from liability to asset within current political and financial circumstances." The design center collaborated with the northwest chapter of Audubon Arkansas on this project, which was funded by a $190,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Visioning Rail Transit in Northwest Arkansas united students from the University of Arkansas and Washington University in St. Louis in addressing a thorny regional planning issue: light rail. Studios at both universities explored how light rail and associated transit-oriented development could ease traffic gridlock, spur downtown revitalization and check sprawl in Northwest Arkansas. The jury said the master plan "creates cities for humans versus cities for autos . . . With major growth coming, this is a chance to do it right from the outset." Design center staff and students partnered with Eric Kahn, a principal with the Los Angeles firm Central Office of Architecture, and William Conway, a Minneapolis-based architect and planner, on this project.

"These latest awards confirm that our design center's multifaceted, collaborative approach to sustainable design is the future of regional and urban planning," said Jeff Shannon, dean of the School of Architecture. "We are proud to offer this resource to our students and the state."

For more information on the University of Arkansas Community Design Center, visit the center's Web site at http://uacdc.uark.edu/.

To learn more about sustainable research and project development at the university, visit http://sustainability.uark.edu/.

The awards will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Institute of Architects in Boston, May 15-17, 2008. For more information on the association's awards program, visit the association's Web site.

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Contact:

Stephen Luoni, director, University of Arkansas Community Design Center
School of Architecture
(479) 575-5772, sluoni@uark.edu

Kendall Curlee, director of communications
School of Architecture
(479) 575-4704, kcurlee@uark.edu.