FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The latest issue of I.D. magazine styles UA professor and architect Marlon Blackwell as one of 40 “undersung heroes.” Though undersung may be an overstatement for Blackwell, whose work has been championed by a host of architecture editors and critics, Blackwell gladly accepts this latest recognition.

“I like the idea of flying below the radar,” he said recently, talking on his cell phone en route to an appointment. “You don’t have to perpetuate an image; you’re allowed to evolve and change at your own pace.” Blackwell laughed, adding: “And every four or five years you’re discovered.”

Preliminary sketch for interpretive pavilion in the Virginia B. Fairbanks Art + Nature Park, Indianapolis, Ind.

The I.D. Forty list ranges widely through an eclectic, international list of thinkers, designers and doers, from documentary filmmaker Errol Morris to food fetishist Martí Guixé. When asked why Blackwell made the list, Julie Lasky, I.D. editor-in-chief, replied: “Marlon Blackwell seemed ideal for our I.D. Forty issue because he respects the topography and materials of his rural environment while integrating beautiful touches of industrial modernism. He describes his work as 'the architecture of the slow,’ meaning it fosters deliberate, thoughtful appreciation among those who take part in it. We liked that.”

The I.D. Forty aren’t household names for a variety of reasons, from distaste for self-promotion to sheer ubiquity (the designer of New York City’s iconic Greco-themed coffee cup makes the list). In Blackwell’s case, geography has played a role. Teaching and practicing in what he calls the “Ozark Outback” have isolated Blackwell from the design ferment on both coasts, but the area’s stunning natural beauty and indigenous structures — from crumbling barns to mobile homes — have shaped his work. Blackwell also credits clients who are willing to take design risks.

“They realize they’re not going to get the same old thing,” he said. “We don’t get too caught up in history or the future. We’re dealing with the present.”

Exterior and interior designs for a 10,000-square-foot facility for Mount Comfort Presbyterian Church, Fayetteville, Ark.

The present is a bit hectic for Blackwell, who juggles teaching duties with a full slate of projects. In Fayetteville alone, his projects include the renovation of the former city library building into 30,000 square feet of office space, a new home for Jim and Nancy Blair and a mixed-use loft housing development at the corner of College and Davidson. Blackwell has taken on his first religious project, designing a 10,000-square-foot facility for Mount Comfort Presbyterian Church, one of the oldest church sites in the state of Arkansas. His own home, consisting of two bars stacked and hinged in an L-form that bridges a small creek, is currently under construction in Fayetteville’s Wilson Park neighborhood.

Blackwell’s highest profile project is farther afield. Working with landscape architect Ed Blake and artist Mary Miss, he is designing a 100-acre art and nature park for the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

“What we’re proposing is pretty much unprecedented in the United States,” he said. Located in the heart of Indianapolis adjacent to the greenway and museum campus designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, the park will be the only one in the U.S. that presents site-specific art in an urban context. Preliminary plans call for two structures and a 1,000-foot-long bridge that will frame a landscape of ephemeral sculptures by artists who use nature as their medium — think Andy Goldsworthy, who sculpts with twigs, dirt and leaves, or James Turrell, who is carving tunnels and viewing platforms within an extinct volcano near Flagstaff, Ariz. Blackwell, Blake and Miss have spent a year developing the conceptual framework for the estimated $35 million project that fuses art, architecture and landscape in a seamless whole.

“The team is assembled; we’re ready to go,” Blackwell said. Design work begins this April, with groundbreaking planned for May 2007.

“With national projects coming into his office, as well as the recent monograph on his work from Princeton Architectural Press, it won’t be too much longer that Marlon can be included in a list of 'undersung heroes,’” said School of Architecture Dean Jeff Shannon. “We are lucky to have him working in our midst.”

To view the I.D. Forty list and read Blackwell’s profile visit http://www.idonline.com.