Community Design Center Projects Win National Accolades

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A redesign of Bella Vista, Ark., was one of three Arkansas projects to win an Education Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Projects that consider new ways of thinking about neighborhoods, town planning and educational structure made a historic near sweep in the recent American Institute of Architects national Education Honor Awards Program.

Those three projects by the University of Arkansas Community Design Center won three of the four awards handed out in this year’s awards program. This is the first time in the program’s 23-year history that a single entrant has won three awards.

The Community Design Center, an outreach program of the Fay Jones School of Architecture, has won three previous awards in this awards program, which began in 1988. With these recent honor awards bringing the total to six, the University of Arkansas has won more than any other university or college, according to archives available on the AIA Web site.

“Given pressing issues in sustainability and the built environment, the design professions have turned their attention to the role of design in the public interest over the past few years,” said Steve Luoni, director of the center. “Since the Fay Jones School of Architecture, with support from the university, has a long-established investment in community design, it makes sense that we are out in front on these issues nationally.”

The AIA Education Honor Awards Program aims to “discover and recognize the achievement of individuals who serve the profession as outstanding teachers,” the AIA Web site states. The awards are for education excellence shown in work done in the classroom, studio or community. Any programs completed since January 2005 that had not yet been honored in this awards program were eligible to compete.

Specifically, the jury looked for initiatives that met one or all of these criteria:

• Dealt with broad issues, particularly in cross-disciplinary collaboration.

• Contributed to the advancement of architecture education.

• Had the potential to benefit and/or change practice.

• Promoted models of excellence that can be used by other educators.

The Community Design Center has won seven other national awards for the Porchscapes project. This is the first national award for the other two projects.

The first winning project was Porchscapes, a 43-unit housing development that combines affordability with best environmental practices as designated by the U.S. Green Building Council. Fourth- and fifth-year students who took this elective course during the 2007-08 year focused on both architectural and ecological engineering aspects. The design connected various housing units within an urban plan. Water on the site would be cleaned through biological processes, using a network of strategies such as rainwater gardens, bioswales, green streets and wet meadows, known as low-impact development. The team collaborated with professor Marty Matlock and the department of biological and agricultural engineering at the university.

The jury called the Porchscapes project an “outstanding model for how to tie urban design issues with cultural paradigms at an architectural scale” and noted a “remarkable quality to the project as a whole.”

The Visioning a 21st Century Learning System project considered historic school designs and modern education models when contemplating a high school campus for the future.

The next project — Cities Without Cities: New Town Centers for Bella Vista, Arkansas — considered new strategies for a former resort village that evolved into a retirement community and is now a growing incorporated city with an increasing number of families with young children. In an elective studio for fourth-year students, they focused on suggesting a new town plan for Bella Vista that would stimulate sustainable economic development characterized by mixed-use and pedestrian-friendly community development. The studio involved three parts: publication of a 164-page book exploring the evolution of Arkansas town patterns; analysis and mapping of the current diffused, automobile-oriented landscape; and proposals of new town centers for hillside planning.

“Elements of history, regionalism, urban planning, landscape design and ecology are present throughout,” the jury noted, “and it is clear that rigorous research is a crucial element of these proposals.”

The third project, Visioning a 21^st Century Learning System, took on the prospect of a new high school for Fayetteville Public Schools. Larry Scarpa, the visiting 2008-09 Fay Jones Chair in Architecture, helped conduct this elective course for fourth- and fifth-year architecture students as they re-imagined traditional school design for the future. By examining historic school designs and researching modern education models, students crafted building master plans and small learning community designs. The resulting models were displayed at the Fayetteville Public Library.

“The students aggressively questioned predominant patterns of education and generated proposals that are not only aesthetically pleasing, but imbued with principles of sustainability and civic engagement,” the jury stated.

The Community Design Center has won three previous Education Honor Awards from the AIA. Those were for a study for Wal-Mart in 2005, Habitat Trails in 2006, and Visioning Rail Transit in Northwest Arkansas in 2007.

“Our combined education and outreach efforts in design uniquely solve for the triple bottom line that simultaneously addresses environmental, social and economic measures,” Luoni said. “I believe that the uniqueness of our approach lies in finding new roles for design, particularly for complex social problems where design has not traditionally exercised creative leadership.”

The jury included Judith Kinnard, FAIA, Tulane School of Architecture, New Orleans; Paul D. Mankins, FAIA, AIA Board Regional Director Central States, Substance, Des Moines, Iowa; Brett Roeth, BA Architecture, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, and American Institute of Architecture Students, Washington, D.C.; Monica Ponce de Leon, Office DA Inc., Boston, and dean of the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.

“The projects, though very different, stood out due to their clarity of intention and intensity of design research,” said Kinnard, who served as the jury chair. “The graphics of the presentations were also very effective in communicating the design themes. Of course, all three engaged important issues in the community.”

These award-winning projects will be included in the forthcoming Architectural Education Awards book, a joint publication of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and the AIA. They will also be featured in an exhibit at the annual AIA convention in Miami in June.

“Deservedly, the Community Design Center continues to earn recognition for its innovative, bold ways of thinking about planning in communities and of making design relevant in people’s lives,” Dean Jeff Shannon said. “In addition to this outstanding feat by the center, the real winners are the students who participated in these visionary projects.”