Blackwell Firm Designs Merit Accolades in Magazine-Sponsored Competitions

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The Cottages at Fallingwater design won a Grand Award in the 19th annual Custom Home Design Awards in the On the Boards category. (Image courtesy of Marlon Blackwell Architect.)

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Two projects by Marlon Blackwell Architect gained the attention of juries for two magazine-sponsored design competitions. Blackwell is a distinguished professor and head of the architecture department in the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas.

The Porchdog House was chosen as a finalist for the AZ Awards, an inaugural international design competition sponsored by Azure magazine. The home in East Biloxi, Miss., was created for Biloxi Model Homes, a program for affordable prototype houses designed for the Architecture for Humanity Model Home Program, in response to Hurricane Katrina.

The jury reviewed 600 entries submitted from 25 countries and narrowed those down to 52 finalists in 14 categories. Categories are in the areas of design, architecture, interiors, concepts, student work and a jury-created special category. Blackwell’s design was one of six finalists chosen from 80 submissions in the residential architecture category.

Through May 6, the magazine is soliciting votes for the People’s Choice Awards, to designate one such winner in each of the 14 categories. University of Arkansas students and faculty and the general public can register and select their favorite finalists on the Azure website.

The Cottages at Fallingwater design, another project by Blackwell’s Fayetteville-based firm, won a Grand Award in the 19^th annual Custom Home Design Awards, in the On the Boards category. The design was for cottages to house visitors and scholars participating in education programs at Fallingwater, the famous home near Mill Run, Pa., designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Blackwell’s firm was one of six architectural firms chosen to submit a design last year for the juried Architectural Design Competition of Ideas, organized by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, which preserves and maintains Fallingwater.

The Porchdog House was chosen as a finalist in the residential architecture category of the AZ Awards, an inaugural international design competition sponsored by Azure magazine.  (Photo by Timothy Hursley.)

The AZ Awards were hosted by Azure, a magazine based in Toronto, Canada. The competition was open to designers and design firms from all disciplines; architects, landscape architects and architectural firms; post-secondary students enrolled in design and architecture programs in 2010; and clients and manufacturers. Projects must have been completed by Dec. 31, 2010. Products must be prototyped or in production.

According to the Azure website, judges looked for designs that were “contemporary, visually and intellectually stimulating, forward looking, socially relevant and technically innovative.” They also considered the beneficial social and ecological impact of each design, including the level to which it was sustainable, socially responsible, environmentally friendly, possessed a long life span, contained recycled materials and could be recycled. They also pondered a design’s ability “to uplift spirits, generate curiosity or simply delight.”

A panel of international experts – Claude Cormier of Claude Cormier Landscape Architects, Craig Dykers of Snøhetta, product designer Patty Johnson, Eero Koivisto of Claesson Koivisto Rune, and Glenn Pushelberg of Yabu Pushelberg – juried the submissions and determined the finalists and winners.

The winners selected by the jury and the public will be announced June 16 during a private ceremony and exhibition at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. A public exhibition of the winners will be displayed from June 18 to Sept. 25 at Harbourfront Centre.

The list of finalists will appear in the June issue of Azure, on newsstands in mid-May. All winners and finalists will be featured in Azure’s Awards Annual, on newsstands in June.

The Custom Home jury reviewed 395 entries in 10 categories, before singling out the Cottages at Fallingwater design as one of 24 projects deserving of honors. In total, the jury designated a single Custom Home of the Year, nine Grand Awards and 14 Merit Awards.

The jury included four distinguished custom builders and architects: John Murphey of Meditch Murphey Architects in Chevy Chase, Md.; Whitney Powers of Studio-A Architecture in Charleston, S.C.; Matt Risinger of Risinger Homes in Austin; and Ken Vona of Kenneth Vona Construction in Waltham, Mass.

The winning projects will be featured in the May/June 2011 issue of Custom Home magazine, with expanded coverage offered online at CustomHomeOnline.com.

The Cottages at Fallingwater, along with the other five designs from firms chosen to participate in the juried design competition, will be exhibited from Sept. 9 to Nov. 13 at the Visitors Center Gallery at Fallingwater. The exhibition will feature models and drawings from Marlon Blackwell Architect, Wendell Burnette Architects, MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects, Olson Kundig Architects, Patkau Architects and Saucier and Perrotte Architects. A lecture will also be offered on Sept. 13 and Oct. 4 and 25.