FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – A professor in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design is part of a design team that won an international design competition to build a public greenway connecting various parts of St. Louis.

Marlon Blackwell, Distinguished Professor of architecture and principal of Marlon Blackwell Architects, said Stoss Landscape Urbanism contacted his firm to join the design team for the Chouteau Greenway Design Competition. Stoss, which has offices in Boston and Los Angeles, is leading the team's project. Blackwell is also the E. Fay Jones Chair in Architecture in the Fay Jones School.

Out of 19 applicants, the Stoss Landscape Urbanism team was one of four teams shortlisted for the competition. The Stoss team's design, The Loop and The Stitch, was selected as the winner of the competition in May. The Chouteau Greenway is part of an overall network of greenways being built by Great Rivers Greenway and their partners in the St. Louis region.

The competition challenged the teams to design a five-mile-long greenway, or trail, that would connect Forest Park to the Gateway Arch. The Stoss design team answered the challenge with an east-west greenway, the Loop, combined with a series of north-south corridors, the Stitch.

Blackwell said the Loop, which connects the Arch and the downtown area with local universities and Forest Park, allows pedestrians and bicyclists to see different settings, experiences and aspects of the city that people wouldn't normally see. However, the Stitch focuses on bringing communities together by connecting underserved neighborhoods north and south of the Chouteau Greenway.

"We're trying to stitch and pull those communities back together and really have a greenway that serves the whole community," said Kertis Weatherby, architect at Marlon Blackwell Architects.

Weatherby said their team's plan looks at the city's history and connects it by bringing growth and value to all parts of the city, instead of just focusing on specific areas like the Arch or Forest Park.

"You go to those two parts, but you also go to everything in between," Weatherby said.

Blackwell said the entire team at his Fayetteville-based firm had a hand in the project. He said that although the firm has completed several large projects and competed in several design competitions, often as the lead designers themselves, this is the first time they've been involved with a project of this scale and level of publicity.

The idea for The Loop and The Stitch came through a lot of collaboration. The design team took advantage of the times they were able to meet in St. Louis to discuss the project, and they used teleconferencing to share ideas and concerns day to day. Blackwell said they didn't start the competition with a plan, but it emerged through those back and forth discussions. Stoss often made the first moves on the project, and then the other design team members would help refine the design, or tackle certain elements of the plan.

Stoss put together a team of six national firms and six firms from the St. Louis area. Weatherby said a few team members were added during the competition because they found an area where they were lacking expertise.

"You don't use enough local folks and you run the risk of being tone deaf to what's actually on the ground there," Blackwell said. "Stoss had done this enough they were pretty seasoned to understand the kind of pitfalls to avoid."

The design teams had just 90 days to put together their design concepts. Then those plans were opened to public feedback before a nine-person jury selected the winning team.     

Weatherby said the schedule was compressed, which forced them to get their best ideas out as quickly as possible.

"We were willing to take some chances to be bold and not just play to what we thought St. Louis was, but what it could be," Blackwell said. "There's a risk and a gamble in that, and we were fortunate that they were willing to take a gamble as well."

Feedback from the public and the jury will continue to alter the design for The Loop + The Stitch, and the design will also evolve as the project progresses. A project of this scope will take several years to be implemented.

"It's a constant evolution as we find new issues to address," Weatherby said. "It may look nothing like what we had in the competition, but the heart of the design — the concept of The Loop and The Stitch, about building connections across the city — that is the project."

Blackwell estimated that the greenway project could take 10 to 20 years to complete. Weatherby said construction will likely start in a one-block section of greenway where the Great Rivers Greenway has already established right-of-way, and the project will grow from there on a year-to-year basis.

With such an extended timeline, Blackwell said the challenge is making sure the project is cohesive.

"When you're developing something over time with different constituents, you run the risk of it being fragmented and losing its coherence," Blackwell said.

Blackwell said they will work with Great Rivers Greenway and focus on developing a language, or design guidelines, for the different developments. Having such an experienced, qualified client that knows the value of a design structure will ensure the guidelines are followed over the timeline of the project, he said.

That cohesiveness is also a goal of the greenway project. The project aims to invest in the city by making it more connected and livable for all of its residents.

"St. Louis is one of those cities that has had a shrinking population, but has great fabric and a lot of great amenities and assets," Blackwell said. "How do you get people back to the city? One of the ways is to make it more livable and make it more accessible for everyone, and to feel welcome in all these different parts."

Blackwell said he hopes the Chouteau Greenway will have some iconic elements that help define St. Louis for the future.

"We just want to do something that is meaningful to the city," Blackwell said. "It's a great city and it's in search of what its future is going to be, and this is a key ingredient to the viability of the city as it evolves."