Two Housing Projects by Community Design Center Win 2020 American Architecture Awards

Renderings courtesy of the U of A Community Design Center

The 7Hills Day Center Complex (top) and New Beginnings Homeless Transition Village Prototype both received 2020 American Architecture Awards in the Multi-Family Housing category.

Two projects by the University of Arkansas Community Design Center and its collaborators were recognized in the 2020 American Architecture Awards, the nation's highest public awards given by a non-commercial, non-trade affiliated, public arts, culture and educational institution. The New Beginnings Homeless Transition Village Prototype and 7Hills Day Center Complex both won American Architecture Awards in the Multi-Family Housing category.

The Community Design Center is a public design outreach program of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the U of A. Stephen Luoni, the Steven L. Anderson Chair in Architecture and Urban Studies in the Fay Jones School, directs the center, working with a five-person staff.

"Congratulations to professor Luoni and the entire CDC staff on these distinguished awards," said Peter MacKeith, dean of the school. "The center's continued design emphasis on the well-being of Arkansas' citizens, through these evident emphases on community resiliency and housing, underscores the school's advocacy of design for the greater good of society."

Now in its 26th year, the American Architecture Awards program is organized by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies, which jointly present this prestigious annual program for design excellence and for the best and next contributions to innovative contemporary American architecture. More than 130 buildings and urban plans from a shortlist of more than 400 projects received 2020 American Architecture Awards for the best new architecture designed and constructed by American architects and by international architects with offices in the United States.

New Beginnings is a transitional housing village in Fayetteville for individuals experiencing homelessness who have insufficient wages and lack access to affordable housing. The complex is designed as a pop-up camp that is compliant with a provisional city permit that only allows temporary structures, providing individuals with an ecologically sustainable stepping stone back to formal housing.

The 7Hills Day Center Complex is a business-hours refuge for people who are homeless seeking one-stop services, including temporary shelter, counseling, provisioning, meals, personal hygiene, mail delivery, job search, prescription drug and light medical assistance, and social connection, among other forms of care.

"The Community Design Center's work on the local housing ecosystem highlights emergent discussions on the future of housing and community resiliency nationwide. Both awarded projects expand on the 20th-century notion of housing as simply a market product to one where wraparound social services are delivered in tandem with shelter," Luoni said. "While both projects focus on homelessness, they parallel creative housing approaches nationwide encompassing all income groups. Approaches include the rise of cooperative living - for example, co-housing, co-living, pocket neighborhoods, etc. — and the bundling of health services into non-institutional housing for the aging, veterans and other groups of need. We are also seeing new forms of live-work real estate products like "agri-hoods" where commercial urban agriculture is embedded into neighborhood design. The future of housing will be novel, socially and economically vital, affordable, and deeply responsive to fluctuating population needs for those communities who see the opportunities in addressing structural problems of shelter intrinsic to advanced economies."

The New Beginnings design combines individual weatherized sleeping units, a secure perimeter and a 150-foot-long "community porch" for shared services such as cooking, bathing and sanitation facilities. The community porch also provides gathering space and social work offices. The components of the village are designed for disassembly and reuse, avoiding the discard of material in a landfill.

The project was granted a five-year conditional approval by the city of Fayetteville. A formal groundbreaking on the site of a former tent city took place in April 2019, and construction is underway.

Twenty single people experiencing homelessness will be able to live in the village for six-month terms, receiving both shelter and comprehensive social services. The goal is to support them in stabilizing their lives and transitioning to permanent housing.

New Beginnings was commissioned by Serve Northwest Arkansas, a regional group working to address homelessness and poverty through a shelter-first approach. Kevin Fitzpatrick, University Professor and Jones Chair in Community in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, served as client and programing consultant for the project.

Other team members include Steve L. Marshall, of The Marshall Group of NWA (construction management); John Langham, AIA, LEED AP, of WER Architects/Planners (architect of record); Leslie Tabor (landscape architect); Neal Morrison, PE, of Morrison-Shipley Engineers, Inc. (civil engineer); Richard M. Welcher, P.E., of Tatum-Smith Engineers, Inc. (structural engineer); and Omni Engineers (MEP engineer).

The 7Hills Day Center Complex project envisions a new facility for an established care center on South School Avenue in Fayetteville. 7Hills provides multiple services for people who are homeless in Fayetteville, including day services, supportive housing and wrap-around case management for veterans.

The design features two interconnected buildings with shared courtyard spaces and many windows. The operations center wing provides care services and shelter to the approximately 100 individuals who use the center every day, while the staff center wing accommodates work areas for more than 20 care professionals.

The project incorporates best practices in trauma-informed design, an emerging sub-discipline within care facility design. Trauma-informed design emphasizes the role of the built environment in supporting recovery from homelessness and resisting re-traumatization.

The design for the day center revolves around four principles: an ethic of hospitality; a variety of indoor/outdoor and public/private spaces; a space perceived by clients as safe, calming and equitable; and a place incorporating connections to the natural world. Exposure to vegetation, natural light and air can reduce stress, enhance mood and elevate sensory enjoyment.

The two Community Design Center projects will be published with the other award-winning projects in The American Architecture Awards Yearbook, which is scheduled to be published in November by the Metropolitan Arts Press. This is the center's 14th and 15th American Architecture Award.

More information about the 2020 American Architecture Awards can be found on The Chicago Athenaeum website.