Fay Jones School Faculty, Projects Recognized With 2022 Architectural Education Awards

Professor John Folan received a 2022 Collaborative Practice Award for “Constructing Inclusivity.”

Professor John Folan received a 2022 AIA/ACSA Practice + Leadership Award for “Empowered Voices: Practice Chronicles.”

Professor Stephen Luoni and Claude Terral received a 2022 AIA/ACSA Housing Design Education Award for the “Housing at Markham Square” design studio.

Brian Holland also received a 2022 AIA/ACSA Housing Design Education Award for the “Remixing Mar Vista” design studio.

“UDBS Carb Complex 05,” a studio led by professors John Folan, David Kennedy and Kimberley Furlong, was selected for honorable mention for the 2022 Timber Education Prize.

Photo courtesy of Brian Holland

The "Remixing Mar Vista" design studio received a 2022 AIA/ACSA Housing Design Education Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. The studio was led by Brian Holland, an assistant professor of architecture in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design.

Several Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design faculty at the U of A have garnered a significant proportion of national awards handed out recently by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.

The winners of the ACSA's 2022 Architectural Education Awards were recognized at a small in-person event held March 18-19 in Los Angeles. They also will be announced at the ACSA 110th Annual Meeting, which will be held virtually from May 18-20.

"The national recognition of Department of Architecture faculty across multiple areas of focus evidences the strength and relevance of education informed by research at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design," said John Folan, head of the Department of Architecture. "This is a remarkable demonstration of excellence. It is unique for a department of architecture to have its faculty receive six awards. It is even more so when considering the diversity of focus areas. These achievements are assigned to individual faculty for their excellence in teaching, but they reflect strength of work produced by our students and a culture of innovation that is created by the entire faculty that is so robustly supported by Fay Jones School leadership. It is an honor to work with the faculty explicitly recognized — and the students, faculty and leaders implicitly represented." 

Ethel Goodstein-Murphree, associate dean and professor of architecture in the Fay Jones School, received a 2022 Distinguished Professor Award. This honor recognizes individuals who have had a positive, stimulating and nurturing influence upon students and have produced a body of work that advances understanding of architecture or architectural education.

Goodstein-Murphree has taught in the Fay Jones School since 1992. She is a specialist in American architectural and cultural history, and her research focuses on Mid-Century Modernism, the controversies surrounding its preservation and the importance of placing women in its narrative. Her scholarship has told Arkansas' architectural story to a national audience, but her deepest impact has been made through service on historic district commissions in Arkansas and Louisiana and on the Board of Directors of Preserve Arkansas.

Since the ACSA Distinguished Professor Award was established in 1984, more than 160 professors have been recognized. Past U of A faculty members to receive this award were Fay Jones in 1984-1985, John G. Williams in 1987-1988 and Stephen Luoni in 2019-2020. Luoni is currently the director of the U of A Community Design Center, a Distinguished Professor and the Steven L. Anderson Chair in Architecture and Urban Studies in the Fay Jones School.

"The recognition of the Department of Architecture's faculty and leadership in these 2022 ACSA Awards underscores the superlative character and value of the architecture and design education provided to students by the school," said Peter MacKeith, dean of the school. "Our faculty — each and every one — are dedicated, insightful, productive educators, through teaching, research, scholarship and creative practice. They are also national leaders in their disciplines. The specific categories of recognition for these faculty underscore the imperative priorities of the school, directing design towards the greater good in housing design, community design and sustainable materials design. My congratulations and appreciation to Professor Folan, head of department, Professor Goodstein-Murphree, Professor Luoni and assistant professors Holland and Kennedy — and to the department as a whole."

Folan, also a professor of architecture in the Fay Jones School, was recognized with two awards in this year's program — a 2022 Collaborative Practice Award for "Constructing Inclusivity" and a 2022 AIA/ACSA Practice + Leadership Award for "Empowered Voices: Practice Chronicles." Folan also directs the Urban Design Build Studio (UDBS).

Luoni and Claude Terral received a 2022 AIA/ACSA Housing Design Education Award for the "Housing at Markham Square" design studio. Luoni is director of the U of A Community Design Center (UACDC). Terral (B.Arch. '07) is a Fay Jones School alumnus and a project architect for the UACDC.

Brian Holland also received a 2022 AIA/ACSA Housing Design Education Award for the "Remixing Mar Vista" design studio. Holland is an assistant professor of architecture in the Fay Jones School and coordinates the school's lecture series.

And "UDBS Carb Complex 05," a studio led by professors Folan, David Kennedy and Kimberley Furlong, was selected for honorable mention for the 2022 Timber Education Prize. This was awarded by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) and the Softwood Lumber Board (SLB). Kennedy is an assistant professor of architecture, and Furlong is an associate professor of interior design.

The "Constructing Inclusivity" project, led by Folan with the UDBS, focused on food access and economic opportunities through the development of a mobile café system.

The mobile, adaptable, coffee kiosks were built from construction waste material, and they provide a low-barrier opportunity for business ownership and entrepreneurship. The UDBS collaborated with clients and construction experts, creating a modular cart design that works as a prototype for a mass-producible mobile food system that can be used elsewhere.

"Empowered Voices: Practice Chronicles," also led by Folan, provided students with opportunities to reflect on their values and interests by exploring how convictions are demonstrated in action.

A series of sequential exercises contributed to the iterative development of a document that guided students in the discovery of their own values, beliefs and purpose, understanding the positive influence they can have through their actions. The aspiration was for individuals to emerge as agents of their futures, with an understanding of the collective good and a brighter future for the public informed by design.

"Housing at Markham Square," the project led by Luoni and Terral, developed a housing masterplan to transform a metal scrapyard into a residential square two blocks from Conway's main street. Students explored two interconnected architectural issues in constructing living transects that connect public space and housing. Thick building edges accommodated a variety of social activities through urban building frontage or liminal spaces like stoops, porches, balconies, patios, roof gardens and galleries not entirely specific to one housing type.

Students in the design studio worked with neglected but affordable walk-up residential typologies, now key to revitalizing mid-sized downtowns without the population dislocations that accompany gentrification.

In "Remixing Mar Vista," the project led by Holland, Gregory Ain and Garrett Eckbo's Mar Vista Housing of 1948, served as both project site and design precedent for the exploration of housing policy and design. Students were tasked with remixing Mar Vista in light of both changing household structures and recent efforts to promote greater density in single-family districts.

Students were exposed to diverse household types and explored the economics of housing to urban form and policy. Beginning with a single-family house, students tripled the neighborhood's density twice with two successive multifamily design projects, first on one lot, then on a full block.

"UDBS Carb Complex 05," the project led by professors Folan, Kennedy and Furlong, is the fifth in a sequence of studios focused on the student-led design and construction of a 5,000-square-foot Ross and Mary Whipple Family Forest Education Center at Garvan Woodland Gardens, which is an outreach center and learning laboratory of the U of A. This environmental education center and economic development tool will be made from Arkansas-sourced timber and educate the local, state and national public on the character and value of Arkansas forests and the use of wood for the betterment of society and the environment.