The faculty in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design continue to impact communities and contribute to design culture and innovation beyond Arkansas. Examples include two noteworthy projects currently in the design phase at the professional practice of architecture professor Marlon Blackwell. His Fayetteville-based firm, Marlon Blackwell Architects, is working on an air traffic control tower in Columbus, Indiana, as well as the Greenfield Farm Writers Residency in rural Mississippi.

Blackwell, FAIA, is Distinguished Professor of architecture and the E. Fay Jones Chair in Architecture in the Fay Jones School at the U of A, where he has taught since 1992. He is the 2020 AIA Gold Medalist.

Air Traffic Control Tower

Columbus Municipal Airport is a growing airport located on the north side of Columbus, Indiana. For more than 12 years, the airport's director and board have sought funding to replace its current 80-year-old air traffic control tower. After the airport secured an FAA grant for the project, Marlon Blackwell Architects was selected through a national search process to lead the design process.

The new 128-foot-tall tower will align with current Federal Aviation Administration Air Traffic Control Tower standards, including sighting, backup cooling and power, security, fire and life safety, and FAA equipment. In 2024, the airport is on track to complete the most air-traffic operations in its history, and the new tower will bolster the airport's infrastructure to meet their contemporary needs as they continue to grow.

"More than a piece of infrastructure, our hope is that the new Columbus Municipal Airport Air Traffic Control Tower will become a beacon of Columbus' architectural and design heritage that will mark a key gateway into the city," Blackwell said.

Design renderings highlight a stainless steel-clad structure with a series of vertical fins rising from the ground to the sky.

Under airport supervision, the tower itself will have the potential for public programming. A mid-level floor will provide views out toward the runway. The air traffic radio feed can be played over the speakers in this space, allowing visitors to gain a sense of working as a controller. Additionally, a large lawn located just to the south will be opened for events that will further draw people to this fast-developing area. Located on the outskirts of town, the area is home to the campuses of Ivy Tech Community College and Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus.

Marlon Blackwell Architects is teamed with the multi-disciplinary Woolpert team, whose expertise in aviation will be critical to realizing the new air traffic control tower. The Blackwell firm's long-time collaborators, Guy Nordenson and Associates, will support the structural design and contribute to the unique identity of the project. Additionally, Thornton Tomasetti (façade design) and Threshold Acoustics (acoustic consulting) will work closely with the design team to develop critical details, ensuring a comprehensive design approach for the new tower at Columbus Municipal Airport.

The project will be supported by a grant from the Cummins Foundation Architecture Program. An important objective for Cummins has been investing in a vibrant and economically viable headquarters community in Columbus. This vision started with Cummins' former chairman and CEO, J. Irwin Miller, who had a lifelong interest in architecture and understood that Cummins' success in retaining the best and brightest employees was closely tied to the company's ability to attract this talent to Columbus.

Construction on the tower is expected to begin in April 2025 following a year-long design process.

Greenfield Farm Writers Residency

Greenfield Farm Writers Residency will be a retreat-style writers compound built on a 20.4-acre farm situated between Oxford and New Albany in Mississippi. The farm was once owned by the celebrated author and native Mississippian William Faulkner. Faulkner was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature, and two of his works received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, in 1955 and 1962.

The project is being developed by the University of Mississippi and the Mississippi Lab to provide a humanities laboratory that will have an economic and transformative impact on the state of Mississippi.

Anticipated to open in 2026, the Greenfield Farm campus will include four overnight studios and a gathering pavilion with the Julia Evans Reed Kitchen at its heart. It will also feature a restored farm shed and the late writer Rev. Will D. Campbell's relocated cabin.

Each year, Greenfield Farm is projected to nurture 50-60 writers who have ties to Mississippi. Writers will stay an average of two to three weeks at no charge, and stipends of $1,000 per week will be awarded to those using the overnight studios.

"We are honored to be chosen for such an amazing opportunity and look forward to contributing to transforming Greenfield Farm into a place of possibilities and wonder, supporting the goal to set the national standard for investment in cultural production and the creative economy," Blackwell said. "This visionary project will transform William Faulkner's property into a 'front porch for the Deep South,' supporting writers with roots in Mississippi, especially those whose roots may have been torn by racial and economic pressures."

Walking trails and communal spaces will connect writers to the natural world. Exhibits will tell the story of the land and the people who worked it, beginning with the Chickasaw, including the McJunkins family, who worked the land, and concluding with Faulkner.

Marlon Blackwell Architects will collaborate with several Mississippians on the Greenfield Farm project:

• Susan Haltom, who was curator of exhibits for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and, later, garden restoration curator for the Eudora Welty garden, will be the project's landscape historian.
• Robert Poore, FASLA, of Flora, Mississippi, is the founder of the landscape architecture firm Native Habitats. Poore was a frequent collaborator with Ed Blake, the noted Mississippi landscape architect, and he has devoted his career to careful observation and recording of Mississippi's natural habitats to create imaginative, functional and sustainable designs.
• Bob Brzuszek, recently retired from Mississippi State University, has worked on a variety of culturally significant projects that include the Crosby Arboretum in Picayune, Mississippi. Brzuszek will serve as the ecological consultant for the project.  

A total of $4.6 million, including a $2 million grant from the Robert M. Hearin Support Foundation, is in place for the project through private support and university-committed funds.