The Thaden School, a project located in Bentonville, has been named one of the Cycle 5 Finalists for this year's Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize, based in the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, in Chicago. This Northwest Arkansas project is a collaborative effort between Eskew Dumez Ripple, Marlon Blackwell Architects and Andropogon Associates. The Thaden School is the only U.S. project and educational project among the five finalists.

Established in 2012, the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize is a distinguished biennial award that recognizes excellence in architecture across North, Central and South America. The prize celebrates projects that make valuable contributions to their respective communities, setting high standards for architectural efforts.

Marlon Blackwell Architects is the Fayetteville-based professional practice of Marlon Blackwell, a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and recipient of the 2020 AIA Gold Medal. Blackwell is Distinguished Professor of architecture and the E. Fay Jones Chair in Architecture in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the U of A, where he has taught since 1992.

"We are deeply honored to be named a finalist — the only project represented from the USA," Blackwell said. "Our team is especially happy for the students, faculty, staff and families of the Thaden School. Our design is a living manifestation of the outstanding educational excellence and community engagement that defines the school."

The 2025 Americas Prize honors the best work of architecture completed in North, Central or South America between June 2022 and December 2023. The jury began its review of hundreds of anonymously nominated projects in the spring of 2024. Then, late last year, jury members completed a hemisphere-spanning tour of sites and held conversations with finalist authors, project teams and clients.

"The MCHAP finalist recognition accorded to the Thaden School campus and by extension to Professor Blackwell, his practice and colleagues at Eskew Dumez Ripple and Andropogon, is recognition of design excellence across disciplines, for admirable purpose and more generally of the design excellence now characterizing Northwest Arkansas and the state as a whole," said Peter MacKeith, dean of the Fay Jones School. "That this is the sole project representing the entirety of the United States in the competition is noteworthy; such spotlight brings reflected illumination of the excellence of our school and university. On behalf of the school, congratulations and well done to professor Blackwell, to Meryati Blackwell, MBA principal, and all at Marlon Blackwell Architects!"

The Thaden School's 30-acre campus master plan, school buildings and landscape were designed through the Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program, an initiative of the Walton Family Foundation that promotes a high level of design in the development of public buildings and spaces in Benton and Washington counties. Eskew Dumez Ripple is based in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Washington, D.C., and Andropogon Associates is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Raleigh, North Carolina.

The Thaden School is an independent school that features four signature programs, with each located in a dedicated building on its campus. Wheels focuses on physics and mechanics by building and using bicycles and other wheeled machines, while Meals (also known as the Home Building, designed by Eskew Dumez Ripple) is where students explore biology, chemistry and community by growing and preparing food.

In Reels, students learn to build narrative and visual communication skills through the production of film and video, and Performance is a stand-alone performing arts building with drama and music classrooms and a state-of-the-art performance venue. The forms, materials and spaces of the campus reflect this unique pedagogy in creating a dynamic place that inspires learning, creativity and wonder.

Supporting the Wheels program on campus is the Thaden School Bike Barn, home to both mechanical classes for the student cyclists and the home court for the school's basketball team — The Barnstormers.

The Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize

The MCHAP 2025 jury includes Maurice Cox (jury chair), past planning director, City of Chicago; Giovanna Borasi, director and chief curator, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal; Gregg Pasquarelli, founding principal, SHoP Architects, New York; Mauricio Rocha, founder, Taller | Mauricio Rocha, Mexico City, and author of the 2023 Americas Prize winner, the renovation of the Museo Anahuacalli; and Sofia von Ellrichshausen, founding partner, Pezo von Ellrichshausen, Concepción, Chile, and author of Poli House, the 2014 winner of the Prize for Emerging Practice.

A Cycle 5 Finalists announcement event was held Feb. 7 at Museo Anahuacalli. Cox, jury chair, offered these jury comments about the Thaden School:

"The powerful interpretation of a new academic pedagogical mission of youth learning while doing is matched by an equally powerful campus design," Cox said. "Steeped in the rural culture of its place, the barn, the porch and the long and low farm buildings of Arkansas are assembled to create a new type of public gathering space keeping in scale with the surrounding fabric."

"The design of five academic buildings, loosely scattered within a garden landscape of different characters, successfully creates an environment of constant indoor and outdoor porosity and play," Cox continued. "Students and the general public richly gather and co-mingle under outwardly facing porches and covered passageways that shelter outdoor activities and framed views, encouraging the movement through spaces with a strong community orientation. Within the comfort of containment this campus masterfully composed, allows for natural flows of people, wildlife and weather."

The other 2025 Cycle 5 Finalists are Pumphouse, in Winnipeg, Canada, by 5468796 Architecture; Ecoparque Bacalar, in Bacalar, Mexico, by Colectivo C733; Clínica Veterinaria Guayaquil, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, by adamo-faiden; and Centro de Investigación Mar de Cortés, in Mazatlán, Mexico, by Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO.

As part of the Thaden School being named a finalist, four Fay Jones School students will participate in "The Americas Master Class," hosted by MCHAP on May 2-4 in Chicago. The students selected to attend are Emily Belin and Joseph Hull, both fifth year students, and Simon Spann and Aspen Regan, both fourth year students. The master class will be led by the five finalist teams and one of each of the jury members.

The teams will also include three to four students and a faculty member from IIT. The research topic of the master class is set to focus on open land development for the IIT campus with a mind toward university growth and benefits to the surrounding community. Each team will have a different site to promote this as research and idea generating, not a competition.

The Fay Jones School students will also attend the prestigious Mies Crown Hall Awards Ceremony and Dinner on May 5 at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

The authors of the winning project will be recognized with the MCHAP Award, the MCHAP Chair in IIT's College of Architecture and $50,000 to fund research and a publication.