The Thaden School in Bentonville, Arkansas, has been awarded the 2025 Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize, based in the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, in Chicago. The project is a collaborative effort between Marlon Blackwell Architects, Eskew Dumez Ripple and Andropogon Associates.

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.

The Thaden School was selected from a field of more than 250 nominees. It was the only U.S. project and educational project among the five finalists, and its design team is the first U.S. team to receive the  Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize.

This biennial award, established in 2012, 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.

“True to the spirit of the MCHAP selection process, the architectural success of our campus flows from a shared commitment to the idea that architecture is education,” said Clayton Marsh, founding head of school and interim irector of Upper School English. “We saw that commitment in the collaborative processes of our design team as they worked to create spaces, forms and perspectives that would deepen and elevate the quality of a Thaden education. We now see — every day and in countless ways — how the design of this campus gives our students roots and wings.”

The announcement of the MCHAP recipient was made following a day of celebration on the historical Mies-designed IIT campus. Festivities included masterclass presentations by students from IIT and universities across the region, showcasing projects inspired by the five finalists. The finalists then joined the jury for a public roundtable discussion, followed by a public reception, dinner and the official announcement of Thaden School as the winner of the MCHAP Cycle 5 Americas Prize.

“The MCHAP Award recognition for the Thaden School — and by extension of Marlon Blackwell Architects, Eskew Dumez Ripple and Andropogon — is further confirmation of the design excellence of the Northwest Arkansas region and the profession of architecture in the state,” said Peter MacKeith, dean of the Fay Jones School. “This excellence is now visible at the national and international levels and is further reflected in the architectural education provided to future professionals in our school. We’re fortunate to have professor Blackwell as a contributing colleague of our faculty and as a mentor to our students. Congratulations to him and the MBA practice and to our friends at EDR and Andropogon.”The Walton Family Foundation supported the design of Thaden School through the Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program. The initiative promotes welcoming and vibrant public spaces through thoughtful architecture. As dean of the Fay Jones School, MacKeith also serves as chair of the Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program’s Selection Committee.

ABOUT THE 2025 MCHAP

The 2025 Americas Prize recognizes the best work of architecture completed between June 2022 and December 2023 in North, Central and South America. In the spring of 2024, the jury began reviewing hundreds of projects. They then completed a tour of sites across hemispheres where they spoke with finalist authors, project teams and clients.

The other 2025 Cycle 5 Finalists were 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.

The 2025 MCHAP Americas Prize jury included 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.

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

As the winning project, the authors were recognized with the MCHAP Award, the MCHAP Chair in IIT’s College of Architecture and $50,000 to fund research and a publication.

ABOUT Thaden School

Thaden School is a 30-acre independent middle and high school campus located in the heart of Northwest Arkansas. Completed in 2019, the project represents a bold way to reimagine educational environments. It features three signature programs, Meals, Reels and Wheels, which combine multiple fields of study and engage students in ways that build self-confidence, resilience and a strong sense of civic engagement.

“The building’s character shapes a campus steeped in the rural culture of its place — the barn, the porch, and the long and low farm buildings are artfully assembled into a new academical village that powerfully interprets the pedagogical mission of ‘youth learning by doing,’” said Maurice Cox, jury chair.

Meals asks students to explore food systems through hands-on activities in gardens, teaching kitchens and greenhouses, connecting sustainability and science with community and culture. Reels equips students by providing them with the tools to become storytellers through access to professional-grade film, photography and media production facilities that encourage technical and creative production. Wheels encourages students to interact with both the natural and built environments through engineering, biking and urban planning. Through these programs, the school fosters problem-solving skills and a spirit of independence.

To allow for this type of programming, each program has a designated building located on campus created to be a living laboratory, where students can engage directly with systems of energy, ecology and food production.

“No singular space dominates the campus composition, but instead a series of distinctly public landscapes and gardens of different scales and character invites pedestrians, cyclists and even wildlife and weather to meander through,” Cox said. “The collaborative effort of the design teams read through this powerful composition.”

Sustainability is also a central focus of this project. Thaden School’s campus uses geothermal wells, stormwater management, native planting and reclaimed materials. These design strategies allow the school to operate with 70 percent greater energy efficiency than similar schools, reducing more than 1,400 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

The campus has become a vibrant community hub more than just a place of learning. Its flexible outdoor rooms, covered passageways and outward-facing porches promote public gatherings and student well-being.

“The threshold between outdoor and indoor is made of outward-facing porches, covered passageways and outdoor rooms,” Cox said. “This flexible composition of the campus encourages learning, recreation, farming and civic gathering.”

Cox and the rest of the MCHAP jury also emphasized how the spatial experience of the campus contributes to its success: “The ways one moves through space — punctuated by outward-facing porches, framed views and covered passageways connected across gardens of different characters — are essential to the civic development of students.”

Thaden School has also been recognized with the 2023 American Institute of Architects (AIA) Regional and Urban Design Award for its Master Plan, the 2022 AIA Architecture Award for the Home Building, and two AIA Education Facility Design Awards for the Reels Building (2022) and the Home Building (2021).

About the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design: The Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas houses undergraduate professional design programs of architecture, landscape architecture and interior architecture and design together with a liberal studies program. The school also offers a Master of Design Studies, with concentrations in health and wellness design, resiliency design, integrated wood design, and retail and hospitality design. The DesignIntelligence 2019 School Rankings Survey listed the school among the most hired from architecture, landscape architecture and interior design schools, ranking 10th, 14th and eighth, respectively, as well as 28th among most admired architecture schools.

About the University of Arkansas: As Arkansas' flagship institution, the U of A provides an internationally competitive education in more than 200 academic programs. Founded in 1871, the U of A contributes more than $3 billion to Arkansas’ economy through the teaching of new knowledge and skills, entrepreneurship and job development, discovery through research and creative activity while also providing training for professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the U of A among the few U.S. colleges and universities with the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the U of A among the top public universities in the nation. See how the U of A works to build a better world at Arkansas Research and Economic Development News.