FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A traveling fellowship funded by the Skidmore Owings & Merrill Foundation will help James Meyer develop new design strategies for public spaces. A 2006 graduate of the University of Arkansas School of Architecture, Meyer will travel in Europe and Asia to document historic sites and new development shaped by globalization: Think McDonalds beside the Pantheon and suburban sprawl in rural China.

Meyer tied with a graduate student from Columbia University for second place in the prestigious competition. They will share the $20,000 prize.

“Once we had chosen the top 10 portfolios, James’ stood out as a winner,” said jury chair Ross Wimer, a design partner in the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP. “His designs were excellent and his travel proposal was directly related to his work as an undergraduate. To study the range of public spaces he proposes is important as local and global communities continue to be redefined.”

 Meyer’s interest in design was piqued at Boy Scout camp, when an architect passed out grid paper and demonstrated how to draw house plans. Following his graduation from Little Rock’s Catholic High School in 2000, he entered the UA architecture program, where he was drawn to studios focused on urban planning.

Meyer’s porch concept brings community space to the big box store.

Civic amenities such as this underground mall would anchor the proposed light rail network for Northwest Arkansas.

While studying in Rome Meyer developed a “strata garden” that reveals traces of the city’s Imperial, medieval and Fascist past.

“I’m interested in the social aspect of architecture — how I can make people’s lives better,” he said, lounging amid models and plans in the conference room of the School of Architecture’s Community Design Center, where he is a project designer. “It’s not about the money, or whether I can make something that looks cool.”

Meyer combined innovative ideas and streamlined design work in the portfolio that he submitted to the SOM jury. As a participant in the award-winning Big Box studio led by the school’s community design center, for example, he developed a number of ideas to make Wal-Mart more welcoming, including a front porch area to accommodate farmers’ markets and a translucent façade to bring natural light into the store.

“It’s all about making people comfortable,” he said. “How can we take what’s already being done and make it better?”

Meyer plans to explore that question on a larger scale next year, when he will travel throughout Europe and possibly visit China or Japan. He will study and document a range of public spaces, from historic sites such as Rome’s Campo di Fiore to entirely new places springing up that reflect the global economy.

“Developers are taking culturally specific types of space and forcing them into places where they do not belong. There are places in China that look like Springdale, Arkansas!” he said. Meyer hopes to generate a field guide to public spaces that will help designers cope with current development trends.

“At some point, the design community is going to have to look at sprawl, accept it, and design it,” he said with a shrug.

James' SOM submission demonstrates the range of design inquiries and methodologies undertaken by him over the last two years, and is a testament to his academic and design skills,” said Steve Luoni, director of the UA Community Design Center. “James will maximize the travel opportunity presented by the SOM Fellowship, and we hope that he returns to the UACDC.”

The SOM Foundation Traveling Fellowship Program was established in 1981 to assist young architects, designers, and engineers in expanding their professional education through the observations of culture, history, building and design that can only be achieved through travel.

The programs of the SOM Foundation are funded through an endowment established by the partners of the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP. Founded in 1936, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill has designed landmark buildings such as the Sears Tower in Chicago and Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai, and has provided planning services for distinctive urban places such as London's Canary Wharf, Chicago's downtown and Ho Chi Minh City's Saigon South. SOM maintains offices in the cities of Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Washington, London and Shanghai. For more information on the SOM Prize, visit the SOM Foundation Web site at http://www.somfoundation.som.com/.