FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The University of Arkansas Community Design Center, an outreach program of the School of Architecture, has won a 2007 Unbuilt Design Award from the Boston Society of Architects. The award recognizes an ambitious slate of proposals for the “Athletic Valley” on the southwest edge of the University of Arkansas campus. Designed in collaboration with the northwest chapter of Audubon Arkansas, the project was funded by a $190,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency.

A parking lot transformed into wetlands. A boardwalk on the adjacent parking garage allows visitors to observe birds and other wildlife.

The addition of storm water gardens to campus parking lots would treat polluted runoff at its source.

The green roof of the proposed dam theater could function as a park for boaters and entrance to performance space below.

Though the award recognizes work in the design phase, Community Design Center director Steve Luoni hopes that their proposals will be implemented over time.

“This project gives the University of Arkansas the tools to be a model in sustainable planning and design, supporting the chancellor’s commitment to create a sustainable campus,” he said.

Planning focuses on the College Branch stream, which originates on campus. Because it is channeled beneath the football stadium, practice fields and adjacent parking lots before emerging by the former site of Carlson Terrace student housing, the stream is prone to system dysfunctions, including erosion and pollution. Storms trigger dangerous flash floods that threaten nearby walks and bridges, including the Sixth Street bridge on Highway 62B.

To correct these problems, design center staff and students proposed a range of interventions that could be built over time. The introduction of storm water gardens in lot 56, the nine-acre parking lot at the corner of Sixth Street and Razorback Road, would allow for immediate treatment of runoff, which in the first hour of rainfall has a pollution index twice that of raw sewage, Luoni said. Slowing the velocity of urban storm water and improving the ability of the water to percolate through the soil are two of the most effective techniques for reducing urban storm water pollution. The most radical move would be to transform lot 56 into a marsh, shifting needed parking to a garage, visitors’ center and transportation hub stacked at the edge of the field. The multistory building would create a gateway feature sorely needed in this area of campus.

“There’s something very attractive about having a parking garage float over a marsh,” Luoni mused. “Urbanism and ecology are not mutually exclusive, but can exist side by side and create poetic moments.”

Properly managed, the stream has the potential to amplify the university’s educational mission, said former project coordinator Melissa Terry: “College Branch is an invaluable asset to the University of Arkansas campus in that it functions as a living laboratory for faculty, students and administrators alike. They can use the features of this urban stream to increase campus sustainability, improve urban water quality and incorporate various restoration tools as teaching models for future professionals.”

"We congratulate CDC on another award winning design effort with their College Branch proposals,” said Mike Johnson, associate vice chancellor of Facilities Management. “These proposals have provided us with a number of valuable ideas to continue our transformation of this area of campus into a sustainable/green design showcase. Our hopes are to transform a number of these ideas from CDC and others into reality as prototypes for our entire local community to view, touch, feel and experience."

Design center staff members Jeffrey Huber and Peter Bednar, in collaboration with Zack Cooley, a 2006 graduate of the School of Architecture, also won a 2007 Unbuilt Design Award for their proposal to float a slender bar-shaped park and theater on top of Beaver Dam. Cantilevered out over a river valley, the auditorium terminates in a transparent polycarbonate wall that offers breathtaking views of the Ozark Plateau.

“The performance can range from a symphony to the changing of seasons, inviting the audience to simultaneously experience event and place,” said Jeffrey Huber. A key feature of the design is the “closed loop” water treatment system that would harvest, filter and use water from the lake. Wastewater from kitchen and bathroom facilities would be treated within a vertical garden that extends from the underside of the theater and then released into the river below.

Huber, Bednar and Cooley collaborated on several design competitions, but their partnership is on hold for now: Cooley is pursuing a master’s degree in architecture at Princeton University, Bednar is pursuing his master’s degree in architecture at the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands, and Huber is pursuing a partnership at an architectural firm in Florida.

The Boston Society of Architects awards program is one of four premiere national design award programs in architecture. The award-winning projects from the University of Arkansas were among seven projects selected from more than 80 submissions. They will be discussed and exhibited at Build Boston, an annual convention scheduled for Nov. 13-15 of this year, and will be published in the January/February 2008 issue of ArchitectureBoston.

The University of Arkansas Community Design Center has won two prior unbuilt design awards from the Boston Society of Architects. The first, in 2003, explored the idea of stacking big box retail stores into a “vertical power center.” The second, in 2005, fleshed out plans for the 1,000-acre Two Rivers Park located six miles from downtown Little Rock. For more information on design center projects, visit the center’s Web site at http://uacdc.uark.edu/.

To learn more about green research and project development at the university, visit http://sustainability.uark.edu/.

For more information on the Boston Society of Architects unbuilt design award program, visit http://www.architects.org/.