Professors emeriti John G. Williams (left) and Herbert K. Fowler

The School of Architecture suffered a great loss this month with the deaths of two founding members of the School's faculty, John G. Williams and Herbert K. Fowler.

"Both men were instrumental in building the architecture program at the University of Arkansas, and both touched the lives of generations of students," said Dean Jeff Shannon. "They will be greatly missed by us all."

A memorial service for John Williams will be held at 2 p.m. Friday, May 23 in the Paul Young Gallery, Vol Walker Hall. A celebration of Herb Fowler's life will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 31 in Giffels Auditorium.

John G. Williams (April 30, 1915 - April 11, 2008)

Williams came to the University of Arkansas in 1946, when a post-war housing shortage created a demand for architects. Thanks to Williams' drive, energy and ebuillient good spirits, the program grew from two architecture courses offered within the College of Engineering into a school offering the only accredited program in architecture in the state. Under his leadership, women were welcomed into the program, great talents were nurtured and hired, and architecture's 20th century stars were lured to Fayetteville for lectures and critiques.

“John Williams was a great teacher, and our mentor and friend,” said Bob Laser (B.Arch. '51), one of Williams’ first students. “All five of us who graduated in the first class revered him.”

Williams chronicled the early years of the architecture program in his 1984 book The Curious and the Beautiful: A Memoir History of the Architecture Program at the University of Arkansas. Though he retired as a professor emeritus in 1985, he continued to be a frequent visitor on campus, attending lectures and symposia and conducting research for a second book. In 1989, the School of Architecture established the John G. Williams Professorship in Architecture, which has brought luminaries such as Peter Eisenman, Edward Durell Stone Jr. and Brian MacKay-Lyons to campus for a semester to teach and inspire students and faculty.

Williams is survived by his daughter, Diana Sue Hein of New York City. Gifts may be made in Williams’ memory to the John G. Williams Traveling Scholarship, sent to the University of Arkansas School of Architecture care of Karen Stair at 120 Vol Walker Hall, Fayetteville, Ark., 72701 or to the Washington Regional Hospice, sent care of Valarie Lima at 34 W. Colt Square, Suite 1, Fayetteville, Ark., 72703. Read the full obituary.

Herbert K. Fowler (May 31, 1921 - April 10, 2008)

When Herb Fowler came to the University of Arkansas in 1952 to design the Animal Sciences building, among the first structures on campus designed in the modern International style, Williams recognized his talent and hired him. Fowler became a key member of a what Dean Shannon termed a "dream team" faculty that Williams assembled to build the new architecture program.

Murray Smart, professor emeritus of architecture and former dean of the School of Architecture, praised Fowler’s teaching: “Herb was a listener as well as a teacher. He would talk to a student and find out what he wanted to accomplish, then help him reach his goals.”

Though Fowler’s research focused on medieval architecture and cities, his architectural style was firmly rooted in the 20th century, shaped by the clean functionality of the International Style and the sensitivity to site and materials espoused by Frank Lloyd Wright. Fowler retired in 1989 as a professor emeritus, but returned to teach "Design Determinants," an advanced course that addressed the tensions between philosophical and pragmatic considerations in design. In 2007, his family established the Herbert K. Fowler Award at the School of Architecture. Each year, an architecture student with exceptional drawing ability is selected to receive the honor.

Fowler is survived by his sisters Mary Elizabeth Fowler and Helen Eugenia "Jean" Parsons, his son Ian Keatinge Fowler and daughter-in-law Olga Luz Arango, his daughter Alison Cope Fowler, and grandson Oliver Luke Fowler. Memorials may be given to the following organizations:

The Humane Society of the Ozarks
The Darcy Fowler Memorial Book Fund, at the Fayetteville Public Library
KUAF (Fayetteville Public Radio)
Friends of Lake Wedington
Fayetteville Natural Heritage Society

Read the full obituary. 

For more in-depth research on both John G. Williams and Herbert K. Fowler, scholars are encouraged to visit the University of Arkansas Libraries Special Collections, which houses the papers of both men.

A "shared street," on track to be the first built in the United States, anchors the award-winning neighborhood planned for the Washington Co. chapter of Habitat for Humanity

The University of Arkansas Community Design Center has developed a radical new vision of neighborhood for the Washington Co. chapter of Habitat for Humanity: no sidewalks, no curbs, no gutters and no flooding, even after torrential rain. Instead, residents will benefit from a “shared street” – on track to be the first of its kind in the United States – that promotes community, slows down cars and soaks up stormwater like a sponge.

"In this neighborhood, the street is the yard,” said Stephen Luoni, director of the Community Design Center. “By combining pedestrian and traffic systems in a space akin to a plaza, we permanently slow down the car and create great moments for chance social encounters.”

The project, which the design center developed in partnership with Professor Marty Matlock of the Ecological Engineering Group in the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, the university’s department of biological and agricultural engineering, the city of Fayetteville and McClelland Consulting Engineers, has won a 2008 ASLA Honor Award in Planning and Analysis from the American Society of Landscape Architects. A $23,000 grant by the University of Arkansas Women’s Giving Circle and a $464,000 grant by the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission that is funded by the Environmental Protection Agency have supported the design phase.

The U.S. Green Building Council has selected the Fayetteville Habitat neighborhood as a pilot project for LEED-Neighborhood Development certification. The Fayetteville project is one of 60 with priority for certification and special focus group study by the U.S. Green Building Council. Habitat for Humanity hopes to complete development plans for the neighborhood by the end of this year.

Born and raised in England, Carl Smith recently joined the landscape architecture faculty at the University of Arkansas.

Face it: the classic suburban lawn is an ecological disaster. Grooming that expanse of velvety green grass typically involves pesticides, herbicides and plenty of water through summer’s hottest months, not to mention the oil and gasoline needed to fuel the lawn mower. Now, just in time for Earth Day, there’s help for eco-warrior wannabes who want some green space at home (and time to enjoy it).

“Doing your bit for the environment doesn’t mean donning tie-dye and chaining yourself to the nearest panda,” said Carl Smith, a landscape architecture professor at the University of Arkansas School of Architecture and first author of the new book Residential Landscape Sustainability: A Checklist Tool (Blackwell Publishing, 2008). “We all know what we can do in the house – for example using low-energy light bulbs. What may be less obvious is what we can do literally around the house – in the yard, the garden or the driveway.”
Here, in his own words, are Carl Smith’s top three tips for greening your garden:

1.  Plant trees. If you have the room, trees can provide protection for your house from hot sun and cold winds, reducing winter heating and summer air-conditioning. Planting trees and larger shrubs in the right place can help you save up to a quarter of your energy bills! Of course trees also help provide habitat for bird and insects and, just as importantly, make our human habitat that bit more attractive too.

2.  Think natural. Common sense tells us that the more processing a building product goes through, the more energy and potential pollution is likely to be involved in its manufacture.  When adding surfacing or features to the lot, remember that naturally occurring materials such as timber, stone and aggregate will tend to have had less environmental impact than metals, plastics, bricks and cement.

3.  Think local (and check the label). A naturally occurring material is not automatically the ‘green’ choice. Ask your supplier where materials come from – natural stone trucked from hundreds of miles away may be no better for the environment than a concrete block manufactured just down the road. Look for timber that is local and certified as being from a sustainable source – Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) stamped is reckoned to be the most reliable.

Want more? View all ten tips for creating a 'green' garden.

And listen in on Carl's interview with Kyle Kellams on this week's "Ozarks at Large." It will air on KUAF 91.3 FM at 6 p.m. Friday, May 2 and noon Saturday, May 3.

The front page of the new site explores the school's core values.

The School of Architecture is pleased to announce a new-and-improved, more user-friendly Web site. Over the course of two years, we worked with Interface Guru, an information architecture firm based in Tucson, Ariz., to hammer out a more intuitive organization of content. Stoltze Design, a Boston-based company, developed the design, and Chris Nixon's web team at University Relations built the site.

In short: cool new stuff! Check it out:

• Alumni profiles
  
  
• Alumni news
  
  
• Student sketch blog
  
  
• Your gifts at work
  
  

We are also improving firms and jobs pages so that firms may update their directory listing and manage job postings. The new site also will allow users to search by firm type (very helpful, with more than 250 firms in the directory!)  Both firms and jobs pages should be up and running by late May; we will update you in next e:View. Thanks for your patience as we develop these much needed upgrades.

We welcome your feedback on the new site: contact Kendall Curlee at kcurlee@uark.edu.

Commons building, Camp Aldersgate, Little Rock, first prize winner of the 2006 Alumni Design Awards. Design by Wesley Walls ('92) of the Wilcox Group in collaboration with David Perry ('77) and Wayne Hardy ('96) of RPPY Architects.

June 2. Yup, that's the absolute, really and truly final deadline for the 2008 Alumni Design Competition. We've already received some very strong submissions. Now that e:View is back online, we wanted to give you all one more chance to submit your latest and greatest creative work.

Any graduate of the UA School of Architecture is eligible. Winners will be announced in the 2008 issue of Re:View magazine and on the school’s web site. Submissions must be anonymous!

Submit:

•    Description of the work including program issues and design intentions plus project title and location (three pages or less)

•    Floor and site plans

•    Applicant’s name, address and telephone number, enclosed in a sealed envelope with project title on front

•    CD with approximately 12 images

•    A check for $25 made payable to School of Architecture Foundation

Mail to:

Alumni Design Awards
120 Vol Walker Hall
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, AR  72701

Deadline (really! This is it, your last chance for 2008 alumni honors):

Postmarked no later than June 2, 2008

Questions?

Contact Karen Stair

479/575-2702
kstair@uark.edu