St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church in Springdale, designed by Fayetteville-based Marlon Blackwell Architect, was named the World’s Best Civic and Community Building by the World Architecture Festival. (Photo by Timothy Hursley)

A metal shed transformed into a church in Springdale, Ark., has been named the World’s Best Civic and Community Building by the World Architecture Festival, the world’s largest architecture competition. The St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church in Springdale, designed by Fayetteville-based Marlon Blackwell Architect, won the Civic and Community category in the festival, held Nov. 2-4 in Barcelona, Spain.

Blackwell’s firm represented the United States in the Civic and Community category, competing against 14 other shortlisted projects, and this church was the only built project in the United States to win its category at the festival. Blackwell is a Distinguished Professor and head of the architecture department in the Fay Jones School.

This fourth annual competition attracted the highest number of entries to date, with 704 entries from practices in 66 different countries. Entries spanned the globe from as far south as Tasmania to the Arctic Circle in Norway, with countries new to the competition, such as Libya, Haiti and Cambodia, appearing alongside the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, China, Japan, Spain and Scandinavia.

The St. Nicholas project entailed the transformation of an existing metal shop building into a sanctuary and fellowship hall. The sky-lit tower pours red light down into the transition between the narthex and the sanctuary, giving a moment of pause before entering to worship. A narrow cross is suspended on the western side of the tower, backlit by the morning sun, itself a beacon for arriving parishioners. The exterior of the building uses box rib metal panels, common in local industrial buildings, while the interior finishes are kept simple. The church is visible from Interstate 540.

Blackwell said all architecture bears a story, and the story behind the church project was special and compelling. The congregation – which includes people from about 10 countries – didn’t have much money, but they did own the shop building. In researching Orthodox churches worldwide, Blackwell’s firm discovered that those building designs tend to take on regional architectural aspects. To add the traditional dome to this flat roof, the project contractor traded two cases of beer for a used satellite dish. This church also features a box-shaped steeple.

“They were impressed that we were able to take such a traditional building type and transform that and operate in a contemporary vernacular,” Blackwell said. “You can make architecture, if you’re working from design principles, from just about anything.”

The jury commended the 3,600-square-foot church project, which cost $405,000: “This section was one of the strongest sections with four or five outstanding projects. It is really important to make the point that the designers on this project really made architecture out of nothing. The project was fully developed and really fulfilled the private and public component.”

Unlike other competitions, the designers presented their work in front of leading industry judges and a live public audience. “They loved the story,” Blackwell said. “The judges were interested in the context of the project. It demonstrated the limits and the possibilities in which we were working. With our design, were able to elevate this shop building to the status of architecture.”

The award-winning church is also featured on the cover of the November issue of Architectural Record, under the theme “Made in America.” Architectural Record’s story on the church is available online. A video tour of the project is also on the magazine’s website.

The design also won a 2011 American Architecture Award, organized by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

A visionary handbook for designing low impact development, created by the University of Arkansas Community Design Center, has garnered a second national award.

The book Low Impact Development: a design manual for urban areas won a 2011 Award of Excellence in Communications from the American Society of Landscape Architects. This award category recognizes publications, journals and books on landscape architecture with honor awards and one top award for excellence. The manual was featured at the 2011 ASLA Annual Meeting and Expo in October in San Diego, and in the October issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine.

The jury called the manual “beautifully composed and very accessibly written” and “clear, brilliant, attractive, useful, and pertinent. All young people should read this – boy, does it communicate.” It is already a required text in some university engineering courses nationwide.

The Community Design Center and the university’s Ecological Engineering Group developed the book under a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission. The center worked with the group to develop the manual’s lexicon and the six treatment types outlined. This is the first book to devise a menu of the 21 technologies that function as building blocks of a distributed treatment network.

The book is in its second printing, having sold more than 4,300 copies since its July 2010 publication. The manual is available in local and national bookstores, including Barnes and Noble, and through the Community Design Center. It is part of the collaboration between the school and the University of Arkansas Press.

Read more about the LID manual.

In addition to residential projects, Marlon Blackwell Architect is responsible for other types of projects, including the museum store at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The museum opened Nov. 11 in Bentonville, Ark. (Photo by Michelle Parks)

Residential Architect magazine chose the Fayetteville firm Marlon Blackwell Architect as its Top Firm for 2011. Blackwell is a Distinguished Professor and head of the architecture department in the Fay Jones School. Meghan Drueding, senior editor for Residential Architect, wrote the feature that appears in the September/October issue. She said Blackwell’s firm is “ripe for being recognized, and one we feel people would want to know more about.”

Blackwell’s firm stood out to the magazine editors for many reasons. “They do really fantastic work; it’s always really original and dynamic. It’s so site specific and it’s so sensitive,” Drueding said. “Marlon and his staff are interesting people. They have such a great reputation among other architects. They’ve really built a well-respected practice.” In addition, Blackwell has been able to build a well-rounded practice, with projects of all scales. “It’s a challenge to do all of that and be head of the architecture department,” she said. “Everything they do, they do well.”

Another aspect that makes his firm intriguing, Drueding said, is the large-scale projects they do, including the renovation of Vol Walker Hall and the simultaneous addition of the Steven L. Anderson Design Center, which broke ground in early October on the University of Arkansas campus. His firm is the project’s lead architect, in conjunction with Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects of Little Rock and Fayetteville. Blackwell’s firm is also part of the design team for the addition to Fayetteville High School. He worked with DLR Group of Kansas City and Hight-Jackson Associates of Rogers for this project, which is under construction. For a smaller-scale project, his firm designed the recently completed museum store at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which opened Nov. 11, in Bentonville. Drueding noted the fact that Blackwell’s firm had teamed up with other firms to work on some of these other projects.

Read more about the RA top firm award win.

Fourth-year architecture student Ken Hiley discusses his winning design with Janet Smith-Haltom and Mark Weaver, both with the Hnedak Bobo Group. (Photo by Michelle Parks)

Four architecture students created the two winning designs chosen from among 13 entries in the fourth annual Hnedak Bobo International Design Competition. The competition recognizes work done from international locales during the school’s study abroad trips.

The team of Ken Hiley, a fourth-year student from Little Rock, and fifth-year students Akihiro Moriya, of Tomatsuri, Japan, and Tanner Sutton, of Gentry, created one winning design during their required study abroad semester working in the school’s Mexico City studio. Erica Blansit, a fifth-year student from Branson, Mo., won with her design created during her semester at the University of Arkansas Rome Center. Both designs were based on projects in the cities where the students were studying.

The two projects will evenly split the $5,000 prize money awarded by Hnedak Bobo Group, the Memphis, Tenn., architecture firm that also helped judge the submissions. Mark Weaver, a partner and principal architect with the firm and a 1982 graduate of the Fay Jones School of Architecture, coordinated the competition. Janet Smith-Haltom, a 1983 architecture graduate and partner at the Hnedak Bobo Group, joined Weaver at the Sept. 28 awards ceremony in the studio at the Field House during a lunch hosted by the firm.

Santiago Perez, assistant professor of architecture in the Fay Jones School, led the jury of architecture faculty, which also included Steve Luoni, distinguished professor, and Justin Hershberger, visiting assistant professor. Perez said the submissions from both studios illustrated responses to very different sites and programs. In the end, jury members relied on “time-tested values in design and representation” to guide final selections.

Read the jury’s comments.

Fifth-year architecture student Erica Blansit created this altered book, which was part of the “Altered and Folded” exhibit at the University of Arkansas Student Gallery in Bentonville. (Photo by Laura Terry)

The connection between art and architecture became evident in a collection of books, made by architecture students, which were featured in an exhibit at the University of Arkansas Student Gallery. The “Altered and Folded” exhibit was displayed in October at the gallery in Bentonville. Also known as sUgAR, the gallery showcases the work of students, faculty and visiting artists in the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, interior design and art.

The more than 30 pieces in the exhibit were created in an Experimental Bookmaking course, taught this semester by Laura Terry, an associate professor of architecture and a visual artist. Since taking a bookmaking course as a graduate student at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Terry has seen a connection between the “structure” of a book and the “structure” of architecture. Folding, for example, is a term architects often use to describe how spatial enclosures are made. This course shows students a way to apply what they’ve learned in their studios to other, more open-ended creative endeavors.

“One of the most important aspects of successful book art is finding the right format for communicating the idea or information,” Terry said. “There are four primary book types, and each of those types communicates information, both written and visual, in a different way.”

The two projects featured in the exhibit were altered books – in which each student found a hardcover book and transformed it in some way – and folded books, which were books of their own design created using only folded paper for the pages. Each altered book displayed was also be accompanied by a two-signature pamphlet the student made that served as notes, ideas and drawings for the altering process. Terry encouraged students to start to pay attention to how they make something – whether a drawing, book or design project.

Read more about their designs.

The Ruth Lilly Visitors Pavilion won the only Honor Award from the Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. (Photo by Timothy Hursley)

Faculty and alumni of the Fay Jones School were recognized with awards handed out in September by the Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Design awards and other awards were given during the annual AIA Arkansas State Convention at the Hot Springs Convention Center. School faculty won three of six design awards.

Marlon Blackwell Architect, won the only Honor Award handed out, for the Ruth Lilly Visitors Pavilion at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Blackwell, a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, is a Distinguished Professor and head of the architecture department in the Fay Jones School. Sited in the woods of 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art and Nature Park, the pavilion features a steel-framed exoskeleton and a deck made from ipe, a Brazilian hardwood. The project team included Blackwell, Meryati Johari Blackwell, Mark Bukamathu, Matt Griffith, Mark Wise, Stephen Reyenga and Bradford Payne, as well as school alumni Jonathan Boelkins, Chris Baribeau, Gail Shepherd, Michael Pope, David Tanner, Angela Carpenter and Ignacio Gonzalez.

Blackwell’s firm also won a Citation Award for the Green River Community Center, which is in design development. The project addresses the social and economic needs for an impoverished community of 900 people in Green River, Utah. A large cantilevered canopy will provide protection from intense western sun, and the ground floor, wrapped in glass on three sides, will inspire transparency and connectivity.

Bradley Edwards, an adjunct professor and alumnus of the school, received a Merit Award for his project, The Polypod. The Fayetteville project is a simple outbuilding, designed with a polycarbonate shell and exposed wooden frame, with myriad possible uses.

Read more about the AIA Arkansas winners.

 

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Also, look for a new blog that will follow the progress of the renovation of Vol Walker Hall and the addition of the Steven L. Anderson Design Center. More details on that are coming in the next couple of months.