Image courtesy of the Society of Architectural Historians.

By researching text and images, Kim Sexton has reconstructed the time between the 7th and 12th centuries when the use of porticos (roof-covered structures supported by columns) gave way to loggias, or recessed porticos. She presented her research in the lead article in the September 2009 issue of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. It’s the first time a faculty member in the Fay Jones School of Architecture has been on the cover of the field’s top journal.

In her 12,000-word article, Sexton accounts for a number of centuries for which there are no surviving porticos. “It’s important because we had porticos in Roman times, and then they come back in the Renaissance. It’s like this unaccounted time, what happened in between.”

In European history, loggias served important cultural functions. In her article, Sexton argues that they returned to prominence because different ethnic groups used them “to display their judicial systems.” As court proceedings were held outdoors, “they used different styles to frame that.” There was German law and Roman law at different times; certain loggia announced each style.

“It’s in this competitive kind of culture that they start to use the portico again,” she said. “From there it comes back into prominence in the Renaissance and late medieval Italy.”

She combined three types of sources in this research: text for history, image for art history and space for architecture. “It certainly would not have been possible to reconstruct without all those things.”

The article’s most important image, which appears on the journal’s cover, shows the only known instance of a king in a loggia where “a trial is actually in progress,” she said. “If you see them empty, you’re not getting what it’s about,” she said of loggias. “You have to see it when it’s full of activity.”

Sexton, an associate professor, has been on faculty for 10 years and also serves as director of the school’s Honors Program.

The Porchscapes design, winner of a 2009 American Architecture Award. Image courtesy of the UA Community Design Center.

Porchscapes: A LEED Neighborhood Development, a joint project by the University of Arkansas Community Design Center, the Ecological Engineering Group and McClelland Consulting Engineers Inc., won a 2009 American Architecture Award. This was the fourth national design award the Community Design Center, an outreach program of the Fay Jones School of Architecture, received for the Porchscapes project.

The awards, sponsored by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design, are among the most prestigious awards for American architecture. The awards "identify new cutting-edge design direction, urban philosophy, design approach, style and intellectual substance in American Architecture today." The 64 winners of the 2009 awards ranged from skyscrapers to private homes for international clients and were chosen from nearly 1,000 candidates.

The Porchscapes design will be featured with the other winners in an exhibition, "New American Architecture," which will open in February in Athens, Greece, and then begin a national tour in the U.S.

Porchscapes is a 43-unit affordable housing neighborhood, designed to demonstrate low-impact development technologies in water management. It is a pilot project in the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED Neighborhood Development program, sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission and the University of Arkansas Women's Giving Circle.

Image courtesy of Design Intelligence.

Design Intelligence recently named the University of Arkansas’ Fay Jones School of Architecture as one of five “hidden gems of architecture education.” It’s the first time the report has made this category distinction.

In the 11th annual rankings published in Design Intelligence, leading practitioners again rated the 20 schools best preparing students for practice in the fields of architecture, interior design, landscape architecture and industrial design. The UA’s program was listed among the top 20 in the 2009 rankings.

The “hidden gems” results, published in the November/December 2009 issue, are for 2010.

The 2010 results of the 20 best architecture programs came from a survey completed by 381 professional firms who hire architecture program graduates, based on hires made in the past five years. James P. Cramer, publisher and founding editor of Design Intelligence, noted that these rankings are “imperfect.” Quality programs might not top the list for many reasons. Because of its small size, the Fay Jones School of Architecture simply turns out fewer graduates each year than some larger schools. Therefore their impact in the professional field is statistically smaller.

“Nevertheless, some of these unranked programs are doing incredible things, pushing the boundaries of education innovation, partnering with private firms in enterprising new ways, and developing the next generation of design thought leaders,” Cramer wrote in the report.

Design Intelligence is a bi-monthly report of the Design Futures Council, described in the report as “an interdisciplinary network of design, product and construction leaders exploring global trends, challenges, and opportunities to advance innovation and shape the future of the industry and the environment.” Cramer is also co-chairman of the council and chairman of Greenway Group, a consulting group.

In early January, Cramer visited the University of Arkansas campus to lead architecture school faculty members in a workshop to complete the development of a new strategic plan for the school.

Cramer is also president of the Design Futures Council and was chief executive of the American Institute of Architects when Jones received the AIA Gold Medal in 1990. He and Jones were close friends.

By sharing trends in design professions, Cramer hoped to help the faculty link their strategy to the future of the professions. “We are moving from a time of very stable professions to a time of very dynamic, entrepreneurial professions,” he said.

Based on a survey of 40 design leaders, Cramer offered some predictions as the global economy attempts to recover from the recession. This year, he expects new construction to account for only 1 percent of the built environment. The majority of design projects will include retrofitting, restoration, adaptive reuse, historic preservation and new interior design.

Cramer also outlined shifts in design professions, which include integrated and collaborative delivery models, increased use of technology for innovation and a “hyper-growth” in green and sustainable design solutions.

This strategic plan comes at a good time for the school, named last year after Jones, who was among the architecture program’s first students, taught here for 35 years and served as the school’s first dean.

“The timing couldn’t be better for a new strategic plan. The legacy of Fay Jones continues to inspire people,” Cramer said, and the school’s faculty members are among the nation’s finest. “Entering the second decade of the 21st century gives us an opportunity to plan for the decade ahead, with some very sharp strategies. And these can make a difference in the quality of education at the university.”

Marlon Blackwell, Mark Weaver, Douglas Brewer and Ryan Wilmes

Two fifth-year architecture students won this year’s International Design Award, sponsored by the Hnedak Bobo Group, the Memphis, Tenn., architecture firm that also helped judge the submissions. Douglas Brewer and Ryan Wilmes split the $5,000 prize, won for their studio project completed from their required semester of study abroad.
 
“We established this award because we feel strongly that study abroad is so important, for students to get out and see the world,” said Mark Weaver, a principal with the firm and ’82 UA architecture school graduate, who coordinated the competition.

The winning project addressed the transit system in the heart of Rome, at the site of the Piazza Venezia. The students were partly inspired by Lucio Fontana, an Italian-Argentine artist who made paintings three-dimensional by slashing them. They related that slash in a canvas to the axis of a street, and imagined the crossing streets as cross slits in the city’s fabric. With slits cut in the piazza, the fragmented surface raised up to allow light into the underground pedestrian thoroughfare leading to the subway system. “They picked a conceptual idea here of a painting and slashes through it and equated that to the street and the axis of the streets and how they enter into an axis. And so it was such a strong idea,” Weaver said.

Marlon Blackwell, professor and head of the architecture department, served as a judge. He said the winning project particularly looked to the locale for inspiration. “This project taps into the ancient city’s infrastructure — into the belly of the beast, so to speak — and integrates it with a modern infrastructure, the transit infrastructure there,” he said. “We call this a really stealthy scheme that both excavates the past while politely conforming to its context.”

Wilmes, from Joplin, Mo., also won $1,000 in prize money in last year’s competition, for a design based on his studies in Mexico. Brewer is from Monticello.

The DVD Sacred Spaces: The Architecture of Fay Jones is the first product of a joint publication venture between the Fay Jones School of Architecture and the University of Arkansas Press.

This collaboration will consist of two series. The first will stem from the school's lecture series and include books by Peter Eisenman and Glenn Murcutt. The other series will explore a broad array of subjects and include the book, Just Below the Line: Disability, Housing and Equity in the South, co-authored by Korydon H. Smith, an associate professor of architecture at the UA.

Sacred Spaces will be shown at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 7, at the Fayetteville Public Library, 401 W. Mountain St. The screening is free and open to the public, and it will be followed by a question-and-answer session with filmmakers Larry Foley and Dale Carpenter.

We’re certain you have work that deserves notice. We want to recognize it!

Any graduate of the Fay Jones School of Architecture may submit projects for the 2010 Fay Jones Alumni Design Awards. Winning projects will be featured in Re:View magazine and on the school’s web site.

Submissions must be postmarked no later than March 12, 2010. For submission guidelines, visit architecture.uark.edu/488.php.