UACDC Develops Award-winning Park for Warren

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The UA School of Architecture’s Community Design Center is wringing an asset out of a muddy eyesore. UACDC’s proposal to rehabilitate a flood-prone, pollution-ridden stream into an urban greenway that winds through downtown Warren, Ark., has won an American Institute of Architects Honor Award. The AIA honor awards constitute the highest recognition in the nation for design accomplishment in architecture, interior design, and urban planning.

UACDC’s 2005 Honor Award for Outstanding Regional and Urban Design is the first national AIA recognition for an Arkansas project since the late architect Fay Jones was designing homes and chapels in his native state. The project, titled “Riparian Meadows, Mounds and Rooms: Urban Greenway for Warren, Arkansas,” also won an Honor Award from the Arkansas Chapter of the AIA. (For more information on the AIA awards, please visit http://www.aia.org/release_010705_honorawards.)

“The Community Design Center has taken a problem and turned it into an amenity for the people of Warren. Instead of flooding at the YMCA, we’ll have a beautiful walking path that extends the current city park and links it to the Y. It’s a terrific project, and we look forward to making it a reality,” said Warren Mayor Bryan Martin.

Working with the UA department of biological and agricultural engineering and the UA department of landscape architecture, UACDC staff and students researched elements of good stream design such as riffle-pool-glide flow structures and landscaping plants that filter floodwater and check erosion. The resulting project hinges on returning the stream to a more natural, sinuous flow surrounded by wetlands that can absorb excess water during flood seasons.

“First, we take care of the stream, and then we take care of the urban systems around it,” said Stephen Luoni, director of the UACDC. “Improvement of ecological services in the stream serves as a platform for community development.”

UACDC’s design for the approximately half-mile-long park calls for a series of outdoor rooms that stretch from a landscaped walking loop at one end through a floodplain park with raised mounds for performance, picnicking and play, to the YMCA water walk and plaza at the northeast end of the greenway. To save money and conserve natural resources, UACDC suggests refurbishing existing buildings as public spaces. The National Guard Armory buildings that form one side of the proposed walking loop are opened up with a pedestrian arcade for possible use as a café, art gallery, farmer’s market, or cultural center. The rusting Quonset hut that anchors the northeast end of the park is reimagined as a barrel-vaulted space for hanging gardens that opens to a public plaza. From the red fabric sky domes and illuminated scarlet globes clustered along the pedestrian arcade to the bright red paint job freshening up the Quonset hut, UACDC’s design celebrates Warren’s status as home of Arkansas’ Pink Tomato Festival.

UACDC first proposed the greenway idea nine years ago as the result of a summer student workshop in Warren.

“UACDC came to Warren, lived with us, energized us, and left us with a master plan that we continue to implement nine years later,” said Maribeth Frazer, member of the Warren City Planning Commission. Frazer is also a founding member of the nonprofit Townscape group that was formed as a direct result of UACDC town meetings. Dedicated to realizing UACDC plans to improve Warren, Townscape continues to meet on a weekly basis, Frazer said. “We feel that the AIA award will help in our fund-raising efforts for the greenway,” she added.

UACDC’s design work on the greenway was funded by a $15,000 grant from the Arkansas Forestry Commission and the U.S. Forest Service. Plans are under way to develop the greenway. The City of Warren is contracting with MESA Landscape Architects of Little Rock to assist in fund-raising and implementing the design. UACDC will continue to be involved as consultants on the project.

Founded in 1995, the University of Arkansas Community Design Center has provided design and planning services to more than 30 communities across Arkansas. UACDC planning has helped Arkansas communities secure nearly $9 million in grant funding to enact suggested improvements. In addition to revitalizing historic downtowns, UACDC addresses new challenges in affordable housing, urban sprawl, environmental planning, and management of regional growth or decline. UACDC also offers hands-on civic design experience to students who work under the direction of design professionals.

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Cutlines:

UACDC_walkingloop.jpg: A new landscaped path for walking, jogging and socializing loops around the existing city park.

UACDC_floodplainpark.jpg: A new park with meadows and raised mounds for performance, picnicking and play will alleviate flooding after heavy rains.

UACDC_ballpark.jpg: Rotation of the existing YMCA ballpark allows the piped stream to reopen to the surface as a traffic-calming landscape enhancement.

UACDC_colonnade.jpg: A new pedestrian colonnade reshapes the National Guard Armory complex for community use.