Arkansas AIA Bestows Honors, Design Awards on Fay Jones School Faculty, Students, Alumni and Friends

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The renovated Vol Walker Hall with its new addition, the Steven L. Anderson Design Center, recently won awards from the Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. (Photo by Timothy Hursley)

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Faculty, students, alumni and friends of the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas were recognized with awards recently handed out by the Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Design awards and other awards were given during the annual AIA Arkansas State Convention, held Oct. 16-18 in Hot Springs. Fay Jones School faculty, students and alumni won all eight design awards given in the Design Awards Program – four honor awards, three merit awards and one citation award. This year, 38 design entries were submitted by member firms, and the jury selected the winners from 11 finalists.

The Vol Walker Hall and the Steven L. Anderson Design Center project – home to the Fay Jones School – won an Honor Award and also was selected for the 2014 Members’ Choice Award by the attendees of the state AIA convention. The addition and renovation to Vol Walker Hall at the U of A is a complex but resolute hybrid of a beautifully restored historical building (65,000 square feet) and a modern addition and insertion (37,000 square feet).

The project team included the firms of Marlon Blackwell Architects, lead architects, and Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects, associate architects. Marlon Blackwell, founder and principal of Marlon Blackwell Architects, is a Fellow of the AIA, a Distinguished Professor and head of the Department of Architecture in the Fay Jones School.

From Marlon Blackwell Architects, team members were Marlon Blackwell, Meryati Johari Blackwell, David Jaehning and Bradford Payne, along with Fay Jones School alumni Jonathan Boelkins, William Burks, Angela Carpenter, Michael Pope and Stephen Reyenga. From Polk Stanley Wilcox, team members were Fay Jones School alumni Mark Herrmann, Joe Stanley, Craig Curzon, Reese Rowland, Wesley Walls, Kimberly Braden Prescott, Christopher Thomas, Sarah Menyhart Bennings, Conley Fikes, John Dupree and J.B. Mullins – along with Michelle Teague, Laura Lyon and Jim Thacker.

The Fay Jones Gold Medal, the highest award AIA Arkansas can bestow on one of its members, was presented to Jeff Shannon, a longtime architecture professor who served as dean of the Fay Jones School from 2000 to 2013. He is the second educator to receive this award; the other was the late John G. Williams, founder of the architecture program at the University of Arkansas. Shannon has won numerous teaching awards and continues to teach design studio and popular courses on the history of urban form and design thinking. He serves as executive editor of the publishing collaboration he established in 2009 between the Fay Jones School and the University of Arkansas Press.

The Courtyard House in Little Rock, the design/build home done by the Fay Jones School’s design/build program during the 2011-12 school year, won a Merit Award. This project is a pre-fabricated, single-family residence, designed and built in Fayetteville by Fay Jones School students and then installed in the South Main neighborhood of downtown Little Rock. The school partnered with the Downtown Little Rock Community Development Corp. for this project.

The project team included Fay Jones School instructors Mark D. Wise and Justin Hershberger, as well as then-students Adam Stevinson, Armando Rios, Ben Kueck, Bill Masino, McConnell Bobo, Brandon Ruhl, Daniel Peurifoy, Elsa Lo, Erica Blansit, Jake Newsum, Jason Clem, Joey Gamblin, Matt Poe, Michael Lyons, Ryan Campbell, Sean Paquin and Tanner Sutton.

North Presbyterian Church, design by SILO AR+D, received a Merit Award. This project transformed an industrial warehouse into a multi-purpose worship space for an urban congregation that serves the homeless and needy in Cleveland, Ohio. The architecture is animated by the existing environment, capitalizing on its resources, constraints, and qualities, resulting in an unexpected and unique sacred space. Project team included Marc Manack, an assistant professor of architecture in the Fay Jones School and principal of SILO AR+D, along with Kurt Weaver, project architect, and Charles Chambers, project designer.

The first phase of the Fayetteville High School Renovation and Addition won a Merit Award. The new high school is being built in two phases and ultimately will total more than 500,000 square feet, becoming the largest civic project in Fayetteville in the last 50 years. The first phase of the new school houses new administration, cafeteria, performing arts and athletic facilities to serve 3,000 students and the community at large.

The project was designed by Hight-Jackson Associates PA with DLR Group and Marlon Blackwell Architects. The Hight-Jackson Associates project team included Gail Shepherd, Allie McKenzie, Clay McGill and Jorge Andrade – all Fay Jones School alumni – along with Ron Shelby, Mark Haguewood and Cary Walker. The Marlon Blackwell Architects project team included Marlon Blackwell, Meryati Johari Blackwell, Bradford Payne, along with alumni Jonathan Boelkins, Michael Pope and Stephen Reyenga.

Marlon Blackwell Architects also received a Citation Award for the Renwick Gallery Grand Salon Competition, held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. This design for the Grand Salon of the Renwick Gallery provides an adaptive, contemporary destination space that references its classical heritage using rich, sustainable materials. Building inside the 4,300 square feet of the Grand Salon’s classical geometry, an array of cypress veneer “lanterns” is inserted, intended to evoke the ever-changing light of tree canopies while creating refined cultural space that relates to both art and nature.

The project team included Marlon Blackwell, Meryati Johari Blackwell, Justin Hershberger, Heather McArthur and Bradford Payne, along with alumni Jonathan Boelkins, William Burks and Stephen Reyenga. The firm consulted with Renfro Design Group, Guy Nordenson and Associates, Buro Happold, Acoustic Dimensions, John Milner Associates and The GR Plume Company.

The new home for the Willard and Pat Walker Charitable Foundation in Fayetteville, a project by Fayetteville firm David W. McKee Architect, won an Honor Award. The building at 315 W. Mountain St., originally was built in 1955 as a tire store, and hints of mid-century modern design and an industrial character were embraced in the extensive remodel. The building also functions as a residence and exhibition space. The project team included David McKee and Matt Hoffman – both alumni – along with William McKee, Vickie Crew and Susan Smith.

A home on Mount Sequoyah, at 560 Vinson Ave., in Fayetteville, won an Honor Award for Modus Studio of Fayetteville. This home is an expansion of a modest ranch-style home atop Mount Sequoyah in Fayetteville, gracefully juxtaposed with its quirky residential context. Inspired by time’s ability to purposefully patina and alter materials, the changing tones of the façade are at the heart of the design concept for the home. The project team included Chris Baribeau, Graham Patterson, Suzana Annable and Josh Siebert, all alumni.

Hunt Chapel in Rogers, designed by Maurice Jennings + Walter Jennings Architects, PLLC, of Fayetteville, received an Honor Award. Made from stone, wood and glass, this chapel uses natural materials and repeating geometric patterns to encourage contemplation and reflection. The stone in the arches and walls comes from local quarries in Northwest Arkansas as well as eastern Oklahoma. The project team included alumni Maurice Jennings, Walter Jennings and Lori Santa-Rita.

Jonathan Opitz, a project architect at AMR Architects in Little Rock, received the 2014 Emerging Professional Award at the ceremony. He is a 2002 graduate of the Fay Jones School, where he received the John G. Williams Professional Promise Scholarship. He has won several design competitions, such as the American Lung Association Kids Cottage Design Competition (first place and Crowd Favorite, 2007), the AIA Arkansas Convention Associate Design Competition (2006) and the Emerging Green Builders Natural Design Competition (2007).

Opitz serves as a board member for StudioMain, the Architecture and Design Network, and the AIA Arkansas Chapter. He serves on several committees with the AIA Arkansas and is also its Leadership Greater Little Rock Class XXVIII representative. He nurtures his passion for architecture and his community with volunteer work among various organizations in central Arkansas. His current work focuses on education, mixed use mid-rise, outpatient medical and multifamily developments.

The 2014 Dick Savage Memorial Award went to both Charles Witsell and Gordon Wittenberg, retired principals of the Little Rock architecture firms WER Architects/Planners (Witsell Evans & Rasco) and WD&D Architects (Wittenberg Delony & Davidson), respectively. The two co-authored Architects of Little Rock: 1833 – 1950, which was published this summer through the collaborative imprint between the Fay Jones School and the University of Arkansas Press. Proceeds from its sales benefit the Fay Jones School.