Fay Jones School Alumni, Faculty Honored in 2019 AIA Arkansas Awards Program

Timothy Hursley

The Lamplighter School Innovation Lab in Dallas, designed by Marlon Blackwell Architects, received a 2019 AIA Arkansas Honor Award.

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

Design awards and other awards were given during the 2019 AIA Arkansas State Convention banquet, held Oct. 18 in Little Rock. Projects by Fay Jones School faculty and alumni won five Honor Awards and one Merit Award given in the Design Awards program — plus the People's Choice Award. This year, 47 design entries were submitted by member firms, and the jury selected the winners from 10 finalists.

In addition, John Allison, (B.Arch. '71) founding principal of Allison Moses Redden (now AMR Architects) in Little Rock and Allison Architects (now Allison + Partners) in Little Rock, received the E. Fay Jones Gold Medal Award; Brandon Ruhl, (B.Arch. '12) designer and project architect with Taggart in Little Rock, was named the 2019 Emerging Professional; and the Alex Foundation received the Diversity Award.

The design Honor Awards were given for the Jacksonport State Park Visitor Center in Jacksonport, designed by Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects; the Lamplighter School Innovation Lab in Dallas, Texas, designed by Marlon Blackwell Architects; the Library Annex in Fayetteville, designed by Miller Boskus Lack; the Rayonier Headquarters in Wildlight, Florida, designed by Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects; and the Evans Tree House at Garvan Woodland Gardens in Hot Springs, designed by Modus Studio.

The Jacksonport State Park Visitor Center creates a stage to experience and engage both river and town, past and present. The center creates three distinct, second-level exhibit experiences: the river gallery overlooking the port, the town gallery overlooking the park and courthouse, and the inner exhibit gallery sheltering light-sensitive displays. This project also received the People's Choice Award, which was voted on by the public.

The project team included Reese Rowland (B.Arch.'90), FAIA, Amanda Sturgell (B.Arch. '09) and Joe Stanley (B.Arch. '69).

The roughly 10,000-square-foot Innovation Lab is an expression of the educational values and vision of the Lamplighter School, which suggest a holistic approach to design, systems and learning with a relationship to the natural environment. The dynamic form encloses light-filled, open interiors that compress and expand under the pitch and roll of the roof to accommodate varying classroom volumes and programs for the pre-kindergarten through fourth grade student population.

The project team included Marlon Blackwell, FAIA, Meryati Johari Blackwell, Bradford Payne, Spencer Curtis (B.Arch. '14), Stephen Reyenga (B.Arch. '13), Cydney Jaggers (B.Arch. '10), Stephen Kesel, Kertis Weatherby and Jonathan Boelkins (B.Arch. '04). Blackwell is a Distinguished Professor and the E. Fay Jones Chair in Architecture in the Fay Jones School.

The Library Annex - made with cross-laminated timber panels for roofs, walls and floors and glulam timbers for moment frames, columns and beams - was designed to house 1.8 million volumes of circulating and special collection library material, as well as works of art for the University of Arkansas Libraries. The enormity of this collection and the shelving units containing it are embraced with the warmth of wood, providing a natural backdrop and a humanizing scale to this otherwise massively repetitive space.

The project team included Roger Boskus (B.Arch. '93) and Mark Bradley.

The design for Rayonier Headquarters enhances the company's "One Rayonier" philosophy and incorporates the company's focus on community, with the lobby acting as a community theater for the public. The theme of community is manifested in the arrangement of freestanding, constituent communal forms within the building under a big shed, all naturally lit by clerestories.

The project team included Wendell Kinzler (B.Arch. '05), Dian Bartlett, Reese Rowland (B.Arch. '90), David Porter (B.Arch. '82) and David Rogers (B.Arch. '91).

The Evans Tree House at Garvan Woodland Gardens uses a rich visual and tactile environment to stimulate the mind and body to strengthen connections back to the natural world, while accommodating the needs of all users. The 113 ribs comprising the thermalized Arkansas-sourced southern yellow pine screen creates a semi-transparent and evocative form dynamically shrouding multiple levels of spaces for children and adults alike that refocus attention to the natural wonders of the forest canopy.

The project team included Chris Baribeau (B.Arch. '03), Josh Siebert (B.Arch. '02), Suzana Annable (B.Arch. '12), Scott Penman, Philip Rusk (B.Arch. '14), Jody Verser (B.Arch. '10) and Jason Wright (B.Arch. '04).

The design Merit Awards were given to 8th Street Market in Bentonville, designed by Hufft, and Vault in Fayetteville, designed by Modus Studio.

Crafted in a raw yet warm palette of concrete, wood, steel and leather, Vault is a straightforward bar concept, drawing basic inspiration from the idea of distillation. The former bank vault demanded a genuine interaction between the visitor's eye, hand and palette, with carefully detailed and fabricated tactile materials such as black oak slab tables, a charred white oak wood wall and leather wrapped over steel for the bar itself.

The project team included Chris Baribeau (B.Arch. '03), Kiara Luers (B.Arch. '16) and Jason Wright (B.Arch. '04).

The Members' Choice Award, which is voted on by attendees of the AIA Arkansas convention, was given to ArcBest Corporate Headquarters in Fort Smith, designed by Cromwell Architects Engineers, Inc.

John Allison, AIA, LEED AP, received the E. Fay Jones Gold Medal Award, the highest award AIA Arkansas can bestow. The award recognizes an architect who has demonstrated excellence through artistic vision and design, leadership and service to the state and chapter, and who is held in high regard by the profession and community at large.

In the early 1980s, Allison cofounded Allison Moses Redden (now AMR), a multidiscipline firm that helped develop the River Market district. Early in his career, he became involved in AlA, and in 1987 was awarded the Dick Savage Memorial Award "in recognition of notable contribution to the Chapter and significant service to the profession." In 1996, he founded Allison Architects, now Allison + Partners, and served as president of AIA Arkansas in 1997. He became a member, and then president, of the Professional Advisory Board for the School of Architecture, now the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, from 1998 through 2001. Dedicated to sustainable design, Allison earned the LEED Accredited Professional designation in 2010. In the 22 years at Allison + Partners, Allison and his firm consistently received awards for design excellence on both state and regional levels. Most recently, Allison + Partners received the 2017 AIA Gulf States Region Award for Faulkner Performing Arts Center at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Allison, who retired in 2017, is now a full-time painter.

Brandon Ruhl, AIA, LEED AP, was honored as the Emerging Professional for AIA Arkansas. The award is intended to recognize a new professional, practicing for 10 years or less, who has expanded the role of the architect through civic participation and professional mentorship.

After graduating high school in 2001, Brandon wasn't sure which career path he wanted to pursue. He spent the next year at the University of Central Arkansas and then three years of working full-time while taking night classes at NorthWest Arkansas Community College. He was accepted into the architecture program at the University of Arkansas in 2005. After his third year, he decided to marry his high school sweetheart and start a family, and he worked for two years as an intern architect for Lewis Architects in Little Rock. In 2010, he continued to pursue his degree at the university, attending studio during the week and returning home to Conway on the weekends to be with his family. He interned for Taggart during the summers and every holiday break for the next two years until he graduated in 2012. Ruhl volunteers his time to his community through his work with the AIA and civic organizations. He is a leader in his firm, mentoring young designers while working on several multi-million dollar design and construction projects.

The Alex Foundation, led by executive director Angela Courtney, won the Diversity Award. This is a new recognition designed to celebrate an individual, public agency, organization or company for exemplary commitment and contributions to inclusiveness of the architectural profession and education in Arkansas.

Courtney and her mother established the organization in 2010 in memory of Courtney's son Alex, who was an architecture student. Under Courtney's leadership, the Alex Foundation's STE+AM (science, technology, engineering, architecture and math) program is offered to students in the Arkansas Delta and Central Arkansas regions throughout the year at no cost to the schools. The Alex Foundation collaborates with the Fay Jones School to provide middle school and high school students, many who would be first-time college-goers, with an on-campus summer design experience. The Alex Foundation donates and delivers books, including books on the built environment donated by Heifer International, to low-income communities, transitional housing shelters, nonprofit organizations and public schools. The foundation supports National Architecture Week and engages architects in reading books during this observance. To date, the Alex Foundation has delivered more than 10,000 books to various organizations. Courtney has also taught children in the village of Walmer, South Africa, and donated books there. The Alex Foundation convenes an architecture and design summer camp in the Arkansas Delta, which offers and all-girls session and a co-ed session. The foundation is also a national American Institute of Architects 2019 Diversity Recognition Program Honoree for its architecture and design summer camp. This recognition celebrates architects and organizations actively committed to advancing equity, diversity and inclusion within the architecture profession.