Arkansas AIA Announces Chapter, Design Award Winners

Randy Palculict 

The Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects recently announced the recipients of its annual chapter and design awards. 

Randy Palculict of Jackson Brown Palculict Architects received the Dick Savage Memorial Award. This award recognizes a member of the Arkansas chapter who has made notable, significant contributions to AIA Arkansas and the profession.

Carl Smith, a professor of landscape architecture at the Fay Jones School of Architecture & Design at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, received the Award of Merit. This award recognizes an individual, public official, member of any allied profession, public agency or company that has contributed to the dignity and value of the architectural profession.

Adam Day, a partner at AMR Architects, was awarded the Emerging Professional Award. This award recognizes a new professional who has expanded the role of the architect through civic participation and professional mentorship, thereby representing the goals of AIA to a larger audience.

The design award winners were:

• Marlon Blackwell Architects and Hill+Wilkinson were honored for the Lamplighter School Barn in Dallas. The Arkansas AIA said this pre-kindergarten through fourth grade campus, initially designed by O’Neil Ford in the late 1960s, has a rich architectural heritage, open learning spaces, a close relationship with nature and a “village” composition. The chapter said the architecture reflects the school’s teaching and learning styles and is complemented by the additions Frank Welch designed for the campus in the 1980s and 1990s.

• Marlon Blackwell Architects was again honored, this time with Milestone Construction Co. for the Thaden School Reels Building in Bentonville.

• Modus Studio and Nabholz were recognized for work finished on the University of Arkansas’ Adohi Hall in Fayetteville. The Arkansas AIA said Adohi Hall, a 202,027-SF, 708-bed sustainable residence hall and living-learning community, is the nation’s first large-scale mass timber project of its kind. The chapter also said the project provides a new university gateway that marks the start of a larger living-learning district; an emphasis on nature resonates throughout the project; and, connected by a ground-level passage, a serpentine band of student rooms defines three distinctive courtyard spaces that create a dynamic environment for interactive learning in architecture, design and the arts.

• Nabholz also shared its Merit Award with Polk Stanley Wilcox  for work done on the Miller Creative Quad at Hendrix College in Conway. The Arkansas AIA said the quad is a mixed-use building that integrates student housing with music, theater and gallery space. The chapter also said the building is designed to reimagine student housing, to create visual and physical connections to art, to draw activity through the site, to maximize the outdoors, to celebrate the creative process, and to create a building that allows students “to dwell with the arts.”