ReView Winter 2014/2015 Fay Jones School of Architecture University of Arkansas CONTENTS— 06 UACDC PIN UP 30 Letters from the Deans Rethinking Fourche Creek Students in Phoebe Lickwar’s spring 2014 Ethel Goodstein-Murphree studio class focused on a somewhat hidden Associate Dean but undeniable gem in the capital city. Peter MacKeith Dean NEWS 13 DEVELOPMENT NEWS Design by Landscape Architecture Students Selected 24 40 in Competition The latest work being produced at the Fay Devoted Donors Help Jones School of Architecture. Two third-year Honors College students Make Place of Wonder envisioned an icon for downtown Little Rock in ‘Silver Spire.’ Nothing evokes childhood and play like a day in the woods. At Garvan Woodland Gardens, 16 the generous support of donors is making that Studios Create Visions for experience more accessible. Arts-Focused District 32 Downtown Fayetteville has long served as an ALUMNI NEWS arts and entertainment hub for Northwest Designing Hope for Orphans Arkansas. Then, the Walton Arts Center appeared A project in Uganda captured the hearts and 42 on the scene more than two decades ago. minds of the 19 interior design students in Carl Matthews’ spring 2014 studio. FACULTY-STAFF 08 GARVAN WOODLAND NEWS Pavilion Directs Focus on GARDENS Bachman Wilson House PERSPECTIVE: 57 Santiago Perez led a group of students to design FEATURE STORY and build a pavilion to be sited at Crystal Bridges 28 Museum of American Art in Bentonville. 14 LECTURE NOTES Lighting Aids in Defining Studies of Nature It all started when Marlon Blackwell 62 Spaces taught a studio at Cornell University Architecture alumnus Richard Renfro in 2012 as a visiting professor. contributed to the lighting design for school’s recent building project. CALENDAR 63 12 20 LaTourette Wins Artist Mystic Topiary Creatures 34 Fellowship 15 Create Summer Display All Roads Lead to Arkansas This self-taught woodworker expands his Peter MacKeith brings creative experience Sixth Hnedak Bobo Design After receiving $40,000 in grant money for knowledge while teaching the craft to students. and deep passion for architecture and design ON THE COVER Competition Held an innovative summer project, Garvan education – filtered through a Finnish Interior design student Jessica Baker creates a Woodland Gardens dedicated several months Four projects from Mexico and Rome studios were perspective – to his new post as dean 9-by-9-foot kinetic body drawing in IDES 1044 honored, receiving $5,000 in total prizes. this spring to the construction of the ‘Mystic of the Fay Jones School. Studio 2, taught by Kim Furlong and Marie Creatures’ display. Gentry in spring 2014. ReView: Winter 2014/2015 Contents— 04 ReView: Winter 2014/2015 Contents— 05 LETTERS FROM THE DEANS— I, for one, always look forward to the annual appearance Join me in recognizing the good work of Associate of ReView, for its pages both celebrate and reflect upon the Dean and Professor Ethel Goodstein-Murphree, who served achievements of so many members of the Fay Jones School energetically and with great wisdom last year as interim community. Each volume reveals an ever-evolving legacy built dean. You will know firsthand the character and effect of upon excellence in creative practice, research and teaching, her leadership, during a dynamic period of transitional blended with scholarship, and stewardship of the made activity for the Fay Jones School. I am immensely grateful to and natural environments. So too, our journal chronicles Ethel for her work, but moreover for her spirit of generosity enduring cycles of continuity and change, both of which are and goodwill as we have begun to collaborate in transition essential ingredients in all aspects of design education. And, an during the last six months. She has done much to evoke for extraordinary year of negotiating our school’s history with its me the ethos of this community. As Ethel resumes her role ambitions for the future it has been! as associate dean, please take time to give her your thanks. We dedicated our long-awaited Steven L. Anderson Design As I arrived last summer, the parent of an incoming Center while rededicating our venerated Vol Walker Hall. The student asked me about a “vision” for the school. My reply promises of our new and renewed facilities, where our three then may be of value to you now: “There is much that is departments finally united under one roof, were fulfilled ‘bred in the bone’ of the school that is good and ongoing; I time and time again as collaborative teaching and research believe firmly in the idea of a school’s ‘DNA’ – its history and flourished, including a fully revisioned first-year curriculum its fundamentals – and these qualities or characteristics are that collectively engages students in all of the design what compelled my application to the Fay Jones Deanship disciplines. With our building as a backdrop of best practices in the first place.” The Fay Jones School is an education in preservation and contemporary design, the Department of for the hand, heart and head – for qualities of craft and Architecture hosted its cyclic National Architectural Accrediting technique, empathy and passion, and intelligence and Board visit, earning a full eight-year term of accreditation. insight. It remains animated by energetic students and a While the professional press debated diversity in the design dedicated faculty and staff – a faculty fervently committed professions, the Fay Jones School took particular pride in the 53 to the teaching and learning mission and fully invested in percent of our students who are women. the studios and classrooms. Its history of design excellence In the spirit of underscoring the new identity that came and design leadership is evidenced by both past and present with our new building, we scrutinized our brand. The equally academic leaders, faculty and alumni. The vision will build new look of ReView is tangible evidence of that renaissance, and upon that platform of excellence in architectural education. the trajectory of excellence and national recognition to which Our school’s vision – and its authentic qualities – will be we aspire in all that we do. Most important, however, in July we our mutual project. I hope you’ll sense my enthusiasm and welcomed a new dean, Peter MacKeith, who was drawn to our my anticipation for my work as dean, and I’ll enjoy hearing school for its compelling legacy, but refreshes our perspective from you and working with you. I look forward to coming with his own vision, expertise and passion for what has been to know you, by name and by story, and to constructing and what can be possible in the realm of design. Please join me together a renewed Fay Jones School. in welcoming Peter and working well with him for many years to come. With thanks and best wishes, With kindest regards, Peter MacKeith, dean, Fay Jones School of Architecture Ethel Goodstein-Murphree, associate dean, Fay Jones School of Architecture ReView: Winter 2014/2015 Associate Dean— 06 ReView: Winter 2014/2015 Dean— 07 NEWS— Over the course of just one semester, Santiago Perez led a group of students to design and begin building a pavilion to be sited at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville. This structure will allow museum visitors to view the By the end of the semester, following just 15 weeks reconstruction of the Bachman Wilson House, a 1954 Frank of designing, modeling and redesigning, a full-scale, rough Lloyd Wright design acquired in 2013 by the museum. mockup of a single bay of the pavilion stood in the warehouse. Perez, assistant professor of architecture and the The actual bays, when pieced together, would form a solid school’s 21st Century Chair, and Marlon Blackwell, head vertical wall that connected with translucent panels covering of the architecture department, proposed the idea for the the arched ceiling and opposite wall. pavilion. Perez made the pavilion the sole focus of his spring The materials for the pavilion required careful 2014 design/build studio, so that students could get hands- consideration as well, as the pavilion would have to be on experience designing for a structure that would be used constructed in a matter of weeks. The pavilion is made from Pavilion and experienced by the public. wood, glass, steel, and polycarbonate panels, which are used The students came up with several individual ideas at for the translucent wall that reveals a pattern. Right up to the beginning of the semester, and then they broke into the end of the spring semester, designers were still finalizing three groups. Each group then some of the technical details, such presented several pavilion designs as how the steel and wood would to Crystal Bridges officials at be layered and which of the two Directs Focus the museum in early February. would be visible from the exterior, “There were really good ideas in as well as the exact opacity of the those schemes,” Perez said. “But polycarbonate wall. there was always something that Perez’s students continued to needed further development.” face challenges even after Crystal The challenge was that they Bridges officials approved his were trying to fit every phase design. For one, they had to make on Bachman of a typical project into a single sure the design would respond to semester, he said. Usually, Perez the landscape where the pavilion starts working with a client would be built. Although Crystal prior to the fall semester. Then, Bridges officials approved of during the fall, his students pitch the design in early May, they designs, and they select a design requested that the slightly curved for development by the end of structure be reversed so that the This is a close-up view of an early version of the pavilion model.