Selected from 69 submissions from 10 countries, six international firms were shortlisted for the design competition of the future Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation at the University of Arkansas.
Planned as an extension of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design and as a key part of the university’s Windgate Art and Design District, the research center will house the school’s emerging graduate program in timber and wood design. Moreover, it will include multiple timber and wood design initiatives and fabrication technologies laboratories.
Aiming to create a building of the highest quality that will showcase Arkansas’ forestry resources, build innovation for Arkansas wood products, and bring distinction to the university and the state, the project will have classrooms, studios, seminar spaces, conference areas, faculty offices and visiting faculty living quarters.
The six confirmed competition finalists are:
Dorte Mandrup A/S – Copenhagen, Denmark
Grafton Architects – Dublin, Ireland
Kennedy & Violich Architecture – Boston, Massachusetts
LEVER Architecture – Portland, Oregon
Shigeru Ban Architects – Tokyo/New York/Paris
WT/GO Architecture – New Haven, Connecticut
The resulting six finalists are a superb group that provides the university with the most diverse, experienced and creative talents in design intensity, reputation, leadership, knowledge, teaching capacity, material sensibilities and research methods. Both the process and the outcomes of the Anthony Timberlands Center project are intended to provide maximum educational value to our students, faculty and the larger communities of the university and state. -- Dean Peter MacKeith of the Fay Jones School.
A public exhibition of the submitted competition materials was open to the public as of Feb. 3 in Vol Walker Hall. The design on the project is scheduled to begin in summer 2020, with a construction start date of May 2021 and the project completion date of December 2022.
