The development of the Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation is steadily progressing on campus, in line with a planned summer 2025 completion. The topping out of the building – an important construction milestone – will be held Sept. 17.
The wooden structure, which largely uses Arkansas timber, broke ground on the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and South Government Avenue in November 2023 as the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design’s newest addition to the Windgate Arts and Design District. The center joins the Studio and Design Center, which opened in 2023, alongside the School of Art Annex and Sculpture Building.
The Anthony Timberlands Center will function as the home for UA timber and wood project initiatives in the growing wood design program, as well as providing workspace for architecture students, Fay Jones Dean Peter MacKeith said.
The building’s four floors will hold around 300 students with a high-bay fabrication workshop, two levels of open workspace design studios, a lecture hall and an auditorium, MacKeith said. The top floor will also have an outdoor terrace.
The third floor of the research center looks out onto the Ozark Mountains. The building will be a part of the growing Windgate Arts and Design District on the UA campus for architecture and design students.
“I propose that this building is unique in its overall character,” MacKeith said. “And then in terms of its size and maybe even the sophistication of the equipment, we’ll have a degree of exception.”
MacKeith said the building itself will be a teaching tool, as professors will be able to point out the structural and woodworking methods used for the research center. One of the planned initiatives in the new center will be prototyping at-scale affordable housing for the region.
The 42,000-square-foot building was recognized as the overall winner of the 2023 AR Future Projects Award for its innovative use of wood in place of concrete. The first phase began in 2020 as an international competition, which ended with Dublin-based Grafton Architects spearheading the award-winning design alongside Fayetteville’s Modus Studio.
Nabholz Construction, which also headed up the building of Adohi Hall, is the contractor for the project. Nabholz project manager Jonathan Gilbert said this project feels like an art piece.
“This is a once-in-a-career job,” Gilbert said. “This is the most complex engineering timber job that’s been done, so people will get to see the capabilities of timber and what it can do.”
As the UA School of Art campus expands, MacKeith said the influx of students and staff to the district means they will be encouraging sustainable transportation, including biking as well as using the Razorback transit bus system, which will be increasing its frequency. The School of Art’s Justice, Equity, Access, Diversity and Inclusion Committee previously held a forum to discuss parking and accessibility concerns for the district because of the minimal parking offered.
“We’re building what’s arguably the most sustainable building on campus,” MacKeith said. “So for us to say, ‘You should drive and have a parking place right next door’ is not logical, (it’s) contradictory.”
Although it is a culture shift from what people may be used to, MacKeith said he hopes projects like this inspire better ways of building and less reliance on cars.
With its current trajectory, the Anthony Timberlands Center will be open to its first class of students in fall 2025, MacKeith said.
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