{"id":276839,"date":"2025-11-07T07:50:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T07:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/276839\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T07:50:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T07:50:17","slug":"grafton-architects-completes-the-anthony-timberlands-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/276839\/","title":{"rendered":"Grafton Architects completes the Anthony Timberlands Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you want to look into the heart of contemporary architecture today, you are going to need a REAL ID. You will have to pack your bags and find your way to Northwest Arkansas<\/a>, a wrinkled, rugged stretch of land. The trip is not convenient, but you will have a good time. This is Razorback country, a region that has exploded with growth thanks to the success of its hometown corporation, which keeps the rest of the country running: 90 percent of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart<\/a>. History here is still being written, with an expanding art museum and a new medical school, plus highways under construction, open gashes where rusty soil shouts against emerald fields.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s here, in Fayetteville<\/a>, along a busy arterial street opposite a Walmart, where the Anthony Timberlands Center (ATC), a new building for the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas designed by Grafton Architects<\/a> with modus studio<\/a>, has risen like a roadside attraction or a wayside shrine<\/a>. Those who visit and look closely may come away with a sense of a powerful\u2014and benevolent\u2014contemporary sensibility for how to make architecture.<\/p>\n

\"exteriorAlthough the 4-story building is two stories less than its proposed design, the ATC retains the spiky sectional play that is the core of its formal thesis. (\u00a9 Tim Hursley)<\/p>\n

From the start, the directive for the building was that the ATC ought to be a \u201cstorybook of timber\u201d to celebrate Arkansas\u2019s forests and forest products. A prominent competition led to the selection of the Dublin, Ireland\u2013based Grafton Architects, headed by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, in February 2020. A week later, they won the Pritzker Prize. The next month, the COVID-19 pandemic landed. The project proceeded, with some shrinkage: Originally proposed to be 6 stories, it is 4 stories tall but retains the spiky sectional play that is the core of its formal thesis. After interviewing the architects in 2022<\/a>, I followed its progress with anticipation. When I visited for the opening at the end of August, the semester was already underway, with sketches on chalkboards and lumber piling up.<\/p>\n

\"glassThe 42,000-square-foot building\u2019s flattened north elevation holds the street edge along a sloping site. The mullions change in depth to add additional relief to the facade. (\u00a9 Tim Hursley)
\nTimber on Top<\/p>\n

The building\u2019s sawtooth profile tops two programmatic zones: A stack of classrooms, studios, and seminar and conference spaces sit atop a double-height, 11,000-square-foot floor that houses a fabrication and design-build shop. The upper studio floors have windows that overlook the shop, and passersby on the street can peer down into it, a move that centralizes 1:1 construction as a key part of the school\u2019s pedagogy.<\/p>\n

\"buildingFrom the street the building is rather eye-catching. (\u00a9 Tim Hursley)<\/p>\n

The ATC, funded by a naming gift from the state\u2019s largest privately owned timberlands and wood products company, is part of the growth of the University of Arkansas. When Dean Peter MacKeith arrived in 2014 and embarked on this building project in 2016, the Fay Jones School had 425 students. Today, enrollment numbers around 1,100. The main university campus is largely built out, which spurred the creation of the Windgate Art and Design District, a satellite area that houses art and design programs. The ATC is one of three buildings on here that will support art and design: HGA\u2019s Windgate Studio + Design Center is on the other end of the block, and in between, a university art gallery designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects is under construction. Anthony\u2019s Way, a parklet designed by Ground Control, offers a landscaped buffer between the ATC and its neighbor. While this trio of new buildings is a 20-minute walk from the main university campus, it\u2019s also adjacent to Fayetteville\u2019s Cultural Arts Corridor, bridging the university with the burgeoning local art scene.<\/p>\n

\"\"The ATC is one of three buildings on a new block of University of Arkansas art and design buildings. (\u00a9 Tim Hursley)<\/p>\n

The ATC is more intimate in person than you might expect from the photographs. At 42,000 square feet, it\u2019s smaller than some of the country\u2019s largest homes<\/a>. (But its cost, $43 million, gives it a price tag of about $1,024 dollars per square foot.) Its flattened north elevation holds the street edge along a sloping site: One enters on the second floor, with the shop largely below grade, but on the opposite side of the shop level, a second entrance opens up with a large hangar door for easy load-in and access. The main entry is custom fabricated by local artisan Rachel McClintock<\/a>, with a cast-metal door handle from Juhani Pallasmaa. Farrell is pleased with the frontage\u2019s presence; she told me she thinks it \u201csits proudly, and not in an arrogant way. It says, \u2018We\u2019re a university timber building: Come all ye and have a look.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JuhaniJuhani Pallasmaa made a cast-metal door handle for the building. (\u00a9 Tim Hursley)<\/p>\n

As foretold, the ATC is an advertisement for the possibilities of timber<\/a> construction. Its massive structure\u2014made from spruce, pine, and fir fabricated by Binderholz in Austria\u2014is unavoidably present, and satisfyingly stocky. The eight columns that hold everything up are about 4 feet square and solid. The frames are pleasingly dotted with wooden plugs that conceal the bolted connections between pieces. The experience peaks when one is looking across through the upper areas, where the members of the queen post truss branch out to grab the roof. Above, the building is enclosed with domestic CLT panels from Mercer Mass Timber in Conway, Arkansas. The wood idea continues in the wall finishes and stairwells; even the glass guardrails are topped with cherry caps.<\/p>\n

\"interiorThe craggy profile of the building has been compared to the hilly topography of the surrounding Ozark Plateau. (\u00a9 Tim Hursley)<\/p>\n

Outside, the taller zone is lined in a thermally treated southern yellow pine, in part as a response to a building-code requirement for noncombustible cladding above 40 feet, modus studio\u2019s Jason Wright explained. A lattice of western red cedar lines the longer, lower elevations, spanning over windows, and a silver metal panel similar to the roof is used above. The top floor has covered porches on both ends, which open to views of the Ouachita Mountains, and the east elevation has the nicest exterior fire stair I\u2019ve seen in years. The adventurous expression refutes the typical norms of wood construction; McNamara said she didn\u2019t think they could construct a building like this in Ireland, the U.K., or France because of the exterior cladding.<\/p>\n

\"fireA portion of the building was cut away, revealing a nicely designed exterior fire stair. (\u00a9 Tim Hursley)
\nA Place in the Making<\/p>\n

The didactic structure is a fusion of the school\u2019s messaging\u2014both for its philosophy of hands-on making and the public university\u2019s goal of supporting Arkansas\u2019s economy\u2014and the interests of Grafton Architects. In this, the architects\u2019 first built work in the United States and the first to use mass timber, visitors can see a clear dedication to structural expression, as well as an appreciation of light and rhythm, which is nestled throughout the spaces within. Across their career together, McNamara said, the duo has been \u201ccombating the effect of mass production, because it very often takes the life out of the material.\u201d Here, she\u2019s delighted that the finished building feels like a \u201cbig chunk of timber.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"timberThe interior\u2019s timber frames are pleasingly dotted with wooden plugs that conceal the bolted connections between pieces. (\u00a9 Tim Hursley)<\/p>\n

This formal interest is balanced by the firm\u2019s empathetic, relational approach. For being world-class architects, McNamara and Farrell, along with their directors and project architects, are remarkably personable. They keep their atelier small\u201438 people, with 37 architects, McNamara told me\u2014so that they can maintain personal connections to each project. And they have a keen interest in a wide range of cultural topics. They began their opening lecture with mention of the first architecture competition\u2014in Greece in 448 BC, for a monument to commemorate a war victory\u2014and continued on to discuss the Ogham stones, ancient rocks inscribed with the earliest forms of the Irish language.<\/p>\n

As the school settles in over the semester, Farrell said, \u201cwe hope the students love it and make interesting things here.\u201d The interior has exposed (but expertly coordinated) mechanical and electrical systems, which help it feel like an unfinished warehouse where emerging designers can make a mess in an unselfconscious manner, particularly in the shop, which is well equipped and spanned by a linear gantry crane.<\/p>\n

\"interiorThe shop is well equipped and spanned by a linear gantry crane. (\u00a9 Tim Hursley)
\n\"\"A second entrance into the shop opens up with a large hangar door for easy load-in and access. (\u00a9 Tim Hursley)<\/p>\n

Upstairs after the building\u2019s dedication, I spoke with Trey Melton, a fifth-year undergraduate architecture major who had landed a corner desk. He praised the lighting before directing my attention to the tables, which were designed and made by the students. Despite the day\u2019s festivities, he was already at work on an assignment in John Folan\u2019s studio, which is researching the use of WLT, or wave-layered timber, a Finnish product<\/a> that combines ruffled wood pieces without using glue. (Folan\u2019s work through the Urban Design Build Studio with the technology is its first licensed use in the U.S.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

A Cornucopia of References<\/p>\n

If Frank Gehry\u2019s work owes a debt to fish, then Grafton\u2019s nods to dinosaurs, though more to the creatures\u2019 reassembled skeletons than their CGI-animated reproductions.The ATC is rich enough in form and idea to handle any referential projection. It has a Roman quality, as Oliver Wainwright noted<\/a>. Early inspiration also came in part from the framing of historic Ozark barns. Robert McCarter, in an essay prepared for the opening, compared its two-part arrangement to a train hall paired with a train shed.<\/p>\n

After a previous interview<\/a> with the firm, I wrote that it looked like Giovanni Michelucci\u2019s San Giovanni Battista or Theo Jansen\u2019s strandbeests, but in person it is something like a billboard building. Wright said the profile was an \u201cOzark cross section\u201d endemic of the Ozark Plateau, a region where, as historian Brooks Blevins describes it, \u201cour hills aren\u2019t high, but our hollers sure are deep.\u201d Farrell also alluded to Fay Jones\u2019s own work with wood like at Thorncrown Chapel, but perhaps the Arkansas architect\u2019s own home<\/a>, located near the campus, is a better analogy. It was built in 1956 with the idea of \u201cthe cave and the tree house,\u201d as faculty member Gregory Herman explained during a tour of the residence, which the university now owns and maintains. At the ATC, the shop is the cave, and the studios are the tree house.<\/p>\n

\"woodIntentionally exposed mechanical and electrical systems lend the building with an unfinished feel, encouraging the school\u2019s emerging designers to make the space their own. The entrance area contains an foyer and a stair. (\u00a9 Tim Hursley)<\/p>\n

How sustainable is the ATC really? While the classroom floors are conditioned, the shop is heated but not cooled. Instead, the tall, enclosed area is topped with equipment to pull air up and out of the building. Plus the canoe-like beams shed water into bioswales for reuse. While there was carbon modeling, Wright said that in the end the math \u201cdoesn\u2019t matter\u201d because the building speaks for itself. (The project is targeting LEED Gold certification.) The more enduring point is the political message about the state economy, which overshadows metrics. ATC summons a lesson played out everywhere: The most sustainable building is the one that is beloved by its community.<\/p>\n

Shaping the Future of Architecture Education<\/p>\n

The ATC is cause for collective pride. Here is a building that you should go see on your own dime. Here is a building that demonstrates what is possible with timber construction. Here is a building that stands to make an impact on generations of students. Here is a building that will turn drivers\u2019 eyes as they careen down MLK Jr. Boulevard and distract Great Value\u2013laden shoppers exiting Walmart.<\/p>\n

\"woodThe love of wood continues in the stairwell\u2019s finishes. (\u00a9 Tim Hursley)<\/p>\n

In a town whose name was lifted from Fayetteville, Tennessee<\/a>, and for an institution whose first building, Old Main, was copied from the University of Illinois<\/a>, Grafton Architects has delivered a remarkably original masterpiece, heroic and ordinary at once. Still, the founding spirit remains similar. Like the ATC, Old Main, the university\u2019s oldest building, was built of local materials, including \u201cwood milled from Ozark forests<\/a>.\u201d Both were dedicated on hot days in August, though with Old Main it was in 1875, 150 years ago. None of us will be here 150 years from now, but the ATC will be. Who knows what activities it will host then. Vita brevis, architectura longa.<\/p>\n

\"sectionA section of the ATC building showcases the suspension of the classroom levels via a truss above the shop floor. The two canoe-like beams collect water like large scuppers. (Courtesy Grafton Architects)<\/p>\n

Given its elephantine nature, architecture as a discipline is profoundly mismatched with the unhealthy speed of today\u2019s brain-rotted cultural discourse. This slowness gives it the ability to resist and serve as a refuge. \u201cArchitecture is a silent language that speaks,\u201d Farrell intoned during her opening lecture with McNamara. Also: \u201cArchitecture is an act of hope and belief.\u201d This aligns with the optimism embedded in higher education, despite current attacks, as a venue where the wisdom of experience transfers to ambitious youth who will make tomorrow better than today. That\u2019s the goal, at least. As Farrell said, \u201cEducation is the biggest gift you can give to the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Project Specifications<\/p>\n

This text contains homages to Herbert Muschamp\u2019s review of Frank Gehry\u2019s Guggenheim Bilbao<\/a> which was published in The New York Times on September 7, 1997.<\/p>\n

A version of this story was published in the October\/November 2025 print issue of The Architect\u2019s Newspaper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you want to look into the heart of contemporary architecture today, you are going to need a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-276839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}