Brought to you by: Architect: HGALocation: Fayetteville, ArkansasCompletion Date: 2024The University of Arkansas is expanding its campus south into the surrounding college town of Fayetteville, Arkansas, to accommodate new programs and a growing student population. Along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, a block-sized development known as the Windgate Arts and Design District is taking shape, providing much-needed facilities for the school’s art department. This new academic district is anchored by the Windgate Studio + Design Center, a hub for university arts programs designed by HGA. The building’s boxy volumes are faced with white corrugated metal, a material selected for its cost, and resonance with the region’s vernacular architecture. Windgate Arts and Design District site plan (Courtesy HGA) Located just outside of the institution’s walkable main campus, the new satellite development is situated within a context of urban sprawl, creating a unique challenge for the project’s architects. The site’s across-the-street neighbors include a suburban-style strip mall, Walmart, and gas station. “When we were thinking about this new development, one of our goals—and that of the university planner—was to establish a new urban condition in this area,” Andrew Weyenberg, design principal at HGA, shared with AN. “We built right up to the lot line, creating a more dense condition at the edge of the property, while preserving the center of the site for landscaping.” The Windgate Studio + Design Center is the third project to complete on the city-block-sized lot, joining a sculpture studio, an adaptive reuse of an existing warehouse by El Dorado, as well as a library archive facility. Construction will begin soon on an art gallery designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects; and the Anthony Timberlands Center for Design + Materials Innovation, a mass timber structure conceived by the Dublin-based practice Grafton Architects, is nearing completion. The University of Arkansas hired a group of renowned architecture firms to design the new arts campus, including HGA, Grafton Architects, TWBTA, and El Dorado. (Kendall McCaugherty) While the surrounding buildings in the development serve a specific purpose (i.e sculpture, gallery space, etc.), HGA’s project is mixed programmatically, delivering new classroom and studio spaces to serve the art school’s printmaking, photography, painting, drawing, and ceramics departments. Previously, these disciplines were crowded within the school’s Fine Arts Center, a building designed by Fayetteville native and University of Arkansas alumnus Edward Durrell Stone. The Fine Arts Center is currently undergoing a renovation led by TenBerke. “As the [fine arts] programs grew, the university had to get creative about where they would house those departments,” added Weyenberg. “They ended up being really widely dispersed across campus within temporary spaces that lacked the resources they needed and with little connection to the other disciplines.” Students congregate on a bleacher stair in the building’s lobby. (Kendall McCaugherty) Windgate Studio + Design Center’s main entrance is at the corner of M.L.K Boulevard and Hill Avenue, leading to a double-height atrium space that features higher education’s ubiquitous bleacher staircase. Technically this entrance lands visitors on the second floor, as the building is positioned on an incline. Besides the lobby, the second floor contains administrative offices and the school’s graphics design program. HGA positioned ceramics facilities on the building’s partially subterranean first floor, which eases movement of the program’s heavy kilns and materials. Printmaking, photography, drawing, and painting studios are situated on the design center’s upper floors. Studio classrooms are located on the third and fourth floor of the building. (Kendall McCaugherty) HGA considered a plaster and concrete exterior for the building, but ultimately settled on corrugated metal panels. “We were looking for a material that was monolithic, reinforcing the sculptural nature of the building,” said Weyenberg. “The metal panel we found also added a kind of rhythm and texture to the building, fit the local skill set and the historic vernacular. There’s lots of metal panel industrial and agricultural buildings in Arkansas and, of course, lots of really great recent work by local architects exploring the material.” The metal paneling recalls industrial and agricultural buildings in Arkansas. (Kendall McCaugherty) By painting the panels white, the Windgate Studio + Design Center fits in with the previously built structures on the new campus—the library archives and sculpture studio—which feature a similar treatment. As a neutral color, the white finish also reflects the color of daylight, reflecting the hues of sunsets and sunrises across its surface. The building’s white exterior responds to daily changes in lighting conditions, creating a dynamic appearance. (Kendall McCaugherty) The Windgate Studio + Design Center and the surrounding architecture either planned or built for the larger arts district, reinforce the growing prominence of Arkansas’s unique architectural scene. It comes as no surprise that many of the state’s highest-profile institutional projects derive their funding from the Walton family, or other executives of the retail titan Walmart. The Windgate Arts and Design District is no different, as the Windgate Foundation, the development’s main donor, was established by a former vice president of the corporation. Project Specifications Architect: HGA Architect of Record: MAHG Architecture Landscape Architect: Wallace Design Collective Interior Design: HGA Structural Engineer: Myers-Beatty Engineering Electrical Engineer: HGA Civil Engineering: Development Consultant Lighting Design: HGA Telecommunications: HGA General Contractor: Clark Contractors Sustainability, Building Modeling: Entegrity Glazing Contractor: ACE Glass Metal Panel: Morin Glass: Vitro Windows: Kawneer Insulation: Knauf, Dow