Kyle Kellams: This is Ozarks at Large. I’m Kyle Kellams. 2025 is ending on a grand note for architecture in Northwest Arkansas. The Architect’s Newspaper is recognizing the University of Arkansas Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation as its 2025 Project of the Year. The honor is the highest given by the publication.
The center is located on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard near the main campus and was designed by Dublin-based Grafton Architects in collaboration with Fayetteville-based Modus Studio. Yesterday, we asked Jason Wright, principal at Modus Studio, about some of the defining aspects of the center.
Jason Wright: It’s championing timber, and that’s a good thing for our state specifically. It’s also really turning the University of Arkansas Fay Jones School of Architecture into the flagship university research component for mass timber, I believe. So the stars aligning. It’s good for the state. It’s good for the university. It’s good for our region. Everything kind of came together.
It’s linking architecture with state industry. It’s linking it with education in general. So a lot of stars aligning.
Kyle Kellams: It’s been open now for a few months. What was the whole process like for you, the team and your collaborators to make this happen?
Jason Wright: Collaborators, that’s a good one, because it was a collaborative endeavor. A lot of personalities involved, a lot of professionals. Everybody sort of poured their heart and soul into this.
I think for us personally, us being Modus and our friends Grafton, working on a school of architecture really hits close to home. We worked with professors that were our professors when we were in school. So kind of being on the other side of the table was a very special moment.
We certainly didn’t want to let anybody down. There was a bit of pressure in that respect. Now you have to prove yourself to your former professors. We’re not talking about hypothetical projects anymore. It’s a real building that they’re going to occupy. And if they don’t like it, it’s on you.
But in general, the process was great. Working with a bunch of different firms that we’ve worked with before, and new personalities like Grafton that we had never worked with. It was a real pleasure.
Kyle Kellams: Now it’s actually a functioning building, classroom and studio. Have you been able to go back in the last few months since it’s officially been opened?
Jason Wright: Oh, yes. I’m there quite often. And it’s a good thing.
It’s neat to see how the School of Architecture has moved in and made it their own space. For so long, for almost five years, it was our project. It was our building. And then to see it be handed over to the actual occupants and to observe how they are using the space and comparing that back to, are they using it how we thought they were going to use it.
And it’s playing out pretty well. I’ve been over there a bunch of times. I hope to be over there even more in the coming semesters. We’ll see how things progress.
It’s one of those things where it’s in my hometown, so I have to drive by it. I can’t avoid it.
Kyle Kellams: Nothing like no pressure there either. Right. I’m going to see this every day.
Kyle Kellams: And finally, this is sort of the spirit of architecture. You see it coming together, it’s the space you were developing, and now it’s being taken over by others. It’s an interesting process to let this go.
Jason Wright: Yeah, exactly. It’s sort of analogous to raising a child and then they go off into the world and do their own thing, and you have to be OK with it.
However that child grows up and what job they decide to take, it’s analogous to how people are going to use the space, how they’re going to use the building. Is it in a way that you anticipated or approve of? And at the end of the day, none of that really matters. The only thing that matters is that it’s being used well and utilized to its best ability.
We’re in good hands passing it on to the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design. They’re an amazing client and amazing occupants of that space, and they’re really pushing the boundaries of what they can do there from a research perspective.
Kyle Kellams: And of course, there may be some students in there that in a decade or so are also participants in a Project of the Year.
Jason Wright: That’s right. And possible employees at Modus Studio. That’s the other good thing about it.
Kyle Kellams: Jason, happy holidays. Congratulations to you and your colleagues. Thanks for taking a few minutes to talk.
Jason Wright: I really appreciate you giving me a call. Thanks a lot. Happy holidays to you as well.
Kyle Kellams: Jason Wright, principal at Fayetteville-based Modus Studio, talked with us yesterday about The Architect’s Newspaper recognizing the University of Arkansas Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation as its 2025 Project of the Year. You can hear our story from the week the center opened this past summer by going here.
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