Adohi Hall, University of Arkansas

Adohi Hall is a live-learn community for 700 students at the University of Arkansas, and the nation’s first large-scale (202,027 sf) mass timber building. This initiative is groundbreaking for the University and the State. A bold demonstration of sustainability, it also signifies potential economic development for Arkansas’ burgeoning timber industry. The complex demonstrates both a pioneering use of cross-laminated timber (CLT) and an innovative approach to live-learn communities, with embedded arts and academic spaces. The project met strict construction cost ($65.4 million) and aggressive schedule (12 months design/21 months construction) targets.

While the historic core of the University of Arkansas campus is located atop Fayetteville’s McIlroy Hill, the site for the new residence hall is remote from the center at the foot of the hill in the Athletic Valley. Located at the southern end of campus, the site slopes from north to south framing a new gateway to the campus.

Adohi Hall meets the challenge of creating a destination for a large new student community removed from the center of the campus. Conceived as a “cabin in the woods,” Adohi is a serpentine band of rooms framed in CLT clad in a light metal jacket of zinc-toned siding floating above landscaped courtyards evoking the ecology of Northwest Arkansas. A continuous path descends the length of the site, passing under the student rooms through a natural landscape of trees, lawns, terraces, and sitting steps.

Category:Affordable, Social, and Community Living HousingYear:2019Location:Fayetteville, Arkansas, USAArchitects:Leers Weinzapfel Associates, Modus Studio, and Mackey Mitchell ArchitectsDesign Team: Andrea Leers, Tom Chung, Ashley Rao, Kyle Wagner, and Chris BaribeauContractor:NabholzClient: Peter MacKeithPhotographer: Timothy Hursley