2019 Best of Design Award for Unbuilt – Cultural: Arkansas Arts Center
Designer: Studio Gang
Location: Little Rock, Arkansas
Creating a vibrant space for social interaction, education, and appreciation for the arts, Studio Gang’s design for the Arkansas Arts Center (AAC) transforms this premier cultural institution into a signature civic asset. Working from the inside out, the design—which includes both new construction and renovations—clarifies the organization of the building’s interior while also extending the AAC’s presence into historic MacArthur Park, opening the center to the city of Little Rock and beckoning the public within.
Conceived as a stem that blossoms to the north and south and anchored by major new visitor amenities, the design mediates between the center’s existing architecture to define a new public gallery and gathering space that provides an unprecedented axis of connectivity linking the AAC’s disparate programs.
Client: Arkansas Arts Center
Associate Architect: Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects
Landscape Architect: SCAPE Landscape Architects
Structural Engineer: Thornton Tomasetti
Honorable Mentions
Project Name: Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation at the American Museum of Natural History
Designer: Studio Gang
Project Name: Terminal B Performance Venue
Designer: Touloukian Touloukian
Editors’ Pick
Project Name: SynaCondo
Designer: Studio ST Architects