The University of Arkansas Community Design Center uses a variety of housing and landscaping typologies to ameliorate ecological damage from timber harvesting and to address ecological and social vulnerabilities in new neighborhood developments. .

Arkansas, USA

The University of Arkansas Community Design Center planned “A Rural Timberlands Neighborhood” for Hopson Real Estate Holding LLC in rural southwest Arkansas.

This neighborhood employs resilient design to mitigate the social and ecological disturbance regimes (housing shortages, wildfires, erosion) that build its context.

This neighborhood proposal combines remediation of ecological damage from timber harvesting through clearcutting with urbanization to address chronic stressors associated with ecological and social vulnerability.

A Rural Timberlands Neighborhood received the 2022 Green GOOD DESIGN Sustainability Award from The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Center for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

The region’s rural economy is driven by low-margin industries, including resource extraction and commodity-based industries such as timber.

Forests make up 56% of Arkansas, making the state the third-largest timber-dependent economy in the United States.

Last year alone, 44,000 wildfires consumed more than 5 million acres (the size of New Jersey) in the United States, and the cycle is accelerating due to unpredictable weather patterns associated with climate change.

Located in the small community of Rothston with a population of just 400, this mixed-use precinct will be a new town center and housing to serve “housing-short” community workers who lack adequate housing and neighborhood services. offers.

Comprehensive neighborhood design provides coverage for all income groups through cross-sections of landscape forms and housing typologies (bungalow courts, pocket districts, alley attached homes, duplexes, live work units in squares, large pastures). meet your needs. House.

The 64-unit neighborhood on 27 acres offers both a village-like environment for high-density communal residents and a meadow cluster for those seeking an open, rural setting.

Neighborhoods counteract the entropy (homogeneity) of the compartment and the inability to develop a higher order of social and ecological complexity.

Housing is therefore a ladder where one market type solution becomes a platform for other types of solutions.

The Timberlands neighborhood has three planning principles to address the region’s lack of resilience.

1. Cluster mixed-income residential landscapes to accommodate diverse lifestyles in one location, overcoming unhealthy demographic classifications by zip code. Sharing the street armature connects urbanized housing pockets with ruralized configurations surrounded by meadows. Live work units around the town square facing the national highway provide swing space for commercial services according to market cycle demand.

2. Implement the Firewise™ planning concept to reduce the risk of catastrophic losses from wildfires, which are more frequent in forested areas during drought. Mixed-species new tree stands frame neighborhood spaces (common streets, lakes, forest block clusters) to mitigate the heat island effect while providing the necessary isolation of the canopy to prevent fire spread.

3. Develop neighborhood ecosystems that provide the 17 ecosystem services found in all healthy ecosystems. Services such as disturbance control (flood, wildfire, erosion control), water treatment, soil regulation, pollination, and nutrient cycling (e.g. septic tanks) can be added to the infrastructure that provides traditional urban services (land use, transport, utilities, housing). bring added value. ).

Pastures quickly restore soil health and basic hydrological functions after timber harvest.

Stormwater runoff from impermeable surfaces such as streets and roofs is managed through a network of biological wetlands, recharge meadows, seepage ponds, rain gardens and tree box filters.

Green streets and alleys provide ecosystem services and create a safe social environment for providing non-transportation services.

Through a holistic approach, resilient (“unbreakable”) design rewires complex systems (neighborhoods, cities, forests, etc.) to grow stronger.

Project: Rural Timberland Neighborhood
Architect: University of Arkansas Community Design Center
Client: Hopson Real Estate Holdings LLC
Image courtesy of the architect