Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, Pritzker Prize–winning co-founders of Grafton Architects in Dublin, Ireland, designed the new Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation, in collaboration with Modus Studio of Fayetteville.  They are the recipients of the 2020 Pritzker Architecture Prize, which is known internationally as architecture’s highest honor.

They will present a lecture at 2 p.m. Friday, Aug. 29, at the Anthony Timberlands Center in the University of Arkansas’ Art and Design District. The event is part of the fall lecture series of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design and will also coincide with dedication day activities for the Anthony Timberlands Center as the inaugural lecture at the center.  

In their lecture, “A Story of Timber,” Farrell and McNamara will discuss the journey of the Anthony Timberlands Center from concept to reality, highlighting the vital connection between making and thinking in architectural education. The talk also will emphasize the importance of trees as part of the beauty of the natural environment.  

In 2019, Grafton Architects was one of 69 design teams from 10 countries to submit proposals for this new Fay Jones School research facility. In their lecture, they also will trace the opportunities that this international architectural design competition has encouraged in their own work. 

In the competition documents, the architects were inspired by the written ambition, which told them that: “Arkansas’ identity is one of deep pragmatism that appreciates poetic beauty, and this balance is embedded in the vision for the Anthony Timberlands Center.” Inspired by this, they proposed that the new building could be a Story Book of Timber, where timber could be both the expressed structural bones and the enclosing skin; where a cascading roof with large, “canoe-like” rainwater gutters could enclose the large volume that was required for a ground-based fabrication shop; where an auditorium and studio spaces could relate to the main making area; where spaces and people would interact socially and educationally.

Together, the University of Arkansas and the state of Arkansas set the ground for this educational building, where timber construction has successfully combined traditional building methods with modern technology, encouraging creativity and invention while celebrating the craft of working with wood.

The Dublin-based firm has completed many significant and prestigious projects in various places around the globe, including projects in Milan, Lima, London and, most recently, Fayetteville, Arkansas. With each project, the architects work to reflect the character of the place while also creating new ways of expressing the purpose of the institution within its setting. The Anthony Timberlands Center is a clear example of this approach.

Grafton Architects has been the recipient of many awards and accolades.  Grafton Architects was named the 2020 recipient of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Royal Gold Medal, which is presented to a person or group of people who have had a significant influence “either directly or indirectly on the advancement of architecture.” Most recently, they received the 2022 Mies van der Rohe Award & 2021 RIBA Stirling Prize for their building for Kingston University in London. In 2017, the practice also received the inaugural RIBA international award for the University of Engineering and Technology building in Lima, Peru. Also in 2017, Grafton Architects was announced as winners of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello and the University of Virginia.

Both Farrell and McNamara are Fellows of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), International Honorary Fellows of RIBA and elected members of Aosdána, the eminent Irish art organization.  They also taught at the School of Architecture at University College Dublin from 1976 to 2002 and were appointed adjunct professors in 2015. 

They have also served as visiting professors the Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (2010-2011) and at the Accademia di Architettura in Medrisio, Switzerland (2008-2010), where they were named full professors in 2013. Additionally, they held the Kenzo Tange chair at  Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design in 2010 and the Louis Kahn chair at Yale University in 2011.

The school is pursuing continuing education credits for this lecture through the American Institute of Architects.

This lecture is free and open to the public. Seating is limited.