University of Arkansas Adohi Hall (Residential, Living Learning)
Fayetteville, AR

The largest cross laminated timber (CLT) building in the United States and the first large-scale mass timber residence hall and living learning setting. Leers Weinzapfel led a design collaborative including Modus Studio (Fayetteville, AR), Mackey Mitchell Architects (St. Louis), and OLIN (Philadelphia), in the realization of this new campus gateway project. The 202,027-square-foot Adohi Hall creates a new residential college with emphasis on a creative live learn environment within a relaxed, informal, tree-lined landscape that re-conceptualizes university housing.

Located at the southern edge of the campus, the project comprises a vibrant new destination with retail dining, classrooms, maker-spaces, performance spaces, communal spaces, administrative offices, and faculty housing, along with a mix of semi-suites and pods totaling 708 beds, intended primarily for sophomore students.

A series of interconnected buildings arranged in a sinuous, serpentine configuration set in a forested landscape provides a variety of communal outdoor spaces that offer a sustainable way of re-imagining campus housing in contrast to traditional housing on the campus quad. Other important sustainability initiatives include a significant reduction of the project’s carbon footprint by incorporating advanced timber technologies, using Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) panels and glulam beams and columns for the buildings’ structure.

The project is part of a larger precinct Master Plan, also envisioned by Leers Weinzapfel, which looks at this entire southeastern boundary of the campus as a potential site for future housing, parking, and a network of pedestrian campus pathways to accommodate future growth of the university.