The Stadium Drive Residence Halls, a 202,027-square-foot, 708-bed facility at the University of Arkansas, is the nation’s first large-scale mass timber residence hall project and living learning setting. A design collaborative led by Leers Weinzapfel Associates (Boston), Modus Studio (Fayetteville, Ark.), Mackey Mitchell Architects (St. Louis), and OLIN (Philadelphia), created the project, now under construction. Crafted with a palette of timber, glass, and metal, it is a bold demonstration of sustainability that signifies a path to potential economic development for Arkansas’s burgeoning timber industry.
While most of the university’s campus is located atop Fayetteville’s McIlroy Hill, the new residence halls occupy a prominent place at its base on the southern end of campus, marking the start of a larger living learning district. The project’s linear 4-acre site slopes from north to south. Set within this relatively small space, a housing group with a serpentine band of student rooms defines three protected and distinctive courtyard spaces. Configured to create a dynamic environment that fosters student collaboration and interactive learning focused on architecture, design, and the arts, the project is shaped by the concept of “a cabin in the woods” nestled in a densely planted buffer zone that provides a new university gateway.