Collaborators’ Innovative Steel Design Brings Recognition to Northwest Arkansas Region

Mile Zero, an innovative design installation created for the Razorback Greenway trailhead, has received the 2024 Forge Prize.

Mile Zero, an innovative design installation created for the Razorback Greenway trailhead, has received the 2024 Forge Prize. This piece was designed through the collaboration of faculty at the University of Arkansas, Princeton University and West Virginia University, all working with a Fayetteville-based artist.

The Forge Prize, established by The American Institute of Steel Construction in 2018, recognizes visionary emerging architects, architecture educators and graduate students for design concepts that embrace innovations in steel as a primary structural component. 

This project is a collaboration between U of A faculty members Emily Baker, assistant professor of architecture in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design; Vincent Edwards, director of technology in the School of Art; and Edmund Harriss, assistant professor of mathematical sciences in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences; Isabel Moreira de Oliveira, a doctoral student at Princeton University’s Form Finding Lab; Eduardo Sosa, a research associate professor in the Department of Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering at West Virginia University; and Reilly Dickens-Hoffman, an artist in Fayetteville. They’ll share the $10,000 prize.

The design team partnered with Tony Diebold, chief structural engineer with Hillsdale Fabricators, based in St. Louis, to further develop their idea.

Mile Zero is a steel shade structure intended for Kessler Mountain Regional Park, which serves as the trailhead for “Mile Zero” of the Razorback Greenway and the region’s paved trail network. The park is located just west of Interstate 49 off Cato Springs Road in Fayetteville.

“This work shows the benefits of researchers making strong connection between disciplines, and finding the places where problems need to be tackled by combined expertise rather than simply divided up into component parts,” Harriss said. “I have had the good fortune to work with Emily, Vincent and Reilly on several projects, and this connection of mathematics, art, architecture and technology is an exciting development for the University of Arkansas.”

The team’s concept uses an innovative space frame system to cut, fold and fasten uncoated weathering steel sheets into a modular system with structural depth. Baker developed the Spin-Valence system while in graduate school at Cranbrook Academy of Art as a faster, more materially efficient way to produce a space frame structure. The concept is based on the Japanese art of kirigami, which uses folding and cutting to create 3D objects out of a flat material.

“My aim is to find ways to adapt the ‘choreography of construction’ to unlock news ways of assembling buildings,” said Baker, also an alumna of the Fay Jones School. “Mile Zero, if built, will become the largest application of Spin-Valence in a public space.”

If built, the piece would replace the simple bollard that currently marks the beginning of the multi-use trail that spans more than 40 miles from Fayetteville to Bella Vista.

“We are thrilled to see such innovative and inspiring design potential for the Mile Zero installation,” Fayetteville Mayor Lioneld Jordan said. “This project will enhance the visual and functional appeal of the Razorback Greenway. I applaud the talented artists and academics who are exploring new possibilities in the use of materials and space in such an artful way. The city of Fayetteville looks forward to seeing how creative endeavors such as this can benefit our residents and community.”

The steel structure, with its interplay of light and shadow, would act as a welcoming space for people to enjoy the outdoors together.

“Arkansas is going to be the big winner in the long-term,” said Reed Kroloff, Forge Prize judge, Rowe Family College of Architecture Endowed Chair and dean of the Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture. “We thought the shade structure was remarkably innovative in the way that it took steel and used it in such an interesting fashion, with the folding and stacking. [The jury] thought it had great promise for steel as a building material.”

The Mile Zero concept was one of three visionary designs that made it to the final round of the 2024 Forge Prize. The final presentations were streamed live on YouTube and are available for viewing on AISC’s YouTube channel.

This story also appeared in the University of Arkansas News publication.