– Featured Guide

5 Construction Technology Trends for 2024 and Beyond

Stay ahead of the curve with this simple guide to the latest developments in digital construction tech.

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DarkSky International, an education, advocacy and conservation organization protecting the night sky, approves new luminary standards, lighting programs and policy language

At one time, nightfall plunged our ancestors into darkness and let them marvel at celestial objects in an inky sky. But in recent times, our ability to alter natural light levels has advanced to the point that stars, planets and galaxies are fading from view. Of the 2,500 stars that should be visible, the typical American suburbanite can see only a few hundred.

Instead of starlight, the night is filled with streetlights, spotlights, stadium lights, neon signs, billboards and parking lot towers—all contributing to light pollution, defined by National Geographic as the excessive or inappropriate use of outdoor light. Light pollution damages human health, alters wildlife behavior and wastes energy and money as light blazes when and where it’s not needed. The result is glare that blinds drivers, light trespass that disturbs sleep, eerie orange skyglow over metro areas and confusing and garish groupings reminiscent of Times Square.

Until light is policed in the same way as air, water and land pollution, it falls to architects, engineers and designers to select lighting systems that perform their function while still preserving the night sky—with the help of manufacturers whose fixtures meet the specs for responsible lighting and governments that support policies to protect darkness.

“I think people are understanding the urgency of lighting design, because it’s become more and more difficult to see a clear night sky from anywhere,” said James Brigagliano, lighting program manager at DarkSky International.

The harmful effects of too much light

Light where it doesn’t belong disrupts the night and day rhythm encoded in the DNA of all animals and plants. That impacts behaviors from feeding and sleep to reproducing and evading predators.

Human circadian rhythms are attuned to outdoor light during the day and darkness at night. Breaking that cycle with artificial light increases the risk for obesity, depression, sleep disorders, diabetes and other diseases, according to research reported in Environmental Health Perspectives.

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For wildlife, prey use darkness as cover and predators use light to hunt, so illumination dramatically alters the environment and the odds. For instance, newborn sea turtles need to turn toward the ocean and safety after hatching on the beach, but often they’re confounded by light on shore. Birds that migrate or hunt at night are lured by brightly lit cities and veer from their flight patterns. And after dark, the insects that birds depend on are drawn to burning bulbs and their deadly heat.

Worse still, lights are often pointless, adding economic waste to ecosystem harm. DarkSky International estimates that at least 30% of all outdoor lighting in the United States serves no purpose and is emitted by lights that don’t have shields to prevent spillage. Wasting light costs $33 billion each year and uses about 120 terawatt-hours of energy—enough to meet New York City’s electricity needs for two years. Quality outdoor lighting could cut energy use by 60% to 70%, saving billions of dollars and reducing carbon emissions. But that depends on lighting responsibly.

Five principles for responsible outdoor lighting

DarkSky and the Illuminating Engineering Society jointly published the Five Principles for Responsible Outdoor Lighting to prevent and reduce light pollution. Designing new projects or retrofits using the principles can create beautiful, functional, healthy lighting that minimizes harmful effects and saves energy and money.

  1. Useful: If it’s not serving a function, you shouldn’t have it.

Identify the purpose of lighting and its impact on everything in the vicinity, including wildlife and habitats.

  • Targeted: Aim light so it falls only where it’s needed.

Direct and shield light beams so they point down and don’t spill outside the area being lit.

  • Low level: Light should be no brighter than necessary.

Use only the light required and make sure nearby surfaces don’t reflect light and create excess.

  • Controlled: Use light only when it’s needed.

Install motion detectors, dimmers and timers to allow only the minimum light needed available at any time.

  • Warm-colored: Use warmer-color lights where possible.

Cut back on shorter wavelength light (blue-violet) to the least amount needed.

New standards, programs and policies to bring back the night

The DarkSky Approved program provides objective, third-party certification for lighting design,  products and installed projects that reduce light pollution. Designers can search products by manufacturer, use, retailer, light temperature and residential use. Project standards fulfill requirements for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification as well, but requirements continually evolve based on new information.

“We’re cutting down on what we allow for high-angle lighting—from 90 to 80 degrees,” Brigagliano said. “So now we’re allowing only 1% of the total light output of a fixture to be between 80 and 180 degrees. There’s no benefit to light between 80 to 90 degrees and the new cutoff will help reduce uplight and sky glow.”

DarkSky Approved programs now include pedestrian lighting as well as sea turtles, sports venues and lodging. The new program addresses glare from light fixtures used in areas like campuses where people need lower-level lighting for safety at night.

“We also have wildlife-tuned luminaries, with subcategories like sea turtles,” Brigagliano said. “That’s needed because different species have different sensitivities to wavelengths. However, if we control brightness and shield the light source, we’ve taken care of much of the issue and the color of light is less important.”

In addition, DarkSky recently released an updated and simplified model policy that was written to make it easy for states and municipalities to adopt. “Just a little bit of improvement is better than none,” Brigagliano noted.

Every place a dark sky place

The International Dark Sky Places program certifies areas worldwide that preserve and protect darkness through responsible lighting policies and public education. Not all are remote parks and sanctuaries—a neighborhood or city can earn recognition as a Dark Sky Community or Urban Night Sky Place if residents are committed to a healthful and beautiful night.

“Anywhere where there’s a DarkSky-approved place, there’s been a fair amount of dark sky conceptual lighting design,” Brigagliano said. That work may soon be required as part of state or local regulations. At least 19 states and a number of municipalities have laws in place to reduce light pollution.

To be ready, architects, engineers and designers must recognize that light can be a pollutant—and balance providing light with protecting the dark.

Hero image courtesy Mark Eichenberger

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The unique retreat offers an extraordinary experience in a custom-built volcano-inspired structure. Go inside.

Friendship can take you to surprising places. For Cassandra Dalla Riva and Karen Lee, two best friends who post online about their experiences with do-it-yourself, off-grid construction on their shared Instagram profile, a chance meeting on vacation ended in the two creating a truly unique building, nestled away in the lush Hawaiian jungle.

Called “Inn a Volcano,” the fully off-grid luxury property looks just like two miniature volcanos, fully stocked with everything you need to enjoy one of the most unique Airbnb experiences on the Big Island. Built spoke to Dalla Riva and Lee about the story behind the building of the fascinating structure.

Two adventurers unite

Dalla Riva and Lee met on vacation. “We met five years ago on a vacation in Oahu one night and instantly clicked,” Dalla Riva said. “We have been friends since then.”

The two immediately bonded over their shared lust for life. “Dalla Riva and I have all these crazy adventures, like going to pole camp in turkey and CalEarth to learn how to build a hurricane shelter,” Lee said.

Dalla Riva agreed. “We’re all over the place, bringing our wildest ideas to each other and meeting them with support. So when we saw the OMG!Fund contest, I knew I had to reach out to Lee to collaborate to brainstorm ideas together.”

Dalla Riva had moved to Hawaii’s Big Island in 2019, building a tiny house on land that’s currently home to the volcano. Idly exploring the internet one afternoon, she saw a structure that sparked her interest. “We were looking through the OMG category on Airbnb and I saw a dirt-looking dome that somewhat resembled a volcano, so that’s where the idea originated,” she said.

In 2022, Airbnb hosted a contest to give 10 lucky winners $100,000 to bring their most awe-inspiring ideas to life. “We had entered a bunch of ideas together and separately, but I think because the volcano was harmonious with Hawaii’s landscape, the volcano village and the volcano national park, it made it an easy choice for Airbnb to choose this idea,” Lee said.

As Dalla Riva explained in an Instagram caption, “I told my boss I had won $100,000 and he was like ‘Sure you did. It’s probably a scam.’ But once that first $33,000 direct deposit hit, we got to work!”

Learning on the job

Dalla Riva and Lee didn’t have any kind of construction experience—but they had a vision. To successfully execute their plans, the duo went to Hesperia, California, to attend a workshop at the CalEarth Institute, whose mission is instructing students in sustainable and accessible forms of what they call Earth Architecture.

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“When we got back, we also reached out to Mark Hansen, who had built a permitted dome in Hawaii over 10 years ago, via letter,” Dalla Riva said. “He graciously gave us his cindercrete recipe and lessons on how to build in the rainforest,” Lee continued. “There wasn’t anything traditional about him, but his tradition of spreading sandalwood and knowledge of earth bagging gave us huge inspiration in creating the volcano.”

From that point on, it was up to them to leverage their new knowledge as effectively as they could. “I’ve never built anything in my life before the volcano,” Lee explained. “We learned on the job and had to redo things two, three or even four times over,” Dalla Riva said.

“Once the direct deposit hit, we hired an excavator operator to clear the land,” she said. “We had to bring in nearly 300 tons of rock before we hired masons to pour the foundation. Then, we did the first two layers of earthbags ourselves, with the help of friends, before we realized how much more help we would need.”

“Surprisingly, the earth bagging only took us eight weeks compared to the six months of finishing work,” Lee said. There were plenty of setbacks along the way. “We got scammed, we ran out of money and we didn’t finish in time,” Lee said. “At almost every step, it seemed like we made a mistake and had to do things over and over again,” Dalla Riva added. “Doing things for the first time is always the hardest.”

All’s well that ends well

After all their hard work, the duo was able to create a truly memorable structure—one that has captured and improved upon their original vision.

Dalla Riva said her favorite aspects of the finished volcano include “the lava lamps, the bathtub, the moss mirror, the candle niches, the comforter—I could go on.” Lee agreed, adding that the lava floor, rainbow crystals, bean bag, wood accents and the skylights are her favorite things about the dome.

Lee said that for her, the most memorable part of the structure was all the work and hours she and Dalla Riva put in to create it. “I loved all the literal blood, sweat and tears it took within us when earth bagging,” she said. “It felt religious and holy. It was spiritual so that this replicated the history of architecture.”

The volcano is in the top 10% of homes on Airbnb, Lee said, and has been getting lots of love on the internet as well. “We have had a couple Instagram reels go viral,” Dalla Riva said, while Lee added that the public response to the structure has been “mostly good.”

So, what’s next for the duo? “We are going to build another volcano!” they both enthused. “On the next build, I have a specific floor paper in mind in front of the heart-shaped bathtub,” Lee said. “What floor paper?” asked Dalla Riva.

And with that they were off dreaming of another unique and creative structure that will set the internet talking and create one-of-a-kind memories for visitors from all around the world.

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The integration of advanced technologies in construction is essential to overcoming the challenges of adaptive reuse and retrofitting projects

Renovations, retrofits and adaptive reuse projects are complex, and real-time coordination is critical as hidden structural problems or unexpected code compliance issues can crop up with no warning. But that collaboration and coordination hasn’t always been easy. Not that long ago, stakeholders were relying on countless physical drafts and outdated sketches to weigh the pros and cons of potential designs and solutions.

Today, technology is increasingly playing a leading role in these deliberations, allowing teams to work more efficiently. With it, architects, engineers, contractors, building owners and occupants can take advantage of a seamless exchange of technical expertise and innovative ideas that can drive a project forward.

Together, they can work in-person or virtually to collaborate on comprehensive risk assessments, mitigation strategies or quality assurance measures, for example. Document management and version control ensures everybody is looking at the same information.

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Here’s how technology can support adaptive reuse, retrofit and resilient design projects.

BIM

Building information modeling (BIM) captures the current conditions of existing buildings, allowing stakeholders to visualize and simulate various future scenarios for planning and design purposes. With it, users can assess different structures, systems and components to refine and improve on designs.

Energy Modeling

Energy modeling simulates a building’s potential energy use. It lets stakeholders assess the lifecycle cost of various materials, designs and plans so they can consider the long-term financial implications of each design to make informed decisions.

Overall Environmental Analysis

A comprehensive environmental analysis of a building and its future design uncovers a range of data—from calculating potential carbon emissions and energy use to examining its indoor comfort and air quality and helping to reuse and conserve building materials.

Indoor Environmental Quality Analysis

Indoor environmental quality analysis evaluates buildings and designs for air quality, thermal comfort and daylighting. The tools help stakeholders enhance a building’s indoor comfort.

Smart Building and IoT Integration Platforms

Smart building technology, typically integrated with Internet of Things (IoT) platforms, allows for real-time monitoring of building performance, energy consumption and occupant behavior. Incorporating smart HVAC and lighting controls, for example, into renovations or adaptive reuse projects allows for the remote monitoring and management of energy use to ensure it’s always optimized.

Green Rating Systems

The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry doesn’t need to start from scratch as it moves forward on retrofit, adaptive reuse and resilient design projects. Globally, green building rating systems and performance certifications set performance metrics and requirements to ensure projects meet globally accepted practices.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED): The worldwide certification encourages adaptive reuse projects that rely on using existing building resources or demonstrate a reduction in materials. LEED for Operations and Maintenance encourages retrofitting projects that improve energy performance and incorporate energy-efficient systems.

WELL Building Standard: The global performance-based system, which can be used for both new and existing buildings, measures how buildings impact occupant health, considering seven factors—air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort and mind.

BREEAM: The global sustainability assessment calculates how well buildings meet sustainability goals and will perform in the future.

Energy Star Certification: The US Environmental Protection Agency program encourages the use of energy-saving strategies.

Green Star Certification: The Australia-based rating system sets standards for buildings that aim to reduce the impact on climate change and restore and protect biodiversity and ecosystems.

Future forward

As the construction industry continues to evolve, the integration of advanced technologies has become essential in addressing the unique challenges of adaptive reuse and retrofitting projects. By leveraging tools like BIM, energy modeling and smart building technologies, stakeholders can optimize project outcomes, ensuring that both current and future needs are met with precision and sustainability in mind.

The seamless collaboration enabled by these technologies not only improves efficiency but also enhances decision-making, allowing for more informed choices that benefit both the environment and building occupants.

Looking ahead, the role of technology in the AEC industry will only become more prominent, as the demand for resilient, sustainable and adaptive design solutions grows. By adopting these innovative tools and adhering to global green building standards, the industry can lead the way in creating buildings that are not only functional and efficient but also contribute positively to the environment and the communities they serve.

As a result, technology is not just a tool for today but a cornerstone for the future of construction.

Read Bluebeam’s complete eBook on adaptive reuse in construction.

Learn about the impact of AI on job security, data protection and industry practices from leading experts in the infrastructure and construction technology sector

It’s not a question whether the artificial intelligence revolution will continue. It’s a matter of how AI trends will shape the future of the infrastructure industry. With it comes many questions about job security, data security and how to capitalize on this emerging technology while protecting your business interests.

Roads & Bridges’ panel, Getting Ready for AI: A Panel Discussion with Engineering and Technology Leaders, recently brought together experts from consulting engineering firms and software vendors to discuss the topic.

In the panel moderated by Jalpesh Patel, then business development manager of infrastructure for ALLPLAN (he now serves as Industry Development Manager – Infrastructure at Bluebeam), three experts explored the most pressing questions about AI in infrastructure and how they see it shaping the industry’s future.

Defining AI

Before diving into how AI will transform the infrastructure industry, Patel asked the panelists to define AI.

“AI, in a general sense, is about developing software or machines that have something that appears to be human-like intelligence or can do things that humans would typically be required to do in the software space,” said Terry Walters, the digital delivery evangelist at Maldelo and founder and chief architect at RoadCADdie.ai. “Essentially, it means making software that can learn in some fashion and then use that learning to solve new problems.”

While AI feels brand-new, its beginnings date to the 1950s, when several developers built applications that could learn how to play checkers, Walters explained. From the 1960s to the 2000s, AI’s growth was steady and flat until increasing in the 2010s until today, when it has become a part of most people’s lives.

“AI represents a new toolset and a new capability,” said Don Jacob, the chief innovation officer at Bluebeam. “We’ve recognized the application of the tool is important, but we are focusing on how we help people get projects done better, get the world built better, sustainably in cost and under schedule.”

Eduardo Lazzarotto, the chief product and strategy officer at ALLPLAN, sees AI as a co-pilot to assist and automate what people are doing—not replace them.

“One of the first questions that users and the industry in general have to ask themselves is how do they see the future of AI?” he said. “And what do they want that solution to deliver within their current workforce?”

Prioritizing security and teamwork

According to Walters, the explosion and proliferation of AI tools, especially free tools, are driving companies to shift the allocation of resources and capital.

“People are becoming more efficient because they’ve started to adopt these tools,” Walters said. “They’re either able to get more done or focus on the things that AI still isn’t good at. The important thing though is the security piece, especially when folks are going out to publicly available tools and [inputting] privately contained information.”

Experimenting with AI is the first step, but Jacob said the critical next step is “explainable AI,” which are tools and methods designed to help people understand the results of machine learning. Specifically, these tools are going to be essential with what Jacob calls mission-critical scenarios where human life is at stake.

“Being able to understand why the machine gave you the answer is going to be something very important for us,” he said.

Lazzarotto added that getting to this point is going to require teamwork and collaboration.

“We are always trying to integrate with other solutions to make sure the client has the workflow that they feel is right,” he said. “We’re not trying to force them into a certain aspect of using technology.”

Using AI in the AEC industry

When Walters worked on a recent Texas Department of Transportation project, he generated a “frequently asked questions” document with AI because he had a large amount of data from numerous stakeholders. AIenabled him to condense columns of information from a spreadsheet in 20 minutes instead of several hours. He has also seen AI used in grading, mechanical engineering and circuit design in electrical engineering.

“AI will be one of the most important technologies we have developed, and it will impact us in ways we can’t yet understand,” Walters said. “It’s kind of like trying to guess what the internet was going to become in the 1990s.”

In addition to consolidating text, Jacob sees significant opportunity with AI’s ability to synthesize information across different data types including text, semi-structured data, graphics, drawings, models, photos, video and audio.

“I think that is a real opportunity [to be able to apply] all the structured, semi-structured, and different types of data and see how it is being applied across other industries,” Jacob said. “I also want to underline that this is going to take all of us in the industry coming together as we go into this season of innovation with AI.”

As with every technology and tool that has come from AI, quality is essential. AI tools will only be as good as the information used to “train” it.

“Great AI comes from great data,” Lazzarotto said. “More than ever, we need to remind the whole AEC/O industry that today’s data is still locked within files, workflows or processes that need to be open.”

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The city in northwest England is famous for its successful soccer teams, a vibrant music scene and, in recent years, a proliferation of tall buildings.

As pressures mount on the availability and cost of land, and as demand for office and residential space soars, the rollout of tall buildings across the United Kingdom has inevitably increased in recent years.

Traditionally, London has been home to the tallest buildings in the UK. The NatWest Tower, now called Tower 42, was the country’s tallest on its completion in 1980, rising 183 meters above the streets of the capital’s financial district.

Superseded in 1990 by One Canada Square (235 meters) in neighboring Canary Wharf—which was itself overtaken by the 309.6-meter-tall Shard, on the south side of the River Thames in 2012—Tower 42 has also been dwarfed by an array of imposing office developments built across the Square Mile. These include the 278-meter-tall 22 Bishopsgate and the Cheesegrater (aka the Leadenhall Building; 225 meters).

The pace of development of such buildings is set to continue. Still more office skyscrapers are planned in the city between now and 2030, while over in Canary Wharf new apartment towers proliferate, though none are likely to reach the heights of the area’s Landmark Pinnacle, which, at 233 meters, is Europe’s tallest residential building.

For lovers of high-rise living and working, London has it in spades. Yet the capital’s dominance in tall buildings is being challenged by a city some 200 miles to the north.

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Over the past decade the delivery of several high-rise schemes in Manchester has put it firmly on the map in terms of ambitious developments. These have played a role in the city’s recent growth, signaling its ambition as an alternative living and working destination to London.

What has prompted this surge of activity? And is the proliferation of towers in the city a good thing?

Boom Time

With a population of nearly 3 million and regularly competing with Birmingham to be the UK’s second largest city, Manchester is growing—and growing rapidly.

Observers note that Manchester’s economy is expected to post annual average growth of 2.2% between 2024 and 2027, outpacing the UK’s national growth rate of 1.9%. Jobs across the city are also on the rise, with numbers forecast to rise by 1.7% per year over the period, the UK’s second-fastest rate of such growth. 

Evidence of this boom is reflected in the number of tall buildings, particularly residential, springing up across the city. Manchester is where you’ll find the largest concentration of very tall buildings outside London. Approximately 20 towers more than 100 meters in height now pepper the city’s skyline, and several more are in the pipeline, in planning or undergoing construction.

The first notable tall building in Manchester was the Beetham Tower, an apartment block consisting of 47 stories and just shy of 169 meters in height, which was completed in 2006 at a cost of £150 million ($192 million). Designed by Ian Simpson of SimpsonHaugh, it features nearly 300 hotel rooms, more than 200 apartments and several floors of workspace.

Other towers have followed, as developers and the local authorities recognize the potential offered via city-center living, complete with a range of interconnected amenities. Salboy, a developer based in the Warrington area of Manchester, has delivered a number of tower schemes across the city, including the 26-story Obsidian residential building.

The firm is working on the Viadux tower complex, currently under construction in the city, and another SimpsonHaugh design. Once completed, the scheme’s second phase will be Manchester’s tallest building at 230 meters and 76 stories.

Small Firm, Big Ambitions

Currently holding the record for Manchester’s tallest tower—and the tallest outside London—is the South Tower at the SimpsonHaugh-designed Deansgate Square development, a scheme featuring four towers ranging up to 65 stories. The South Tower, which features those 65 floors, is 201 meters high.

Developer Renaker teamed up with a structural engineering firm based in the small West Yorkshire town of Hebden Bridge called DP Squared, now owned by US structural engineers DeSimone Consulting Engineering, to hammer out the details of what were to become the tallest towers in the city.

Founded by Darren Paine together with his wife and business partner Deborah, DP Squared had already worked on a number of tower schemes in Manchester, including the One Greengate project, where one of the towers of that project came in at 32 stories. But the Deansgate development was a step up.

“You’re in a different league from that when you’re designing a building of that scale,” Darren said. “You’re moving away from focusing mostly on making it strong enough to stand up, and instead moving more toward making it work in a way that people using the building don’t feel uncomfortable. That’s a more abstract challenge to deal with.”

Towers, Darren said, are like bridges. “There are considerations that go beyond the weight of the structure. There are other criteria that have to be considered, such as how does the wind move around the building? How does the building respond to that same wind?”

Being structural engineers for the tallest building outside of London, as well as the tallest building in Manchester, generated considerable excitement for Darren, Deborah and their small team.

That said, Darren recognised DP Squared was entering the unknown. “We’d never worked on a tower as tall as 65 stories,” he said, “and we didn’t have anybody we could turn to for counsel. All the research we needed to do in designing and constructing tall buildings we did ourselves.”

With their firm founded 20 years ago, Darren, Deborah and the team at DP Squared take the expanding work on Manchester’s tall towers in stride.

It was a risk at the time, but the client nevertheless placed a lot of trust in the firm, notes Darren, and it has paid off. “They knew we could respond to how they build better than other consultants could. That’s why we’ve been collaborating with them for so long.”

Growth Risk?

Such has been the growth in the number of towers across the city and its effect on the local skyline that it has led some to label the place “Manc-hattan.”

But there are concerns that the proliferation of such buildings could, if unchecked, cause longer-term harm to the fabric of the city’s older structures.

A report by campaign group SAVE Britain’s Heritage titled “Boom not Bust: How Greater Manchester can build the future without destroying its past,” argues that while the economic boom currently underway across the city heralds an exciting time, “such rapid growth comes with a risk of its remarkable built heritage being swept away, when it could be harnessed and reused as a vital part of a sustainable 21st century city.” 

SAVE’s report also alludes to the danger of allowing economic inequality to take hold in a city the size of Manchester. “At the same time, the boom has not reached the region’s outer boroughs, many of whose historic buildings face decay or demolition,” its report says.

Such concerns may be legitimate, and they will no doubt be considered by the city planning authorities.

However, the lure of the commercial opportunities on offer, and the demand for space for both Manchester’s residents and office workers, are likely to drive the march of tower development across the city for some time to come.

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Along a 100-mile stretch through the Ozarks lie several of the most significant buildings in American architecture, all designed by Arkansas native son Fay Jones

Like his mentor Frank Lloyd Wright, Fay Jones received the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Gold Medal for his exquisite body of work, which includes his masterpiece, Thorncrown Chapel. Jones designed and built private homes and sacred spaces almost exclusively, always based on the tenets of organic architecture. Here are five of the most compelling.

Fay and Gus Jones House, Fayetteville, 1956

Photo credit: Patrick Farley

“There’s more architecture per square foot than any house I can think of,” said Greg Herman, associate professor, Fay Jones School of Architecture, University of Arkansas. “He takes this footprint, which is really just a rectangle, and changes the way you understand it with layers and elements moving around and shifting so that, in the end, you get a rich environment.”

Jones explored his architectural philosophies in his family home, the first of more than 200 residences he designed. One of the driving principles of organic architecture is fidelity to nature, and that became necessity as much as choice here. While excavating for the home, the builders uncovered a rock ledge and hidden spring. In keeping with Wright’s insistence that organic architecture should arise as a natural solution to the problem presented, Jones integrated the boulder into the living space.

Jones incorporated the rock wall uncovered during excavation into the downstairs, creating a grotto with a small pool, green plants, stone floors, soft lighting and low ceilings. Photo credit: Patrick Farley

Upstairs, the home transforms into a treehouse with a low central stone hearth. Jones selected a lot adjacent to a wooded area and situated the house with the main façade facing west. A balcony and windows offer sweeping views in every direction and let the sun light all the main interior spaces throughout the day, a theme repeated in many other Jones structures.

“You can pretty much find everything he did subsequently in this house in some form,” Herman said.

The Jones House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000 and is documented in the Historic American Buildings Survey, winning the Charles E. Peterson Prize in 2010.

Richard and Alma Brothers House, Fayetteville, 1957

Photo credit: Tyler McKee

“Fay liked to approach every project fresh, with a renewed, introspective quality based on the knowledge of how materials go together. There’s an honesty to the craft,” said David McKee, principal of McKee Architects and Jones’ apprentice and associate for 16 years.

Early in his career, Jones began designing homes for University of Arkansas faculty, including music professors Richard and Alma Brothers. The Brothers’ budget was conservative, leading to a model based on Wright’s Usonian homes and unique in Jones’ work. Usonian homes center on three primary areas—a living space, open kitchen and dining, and small bedrooms and baths. The sophisticated yet simple floor plan for this home is defined by openness, flow and connectedness with the exterior.

: A fieldstone chimney—the symbolic heart of a Usonian home—rotated 45 degrees to the plan extends through both floors. Photo credit: Patrick Farley

Some elements reappear in later Jones designs—the ridge beam pulled off-center and floor-to-ceiling windows and glass doors that frame expansive views. Panes of glass precisely butted together at the corners let the eye take in the nearby woodland uninterrupted by structural elements. The rectangular hip and gable roof follows the strike of the ridgeline and features a jackknife edge with dentil modeling that’s repeated indoors in the cupboards, countertops and built-in seating that Jones designed.

McKee remains passionate about preserving Jones’ legacy and, in 2021, became the force behind restoring the Brothers House. The city of Fayetteville recently recognized McKee Properties with the 2024 Historic Restoration Award for their meticulous work. Two University of Arkansas students documented the home for the Historic American Buildings Survey in 2022, winning an honorable mention for the Leicester B. Holland Prize. The Brothers House is now open to short-term residents eager to experience a mid-century masterpiece.

Faubus House, Huntsville, 1967

Source: Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.

“He was all about bringing the indoors out and the outdoors in,” said Ronna Precure, steward of Faubus House. “We have quite an extensive area of terraces. When you add that square footage, designed for entertaining and living, we’re over 13,000 square feet.”

The home’s interior spreads out more than 7,356 square feet, making it the largest residence Jones designed. But that’s fitting for a house intended as much for lavish entertaining during Orval Faubus’ unsuccessful run for the Senate as it was for private living—which also explains why the home features four ovens but only three bedrooms.

Both famous and infamous, Faubus served as Arkansas governor from 1955 to 1967, longer than any other person. Although progressive in some ways, he’s remembered for attempting to block the desegregation of Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957, forcing President Dwight D. Eisenhower to send federal troops to enforce the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling.

This home built for him a decade later extends 214 feet along a bluff, with landscape clearly inspiring form. The home’s most iconic element—a 30-foot cantilevered catwalk—offers the drama of a stroll out over the rocky cliff and into the treetops. Vertical elements like stone columns, apertures and panels draw the eye upward to the three massive chimney stacks perched on the roof.

A visitor can get lost in the trees on the catwalk, hovering in mid-air over the bluff. Photo credit: Patrick Farley

The current owner, Jonathan Formanek, purchased the home in 1995 and intends for it to remain open to visitors. In recognition of Jones’ architecture, Faubus House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.

Thorncrown Chapel, Eureka Springs, 1980

Photo credit: Patrick Farley

“A Thin Place” is how C. Page Highfill, AIA Emeritus, described Thorncrown—meaning a place where the distance between heaven and earth collapses. That may be exactly what California schoolteacher Jim Reed envisioned when he asked Jones to design a little glass chapel on his wooded property to inspire visitors.

Although they originally chose an exposed location near the highway, Reed found a natural stone altar hidden in the trees, with rock formations to the right and spectacular woods on the left. Here, like nowhere else, Jones could realize the principle of unity between building and site. “In the end, you hope it will look like man and nature planned the building together to the mutual benefit of both,” Jones said.

The lack of a road meant no structural element could be larger than what two men could carry, so pressure-treated Southern pine 2x4s, 2x6s and 2x12s served as the primary materials. Where these humble pieces of lumber intersect, they form the chapel’s most striking element—hundreds of diamond-shaped apertures that radiate pure light.

Every feature of Thorncrown is a work of art designed by Jones, from the lights to the pews to the fieldstone walls. Photo credit: Patrick Farley

Inspired by Paris’ light-filled Sainte-Chapelle, the chapel rises 48 feet toward the skies with more than 6,000 square feet of glass and 425 windows. Jones referred to the style of Thorncrown as “Ozark Gothic” and himself as a “cathedral builder born 500 years too late.” Although Jones and Reed doubted that anyone would visit Thorncrown, 7 million people have made the pilgrimage to date.

The AIA recognized Jones’ masterwork with a National Honor Award almost as soon as it was built and named it fourth on their list of top structures of the 20th century. Thorncrown Chapel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.

Mildred B. Cooper Memorial Chapel, Bella Vista, 1989

Photo credit: Patrick Farley

“I do not pretend to understand the creative process—but, sometimes, in that time of searching, by concentrating with great intensity on some obscure part or small detail, a vast landscape of order and continuity can be illuminated.” — From the writings of Fay Jones shared at the Jones House.

The Cooper family asked Jones, working with partner Maurice Jennings, to design a chapel to honor Mildred Cooper and her deep spiritual beliefs and great love and respect for nature. In the Cooper Chapel, Jones’ “small details” repeat themselves endlessly, with each part relating to the whole—from the door handles to the heavy wooden doors to the interwoven lathes emanating from them and pointing to the circular “rose” window above. Trading the lumber of Thorncrown for the strength of 31 tons of slender steel sheathed in redwood lets 15 pointed arches traverse the structure, creating a harmonious whole that rises 50 feet.

Overhead, sunlight filters through towering trees and enters through a ridgeline aperture, dappling the native limestone and flagstone flooring below. Photo credit: Patrick Farley

The chapel stands on a wooded hillside overlooking Lake Norwood. The 4,460 square feet of glass offers clear views of the outdoors and leaves visitors wondering if the chapel is open to the air. The similarities to Thorncrown are undeniable, and Jones once again produced an “instrument nature can play,” as he described it in “The Generative Idea.”

The Cooper Memorial Chapel was named to the Arkansas Registry of Scenic Resources in 1993.

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