Fayetteville, Arkansas, 2004

University of Arkansas Fred and Mary Smith Razorback Golf Center

The Razorback Golf Center transfigures the conventional metal building type, so often used for university sports buildings, by embodying the precision of movement necessary for golf in the meticulous articulation of the formal elements of the structure itself. The standing seams of a copper wall precisely aligned with window openings and the standing seams of the copper roof, form a folded shell, an elytra, that extends beyond its stone body as cantilevered wings that shelter terraces at each end of the building. The copper skin loosely wraps the building and provides a sense of imperviousness to the activity around it. Acting as a silent mask, the copper clad wall conceals the building's internal activities from motorists along the adjacent state highway and also provides a sense of time in the change exhibited by the developing patina of the copper. An orthogonal box set against the tree-lined valley, the building's surface is given volume by its minute separation from the dry stacked stone base beneath. This strategy of disengaging the wall from its base, adds an element of mobility, levity, and autonomy to the shell.