Marlon Blackwell has a gift for seeing potential in the commonplace. During a tour of his latest pro bono project, Fayetteville's new Northwest Arkansas Free Medical Center, the architect veered off to a window and pointed to the eccentric form of a derelict incinerator building in an adjacent lot. “Look at that! If you leave the roof and rework the other side . . .” His voice picked up pace as he mentally renovated the structure. Blackwell's brief musing illustrates precisely the approach that his firm took in designing the clinic: bring new life and clarity to an existing but mundane building. “Our approach to adaptive reuse or renovation is to look at its DNA and extend that DNA into how the building evolves,” says the architect.
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