Thaden School Master Plan

Project highlights

• Architects: Eskew Dumez Ripple with Marlon Blackwell Architects and Andropogon Associates, Ltd. 
• Owner: Thaden School
• Location: Bentonville, Arkansas

This plan, created to support the growth of an independent school in rapidly expanding Bentonville, Arkansas, reflects a vision the challenges the traditional paradigms for education. The programming, landscape, and architectural design all originate from Thaden School’s three-pronged approach to its curriculum, the focus of which is learning by doing while remaining connected to the land and surrounding community.

The seeds for Thaden School germinated in the spring of 2015 in conversations with the Walton Family Foundation, the school’s funder, shaping the idea of an independent school with a highly public face and mission dedicated to serving Bentonville. Those early conversations also determined that the school would emanate from its place, with success heralded by a palpable sense of connection.

Following a review of nearly a dozen sites, school leadership selected a plot just 15 minutes from Bentonville City Square and several of its dynamic districts. The team soon discovered the site, at differing times in its history, had previously held the Benton County Fair, Bentonville College, and Bentonville High School, though the old buildings were long gone. School leadership was attracted to the site’s fairground history, seizing on the idea that the school should feel open and accessible. To that end, the design team was challenged to organize an empty 26-acre site with just 125,000-square-feet of building program.

The overarching plan, developed collaboratively among the team, surrounding community, and Thaden School’s leadership, explores how a school can serve a growing urban environment while grounding children in a longstanding regional agricultural identity. Early in the process, the team envisioned an “urban pastoral” campus that marries urban development as a catalyst that energizes cities with historical respect for the region’s agricultural vernacular, particularly the regional farmstead.

Much like buildings in an agricultural landscape can be loosely organized to form semi-enclosed spaces connected to larger, open spaces, the campus is defined around four main buildings. The campus landscape is multi-faceted, hinging on local, social, and ecological analogs for human use patterns, plant communities, and indigenous landforms. It is also productive and supports natural ecological processes, such as the restoration of the Osage prairie and demonstrating new models of production and consumption through farming.

Across the campus, students are encouraged to achieve balance through motion as they engage with the landscape throughout the day. A similar attitude for circulation is reflected in the way the buildings are distributed. In most schools, classrooms are supported by specialty areas, such as gyms and libraries, that are tucked into corners. The school’s philosophy prompted a different approach, so the academic programs are sprinkled across the landscape. All of them include their own lab or maker space where students can integrate the movements of their minds and hands.

The school also capitalizes on a 2005 master plan for Bentonville’s downtown core, which focused on incubating the development of its arts and market districts connect by the city’s 6th Street corridor. Thaden School anchors the southern portion of both districts, creating another integral link. Its adjacency provides students new opportunities to engage with activities and organizations in Bentonville’s evolving downtown community.