ACSA Distinguished Professor

For the third time in the last four years, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture recognized a Fay Jones School faculty member with the Distinguished Professor Award. Peter MacKeith, dean and professor of architecture in the school since 2014, won this top honor in the ACSA’s 2023 Architectural Education Awards program.

MacKeith is one of five educators selected for this year’s award, which recognizes individuals who have had a positive, stimulating and nurturing influence upon students and have produced a body of work that advances understanding of architecture and/or architectural education.

Since the Distinguished Professor Award was established in 1984, more than 160 professors have been recognized. Four U of A faculty members previously honored were Fay Jones (1984-1985), John G. Williams (1987-1988), Stephen Luoni (2019-2020) and Ethel Goodstein-Murphree (2021-2022).

MacKeith’s academic career spans two continents, three decades, five schools of architecture, thousands of students, and significant accomplishments and impact. A Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council, he has been recognized twice by Design Intelligence as a “design educator of the year” and twice by the ACSA for “creative achievement in design education.”

In his recommendation letter, Jared Davenport, an architecture student, noted MacKeith’s fervor for teaching and high standard for education.

“Rather than promoting a fixed perspective, Dean MacKeith asks reflective, probing questions of his students to foster the curiosity and deductive reasoning necessary to engage difficult theoretical concepts,” Davenport wrote.

MacKeith’s work is framed by three intersecting sets of coordinates: in design education, in academic and professional work, and in the academic assessments of teaching, creative practice and research.

In his letter, Marlon Blackwell, FAIA, who has taught alongside MacKeith since 2014, said MacKeith’s identity as a teacher first informs his role as dean, as he instills a student-centered culture throughout the school. Under his leadership, the school’s enrollment has increased by 50 percent, with MacKeith “continuously creating new and important opportunities for students to critically engage other cultures through international experiences, to expand their understanding of suitability and environmental responsibility through timber and wood-based studios and research initiatives,” Blackwell wrote.

MacKeith has made significant contributions to the understanding of Nordic architecture and architectural thought. He teaches and presents frequently in advancing the cause of a forestcentered culture and economy. And he has effectively altered the course of the Arkansas economy and its environmental health through his impact on students, professionals, government officials and business leaders.

In her letter, Toshiko Mori, FAIA, Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, said MacKeith’s long-term research, teachings, publications and exhibitions on Nordic architecture have had “significant impacts,” including an emphasis that architecture balance with nature in terms of siting, material use, life cycle and ecological imprints.

“This is especially poignant in Arkansas, where the relationship between forestry, lumber production, and the design and construction of architecture is both an urgent environmental issue as well as a critical long-term vision for the region’s future,” Mori wrote.