The Hollow

The Hollow emerges in response to Fayetteville, Arkansas’s rezoning strategy along College Avenue, which seeks to reinvigorate a once‑thriving commercial corridor through the introduction of compact, human scaled housing. By weaving new homes into an underperforming stretch of the city, the project aims to rebuild a layered and interconnected community fabric, restoring activity, belonging, and identity to a place that has long felt disconnected.

Situated behind a deteriorating strip mall and the backside of an AMC theater just off College Avenue, the site represents an overlooked fragment of Fayetteville’s urban landscape. The Hollow proposes a more intentional way of entering and inhabiting this land, transforming it into a restored habitat and a meaningful neighborhood. Water is treated as a resource, with on‑site detention strategies designed to protect the nearby spring that emerges within the protected land to the north.

The arrangement of units organizes the site into distinct spatial zones: generous “Village Greens” that support gathering and movement, and smaller, more intimate pockets of outdoor space for quiet retreat. These spaces are defined by vegetation typologies, creating a gradient from communal to private landscapes. The architecture embraces compact living without compromise, sculpted clerestories draw daylight deep into each home, expanding interior volume, while efficient layouts provide storage, flexibility, and adaptability for diverse living arrangements.

A family of windows: projecting pop‑outs, standard apertures, and slender vertical slits animates the interior experience with shifting light and opportunities for seating, display, and moments of repose. Each unit opens onto its own terrace and contributes to a network of green roofs that reinforce biophilic design principles, creating a layered, living landscape across the site.

The Hollow reimagines affordable housing as a place where nature and community shape daily life; an environment that heals a fractured corridor along College Avenue and offers a renewed sense of home within Fayetteville’s evolving urban fabric.

Co-Designer: Kimber Stewart
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kilastw/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimber-stewart-22b463192/