BENTONVILLE, Ark. (Jan. 29, 2025) – The Walton Family Foundation announced 45 design firms have joined its Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program, bringing the roster of selected architecture, landscape architecture, urban design and planning firms to 108.

Established in 2015, the Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program promotes the highest level of design in the development of future public buildings and spaces in Benton and Washington counties. The selection of its design professionals, projects and program success is guided by four key principles: commitment to strengthening public life, elevating standards of sustainability and resilience, celebrating local cultures and places and building regional capacity. Once a specific project has been selected through the Design Excellence program for a grant award, the Design Excellence Selection Committee recommends firms from this list to be considered by the grantee for that project.

The 45 firms include:

• Agency Landscape + Planning, Cambridge, Mass.
• Alterstudio Architecture, Austin, Texas 
• Annum Architects, Inc., Boston
• atelierjones, Seattle
• Bestor Architecture, Los Angeles
• BIG, Brooklyn, N.Y. 
• BLDGS, Atlanta
• BVH Architecture, Lincoln, Neb.
• Childers Architect, Bentonville, Ark.
• Clayton Korte, San Antonio
• Ecological Design Group, Little Rock, Ark. 
• Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects, Culver City, Calif.
• El Dorado, Kansas City, Mo. 
• French 2D, Boston
• Future Firm, Chicago
• HILLWORKS: Landscape Architecture, Auburn, Ala.
• Hood Design Studio, Oakland, Calif. 
• Howeler + Yoon Architecture, Boston
• IwamotoScott Architecture, San Francisco
• John Ronan Architects, Chicago
• JSa / RHA, Seattle
• kevin daly Architects, Los Angeles
• Kieran Timberlake, Philadelphia
• Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects, Los Angeles
• Low Design, Austin, Texas 
• Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects, Atlanta
• MALL - STAYNER ARCHITECTS, Portland, Ore.
• Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Brooklyn, N.Y. 
• Michael Vergason Landscape Architects, Alexandria, Va. 
• MOS Architects, New York City
• MPdL Studio, Ann Arbor, Mich.
• Multistudio, Inc., Phoenix
• MUTUO, Los Angeles
• Patterhn Ives, St. Louis
• Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects, Fayetteville, Ark.
• Shigeru Ban Architects, New York City
• SO-IL, Brooklyn, N.Y.
• STIMSON, Cambridge, Mass. 
• Studio Barnes, LLC, Miami
• Studio Gang, Chicago
• Studio Outside, Dallas 
• Studio Zewde, New York City
• Surface 678, P.A., Durham, N.C.
• Terrain Work, New York City
• Ultramoderne, Berkeley, Calif.

“By partnering with visionary architects, landscape architects and urban designers, we aim to support ambitious projects that leave a lasting impact on the region’s future,” said Meredith Bergstrom, senior program officer at the Walton Family Foundation. “The Design Excellence Program is committed to creating welcoming public spaces that reflect local culture and foster a sense of belonging.”

The program accommodates design firms of all sizes, including local and nationally recognized multidisciplinary firms, smaller specialty firms and new designers. A selection committee of industry experts and foundation representatives chooses which professionals will be added to the program. If accepted, designers can participate for up to five years or until they are selected for a project.

Notable program projects include TheatreSquared, Railyard Park and Thaden School. All have won prestigious awards, including the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) NY Design Merit Award and Regional and Urban Design Award, American Architecture Award and AIA NY Institutional Honor Award.

Last year, the foundation announced the three newest projects to be awarded, all representative of the program’s new inclusion of planning projects in addition to architecture and landscape architecture projects: A Campus Master Plan for the Northwest Arkansas Community College, The Razorback Greenway Corridor Plan and the Bentonville Public Schools Downtown Campus Master Plan.

About the Walton Family Foundation 

The Walton Family Foundation is, at its core, a family-led foundation. Three generations of the descendants of our founders, Sam and Helen Walton, and their spouses, work together to lead the foundation and create access to opportunity for people and communities. We work in three areas: improving education, protecting rivers and oceans and the communities they support, and investing in our home region of Northwest Arkansas and the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta. To learn more, visit waltonfamilyfoundation.org and follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.