AIA Arizona Forum No. 5

AzF5 arizona forum

Fall 2015

desert cities A Publication of AIA Arizona

AzF5 team

Editor-In-Chief Senior Editor Christina Noble AIA, LEED AP Yumiko Ishida AIA, LEED AP

Senior Editor Liz Farkas AIA

Senior Editor Sara Berl Assoc. AIA

Mission The Arizona Forum (AzF) is the semi-annual peer-reviewed journal of the American Institute of Architects Arizona and AIA Phoenix Metro. AzF will advocate for contemporary design issues through critical discourse, address design excellence, quality of life, and urban design throughout the state of Arizona. AzF invites AIA members and authors to share their expertise, practice experience, visions and theories with the profession and the community in general. The Forum challenges authors and readers to solve prescient issues, provide insight into contemporary architectural practice, contemplate architectural theory, and thoughtfully consider architectural design, urbanism, sustainability and technology. The Forum is open to contributions from AIA Members and community leaders. Its roots are based in the AIA Arizona Communications Committee and it is a tool intended to increase dialogue, communication and involvement on multiple levels. The Forum will foster interaction and discussion that will cultivate relationships between members and the broader community while also encouraging critical analysis and proactive thinking.

Submissions The Arizona Forum (AzF) welcomes the submission of essays, projects and responses to articles. Submitted materials are subject to peer and editorial review.

Spring issues of AzF focus on the AIA Arizona Design Awards while the fall AzF issues are themed, so articles and projects are selected relative to the issue’s specific subject.

Please contact the AzF Editor-in-Chief, Christina Noble AIA, at Christina.Noble@gmail.com if you are interested in contributing.

Editor Abigail Hoover RA

Additional Editor Oscar Lopez Associate Editors Marlene Imirzian FAIA Diane Jacobs AIA Chris Knorr AIA Bill Otwell AIA Mark Patterson AIA Peter Rutti AIA Doug Sydnor FAIA James Trahan AIA Magazine Graphics Nicholas Tsontakis AIA

Peer Reviewers We are looking for experts in all areas of architecture and design to serve as peer reviewers for future issues. Past authors are also invited to serve as peer reviewers.

AIA Arizona 30 N 3rd Ave #200, Phoenix, Az 85003 P: 602.252.4200 www.aia-arizona.org

AIA Arizona Board Phil Weddle FAIA President Caroline Lobo AIA President Elect Robin Shambach AIA Secretary Patrick Panetta AIA Treasurer

Photos: Not Sure

table of contents desert cities 2015 publisher’s note Nick Tsontakis AIA, NCARB page 4

AzF4 Networking Event photos page 5

sponsor pages page 76-98

making desert cities author: John C. Meunier AIA page 6

lacey’s house, an old story about a new home Author: Eddie Jones AIA page 22

learning from ancient desert cities Author: Benjamin Ayers AIA page 32

containers on grand Author: Wesley James AIA page 40

how to build the desert city of the 21st century Author: Galina Tachieva page 46

miracle in the desert: downtown tucson’s transit-driven transformation Author: Michael Keith page 61

lifeblood of a desert city Author: Philip Weddle FAIA page 67

AzF5 cover photo by Paul Marquez Associate AIA

publisher’s note Welcome to the print version of Arizona Forum. Our Fall 2015 issue, AzF5 features articles focused on the design and evolution of desert cities. The 2015 AIA Arizona Awards winners will be featured in our upcoming Spring 2016 issue.

Twenty Advisory Panel architectural firms have spent the last three years discussing how to put the publication together and how to make it sustainable. We have partnered with quality sponsors in the design and construction industry who support the Arizona Forum by taking out ads.

The architects in turn participate in quarterly sponsor hosted networking events. This 1 networking system has proven itself with our first publication, Arizona Residential Architects (ARA), which is celebrating its fifth anniversary and is flourishing.

Aristotle once said that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. When architects get together in the pursuit of a common goal, the results benefit the entire design and construction community as well as the general public. Architects Publishing Network is proud to be involved in this important undertaking.

Network on‌

Nick Tsontakis AIA, NCARB Architects Publishing Network NickT@TsontakisArchitecture.com

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AzF4 networking events hinkleys lighting scottsdale - june 24, 2015 greey pickett landscape architecture scottsdale - october 8, 2015

event photography by Scott Sandler Photographic

making desert cities John C. Meunier AIA Originally published in: Understanding Sustainable Cities: Concepts, Cases, and Solutions

Since this chapter was first published in 2007 there have obviously been changes in its context, locally in Phoenix and the Southwest, nationally in changing attitudes about urbanism, and internationally as the Islamic world has been through so much change and turmoil. In Phoenix the experiment with light-rail appears to have been a success with ridership exceeding all expectations, and land values along the routes, and particularly around the stations, reflecting a growing public interest in both living and working close to this form of mass transit. This coincides with the growth of a national enthusiasm for urban living, particularly among young adults, and an acceptance of the argument that successful cities require a creative environment promoted by the intense human interaction generated by urban density. While it can be seen that the tragic turbulence in the Middle East that threatens to become worldwide has thrown a negative light on Islamic culture and its potential to teach us valuable lessons – a theme of this chapter – it may also have increased our willingness to both understand and appreciate it.

-John C. Meunier

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1 Local climate and regional materials inform the shape and color of the shelter

Introduction Modern desert cities, such as Phoenix, Albuquerque, Tucson, Las Vegas, even Riyadh and Dubai, are being made in ways that reflect the capacity of post-industrial technology to overwhelm the limitations that constrained the forms of older, pre-industrial, desert cities. This chapter questions whether both the technology and the living patterns that typify such modern desert cities are sustainable. It looks at some older desert cities to see if they have much to teach us about how to live well in desert cities without an excessive dependence on non-renewable resources, and without placing so much stress on the environment. At the same time, as Amos Rapoport and Besim Hakim have suggested, we must recognize that the forms in which cities are made respond as much, or more, to cultural imperatives, as to issues of climate and technology.1,2 We need to be cautious, therefore, as we derive these lessons and attempt to apply them. Nonetheless, many of these older cities, such as Yazd in Iran, Shibam in Yemen, Jaisalmer in India, and Marrakesh in Morocco, have evolved in response to their desert contexts over extended periods of time. Some have even survived significant cultural shifts, such as in Sana’a in Yemen, with the arrival of Islam after many centuries of growth. It is argued that they may provide valuable models, regarding compact urban form, alternative house forms, climate control and its optimization, water usage and its celebration, low-energy construction materials and methods, even the nature of windows, in the making of modern desert cities.

F1 City of Shibam in Yemen 1 Rapaport, Amos 1969 House Form and Culture Englewood Cliffs, N.J.; Prentice Hall 2 Hakim, Besim Selim 1986 Arabic-Islamic Cities: Building and Planning Principles London; New York; KPI

Desert cities in the United States, such as Phoenix or El Paso, even Los Angeles and San Diego, face a unique responsibility as they provide models for what it means to live a “modern” life in a desert environment. These models can multiply by many times the stresses placed on other ecological and political systems as they are emulated, partially or wholly, throughout the world -- first by the wealthy in their suburban villas, and then, over time, by others in the population -- abandoning the old dense city centers as they seek the benefits of a life that begins to match their images of twentyfirst century urbanism.

we must recognize that the forms in which cities are made respond as much, or more, to cultural imperatives, as to issues of climate and technology

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This chapter aims to address a growing concern by many regarding the long-term prospects of cities, such as the rapidly growing cities of the American Southwest, with both an urban form and an array of building types that have largely ignored their desert settings. It also is a response by the author based on extensive travel to desert cities around the world, particularly, but not solely, to older cities whose cores were built in a pre-industrial era, in search of lessons indicating more appropriate ways of living in a desert context. This work is not informed by nostalgia or cultural conservatism, although these are certainly forces staying the hands of those who would destroy, indeed in some places have already destroyed, the patrimony of ancient cultures in the name of “modernization”, and in response to the ineluctable forces of the marketplace. It is

informed by a deep commitment to what Vitruvius called “propriety”; by a belief that the best way to live is not by dominating the context but by optimizing its benefits and gently ameliorating its challenges; that the power of modern technology should be used only as a last resort when all other means cannot meet the demands of twenty-first century life.

Background The advent of twentieth century technology has radically changed the nature of desert city living in many parts of the world. Widespread use of automobiles, increased access to large scale urban water and sewage systems, almost universal access to electrical power and, in some cases, full climate control through air-conditioning have eroded the need for a care-full relationship with both the social and physical environment. Satellite receivers, powered by that electricity, have infiltrated almost every household with images of ways of life that challenge indigenous cultural norms of both behavior and artifacts. This barrage of images, reinforced by the communications from international commerce, has promoted the uses of the new technologies as a means to “modern” life patterns.

There are still many desert settlements in the world where access to all of these modern technologies is very limited. Automobility is at best a motorcycle, and much travel is done in mini-buses or shared taxis. Although electricity may be available via a tangle of overhead wires, water may be available only for a few hours a day or a few days a week, or has to be brought in containers from communal taps or wells. The building of sewer systems often has been less than satisfactory in some desert cities, as leaking pipes have both polluted the ground and dissolved the foundations of older buildings. Further, the effluent is often left untreated as it leaves the system. But these transitions to “modern” living, even when incomplete, have still been eroding ways of making desert cities that evolved over centuries and were adapted to the physical demands and opportunities of their physical and cultural contexts.

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Is this process reversible? There have been political and religious leaders who have attempted to resist this tide of “modernization”. Countries such as North Yemen had rulers who refused to let their community participate in twentieth century developments throughout the first two thirds of that century. The resistance to this western model of modernization may be reflected in some of the political turmoil in the world today among those who value the traditional ways of life and fear their destruction under the wheels of the juggernaut of western modernization. However, even in countries that profess a cultural hostility to the west, many of the forces of “modernization” seem to be irresistible. What is needed is an alternative model that retains much of what is valuable from the past but that also accommodates with a new sensibility the demands of the present.

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1 local climate and regional materials inform the shape and color of the shelter Photos: Not Sure

Modern Desert Cities Greater Phoenix is a prototypical modern desert metropolis in the American Southwest.

It is a city that anticipates achieving its full realization as a major urban center in the twenty-first century and is accumulating the necessary elements of a metropolis. It is becoming a “major league” city more than simply in terms of sports. At the beginning of this century the population of the metropolitan area of Phoenix already had exceeded three and a half million, with a land area of more than twelve hundred square miles. The population by 2050 has been projected to be between nine and twenty-eight million, depending on which previous growth trend is extrapolated.3 Phoenix has had most of its growth as an automobile city. As in other automobile dependent cities, its population density has been low, averaging about 2,750 people per square mile.

What could be the model for a different urban density in a desert city? Older American cities such as Boston, New York, and San Francisco have much higher densities and more urbane life-styles, and are among the most desirable places to live. But they are not desert cities.

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F4 F2 Housing expanding into the desert in Scottsdale, Arizona F3 Arcades onto the main plaza in Cuzco, Peru F4 Shade Structures in Brisbane, Australia 3 Morrison Institue for Public Policy, ASU 2003 Greater Phoenix Regional Atlas: A Preview of the Region’s 50-year Future Tempe, AZ; Greater Phoenix 2100

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This chapter looks at lessons for making successful desert cities. It explores examples in Israel, Iran, Tunisia, Morocco, Rajasthan, Egypt, Yemen, Australia, Chile and Peru.

This is not a comprehensive array. Rather, it is a survey of a diverse set of long enduring desert cities. Each has its own lessons, not only at the urban scale, but also at the scale of the building types. Within this survey, some shared characteristics were identified.

Among them are: shade, pedestrian scale and mass transit, courtyards, efficiency in water and energy use, natural ventilation and evaporative cooling, and enduring building materials; but most of all they share the characteristic of compactness. A brief description of these follows: Shade is an essential component of desert living, particularly for the pedestrian. When one consults early photographs of the centers of cities like Phoenix, and of older Hispanic cities, porches and arcades (portales) are in front of almost every building, and awnings often shade the windows. In older cities in Australia, such as Adelaide, such “portales” are still to be found, somewhat like the cast-iron arcades of the French Quarter of New Orleans. In newer parts of cities such as Brisbane, high steel arcades have been constructed upon which shading plants climb. Major city streets are often lined with shade trees. Sometimes, as in Isfahan and Yazd in Iran, they are growing directly out of the irrigation ditches that flow alongside the sidewalks. In other North African desert cities, water is too scarce for all but the occasional street drinking fountain, often built as a philanthropic gift to the community by some well-to-do citizen. Here, the buildings themselves are the source of shade as they form the edges of the often-narrow pedestrian alleyways. In cities such as Shibam in the Hadramawt of South Yemen, the 3 tower houses that line the street are so high that a great deal of shade is created, and the narrow city streets are noticeably cooler than the surrounding countryside.

Shade is particularly difficult to achieve at the scale of the typical automobile dominated street. The roadway is almost inevitably going to be exposed to long-term solar radiation and will itself become a radiant heat source. This can, of course be reduced by substantial shade trees along the sidewalks and in the medians, but such trees are rarely water conservative and would not meet the requirements for indigenous xeriscape plants often adopted by modern desert cities. This suggests that the higher density, pedestrian dominated parts of the desert city should be served not by streets

predominantly conceived of as vehicular roadways with pedestrian sidewalks, but as relatively narrow shaded pedestrian ways, with limited access for service and emergency vehicles as well as purely local traffic. This is the arrangement for many of the streets of older desert cities. Physical conditions limit vehicular traffic to small service and public safety vehicles, or two-wheeled vehicles such as bicycles or mopeds. The widths of streets in the “medinas” of Morocco or Tunisia were often thought of in terms of the required number of laden donkeys or camels walking side-by-side. In a modern desert city, the dimensions could follow the minimums required for specially designed or selected essential vehicles, while recognizing the priority of the pedestrian, as do the malls on many of our university campuses.

Pedestrian scale creates a very different urban form than the scale of the automobile.

Pedestrians need an intimacy of encounter with the environment, whether natural or man-made. They also need short-range destinations. This leads not only to a smaller scale environment but also to the possibility of a more varied geometry. Since the time of the 1785 Jeffersonian Land Ordinance that established a neo-classical subdivision of land west of the Appalachians the plans of most American cities have been dominated by the rectilinear mile-square grid. The interest in the picturesque that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century introduced the curvilinear street pattern, originally in our cemeteries and parks and eventually in our suburbs. The desert city,

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Pedestrians need an intimacy of encounter with the environment, whether natural or man-made. however, in providing for pedestrians, will often have an even more complex geometry in its pattern of major and minor streets. There are a few examples in history of desert cities planned for princes, such as Jaipur in Rajasthan, that are almost completely on a rectilinear grid, but the majority do not respond to a single dominant geometric concept.4 This is not to suggest that they are illogical, but that the logic is not that of a simple geometry. Rather, as Besim Hakim and others have suggested, it is often the logic of religiously derived and legally enforced social relationships, and, as Norbert Schonauer has identified as worthy of emulation, the creation of a hierarchy in street networks linking small communities to the larger city.5 4

The dense network of intimate shady streets typically will lead to a major communal space. In the Hispanic colonial cities of South or North America, built under the influence of the Laws of the Indies, this will be a formal plaza, focused on a major fountain, flanked by arcades and framed by the buildings of government and religion.6 In Isfahan in Iran, there is an enormous central square, or “maidan”, whereas in cities such as Marrakesh in Morocco the major open space lacks such geometric clarity, but comes to life in the cooler evenings with food stalls and crowds clustering around story-tellers, snake charmers, tribal bands, acrobats, and even dentists. In most Islamic countries, formal geometry is reserved for the paradise gardens of palaces or mosques, 10 Meunier

not for urban spaces. Nonetheless, the central plaza is the focus of the community. The major Friday Mosque also will be nearby, and at dusk the air will be filled with the electronically amplified and distorted wail of the call to prayer from the loudspeakers mounted on its minaret. The vitality and identity of the city is relished by both its citizens and its visitors in such places. In the modern city similar public places are still necessary, and could relate to the transit systems that bring people from the further reaches of the city, thereby reducing the necessity for the major roads and parking garages that erode the intensity and thermal comfort of urban life in the desert.

In the ancient desert cities it is often from such places that the market, bazaar, or souk heads off as a shaded linear pedestrian passageway, burrowing its way through the fabric of the city. Typically this linear market will be flanked by occasionally fountained service courts, workshops and storerooms from which laden trolley carts head off to refill the emptying shelves of the small stores that line the pedestrian way, and also by the fondouks or inns that accommodate the visiting merchants. Bazaars or souks are often vaulted or domed, and illuminated and ventilated from oculi that let narrow shafts of sunlight in and the heated air out.2,7 Such spaces, neither interior nor exterior, shaded but open to the fresh air, are crucial to the success of desert city buildings. Whether such a form of retail would work in the modern world may be questioned but it certainly has its parallels in cities such as Scottsdale in Arizona that has a naturally day-lit, and in certain seasons naturally ventilated, shopping mall a half-mile long. The major difference is that the means of access via the automobile has isolated the modern mall from the rest of the city behind a moat of parking. With increased access provided by masstransit, and a higher density of residences within walking distance, such physical isolation of shopping from the surrounding community can be significantly reduced.

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F5 Narrow shady street in Sana’a, Yemen F6 Main plaza in Santiago, Chile 4 Sachdev, Vibhuti and Tillotson, Giles 2002 Building Jaipur: The Making of an Indian City London; Reaktion 5 Schoenauer, Norbert 1981 6,000 years of Housing New York; Garland STPM Press 6 Guarda, Gabriel 1968 La Ciudad Chilena del Siglo XVII Buenos Aires; Centro Editor de America Latina 7 Lampl, Paul 1968 Cities and Planning in the Ancient Near East New York; Braziller

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Courtyards have been the focus of buildings in compact cities for millennia, but particularly in desert cities. The central courtyard allows the building to be constructed out to the very edges of its site, gaining most of the necessary light and air from within

F5 F7 Courtyard of the Social Sciences Building, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.

F8 Wind tower and courtyard of the Lari House in Yazd, Iran.

8 Beasley, Elisabeth and Harverson, Michael with Roaf, Susan 1982 Living with the Desert: Working Building of the Iranian Plateau Warminster, Wilts, England; Aris and Phillips

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Courtyards have been the focus of buildings in compact cities for millennia, but particularly in desert cities. The central courtyard allows the building to be constructed out to the very edges of its site, gaining most of the necessary light and air from within, rather than depending on a wasteful buffer around it of often relatively useless space. That courtyard becomes the focus of the building from which the major rooms are reached directly, and into which those rooms may generously open at cooler times of day or season. In very hot desert cities, as in Fez or Marrakesh in Morocco, the courtyard will have provision to be shaded when necessary with sheets of fabric stretched on ropes, or by open weave mats laid across a metal grille that protects the courtyard from invasion from above. Typically, within the courtyard there will be a fountain or pool and leafy plants that provide both physical and emotional cooling.

Buildings of this courtyard type were designed in the late 1950’s for the campus of Arizona State University. The Farmer Education Building and the Social Science Building there have central fountains and planted courtyards around which the open-to-theair circulation of the building, both stairs and galleries, is located. These stairs and galleries share the shade of the light mesh canopy over the courtyard. It is only on entering the rooms off that circulation that one experiences full mechanical climate control. The courtyard also becomes the major social focus for the inhabitants of the building. In some courtyards in Iran, for example in the desert city of Yazd, the pool in the courtyard may have a wooden platform straddling it on which a family and friends may gather in the evening to eat and converse. The courtyard will have on its southern edge, facing north, an open porch or iwan for use in the summer, and on its northern edge, facing south, a winter space, that in the nineteenth century may have been furnished with moveable windows glazed with colored glass. The air movement through these courtyards and iwans is stimulated by windtowers, or baudgir, which climb above the rooftops and channel air from all directions down into the houses, iwans, and courtyards. In many older desert cities there is also space below ground to which people may retire in the heat of the day for rest, quiet, and contemplation.8 Such below ground space in Iran often surrounded a small pool through which the water from the qanats flowed. The qanats are underground channels hand-tunneled from the base of the distant mountains to bring water to the city. The residents of major institutions and the important houses of the city were served directly by these qanats.

Others had to go to a communal cistern into which water would flow from the qanats.

This space is covered by a dome and ventilated by an array of windtowers. Qanats are also found in North Africa, although there they are called khettaras.

Water is obviously crucial to the survival of desert cities. Many were built on rivers that brought the water from far beyond the sparsely precipitated desert context. Cairo is the most extreme example of this, but there are many other desert cities -- such as Lima, in Peru, where the local rainfall is almost zero -- but which are served by rivers fed from distant mountain watersheds. In the Chilean Atacama Desert, one of the driest in the world, there are richly vegetated fissures in the arid desert surface through which streams flow from the distant volcanic mountain ranges. Small oasis towns, such as Toconao, capture that water and guide it in narrow channels through their orchards, much as with the acequias in New Mexico and the great date palm groves of North Africa.

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Another source of water has been groundwater in aquifers built up over millennia and replenished by seasonal rains. Sadly, in many ancient desert cities, such as Sana’a in North Yemen, the wells that almost every house had in its basement no longer reach the aquifer. This source of water has retreated beyond the reach of those wells because of profligate mechanical pumping caused by increased per capita use multiplied by rapid population growth. Water is now piped into Sana’a, as is the case in most of the smaller towns and villages of Yemen where it is usually connected to communal taps in the street rather than directly to the houses.

In both ancient and contemporary desert cities, the modern technology of pumps and pipes, as well as canals that bring water from great distances, has changed patterns of water use as well as cultural attitudes towards water. The sense of water as a scarce and precious commodity, to be celebrated architecturally through noble fountains and the building of great cisterns and magnificent step-wells into which the monsoon rains are carefully channeled, can be seen in Yemen and Rajasthan. This sensibility has been displaced more recently by a purely utilitarian attitude that appears to have encouraged wastefulness. In beautiful old cities such as Jaisalmer in India, this newly excessive use of water overloads the inadequate drainage systems and erodes the foundations of older buildings that were not built to withstand the rising dampness.

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In our modern desert cities there appears to be a growing consciousness of the need to be thoughtful about water. Many cities have adopted xeriscape as the standard for landscaping. Development also is constrained by the need to demonstrate the longterm availability of water, and an attempt is being made to avoid the exhaustion of the aquifers. In Phoenix, for example, the local press publishes articles about the loss of natural rivers because of the unconstrained increase in the number of wells within the watershed.

What techniques and attitudes can then be learned from the history and recent experiF7 ences of these desert cities?

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What techniques and attitudes can then be learned from the history and recent experiences of these desert cities?

F9 Water in the Atacama Desert leading to the oasis town of Toconao in Chile F10 The town cistern at Hababa, Yemen 9 Serjeant R.B. and Lewcock, Ronald, editors 1983 Sana’a: An Arabian Islamic City London; World of Islam Festival Trust

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Water harvesting is a term that needs to be understood and embraced. Desert cities throughout history have practiced it. The modern desert city may harvest water at the scale of the watershed and the region but, at the scale of the individual building and the small community, many still have lessons to be learned. For example, throughout Australia many older homes have under their eaves a great round steel cistern into which the rainwater drains. It is used to relieve dependence on the main water supply in old mining towns such as White Cliffs or Coober Pedy, where many live in underground houses converted from the opal mines and harvest water from the ground above.

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An older example is in the courtyard in the middle of the great mosque in Kairouan, Tunisia. Below the center of the courtyard there is a cistern into which the rainwater that falls on that courtyard is drained, and is then available as a well for the ablutions required before prayer. At the center of the beautiful small town of Hababa, also in Yemen, is the town cistern, surrounded by a wall of houses and a small mosque, into which the winter rains are drained and stored. In India water harvesting is now a requirement for all new developments. All other desert cities could benefit from such a fine grain attitude towards water conservation. The continuing use of water already used for ablutions is evident in Sana’a, the capital city of Yemen, as it irrigates gardens where fresh vegetables are grown. The Waqf, the local religious foundation, manages these gardens as well as the adjacent mosque.9

The celebration of water as a scarce and valuable commodity should be expressed in civic and private architecture, in urban form, and in management policies. As an example of what not to do; in a recent drought in Phoenix, the fountains were left dry to symbolize a commitment not to waste water, but this was actually misguided. The savings were negligible as the water used in the fountains is recirculated and the only slight loss would be through evaporation. Historically, fountains have been used to provide respite from the arid heat of the desert and to honor the cleansing and life-giving power of water. To keep the fountains flowing is to demonstrate the ability to continue life and civility in the desert. To turn them off is to admit defeat. The lesson here is in the appropriate use of civic architecture to celebrate the value of water as it is harvested and enjoyed.

Earth is the material most used in the construction of many of the older desert cities.

Adobe and rammed earth, or pise, often are dug from the immediately adjacent land.

From the North African settlements of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia to most of the Middle East the communities are made of it. The towered city of Shibam in Yemen, for example, is built of mud brick from the great wash of the Hadramawt.10 Local stone also is used, as in Rajasthan, India, where the indigenous sandstone is extraordinarily versatile and can be used for columns, beams, floor slabs, as well as intricately carved screens and brackets.4,11 In Jerusalem, the city benefits from the continuing commitment to the use of its beautiful locally quarried Jerusalem stone on all of its buildings, giving a consistency and coherence lacking in many modern cities.

Building materials for the Desert. In contemporary desert cities, many architects of the Southwest have been exploring the use of rammed earth, adobe, and other more enduring materials and techniques that extend their palette to make a thoroughly modern architecture that fits their context as well as the contemporary needs of their clients. Eddie Jones in Phoenix and Rick Joy in Tucson are two of a rapidly growing school of regional architects whose work is being recognized far beyond the bounds of the region, and who have incorporated rammed earth as a valuable contribution to their architectural resources. Inorganic materials that will not deteriorate under the fierce attack of sunlight and dry air, such as earth and metals, have replaced wood as a primary raw material for the structure, or as cladding on the exteriors of buildings. Even the great wooden beams at Taliesin West have now been replaced by steel. In the arid air of the desert steel often can be left unpainted in the knowledge that the rusting process will be extraordinarily slow. Will Bruder has been a leader in exploring the use of metals, and his Phoenix Library is sheathed in locally mined copper that has been corrugated by the same machines that mould the steel sheets that form the walls of agricultural silos.

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F12 10 Lewcock, Ronald 1986 Wadi Hadramawt and the Walled City of Shibam Paris; UNESCO 11 Agarawala, R.A. 1979 History, Art and Architecture of Jaisalmer Delhi; Agam Kala Prakashan

Air in the desert has been one its greatest assets. Many very talented people, such as New Mexico’s great architect John Gaw Meem, as well as Frank Lloyd Wright, who located his Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona, came to the desert to benefit from the clear dry air as a part of a treatment for their lung based illnesses. For many months of the year fresh desert air can be allowed to circulate freely through the buildings. The great mosques in the older desert cities of the Middle East are open to the air, without glazed windows. Indeed there is one mosque type that is little more than great arched porches, or iwans, on the four sides of an open fountained courtyard. In the older desert cities, there are many fresh-air environments where architecture is used to create exterior microclimates rather than closed interior environments. These courtyards, kiosks, porches, shaded souks or bazaars, gardens, or naturally ventilated major rooms, 16 Meunier

F11 Water cisterns White Cliffs, Australia F12 A monsoon tank in Rajasthan, India F13 Rammed earth construction in Morocco F14 Shutters below clere-storey windows in Sana’a Yemen

often domed and even fountained, lend much of the quality and richness to the fabric of older desert cities, particularly those of ancient Persia, Egypt, and the Arab world.

Some modern desert-based architects, such as Antoine Predock, have understood the continuing value of these architectural elements as they build in Arizona, New Mexico and other arid regions. Taliesin West, the winter home of Frank Lloyd Wright and his Fellowship, also had no glazed windows in its early years; just shutters that could be closed to keep out the wind or the cold night air. Similarly, older desert homes in the Yemen also had shutters only in their lower windows, with the higher windows “glazed” with thin sheets of alabaster to diffuse light into the rooms. High-level ventilation through lantern vents, or simply holes in the roof similar to that of the Pantheon in Rome, have ensured the evacuation of hot air from both major halls and linear vaulted souks or bazaars throughout the history of architecture in arid lands.

In the Islamic city, because of Koranic laws against overlooking into the private courtyards of neighboring houses, there is a consistent height for all the houses. This permits a continuous stream of breezes above the rooftops. The wind towers of Iran, such as in the great desert city of Yazd, reach into that stream to play an important part in stimulating air movement within the courtyard houses, both through scooping air down on the positive pressure side of the tower and through drawing air out on the negative pressure side.

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Fire or the naked flame, the source of light and heat for millennia in the desert as elsewhere, has been replaced almost entirely by the captured flame of electricity and by the ignition of fossil fuels in the internal combustion engines. Before industrialization, it was the naked flame that cooked our food and heated us in winter, even provided the focus of social life. For example in Aboriginal communities in the Australian deserts fire, rather than buildings, marked human settlements. The acrid smell and smoke of cooking over charcoal or smoldering dried dung, has now been joined in the developing world by the choking exhaust fumes of mopeds, motor bicycles, taxis, trucks and trains.

In these ancient sites, as in the developed world, the exhausts from the captured flame in engines and power stations have created a blanket of polluted air over our desert cities, particularly in winter when the colder night air causes temperature inversions that trap the dirty air. Efforts to control this have included a decision by the Indian Supreme Court to mandate the use of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) in Delhi, as the fuel for all public vehicles, including taxis and motorized rickshaws. Unfortunately, the decision was made before there were adequate refueling stations, so long lines formed overnight at the few stations that did exist. Emission standards in the West have been constantly improved, more recently in the United States by states such as California rather than by a Federal government sensitive to the objections of the automobile manufacturers.

Most encouraging as a response to this problem is a revival of interest in, and a commitment to, a new generation of mass transit. Many American cities are investing heavily, with the support of the Federal government, in light-rail systems. Desert cities such as Phoenix are late to participate, and other smaller desert cities such as Tucson and Scottsdale, are still debating the value of such a commitment. Tucson, however, does have some of remnants of an older trolley car system to form the basis for such a network.

Desert cities in the American Southwest owe most of their growth to the technological developments of the latter half of the twentieth century, notably domestic air-conditioning and the improved availability of automobiles. The density that results from automobile dependency is typically very low. Phoenix’s density in 2000 was about

2,750 people per square mile. This density is about half of the density of Los Angeles, a city that developed initially as a trolley car city.

If a density of 20,000 people per square mile could be achieved in a mile wide swathe centered on the light rail stations, then many benefits would accrue.

Other desert cities, such as Tucson and Albuquerque, have an even lower density. It is those low densities that make such cities appear to be inappropriate for mass transit. In Phoenix, in 2007 as this is written, there is an anticipated shortage of parking spaces, particularly shaded parking spaces, on the lots planned around the park-and-ride stations on the light rail system that is being built with a first phase planned for completion in 2008. Park-and-ride may be an appropriate way for mass-transit to serve a low-density city. An alternative, though, is to deliberately set about increasing the density around the light-rail stations in order to bring significant numbers of people within walking distance.

The construction of the twenty-three miles of the first phase of a light-rail system is one of the most important developments in Phoenix in the twenty-first century. A further twenty-seven mile section of the light rail system, Phase II, is being planned. The fulfillment of the potential of this system depends on a radical change of urban density along those lines.

The system being planned for Phoenix, as of 2007, will total approximately fifty miles.

If, for example, a density of 20,000 people per square mile could be achieved in a mile wide swathe centered on the light rail stations, then many benefits would accrue. First, the equivalent of a decade’s worth of population growth, i.e. about 1 million people, could be accommodated, with a minimum of new roads and without consuming more land. Second, at that density not only would the light-rail stops be within walking distance of a significant number of people, they would also be equivalently close to almost all the other institutions of urban life such as schools, shops, libraries, postoffices, restaurants, parks, community-gardens, day-care and senior citizen centers, etc.

A density comparable to substantial portions of New York City could be accommodated along that strip, without sprawling the city of Phoenix, at present densities, another 364 square miles. It would reduce the amount of new road construction and automobile travel time that a typical area of Phoenix requires, and also restrain the increase in the air pollution that plagues the city. Such a strategy would have major benefits both for Phoenix, and serve as a model for other desert cities.

Compact Urban Form. What form should higher density urban living take in a twentyfirst century desert city? High and low-rise condominiums currently being built, particularly close to existing centers with an array of services available within walking distance, follow models established in San Diego and Dallas. For some people in the urban area, notably young professionals and older people without children, this may be an appropriate although relatively expensive housing type. Higher density traditional houses also are being built. The open space around many of these houses, though, has shrunk to a margin measured in feet rather than yards. This limits the use of the open18 Meunier

air space that is one of the rewards of desert living where, for much of the year it is possible and enjoyable to be in appropriately positioned and shaded outdoor spaces connected to the house.

The older desert cities, built before the days of the automobile and air conditioning have much to teach us about ways to live comfortably and well at higher urban densities. The late Norbert Schonauer wrote in 6,000 Years of Housing: “In a world where no nation is wealthy enough to afford waste, the land-use efficiency of the oriental urban residential pattern is worthy of emulation in terms of both land use and energy conservation. This is not to say that the oriental urban environment should be duplicated, but merely that some of its urban design principles should be adopted, such as, for example, the hierarchical order in street networks that bring about a safe residential environment.

“Moreover, planning small precincts for residential neighborhoods without through traffic would afford a more intimate identity with the residential community. In addition, a compact urban development pattern with no waste space would result in reasonable walking distance to many community facilities and would create the population density required for efficient mass transportation systems. Finally, the courtyard concept would be applied successfully in the design of both single-family dwellings as well as multiple housing in which each dwelling would have some semblance of privacy and indeed also a ‘well of heaven’.” 5 The following comparison illustrates the urban land-use efficiency Schonauer analyzed.

The typical North American suburb has 23% of its area devoted to public rights of way, 6% to driveways and garages, 17% to built-up area, and 54% to private yard space, much of it just a buffer between the houses and between the houses and the road. He compared this to several other oriental urban patterns: Tunis, Medina, 9% public rights of way, 74% built-up area, 17% private courtyard space; Ahmedabad, Kadwa Pol, 18%

The older desert cities, built before the days of the automobile and air conditioning have much to teach us about ways to live comfortably and well at higher urban densities.

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public rights of way, 69% built-up area, 13% private courtyard space; Baghdad, 16% public rights of way, 72% built-up area, 12% private courtyard space. In the oriental examples, instead of only one sixth of the land being used for dwelling, between two-thirds and three quarters of the land is in residential use, and that does not count the private open space, nearly all in the form of central courtyards that are an intrinsic part of the home. This makes it possible to achieve much higher densities without building high or losing contact with the ground. It also allows the use of building and paving areas to collect the runoff from rains and support the plants that can flourish in its courtyards and along its pedestrian ways.

It would seem appropriate as we confront an uncertain future, where the optimism of modernity is being tempered by our growing concerns about the price it is exacting on our natural and social environments, for us to reconsider our heritage, not as something to be discarded, but as a source of valuable concepts. The past is not to be copied, but to be used as a reservoir of societal wisdom.

This comparison does not mention the great value of the roof surface of the desert house. Typically flat, it is accessible and usable. Residents use it at night, under the clear desert sky, as a cool place for sleeping. In the early morning, with the appropriate shade from the early morning sun, it can be a delightful place for breakfast. In the winter, the gentler sun can be enjoyed directly. In the Islamic city, due to the strict rules about overlooking, the neighboring houses will not block the distant views. This becomes a welcome contrast to the introversion of the rest of the house. Even without the rule of the Koran, such height limitations could be easily assured within the planning controls of the western world.

Past and Future. Desert cities have been around since the beginnings of civilization thousands of years ago. Largely due to the extraordinary technological changes of the last century and a half, modern life has alienated us from much of the evolved wisdom of those millennia of urban desert living, even for those who grew up within such ancient patterns. For many contemporary desert dwellers, the term “sustainability� has attached to it a question mark. It would seem appropriate as we confront an uncertain future, where the optimism of modernity is being tempered by our growing concerns about the price it is exacting on our natural and social environments, for us to reconsider our heritage, not as something to be discarded, but as a source of valuable concepts.

The past is not to be copied, but to be used as a reservoir of societal wisdom.

Implications on Planning and Design. For architects and urban designers it is always a necessity to explore in design the implications of any critical theory. As both an architect and a teacher this author has sought to have the above ideas inform much of the recent work of his students. As an illustration of some of their work, as shown in F15, a quarter square mile of Central Phoenix, just north of the downtown core and adjacent to one of the new light-rail stations, has been examined as a site for compact, mixed use, urban development with a morphology based on an examination of older desert cities and their building types. Two very different geometries were explored. One arrangement stayed close to the rectilinear grid on which Phoenix grew from the middle 20 Meunier

of the nineteenth century, but explored the use of housing types from cities such as Lima, Jaipur, and Jerusalem. The other arrangement responded more to the desire lines of pedestrians as they headed to and from the light-rail station, much as in Islamic cities the Friday Mosques, like magnets that order “iron filings�, shape the elements of the urban fabric around them. In this case both the low courtyard houses of North Africa and the tower houses of Yemen were used as departure points in the development of compact city housing types.

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F17 F15,16 Proposed compact city neighborhoods in Phoenix, AZ adjacent to the Roosevelt Light-Rail station

The methodology, borrowed from other educators such as Michael Dennis of MIT, was to superimpose initially a piece of an older desert city onto the site, in order to establish a sense of the intricacy of their scale, and the richness and variety of their fabric, and then to morph it to meet the demands of modern American urban life. Clearly, the culture that informed the logic of the older city is quite different from that which would shape a modern American city, and so it was necessary to reinterpret the form. However, it made some sense to replace mosques with schools, palaces with major institutions such as university buildings, mosque gardens with community gardens, etc.

Discussions with developers suggested that the retail system of bazaars or souks was actually quite transferable. A limited accommodation of cars was allowed, but the commitment was to the primacy of pedestrian movement, much as is to be found on most university campuses. The students also developed reinterpretations of court and tower houses for modern American living. These contemporary applications, though, retained a commitment to use low energy building materials, such as rammed earth, to the optimization of the natural advantages of a desert climate for much of the year, and to the use of architecture rather than machinery as the primary means of ameliorating the impact of the hot summer sun.

This early set of studies, which has been followed by other similar investigations into custom courtyard houses with a floor area ratio (FAR) of 1, i.e. lot size equals house square footage, and mixed-use compact urbanism, suggest that there is some validity to the proposition that informs this chapter; that there are lessons to be learnt from studying older desert cities as we attempt to develop more sustainable ways to make the desert cities of the future.

F17 The New Arizona Urban House project note: all photos by author, John Meunier AIA headshot by: Dorothy Meunier

John Meunier rediscovered his love of teaching when he returned to the faculty of the Design School as a Full Professor having served for 15 years as Dean at Arizona State University. His career began as a young faculty member at Cambridge University. He is also a registered architect. His first house is on The National Heritage List for England. He and his partners won the competition for the Burrell Museum in Glasgow, Scotland. Throughout his career he has shared his enthusiasm for architecture on television. He anchored a six episode series for KAET. His videos have been marketed by Insight Media. He has travelled widely, particularly for his research on Desert Cities, generating not only the videos but also publications on Making Desert Cities. He was a visiting faculty member at Harvard, Yale, McGill, North Carolina, and Clemson, and was Director of the School of Architecture and Interior design at the University of Cincinnati. He has a BArch from Liverpool University, an MArch from Harvard University where he was a Frank Knox Fellow, and an MA from Cambridge University. He is a member of the AIA and the RIBA and a Fellow of the Royal Institute for the Arts.

lacey’s house, an old story about a new home Eddie Jones, AIA

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1 Local climate and regional materials inform the shape and color of the shelter

There is no such thing as an ordinary day where I work. Even by Jones Studio standards, May 6th, 2009 was exceptional. Although I knew he was talking with other architects (the usual suspects), I was not expecting a call from the infamous “Lacey”.

Most people know Michael Lacey by reputation. As I did, we assume his hard-hitting, “take no prisoners” personality would make a relationship challenging.

It did, and it does, but I love the guy.

So I take the call. Because, regardless of his intimidating image, I enjoy interesting people. He takes me to the property where he intends to build his new home. I was not yet aware specific preparation for this commission had started decades in advance.

September 1966, Michael Lacey enrolls in Arizona State University. Although quite intelligent, he is not a good student, something about incompatibility with mandatory attendance. He drops out.

F1 Lacey Residence photo by Timmerman Photography F2 Phoenix New Times Logo from Phoenix New Times F3 The Nature of Materials by Henry-Russell Hitchcock cover with frayed edges and faded print F4 Photograph of Miss Pauson’s lving room through two-story glass wall 1 When Lincoln Savings failed, it cost the Federal Government over $3 billion and about 23,000 customers, one of which was a house client of mine, were left with worthless bonds. In the early 1990’s Keating was convicted in both State and Federal Courts on fraud, racketeering and conspiracy.

2 Hitchcock, Henry-Russell In the Nature of Materials, 1887-1941: The Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright 1942 New York; Da Capo Press

In response to the 1970 Kent State shootings, Lacey, with several other anti-war activists, starts the Valley’s first counter-culture newspaper: New Times (F1). Without fear of consequence, he takes on corruption; he takes on giants, including Charles Keating, the Keating responsible for the 1989 collapse of Lincoln Savings and Loan.1 Due in part to Lacey’s investigative reporting for New Times, Keating goes to jail, and his large track of Paradise Valley property located on the southeast corner of Lincoln and 32nd Street sells and is subdivided.

Now, retired from the newspaper business, Lacey buys a lot on the old Keating property with the highest elevation. The one that looks down on all the rest.

There we are, standing on the property, enjoying mountain views and knowing the potential for sunsets and city lights. However, I am mentally distracted by the blurry memories that begin to detach somewhere from the bottom of my mind.

That evening in my library, I easily find In the Nature of Materials2 (F2). This is my very first architecture book, now resting in the company of a thousand more. I bought it in 1964 with paper-route savings. The edges are frayed, the print is a little faded, but overall, still in good condition, much like its owner. My memory takes me to a particular page with a photograph taken inside Miss Pauson’s living room looking north through a two-story glass wall. (Fig. 3). Just as I remembered, in this window, I could see it. There was a hill; Lacey’s hill!

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F4

1940 was the year Frank Lloyd Wright completed construction on his first Arizona residential commission, breaking his self-imposed rule to never build on top of a hill.

(F4). The Rose Pauson House was destroyed by fire six months after the Pauson sisters moved in. (F5). I moved to Arizona in August 1974. I visited the then 32 year old burned out Pauson ruins now dubbed “Shiprock” by the locals. The unique and powerful entry sequence (F6) could still be understood and its influence sunk into my subconscious: a young architect, not yet licensed, eager to explore forces of nature and lessons from those who had lived before.

Shiprock, I presume, was a name based on a description of stone foundations riding the crest of a hill like a ship rides cresting water (F7). The longer the structure, the more accent there is on the curvature of the slope, the height of a breaking wave. Hold the top of the wall level while the bottom of the wall drops with the falling contours, and the contrast will define the shape of the knoll.

F5

The topographic similarities between the Lacey and Shiprock sites were obvious. Could it have been predestined that Lacey’s house would straddle its hilltop as well? No, too pretentious. However, precedents and memory give substance to critical design decisions, andI liked the story that had begun to develop.

F6

I enthusiastically share these thoughts with Lacey. Great idea to symbolically tie his hill to the Pauson hill, his architecture to a Phoenix landmark long gone, and nod to an American hero: Frank Lloyd Wright.

That was a mistake!

Who knew Lacey placed Wright’s social conduct down there with Keating’s hypocrisy! I made sure there would be no more FLLW references, but the ideas were solid and I continued.

The Lacey walls elongate dramatically in three directions only to accentuate the profile of the ground plane. Fortunately, the program included a modern lap pool. I used this major linear element as a permission slip to complete the third topographic axis, finding directional purpose in its exact center alignment with the six million year old Papago Peak six miles to the south. (F8). Any conceptual similarities to a forgotten ruin are coincidental!

Recalling the memory of an inspired hilltop approach, a Lacey visitor arrives at the bottom of the hill, assumes the entry is somewhere up there, and ascends masonry ledges melted into the slope, (F10) eventually topping out in a space surrounded by separated buildings; a composition of striated dirt walls, weathered twisted wood and a fully encroaching Sonoran landscape. (F11). For centuries, the unique qualities of the Southwest have confirmed the precedent of living spaces arranged around a courtyard. It is the void or left over space between buildings that organize the traditional Spanish hacienda. (F9).

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F5local Roseclimate Pausonand House

by Frank Lloyd inform Wright the 1 regional materials shape and color of the shelter F6 Rose Pauson House remains after fire Photos: Not Sure F7 Entry sequence to the Rose Pauson House F8 “Shiprock� foundations riding the crest of the hill F9 Linear pool draws the eye to Papago Peak photo by Timmerman Photography

I used this major linear element as a permission slip to complete the third topographic axis

F3

F4 F2 Housing expanding into the desert in Scottsdale, Arizona F3 Arcades onto the main plaza in Cuzco, Peru F4 Shade Structures in Brisbane, Australia

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F9

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F10 The volumes for the home are arranged around a courtyard floor plan courtesy Jones Studio F11 The entry sequence to the home with masonry steps melted into the slope photo by Timmerman Photography F10

F12 The Sonoran Desert touches the house photo by Timmerman Photography

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For centuries, the unique qualities of the Southwest have confirmed the precedent of living spaces arranged around a courtyard.

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Andy Goldsworthy3 is an artist favored by many people, including myself. The spiritually youthful Englishman has an enviable ability to give nature voice using natural materials as if they were his own vocabulary. In his book, simply but compellingly titled TIME4, I am reminded, in spite of my best efforts, nature will always repossess my buildings. Without mercy, without question, she is continuously reclaiming her materials and taking back her land, the land we foolishly think we own. I have learned to embrace this inevitability, to honor it, and admit that nature, in the process of reclamation, is a much better designer of shape, color, and pattern than I can ever be.

When I was in college, I never related architecture to art. Now, when I lecture to college students, I typically use two Goldsworthy examples to demonstrate a spectrum of time related outcomes regarding structure. The first example is an intricately woven nest of tiny twigs gathered quickly and locally. Left behind, it is eliminated within the weeks of a passing season without indicating it was ever there. Whether consumed by fire or deconstructed by weather, wood transitions quickly.

The second Goldsworthy example I use is a series of arches constructed during low tide (F12). Although made of durable stone, the structure is taken out in one eight-hour tidal movement. Despite the disappearance of his work, Goldsworthy’s eff orts leave a mark.

This is the ruin, the “Shiprock”.

Lacey’s house is part of this same natural poetry. It will only be finished when it is gone.

Until then, each year, it becomes less about construction and more about materials in natural transition. The colors, shapes, and patterns attributed to my hand are slowly and surely being redrawn by those forces of nature I was so eager to explore long ago.

Rammed earth construction has a thousand year history in the Desert Southwest.

Although ancient, its resistance to climatic beatings, its compressive strength, insulation superiority, and an undeniable beauty secures its relevance into the 21st Century.

Rammed earth is the timeless stone of the Goldsworthy example. Sheer weight and mass convincingly connect Lacey’s architecture to its site as if the massive walls erupted from the ground up, a result of some great seismic shift. (F13). In a thousand more years, Lacey’s dirt walls will still be transforming and they will leave their mark.

F13

F13 Series of Arches by artist, Andy Goldsworthy F14 Rammed earth forms recall ruins; a striking collission of materials that seem to have been battling with the earth’s natural processes over a long period of time. Photo by Timmerman Photography 3 Andy Goldsworthy was born in Cheshire, England in 1956 and currently resides in Scotland. He has been making art in the environment, both rural and urban, since the mid-70s. He works with natural materials that often originate from the local site.

4 Goldsworthy, Andy 2008 “Time” London; Abrams Publishing

In contrast to the longevity of dirt, there is the fragility of Lacey’s other material. It is crazy to use wood in the desert. In one summer, the searing heat will significantly alter its character. The color moves from ochre to silver-grey. The straight edges give way to compound twisting as the wood fibers react to fluctuating expansion and contraction.

Constricting surfaces relax in cracks. Veins of black trace the chemical reactions of wet/dry cycles.

Lacey’s wood cladding is Goldsworthy’s twig dome. Relinquishing architecture to the uncompromising reality of nature’s demands is honest and liberating. Maybe, for this reason, many city dwellers love the old barn. Oddly, the same people who can admire the image of blistered wood, peeling paint, and splintered light rays (F14) never allow their own homes to go without maintenance. Rather than accept nature’s will, they prefer to write checks. On the other hand, I understand if architecture is not designed to improve with dignified aging, the results can be scary. It is worth noting, Lacey’s house has had no influence. Not on any subsequent homes built in his neighborhood and certainly not in the Valley. But never mind, that was never the point.

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Lacey’s house is part of this same natural poetry.

Each year, it becomes less about construction and more about materials in natural transition.

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F15

LACEY… tough guy, fearless reporter, newspaper mogul, made a life inviting confrontation.

“H O L D F A S T” is tattooed on his knuckles! Really, it is.

Yet, respite, peace, safe haven, and home was his implied program for a residence meant to represent progressive thinking grounded in the fundamentals of, in his words, “mud and shadow.”

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F15 Blistered wood with slits of light surround the elevated tub

For me, this story started a long time ago. An early fascination with “the nature of materials”, a stone ruin, headlines, and other influences, became unknowingly embedded.

Architectural process and design inspiration can result from a very complex accumulation of seemingly unrelated experiences spanning one’s lifetime. These unconscious inspirations and long forgotten experiences lie at the bottom of the mind like sediment connected only by the gathering weight of layers.

And then one day, a surface disturbance causes a disruption in the sediment, thereby causing a deviation in the main current. If I were a river this movement would be called an… eddie!

Lacey and I still work together, travel and debate. He still frustrates the shit out of me, but at my age, a disruption of sediment is…invigorating.

Edward (Eddie) Jones, with his business partner and brother Neal, were raised in the oil fields of Oklahoma.

From a very early age the two bothers aspired to be architects and share a studio.

Eddie was born in 1949 Texas and moved to the Sonoron desert in 1973 after graduating from Oklahoma State University. He founded Jones Studio, Inc. on June 8, 1979, 3 months before his 30th birthday. It was not until years later, he realized he had begun his professional career on the birthday of his two major heroes… Frank Lloyd Wright and Bruce Goff.

The firm designs an unusually broad list of building types - the list includes museums, research facilities, performing arts centers, golf club houses, an NFL training facility, town halls, softball-soccer stadiums, and an entire college campus. Additionally, Eddie has the privilege of lecturing frequently and sharing his love for discussing architecture around the United States and abroad.

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learning from ancient desert cities Benjamin Ayers AIA

Ancient desert cities offer a bounty of lessons for contemporary architecture and urban development in arid climates. The key is to find the right environment where we can apply, test and monitor these principles before they are deployed in a larger scale. Educational campuses have many characteristics similar to these ancient cities and can provide a great setting for this type of study and evaluation.

F1 Riad in Marrakesh, Morocco. Photo by Megumi Ashikawa F2 Shibam, Yemen. Photo by Dominica Calibishie

Directly comparing desert cities and educational campuses illustrates the foundational features that give us a common ground from which to start. Both settings have much more compact urban form than typical development today. This was and is necessary because most people travel by foot in these surroundings. Smaller scale roads and alleys provide access for some small scale vehicles but others provide access only for pedestrians. Often the roads, alleys and paths diverge from a specific geometry or grid system.

As an example, it is easy to visualize the “cowpath” dirt trail in a large campus mall or courtyard. These routes relate more to direct pedestrian connections between nodes and destinations than any directed formal path.

Concept 1: Density Buildings often are pushed to the edges of the site, creating interior courtyards, breezeways or covered arcades or paths. In Marrakesh, Morocco, the traditional home called a riad utilizes courtyards filled with beautifully crafted fountains and landscape to provide a micro-climate with cooler temperatures (F1). Several great examples of courtyard buildings can be found on the main campus of Arizona State University. The Farmer Education Building, the Social Science Building and ISTB II each utilize a courtyard as part of a circulation system and as a comfortable respite.

This leads to the first characteristic of successful desert urban development that we can learn from. There is a consistent level of density in these cities. A great example is the 1700-year old city of Shibam, Yemen. This city’s nickname, “the Manhattan of the desert,” is derived from the construction of dozens of 100-foot-tall mud buildings.

These dense and vertical structures provide both housing and shade to the city’s inhabitants, keeping the city streets noticeably cooler than the surrounding desert landscape (F2).

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Shibam takes advantage of bringing the tall buildings close together allowing for the creation of more regularly shaded streets and alleys. Arizona State University (ASU) has sought to incorporate this concept into their planning efforts. University Architect Ed Soltero, AIA, has consistently promoted the concept of a shade network throughout the campus. The university strives to use the buildings, landscape and shading devices to connect buildings and outdoor spaces. This has begun to weave a more highly connected campus fabric and created wonderful outdoor spaces. A great example of this is College Avenue just north of the main campus of ASU. The university recently re-designed the streetscape in collaboration with several new projects built along College

Educational campuses have many characteristics similar to these ancient cities and can provide a great setting for this type of study and evaluation.

Avenue. The design team of SmithgroupJJR and Floor Associates designed a street that blends with the sidewalks and they utilized the new buildings with their arcades, overhangs and outdoor patios to provide shade and a comfortable streetscape. Elements like these combined with shade trees and a new large thirty-five hundred square foot glass shade canopy provide opportunity for pedestrians to stop and enjoy a shady spot as they walk (F3).

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For Containers on Grand we established a construction budget first and held ourselves to it. This was hardly a bolt of insight, but it is one that is often minimized at early stages of development. The construction budget was established using market rental rates from nearby comparable apartments and working backwards.

Next, we structured the building as closely as we could to the containers’ intended form.

That meant stacking them directly over each other on their load bearing hard-points.

This need to limit the modification of the structure led to some interesting insights and ultimately to embracing the containers’ natural steel skin. Often the 4” reveal between containers is enclosed and concealed – in contrast Containers on Grand is insulated and detailed to maintain the natural reveal between units so that they look as they would normally appear when stacked in a shipping yard.

The project maintains one clear message: Re-purpose materials as a viable alternative to recycling or using new materials. In this project, this concept translated into keeping the natural skin of the containers to convey the repurposing message in the clearest possible way. Detractors often comment on the natural condition of the containers. During the design phase many doubts were shed upon the project because of this one aspect of the design. However, in the end, the contrast between the natural exterior skin and the clean open interiors is now what is most often appreciated about the project.

F3

Concept 2: Double Duty In some arid cities, the narrow streets and alleys weave throughout and become more than just a pedestrian pathway. Another principle we can learn from well-designed desert cities is the importance of double duty. Multiple functions such as cafes, shops and entertainers began to line these narrow streets to create long bazaars or souks.

These paths then become much more than just a shaded walkway. Great examples are the Jaffa Flea Market in Tel Aviv, Israel or the Marrakesh Souk in Morocco.

F3 ASU College Ave Shade Canopy by SmithgroupJJR and Floor Associates. Photo by Liam Frederick F4 Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia. Photo by Andrew Watson F5 Shade project at ASU Downtown Campus rendering provided by Debartolo Architects

Buildings can also begin to perform double duty in many ways. They can provide shelter, but if designed correctly they can do much more. For example, they can provide shade like the tall towers of Shibam, Yemen or provide infrastructure for collecting water like the great mosque in Kairouan, Tunisia. This mosque has a large cistern located in the central courtyard that collects rainwater to be used by the parishioners (F4).

In 2006, a team presented a planning vision for the downtown Phoenix campus of ASU. The proposal touched on the creation of a much more walkable, dense downtown environment. In their plan, Debartolo Architects utilized the idea of double duty in multiple ways. A unique feature of the plan was a 15-acre shade structure over three city blocks in downtown Phoenix (F5). The structure is designed to provide shade

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for a park below and the infrastructure necessary for a photovoltaic array that could yield 11,000,000 kWh of energy per year. This structure could become an iconic element for the campus, helping define the district as well as a framework for lighting, wayfinding, branding and identity.

The Southwest campus for the West-MEC school district in Buckeye, Arizona, applies the strategy of double duty very effectively. Currently under construction, the Southwest Campus is a unique school that focuses on career and technical education and the firm DLR Group worked with them to design a more desert-appropriate campus. It

In some arid cities, the narrow streets and alleys weave throughout and become more than just a pedestrian pathway. includes several areas of study or academic pathways, including a focus on energy through a newly formed partnership with APS and the Palo Verde nuclear power plant.

This focus on energy became the theme for the Southwest campus. The desire was to create a unique environment that uses energy conservation, production, education and experimentation as its design inspiration.

The campus is designed with its classrooms and labs as the fundamental building block that can adapt to different functions as the needs of the students and faculty change.

These building blocks are arranged to perform double duty by providing spaces that

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support various learning styles and by easily converting to different settings. Connections between the spaces promote safety and interaction, and are used to showcase the program to visitors and other students. They also become places where students have the opportunity to study, interact and collaborate. A large canopy over much of the campus provides a visual and metaphorical connection for the entire campus. It shades pedestrian paths and outdoor work areas and includes a photovoltaic array to supply all of the campus’ energy needs as well as an infrastructure for outdoor lighting and wayfinding elements (F6).

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F6 West-MEC Southwest Campus rendering provided by DLR Group

A large canopy over much of the campus provides a visual and metaphorical connection for the entire campus.

Wesley James AIA Biography

Wesley James Headshot

Concept 3: Transitional Zones ASU has also worked hard to create spaces that illustrate another lesson found in desert cities: the design of transitional zones. The sun in these types of arid cities creates environments that are both hot and intensely bright. The variation between indoor and outdoor settings can be extreme and often uncomfortable, with a potential temperature differential of up to 40 degrees Fahrenheit and significant visual contrast.

Transitional zones can become a bridge mediating these two extremes. They can provide a space that can act as an insulator with a temperature setting between the hot exterior and cool interior. These spaces can also assist by providing certain levels of shade that can allow the eyes to adjust to the darker interior from the bright exterior. A great example of this type of transitional zone is the Solar Parasol outside of ASU’s Memorial Union (F7). The structure shades much of the outdoor spaces adjacent to the union, where students congregate and enter the building.

F7 Solar Parasol at ASU provided by Debartolo Architects. Photo by Michael Nothum F8, F9 West-MEC Southwest Campus rendering provided by DLR Group

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Concept 4: Adaptability A final lesson we might take from desert cities is adaptability. Outward appearances would say that the desert is a very consistent 120 degrees year round. Those of us living in this environment know that things can change quickly and with little warning. In a place where you must constantly adapt to survive, we can learn lessons that can be applied to the way we design and build our built environment.

Looking again at the West-MEC project, we find an example of an adaptable building that responds to its environment in many ways. One of this campus’ needs was a space that would bring together the different academic pathways to collaborate in new ways.

For example, students studying energy and auto repair can work together in the space to build a car for the solar decathlon. It also might be a space where the public can have large group discussions or a venue for students to present their work (F8). To meet this flexible demand, the space was designed to respond to the outside environment and open up to take advantage of great weather conditions. This adaptability in scale and use works similarly to the outdoor markets of ancient desert cities. The building is also designed to produce energy and to showcase technology with elements such as building-integrated photovoltaics and a solar chimney that can be used as a teaching tool. It will become a living building that truly responds and adapts to its surroundings (F9).

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These are just a few of the enduring lessons we can learn from great desert cities.

Educational campuses, because of the similarities to these cities can provide an environment for us to study, learn, and test old and new theories and applications. There are many principles that we can apply and reinterpret to meet contemporary needs, perhaps enhanced and amplified by integrating contemporary technologies much as we have done with photovoltaics in shade canopies and building openings. In the millennia-old concepts of density, double duty, transitional zones and adaptability that are demonstrated in cities like Shibam and Marrakesh as well as elsewhere, we can find a strong foundation for future success in our own desert cities.

Benjamin Ayers, AIA is an architect and project designer in the Phoenix office of Shepley Bulfinch. He received his Masters of Architecture degree from Arizona State University in 2007. He has had the fortune of working with great teams on projects that have won multiple design awards including three national AIA design awards and an AIA COTE Top 10 Award. He has worked on a variety of project types and scales such as Chandler City Hall in Chandler, Arizona, DPR Construction’s Phoenix Headquarters and the Re-Roof Shade Canopy on top of the historic Security Building in downtown Phoenix. His personal design philosophy is rooted in environmental responsibility and a true understanding of place. His design process relies on a collaborative approach focused on critical thinking and innovation.

containers on grand Wesley James AIA

They are beautiful in the same way that beauty is found in form following function.

Using shipping containers as building modules is not a new idea. In fact, designs and ideas on how to use shipping containers for modular building began popping up not long after container design was standardized worldwide in the early 1970’s. The question is why, forty years later, have we seen such limited use within the US?

F1 Shipping container being craned into place

It’s easy to see the appeal of the container. People can easily visualize and articulate how they could be stacked or spaced to create livable structures. The efficiency of the container’s structure can be sensed almost intuitively. They are waterproof and resilient.

Containers can be stacked up to 9 high, mounted to ships and subjected to some of the worst weather and dynamic load conditions imaginable. They are purpose-built to allow for easy transportation on nearly all roadways. They are plentiful and essentially a waste product of international trade. The US trade deficit necessitates that they be decommissioned stateside. They are beautiful in the same way that beauty is found in form following function. For all of these reasons and more, re-purposing decommissioned shipping containers has inspired architects, builders and non-professionals alike.

Most shipping container projects built in the United States are custom homes or one-off boutiques. These are not typologies that can compete economically with conventionally built apartments. In contrast, our goal was to be economically sustainable and repeatable. As a result, Containers on Grand needed to be built at a comparable cost to frame and plaster without relying on marketing subsidizing from vendors, suppliers or other interests. The first hurdle was to arrive at a design that could be built using local trades, for nearly the same price as conventional building techniques. The second hurdle was to get it through permitting using the International Building Code (IBC).

This was the greatest challenge. The challenge was not a result of the process, but the redundancies and associated costs that resulted from the process. Currently shipping containers are not a building material that has been tested and approved for use in the IBC. There is no box to check. This opens the door to many questions such as how to classify its building type, fire rating, structural capacity after modification, etc. The only path currently available in most municipalities is to use the alternative building materials

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path and to take it through as type-5 construction. This ultimately means a great deal of redundancy in the structure and fire-proofing. This is where most container projects end. Luckily, ours did not. This is how we did it.

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For Containers on Grand we established a construction budget first and held ourselves to it. This was hardly a bolt of insight, but it is one that is often minimized at early stages of development. The construction budget was established using market rental rates from nearby comparable apartments and working backwards.

Next, we structured the building as closely as we could to the containers’ intended form.

That meant stacking them directly over each other on their load bearing hard-points.

This need to limit the modification of the structure led to some interesting insights and ultimately to embracing the containers’ natural steel skin. Often the 4” reveal between containers is enclosed and concealed – in contrast Containers on Grand is insulated and detailed to maintain the natural reveal between units so that they look as they would normally appear when stacked in a shipping yard.

The project maintains one clear message: Re-purpose materials as a viable alternative to recycling or using new materials. In this project, this concept translated into keeping the natural skin of the containers to convey the repurposing message in the clearest possible way. Detractors often comment on the natural condition of the containers. During the design phase many doubts were shed upon the project because of this one aspect of the design. However, in the end, the contrast between the natural exterior skin and the clean open interiors is now what is most often appreciated about the project.

F3 F2, F3 Stacking the containers atop each other became an obvious choice when considering the construction budget, a modern aesthetic, and the shipping container’s natural loading points.

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Easing Subcontractors’ Fears Containers on Grand were designed to limit the trepidation of wary sub-contractors.

Ultimately the design was not only easier for the trades to understand and therefore limit our exposure to cost increases based on uncertainty, but was also a more efficient way to build. While this thinking found its way into many aspects of the design, it’s most apparent in our approach to the mechanical, plumbing and electrical systems.

Some of the most glaring design issues that would not return on their cost were vertical access through the containers, waste lines under or between containers, water lines under or between containers, condensate and line-sets running vertically, and fire-risers and branch lines running vertically through containers. The cost and lack of access to run building systems vertically through the containers was not offset by any clear advantages. We overcame these challenges by placing all the systems in small, conventionallybuilt, shared cores. The trades could easily understand this type of construction and it limited exposure to uncertainty and related price buffering. With conventionally built masonry cores housing the kitchens, bathrooms, fire-risers, condensates, line-sets and roof drains, the containers were left to be pure space. The only attachment to the core in this approach was an electrical umbilical and a single fire-line. These shared cores also naturally act as the fireproofing that is required between units, critically creating a flexible and adjustable metric in a design comprised of fixed-dimension building blocks, creating breaks to accommodate stairs and much more.

Using one move to solve many problems was essential to the project’s success.

Climactic Response When considering climate, our primary approach was to have as low of a surface area to volume ratio as possible. This is perhaps one of the simplest ways to minimize energy exchange through the exterior building envelope. Site constraints and other consider-

The trades could easily understand this type of construction and it limited exposure to uncertainty and related price buffering.

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ations limited our orientation options. Most non-egress windows face toward the center of the project. This outdoor area and the windows that face it are shaded by Palo Verde trees. In addition to the trees, half of the container doors are welded open to create partial shading from late afternoon, low-angle summer sun. This approach does not create a completely shaded window system, but it is in keeping with our philosophy of single moves solving multiple problems.

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Urban Response Grand Avenue is critical and complicated. It provides direct access to downtown from the west and is highly used by commuters because of its cross-cut orientation to the grid. This may present continuing challenges to a pedestrian-centric vision for downtown or it may present a unique opportunity. If new ways can be found to capitalize on and work with Grand Avenue’s orientation and traffic volume these negatives could be used to create an urban area that is both novel and unique in a city dominated by the grid.

With this in mind, our approach to the project’s relationship to Grand Avenue was complicated. We intentionally faced most of the windows and entries toward our central outdoor space. This is not consistent with our philosophy in regard to urban design and a healthy relationship to the street, but we felt it was essential to the health of the project. At the time we were under development, few other residential projects were being considered for this area, and none were being considered on Grand Avenue.

Grand Avenue is a major arterial. In this case, we believe placing stoops and primary windows directly on the street would have had a negative effect on the comfort of the residents. Regardless of posted speed limits, many vehicles drive on Grand as they would any other major arterials at speeds in excess of 40 mph. This would have resulted in permanently closed window blinds, an accentuated sense of exposure and a degradation in overall perceived safety, diminishing any benefit it may give to the street and to neighboring businesses.

F4 The stacked containers face each other to form an open courtyard between F5, F6 The containers have some of their doors permanently welded open to let in light and air from the courtyard and to provide for shade F7 Drywall interiors and large openings create the background for contemporary living F8 Great care was taken to puncture the container to admit more light into the residence note: all photos by author, Wesley James AIA

So how could we address the street and still consider the overall comfort and safety of the residents? While there are many opinions on how to achieve this, the Containers on Grand creates a central outdoor space that is open at each end to the street. This will encourage residents to use this space and create greater pedestrian traffic and life on the street. It is important to note that most of the businesses that are located directly along Grand Avenue currently have security gates that roll down over the fronting windows at night, over the weekend, and even during business hours, in some cases. We hope that in time, with more successful residential projects, these storefronts can become unguarded and residential projects can safely be linked directly to the street. The Containers on Grand is intended to be a steppingstone toward the type of street environment we all want for Grand Avenue.

Conclusion The use of shipping containers in construction will likely follow the same course it has for the past 40 years. In order for widespread use to take place efforts would need to be made by the manufacturers or other interested parties to have standards of use accepted

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into local or internationally accepted building codes. This is the critical step required to lower the threshold to a level that would promote use. Until then the inherent required redundancies will reduce the chance of success of these projects. Many are seeking ways to draw further value from this building material because of a strong belief to reduce our burden on the environment.

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Hopefully the success of Containers of Grand will bring further attention and innovative development to Grand Avenue while establishing a model for successfully repurposing shipping containers into a common building module for contemporary living.

The Containers on Grand is intended to be a steppingstone toward the type of street environment we all want for Grand Avenue.

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Wesley James AIA co-founded STARKJAMES in 2009 with partner Brian Stark and Foundry Development in 2015. As an architect and a general contractor, Wesley is committed to design/build as a means to create honest, viable and sustainable projects.

how to build the desert city of the 21st century Galina Tachieva

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Despite the typical hubris, complicated politics, and engrained bureaucratic habits in support of sprawl, Phoenix has risen to the forefront of the most forward-thinking and self-inventive cities in the U.S. Phoenix is a dream challenge for every urban planner: an immense, unruly, sprawling metropolis with one of the largest physical footprints of more than 519 square miles.

The city has 10,000 miles of streets and highways, and this entire infrastructure at the heart of the Sonoran Desert. Who would not be tempted to apply their planning skills in Phoenix and attempt to make the city more walkable, livable, and sustainable?

F1 Camelback existing conditions: lack of shade, excessive pavement, and interruptions by curb cuts and buildings set back from the street F2 Final retrofit shows new development that takes advantage of the streetscape improvements and the proximity of the lightrail

When I first flew over Phoenix a few years ago, I was caught by surprise. Yes, I saw a vast, dispersed city, but it was not all a desert; I also saw a green hinterland organized in neat agricultural parcels surrounding the urban fabric. The city was crisscrossed by glistening ribbons of water – the canals that I soon learned were originally laid out by the mysterious Hohokams and that are longer than the canals of Venice and Amsterdam together. Since that moment I have been continually amazed by Phoenix — by its bold physical presence, its people, its challenges and its potential.

Until recently, Phoenix has been growing under the illusion that it is invincible, basking in the lavishness of sprawl, with its state-of-the-art highway infrastructure, exploded distances, huge suburban lawns and golf courses, enormous parking lots surrounding massive structures ofÂŹ shopping malls and big boxes, fully immersed in the fantasy of the everlasting omnipresence of the car.

But in the past decade Phoenix has changed its thinking and its course of development.

It is maturing as a city and is gradually reconsidering being the poster child of sprawl.

Despite the typical hubris, complicated politics, and engrained bureaucratic habits in support of sprawl, Phoenix has risen to the forefront of the most forward-thinking and self-inventive cities in the U.S. The Valley Metro light rail started operation in 2008, and today its use has overwhelmingly surpassed even the most optimistic forecasts. The rail was the harbinger of other improvements as well.

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In addition to the excellent light rail line and stations, Phoenix has other sophisticated infrastructure: an urban international airport with a convenient connection to the light rail, as well as anchor Institutions such as universities, colleges, schools, hospitals, and museums.

Phoenix boasts excellent demographics: young, talented, entrepreneurial people who view Phoenix as a happening place and want to stay there to do interesting things. Phoenix also boasts a sophisticated food ethos, demonstrated by scores of great restaurants sprinkled around the city’s neighborhoods, the numerous food truck events, and local food production. In addition, rich cultural and civic life has been nourished by local architectural accomplishments in new construction and in adaptive reuse.

So, why do we need to reinvent Phoenix? Aren’t the above great resources and statistics enough for a great rebirth and sustainable future?

The accomplishments of the city are undeniable, but in addition there are other, imperceptible metrics that make or break a city and its ambitions. Can children walk and bike to school? Can seniors remain in and be part of the community? Can the young and talented students and young entrepreneurs live affordably? Can they walk and bike, work and socialize in close proximity, without being dependent on cars? (A recent study shows that the most important element for a city to attract talent, the so-called “creatives,” is the quality of life, good transportation, rather than low taxes or other business perks.) Does Phoenix provide this quality of life, and how do we measure it?

In addition, good quality of life in a desert city includes comfortable, shady, walkable streets; it includes usable, lively public spaces – that can be accomplished even in the most harsh dry climates, similar to oases with trees and some presence of water, with infrastructure that is not all grey asphalt but includes lighter, cooler, more pervious materials and surfaces. Can the existing patterns and processes of development in Phoenix accommodate these necessary changes and create the more livable, sustainable city its residents desire?

The answers to these questions suggest Phoenix has achieved many successes but still faces many challenges.

What was ReinventPHX and why is it important?

ReinventPHX was an initiative funded by a Community Challenge Grant from the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, a part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But it is also an attempt to stake a new place for Phoenix in the national consciousness and make it an exemplar arid city with a great quality of life, shaded streets, and people able to bike and walk, where nature is not neglected but integrated into neighborhoods by parkways and green oases.

The ReinventPHX initiative will create long-term, sustainable plans for the five Transit Oriented Districts (TOD) along the Metro light rail line. Our firm, Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, together with twelve sub-consultant firms, has been privileged to be a part of this process and work with the City and its partners, St. Luke Health Initiative and Arizona State University, to improve livability and equity in these neighborhoods, catalyze community and economic development within them, and positively affect the

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1 local climate and regional materials inform the shape and color of the shelter Photos: Not Sure

larger city and region.

The ReinventPHX team held three large public workshops/charrettes in Phoenix in 2013 and 2014 for the design and implementation of the long-term visions for the Gateway, Eastlake-Garfield, Midtown, Uptown, and Solano TOD Districts. One of the main goals of these charrettes was to develop a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary and collaborative approach to making a desert city more livable.

Prior to these charrettes, the City and its partners had gathered a valuable amount of data by engaging the local community in each of the districts. Informed by this prior process, the ReinventPHX Team engaged in further discussions with the City, key stakeholders, the design community, and the general public, as well as conducted direct empirical observation of the five districts to translate the shared goals into physical design and identify regulatory and financing strategies to implement them.

The most important contribution of ReinventPHX is not only to show the potential for redevelopment, infill, and sprawl repair along the light rail corridor, but also the ways to accomplish economic growth through a zoning code overhaul, innovative financing tools, and mobility concepts.

Who is reinventing Phoenix?

The people in Phoenix are already reinventing their city. They are biking, creating a thriving light rail system, transforming Downtown and Grand Ave, making the canals more visible and useful with new ideas like Canalscape, building new urban housing options and farmers’ markets, growing small business – and the list goes on.

In moving toward a more sustainable future, the most urgent step is to stop treating the entire city as a giant suburb. The near-universal application of suburban requirements – overbuilt streets and parking lots, overly deep setbacks, enclaves of single-use development – has created a region that is dependent on the car. A change of priority is imminent, from prioritizing the car at all costs to prioritizing patterns of growth that allow all modes of transportation.

good quality of life in a desert city includes comfortable, shady, walkable streets; it includes usable, lively public spaces 3

The Team’s propositions are practical and common-sense. ReinventPHX is not about one big idea, a “silver bullet” with a singular “wow effect.” Rather, it is about a multitude of smaller efforts. These projects will complement and support each other as they combine to form a better city, anchored by a linear urban core and thriving adjacent neighborhoods. Every piece of empty land close to the light rail will be treated as an asset that contributes to a beautiful, prosperous and connected metropolis.

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Gateway Gateway was the first district to start the charrette process. We developed a conceptual master plan to illustrate the goals and objectives of the community vision. Comprising an area of about 2,500 acres, the Gateway plan is ambitious not only in size, but also in complexity. With its mixture of industry, residential neighborhoods, institutions and the adjacency of the airport, the area provides a range of challenges, but also great opportunities.

Interestingly, the Gateway district was also the focus of the economic development team, which was charged with developing a series of innovative tools for infrastructure financing. The tools were demonstrated in one district, but can be used city-wide. The goal was “…to eliminate physical and institutional barriers to Transit Oriented Development (TOD) and catalyze livable, sustainable development.” ~ City of Phoenix 2011 HUD Community Challenge Planning Grant Application.

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Gateway plan is ambitious not only in size, but also in complexity.

F5 Narrow shady street in Sana’a, Yemen F6 Main plaza in Santiago, Chile

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F3,F4 44th Street - Sky Train Existing conditions and long term vision F5,F6 Celebrity Theater area existing conditions and proposed neighborhood retrofit F7 Gateway Regulating Plan showing the different zoning categories in different shades as well as the newly proposed streets for a better urban fabric F8 Gateway Illustrative Plan

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Eastlake-Garfield The Eastlake-Garfield TOD is the transition zone between the lower urban intensity of the Gateway district and the airport to the higher urban intensity of Downtown. This strategic location makes these two neighborhoods a desirable and convenient location for residents and businesses alike.

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This strategic location makes these two neighborhoods a desirable and convenient location for residents and businesses alike.

F5 Narrow shady street in Sana’a, Yemen F6 Main plaza in Santiago, Chile

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F9, F10 Edison Park existing conditions and proposed mixed-income neighborhood with defined block structure F11,F12 Van Buren and 12th Street existing conditions and proposed revitalization F13 Eastlake-Garfield District Illustrative Plan

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Midtown Midtown, the district between Downtown and the Uptown and Solano districts, represents the mid-century generation of suburban expansion outside Downtown Phoenix.

Adding excitement to the future of this district is a streetcar/trolley bus circulator that will make a three-mile loop along Thomas, Third Street, Indian School Road, Third Avenue and the Third Street Promenade.

Third Street will transform from a streetscape often seen in Phoenix today: the traffic lanes are too wide, there is little shade along the sidewalk, and little in the way of pedestrian lighting. Some buildings do have storefronts facing the sidewalk, but the speed of the traffic and lack of shade likely contribute to the lack of commercial vitality. Once retrofitted, the Third Street Promenade will transform into the district’s Main street with small-scale commercial uses mixed with office and residential. A streetcar will solidify the district’s ‘Main Street’ as a multi-modal corridor with thriving businesses serving nearby neighborhoods.

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A streetcar will solidify the district’s ‘Main Street’ as a multi-modal corridor with thriving businesses serving nearby neighborhoods.

F5 Narrow shady street in Sana’a, Yemen F6 Main plaza in Santiago, Chile

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F14, F15 Park Central existing conditions and its re-imagination as the heart of midtown as a retail, residential, institutional and community node with a strong emphasis on healthcare and wellness given St. Joseph’s presence as the area’s largest employer and already a mall tenant F16,F17 Existing conditions at 3rd street showing wide traffice lanes, little shade, and little lighting. The retrofit, complete with a streetcar/trolley bus, solidifies 3rd Street as amulti-modal “Main Street” with thriving businesses serving the nearby neighborhoods F18 Midtown District Proposed Redevelopment Master Plan

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Uptown The four historic neighborhoods that abut the transit corridor contain some of the best examples of early residential architecture in Phoenix, and are among the most important features of the city. The neighborhood residents enjoy the convenience of being in close proximity to the light rail, but also have concerns about the impact and scale of new development in the area.

Two proposals in this district will increase density and mixed-use while preserving what residents value. At the Steele Indian School Park, the design shows new mixed-use buildings on vacant parcels adjacent to the park. A diagonal view corridor connects the development to the park and school, with a framed view of Piestewa Peak in the distance. The proposed development attempts to better connect the fabric of the city to the park, enhancing access to one of Phoenix’s most valued amenities.

A proposed development at Grand Canal and Central Avenue shows how new development can engage the canal. The development benefits from the aesthetic and cooling effects of the canal, while the canal and associated bike and pedestrian trails benefit from having more “eyes on the street,� and more shade along the way.

Mixed-use buildings at Central and Grand Canal also provide activity at an important crossing. Colored and textured paving across Central will signal the importance of the canal crossing, and induce slower vehicular speeds. A shade structure is proposed to cover the bridge sidewalks.

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Two proposals in this district will increase density and mixed-use while preserving what residents value.

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F19, F20 Steele Indian School existing and proposed conditions. The new design shows mixed-use building on vacant parcels adjacent to the park. A diagonal view corridor connects the devleopment to the park and school, with a framed view of Piestawa Peak in the distance.

F21 Proposed development at the Grand Canal at Central Avenue showing the potential for new development to engage the canal F22 Uptown Proposed Redevelopment Plan

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Solano The Solano District makes the transition from the older, established neighborhoods of Uptown to the newer and more affordable neighborhoods of the suburbs. It is the western terminus on the light rail line, and includes two of the light rail’s last stations.

The district is home to a large immigrant population seeking affordable housing that is close to services and public transportation. Many of the interventions proposed in this plan intend to service this community, while also integrating each within the larger multi-cultural environment that is unique to the American experience.

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The interventions proposed in this plan intend to service this community

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F23, F24 Park Lee Neighborhood at Camelback and 19th Street intersection, existing and proposed with a community garden F25, F26 Existing and proposed conditions at Christown Mall, the new proposal shows a retrofit with an open-air market replacing the park and ride facility.

F27 Solano Proposed Redevelopment Plan

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Phoenix has always been a city of opportunity, ambition and optimism.

Walkable Urban Zoning Code While the development of the Walkable Urban Zoning Code has been an ongoing process as each of the five districts has been designed, the framework of the Code began to take shape early on within the context of the Gateway district. The Code is a crucial piece of ReinventPHX, as it provides the regulatory framework for the implementation of the conceptual master planning.

The primary purpose of this Code is to encourage an appropriate mixture and density of activity around transit stations, to increase transit ridership, and to promote multiple modes of transportation. The secondary purpose of the Code is to improve pedestrian safety from crime, to avoid or mitigate nuisances, to promote the public health, to decrease automobile-dependence, and to mitigate the effects of congestion and pollution.

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Conclusion The history of Phoenix has been one of reinvention, of constant transformation. Phoenix has always been a city of opportunity, ambition and optimism.

All images courtesy of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company

In 1885 Phoenix was the City of Gardens and trees. In 1921 it was the City Beautiful – Edward Bennett, the partner of Daniel Burnham, drew up a master plan with green streets traversing the neighborhoods and connecting green parks and squares. In the mid-20th century Phoenix symbolized the City of Tomorrow, when our society embraced the car as a means of freedom and we created the car-oriented city.

Today Phoenix is yet again a “City in Transition”: rediscovering the value of walkability, it is beginning a transformation from car-oriented sprawl to compact, pedestrianfriendly growth. This is great news for the local economy, as existing properties are made more productive and expensive sprawling infrastructure is reduced; it is great news for local residents’ physical and psychological health, as they are able to walk to and participate in their communities; and it is good news for the environment, as with less sprawl comes less driving and less pollution.

ReinventPHX galvanizes the City of Phoenix, helping it to thrive in a difficult climate and geography and ascend to join the most ambitious and sustainable cities in the nation.

Galina Tachieva is a planner, urban designer and architectural designer with more than twenty years experience in sustainable urbanism, urban redevelopment, sprawl repair, and form-based codes. She is the author of the award-winning Sprawl Repair Manual (Island Press) and the SmartCode Sprawl Repair Module.

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miracle in the desert:

1 Local climate and regional materials inform the shape and color of the shelter

downtown tucson’s transit-driven transformation Michael Keith

F1 F1 The Bourn Annex - Modern and traditional meet in downtown Tucson photo courtesy of Downtown Tucson Partnership

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Cities across the region are rediscovering the economic development magic of fixed rail transit systems like light rail and modern streetcars.

Much has been written lately about the revitalization of our country's improving metropolitan centers and their focus on livability – the combination of live, work, play, and expanded transit options that are attracting baby boomers and millennials alike in record numbers to their once derelict Downtowns.1 More recently, transit-oriented developments have grabbed headlines as cities across the region are rediscovering the economic development magic of fixed rail transit systems like light rail and modern streetcars. Those very systems that were abandoned in the 1950’s and 60’s are being reintroduced to jumpstart development and create urban environments designed to highlight local authenticity and livability.

Portland, Seattle, Salt Lake City, and Phoenix are just a handful of western cities that have looked to their transit pasts to re-envision their urban future. Cities that once bragged about their square footage of Class A office space or the importance of government centers now promote their walk-ability and bike-ability scores and their latest entrepreneurial start up events.

F2 The streetcar is an economic driver and an element of pride for people in Tucson. Photo by David Olsen 1 Flowers, Susan. “Exploring Atlanta’s Mixed Use Neighborhoods.” From Newcomer, OctoberNovember 2011:14 Mutty, Stephen. Colliers International Insights May 8, 2015. http://knowledge-leader.colliers.com /the-live-work-play-paradigm-isincomplete Speck, Jeff. Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time. 2012 New York: North Point Press 2 Downtown Tucson Partnership “2015-2016 Downtown Investment Study” September 2015

One of the more dramatic urban transformations attributed to the impact of fixed rail transit has occurred in Tucson largely over the last 60 months. Since Pima County voters approved the construction of a new streetcar system in 2006, an estimated $1 billion of new public and private projects and business investments have occurred along the 3.9-mile modern streetcar line that stretches from the University through Downtown to new developments on the west side of Interstate 10. In the 33-square block, greater Downtown area alone, $385 million of private investment has been placed, resulting in over 3,000 jobs and 235 new businesses, over 90% of which are locally or state owned.2

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The economic impact associated with Tucson’s new streetcar provided much of the stimulus for the nation’s eighth poorest city to reinvent itself in the midst of the worst recession in the city’s history. "It's the streetcar that provided the magic," said Arizona State Senator Steve Farley, the legislator largely credited with success of the streetcar.

"The lenders were finally willing to lend for major projects Downtown because there was going to be a permanent piece of infrastructure."

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Tucson’s new streetcar provided much of the stimulus for the nation’s eighth poorest city to reinvent itself in the midst of the worst recession in the city’s history.

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Art Wadlund and Rob Caylor, the developers of One East Broadway, a mixed-use development located in the heart of Downtown and completed in 2014, found Farley’s assertion to be the case. Their six-story complex consisting of ground floor retail, office, and 24 luxury housing units was funded with New Markets Tax Credits, local incentives like property and sales tax abatements, commercial financing, and owner equity. It was only the second market-rate housing development in Downtown Tucson in nearly 30 years, and was 100% pre-leased before construction was completed. Other local developers took note, and today there are more than 20 housing projects under consideration for development in the greater Downtown area, including a second mixed-use project by Wadlund and Caylor.

The 28-year-old first time business owner cited Tucson’s history and sense of place as a driving force behind his decision to invest.

Not only have new housing starts benefitted from forward-thinking transit investment, but adaptive reuse of Downtown Tucson’s historic inventory has received a new emphasis since the completion of the Modern Streetcar. Kyle Jefferson, a University of Arizona graduate originally from Seattle, felt Downtown Tucson offered affordable leasing opportunities that Seattle couldn’t offer. He, along with Linette Antillon, opened Pueblo Vida Brewing Company in 2014 in a historic building along the streetcar line in the heart of Downtown. The couple spent months renovating the obsolete structure, reclaiming wood floors, exposing fir trusses, and revealing the original brick walls. The 28-year-old first time business owner cited Tucson’s history and sense of place as a driving force behind his decision to invest.

F3

“All these mid-level cities that invested in infrastructure, I think it’s starting to set them apart,” said Jefferson. “(The streetcar) was a symbol for us. We had a sense there was momentum Downtown. We signed a lease a month before the new Marriott and the new grocery store were announced. We lucked out with that. The old architecture, the feel, the location, the look, the momentum, it just kind of met all of our check boxes.

There’s so much going on. It’s all really exciting. We have to pinch ourselves.”

Another Arizona grad, Tyler Hall, returned to Downtown Tucson in response to the new vibrancy and opportunities that accompanied the arrival of the modern streetcar.

Hall, who is Vice President of Operations at SmartThings, a start-up company located in Palo Alto, opened a satellite office for the company in a Rob Paulus Architectsdesigned building on Congress. Hall was able to convince the company's parent company, Samsung, that the building’s modernist facade, coupled with its newly exposed historic interiors, would appeal to his largely 20–something tech–savvy workforce. The streetcar, he argued, with its 10-minute connection to the University of Arizona, would also be an asset, as the company needed to recruit heavily from the school’s pool of graduate and undergraduate students. Tucson's low cost of living along with the district’s unique architectural appeal and vibrant pedestrian environment further clinched his argument for relocation. The Downtown office, which opened in August of 2015, expects to employ more than 70 employees by the end of 2016.

F4

F5

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Decisions to invest in Downtown Tucson’s future like those profiled above can be credited in large part to the economic impact of the modern streetcar, the community’s strong historic preservation ethic, our proximity to a major university, and an increasing understanding of the role that good urban planning and design can play in economic success of Downtown Tucson.

F3 One East Broadway photo courtesy of One East Broadway LLC F4, 5 Pueblo Vida was started by a U of A Grad who was encouraged by Tuscon’s history and sense of place to invest in the brewery and stay in town. Photo courtesy of Pueblo Vida Brewing Co F6, 7 Roy Place historic and new photos. Historic image courtesy of the Arizona Historical Society AHS 90477. New photo courtesy of Downtown Tucson Partnership F8 Fourth Avenue Underpass photo courtesy of Downtown Tucson Partnership

Equally critical were the smart and timely decisions made by the City of Tucson, Pima County, and Rio Nuevo to invest in several downtown projects. Without the City's widening of the 4th Avenue underpass and the construction of three Downtown public parking garages, Rio Nuevo stepping in to rescue and rehab the iconic Rialto and Fox theaters, and the County's restoration of the historic Roy Place building and exemplary design of its new county courthouse, Downtown would likely not have been in such a favorable position to benefit from the economic impact of the Streetcar.

The scope of work for the recent Ronstadt Transit Center Request For Proposal for the redevelopment of the 4.6 acre Downtown site currently occupied by the city's Sun Tran bus hub describes Tucson's new emphasis towards transit–driven urbanism perfectly: "The design of the project should create a signature destination that integrates the arts, recognizes a community cultural diversity, includes sustainable/environmentally sensitive design, activates the streetscape, and offers architecture responsive to the urban historic fabric and views.”

Downtown Tucson is clearly on a cusp. Decisions made over the next 24 months such as a redevelopment of the Ronstadt Transit Center and the buildout of the nine acre Rio Nuevo arena site adjacent to its newly remodeled Tucson Convention Center have the power to recast Tucson’s image from the sleepy "old pueblo" into a more contemporary model that can attract the best and the brightest for decades to come.

F6

Downtown Tucson is clearly on a cusp.

F6

F7

F8

Local developer Michael Keith began working as the Downtown Tucson Partnership's CEO on May 10, 2010. Peviously Mr. Keith had been President of Contemporary West Development, which specialized in downtown historic restoration and new residential development. Projects included the restoration of the historic Cheney House in El Presidio, and the seven-unit Franklin Court residential infill development. In 2007, he led the effort that resulted in the preparation of the Downtown Infrastructure Study.

Mr. Keith has been involved in numerous community-based projects including the Extreme Makeover

3

project and the restoration of historic facade and marquee for the Screening Room Theatre.

Mr. Keith is on the Steering Committee for Second Saturdays Downtown, and has served on the Boards of the Arizona Media Arts Center, WAMO, and the Fox Theatre. Awards include: The Mayors Heart of Downtown Award, Southern Arizona Leadership Council's Downtown Visionary Award, the Sonoran Institutes Building from the Best of Tucson Award, and Tucson-Pima Historical Commission citations.

66 Keith

lifeblood of a desert city Philip Weddle FAIA

Since this chapter was first published in 2007 there have obviously been changes in its context, locally in Phoenix and the Southwest, nationally in changing attitudes about urbanism, and internationally as the Islamic world has been through so much change and turmoil. In Phoenix the experiment with light-rail appears to have been a success with ridership exceeding all expectations, and land values along the routes, and particularly around the stations, reflecting a growing public interest in both living and working close to this form of mass transit. This coincides with the growth of a national enthusiasm for urban living, particularly among young adults, and an acceptance of the argument that successful cities require a creative environment promoted by the intense human interaction generated by urban density. While it can be seen that the tragic turbulence in the Middle East that threatens to become worldwide has thrown a negative light on Islamic culture and its potential to teach us valuable lessons – a theme of this chapter – it may also have increased our willingness to both understand and appreciate it.

-John C. Meunier

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67 Weddle

Water is imperative to life. In desert communities, the scarcity of water emphasizes its significance. The water flowing through the current canal system is the lifeblood that has allowed Phoenix to grow and flourish over the past 150 years. Fed by the Salt River and the Colorado River, the system currently sustains over 4 million people in our metropolitan area. The landscape of this arid valley would look very different without the delivery of this essential resource. And yet our urban form has gradually been disconnected from the river corridor and canals that have given life to our desert city.

History

F1 Rio Salado Auduban Center photo by Bill 1 Local climate and regional materials inform the Timmerman shape and color of the shelter F2 Historic Hohokam canal map courtesy of Salt River Project F3 Roosevelt Dam and Lake circa 1915 photo courtesy Salt River Project F4 Children playing in Lateral Canal photo courtesy of Salt River Project F5 Picnic on Canal showing Cottonwood Trees photo courtesy of ASU

Settlement in the Salt River valley has long been tied to the canal network that was originally developed by the Hohokam culture between 300AD to 1450AD. During that period, approximately 500 miles of canals irrigated over 110,000 acres. At its peak, this irrigation system supported an estimated population of 50,000 people which was one of the highest population densities in the Southwest. This water delivery network set the stage for our modern city.

Lifted from the ruins of one of the Hohokam canal networks, the Swilling Irrigation and Canal Company constructed the first modern canals in the 1860s, bringing life back to the desert. Over the next 40 years a network of larger channels were constructed,

F2

The water flowing through the current canal system is the lifeblood that has allowed Phoenix to grow and flourish over the past 150 years. many following the routes already established by the Hohokam. Large cottonwood trees, feeding off of the supply, lined these waterways. Offering cool water and copious amounts of shade, the Salt River corridor and the canals were a central part of the community. They served as places of recreation and repose for early valley residents: picnics, swimming, parties, as well as water skiers pulled behind cars were frequent events. The lush green waterways flourished and Phoenix was known as a city of gardens and trees. The approach to water usage, and the balance on the water-use scale, seemed very much weighted on the side of an inefficient utopia.

Population growth is a driver of change and Phoenix’s population was on the rise.

Following the completion of Granite Reef Dam in 1908 and Roosevelt Dam in 1911 much of the water that flowed down the Salt River was shored up and stored or diverted into the canal system. The river still continued to flow until the 1940’s when improvements to the canal system diverted the remainder of the river water and the Salt River became a dry bed winding through the Valley. With this, the historically lush riparian ecology along the banks of the Salt River was lost. The 1940’s and 50’s witnessed similar engineering efforts along the canals. The landscape along the canal system would suffer a fate already familiar to the river. Absolute pragmatism and efficiency led to systematic redevelopment of lush green waterways into the concrete lined canals we know today.

Large overhead power distribution was also routed down the banks of the canals

F3

F4

68 Weddle

furthering the industrialization of this once thriving and inviting amenity.

The dry Salt River bed became an industrial wasteland through much of the twentieth century and the canal system was treated as a utilitarian alleyway that we turned our backs on. Both became “leftover� spaces and a no-man’s land that divided neighborhoods. Our desert city ignored the very resource that permitted our viability. The weight had been redistributed to the unapologetically pragmatic and utilitarian side of the scale.

F5

Urban Transformation Scales are best for finding equilibrium and today there is a movement to create a new balance. Cities around the world are rediscovering unique waterfront opportunities in places that had previously been thought of as isolated, industrial, polluted, or dangerous.

As the largest desert city in the United States, Phoenix has a tremendous opportunity to reclaim the land along our waterways as active public spaces through dynamic development. For the past two decades we have been in the midst of a rethinking about how we again connect to these waterways through transformative strategic plans.

3

Canalscape

69 Weddle

Reintroducing our 180 miles of canal system as a canalscape of linear parks has been envisioned for decades and there have been numerous advocates throughout the years.

The process of building public improvements including paths, landscaping, lighting, and artwork has been ongoing for more than 20 years. This effort will receive a major boost with the upcoming $20.9 million redevelopment of the Grand Canalscape from I-17 to the Tempe border. These improvements will deliver a significant occasion to change how we treat the canal system in Phoenix and provide opportunity to attract waterfront F7 development.

The key for this transformational shift is private infill development embracing the notion of waterfront development. The Scottsdale Waterfront represented one of the first significant private developments that highlighted the canal as a central amenity. As a result of their forward thinking, the area now hosts a series of public art installations throughout the year and hosts numerous festivals and community events.

The Scottsdale Waterfront presents one example of what canalscape development may look like. And while this project is a financial success, it is distinctly economically advantaged by its location and adjacent amenities. This solution will not suffice as the answer for all waterfront sites.

Rio Salado Transformation Transformation cannot be, and has not been, relegated to our engineered waterways. A vision to transform the dry scar of the Salt River riverbed began at the ASU College of Architecture in 1966 when Dean James Elmore asked students to develop design concepts for the Rio Salado. Decades later the Rio Salado began its modern transformation with the construction of Tempe Town Lake in 1999. Anchored by Tempe Beach Park, Tempe Center for the Arts, and the Mill Avenue District, Tempe Town Lake has attracted significant waterfront development along its shores with approximately 19 million square feet of office, retail, and residential development since its completion.

F6 F6 Soleri Bridge Old Town Scottsdale photo by Bill Timmerman F7 Recreation on Tempe Town Lake image courtesy of the Tempe Office of Tourism

The Scottsdale Waterfront represented one of the first significant private developments that highlighted the canal as a central amenity.

F7

70 Weddle

Again, a success story for the development world, this project was not a long-shot bet.

Neighboring the Mill Avenue district, lightrail transit lines, and one of the largest universities in the country, this doesn’t sound like a difficult pro forma equation.

F8 (next page) Rio Salado View to Downtown Phoenix photo by Bill Timmerman

An alternative vision for the Rio Salado was completed in 2005 with the City of Phoenix’s Rio Salado habitat restoration. The $100 million habitat restoration along a 5 mile stretch of the Salt River created 600 acres of Sonoran riparian habitat with multiuse trails and wildlife viewing areas. The Rio Salado Audubon Center provides an anchor and a gateway to the Rio Salado at Central Avenue. This riparian habitat model is envisioned to be expanded east towards Granite Reef dam and west towards the Tres Rios, creating a riparian network throughout the Valley. The transformation of the neighborhoods along the banks of Phoenix’s Rio Salado is much more challenging than the Tempe Town Lake scenario in that it encompasses miles of heavily industrialized brownfield sites through economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Meaningful change here will take long term commitment and a true public-private partnership. Rich in history and filled with opportunity, these neighborhoods are in need of catalytic community oriented development that connects the South Phoenix neighborhoods to the Rio Salado.

Meaningful change here will take long term commitment and a true public-private partnership.

A single answer for 180 miles of canal and 12 miles of river corridor cannot be found in any of these case studies. The Phoenix Metropolitan region is a big place. It’s going to take a more concerted effort along with a more sophisticated range of solutions to transform the Valley into something great. It will also take more than concept studies and sure bets. So what will get us moving? Public-private partnerships could be a game changer. Form based codes must be part of the approach. And we always hear that we should think bigger. Maybe “bigger” should be shelved for a while. Maybe we should think better.

Thus far, municipalities have put some skin in the game. They’ve allocated and spent millions of public dollars responding to actual growth while continuing to court new growth along the way. However, the solution must be more than infrastructure and amenity investment - more effort should be spent on policy change. Form based codes in waterfront districts as an alternative to traditional zoning will open of a flood gate that feeds the seeds of new growth. Phoenix has invested in a form-based code along the light rail; the same can be done for our waterfronts. A waterfront-specific form based code would allow for unique options that are tailored for the unique communities adjacent to our canals and rivers. Phoenix is awash with culture and this different, not new, way of looking at planning has benefits for all parties.

71 Weddle

An alternative vision for the Rio Salado was completed in 2005 with the City of Phoenix’s Rio Salado habitat restoration.

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72 Weddle

73 Weddle

F9

Conclusion We’ve watched the scale tip side-to-side as the canals became a reflection of the community at-large. We recall how nostalgically wonderful the river and canals used to be when the Valley was primarily agrarian. As time passed into the 1940’s agriculture was replaced by industry as our dominant economic activity and the spaces of the canals shifted to become more industrial as well. Our economy is shifting again and it’s time for us to focus on rebalancing how we address and interact with the waterways of our city. It’s time to re-humanize the riverbanks and canals. We’ve seen it done successfully in a few varied examples in prominent Valley locations. But, we’ve only laid a feather on the scale.

The critical next step in the urban transformation of our city is to stop talking about the potential in our waterways and start harvesting the benefit of action. Ultimately one of the measures of Phoenix reaching its true potential as a great desert city will be the way we recognize and reconnect to the waterways that have been our lifeblood. And the action we take has to be innovative. It has to challenge us. It has to be the best of what we claim to be. Our reputation of being a “great desert city” depends on it.

74 Weddle

We have made significant strides over the past decade to start this transformation.

Now we must foster thoughtful community-oriented infill development through the use of form based codes to stitch our neighborhoods together. Future waterfront development has the power to reintroduce disconnected neighborhoods to a vital resource and amenity. It has the power to catalyze real and positive change in a large swath of our metropolis. It has financial return written all over it.

F10 F9 Wetlands along Rio Salado photo by Bill Timmerman

We say we have willingness. We know we have opportunity. We are the key resource.

Do we have it within ourselves to take the critical next step in the transformation of our city’s waterways? Let’s stop talking about the potential and start tossing the weight of our collective action into creating not just the next great desert city, but the next great city.

F10 Chelsea’s Kitchen restaurant with outdoor patio addressing the canal. Image courtesy LGO Hospitality F11 Ironman Race in Tempe Town Lake photo from Wikipedia F12 Scottsdale Waterfront “Blooms” installation by artist Bruce Munro. Photo by Mark Pickthall

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Philip Weddle co-founded WEDDLE GILMORE in 1999 with partner Michael Gilmore. Philip has completed projects in the fields of architecture and urban planning that demonstrate his thoughtful approach to discovering appropriate responses to site development across a range of ecological and urban contexts.

Philip was awarded the Arizona Architect’s Medal in 2012 and was inducted into the American Institute of Architects College of Fellows in 2014. He is also the 2015 President of AIA Arizona.

75 Weddle

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