Where past and future converge

The Rob and Melani Walton Center for Planetary Health is a 280,000-square-foot flagship research facility and is outfitted with more than 70,000 square feet of research space and classroom capacity for more than 300 students. The design is purposefully centered around empowering collaboration, which makes it a vital tool in ASU’s endeavor to shape thriving global futures for all of Earth’s inhabitants.

The Global Futures Laboratory is headquartered in the newly opened Rob and Melani Walton Center for Planetary Health . This state-ofthe-art facility for collaboration and innovation connects scientists, scholars, staff, students and partners across the globe, including our own hubs in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Hawaii and Bermuda.

The Walton Center is the embodiment of Rob and Melani Walton’s commitment, through the Rob and Melani Walton Foundation, to ASU’s decades-long work around sustainability and planetary health.

The Walton Center sits at a convergence of three historic human technologies: a functioning irrigation canal first developed by the Hohokam people more than 2,000 years ago and used today by a local utility, the remnants of a rail line from the late 1800s that carried locally grown produce to central distribution hubs, and traces of the nation’s first coast-to-coast highway that now sits adjacent to Arizona’s busiest intersection and a primary mass transit station.

Thanks to revolutionary use of a Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete material developed at ASU and the integration of water-based climate control, the Walton Center for Planetary Health is on track to create a 26% reduction in global warming potential compared to similar sized conventional buildings being built today.

The structure is able to capture 100% of the rainfall onto the building and redirect it to the landscape that comprises Arizona native riparian habitat vegetation.

The building is on track to achieve LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, based on the more stringent LEED v4.1 standards.