INNER LOOP URBANISM: PHOENIX EDITION

Spring 2023

Alan M. Berger

Rafi Segal

Studio Instructors

Alan M. Berger

Rafi Segal

Teaching Assistant

Sarine Vosgueritchian

Chenhao Zhu

Students

Maria Castillo

Wladyslawa Kijewska (GSD)

Sarah Lohmar

Elyse Oliver

Hazel O’Neil

Mikaela Strech

Workshop: An Analytical Framework to Read the City

Chenhao Zhu

Alan M. Berger

Lecture: Fundamentals of Heat in the Built Environment

Edu Gascón

Nada Tarkhan

Sarah Mokhtar

Final Review Critics

Kenoff Jeffrey

Mohamad Nahleh

Lizzie Yarina

External Collaborators

City of Phoenix, Office of Heat Response and Mitigation

Arizona State University, Landscape Architecture

Department

Cover Image 1: Bird’s-eye view of Phoenix central city village;

Source: New York Times

Cover Image 2: Bird’s-eye view of Phoenix;

Source: Matt Mawson/Getty Images

Temperatures in Phoenix are becoming deadly

Source: Ralph Freso/Getty Images

“Cooler” Living in America’s Hottest City

In the US, population continues to relocate to sunbelt states and Phoenix is one of the fastest growing metros in the country. This influx of new people during recent extreme droughts has pushed water resources and heat impacts to their limits. Phoenix is now the hottest city in the US with months of average temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit. For those who still live in the urban core, the lack of shaded landscape and abundance of heat absorptive building materials has produced dangerous living conditions. Our studio will examine the inner loop core neighborhoods of Phoenix to re-imagine how new (theoretical and practical) landscapes, infrastructures and housing typologies can be combined for “a cooler,” safer, and healthier living environment in the future and how these solutions can be applied to other city cores as the world heats up.

This joint urban studio presents a new pedagogical model that brings together planners (DUSP students) and designers (ARCH) around a shared urban challenge. The studio will be offered as 2 study modules. The first module, which takes place over 7 weeks and includes a spring break trip, will focus on research - ‘reading’ the metro landscape through analytical representation and mapping, and then further programming and writing a design brief which will inform design projects goals and parameters. The second module, which takes place over the following 6-7 weeks, will advance the learnings and briefs created in the first module to work on the design projects.