projects: phoenix arizona

A couple desire an addition of 600 SF on a budget of $60k, which can act as a separate apartment so they may live in it and rent out the main house in 15 years when they semi-retire. It is decided to utilize a pre-engineered metal building as envelope, which they can finish out themselves to keep costs low. The existing front door of the original house obscurely faces the side, thus the addition is formed to create a clear entry from the street. In the process of planning, a clear geometry arises with three volumes of different sizes but exactly the same proportions in all three dimensions. The addition...

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A seemingly banal lift station is transformed into a beautiful architectural detail through the addition of a water-jet-cut steel cornice.  Rather than make the lift station simply recede further from view, the station broadcasts his valued use to its community.  The cornice is comprised of patterns derived from water, as well as imagery comparing desert and water based flora, that will cast shadows along the walls throughout the day.  These constantly changing shapes will change hour to hour, day to day, to create an ever-changing artistic display.  At night, eight LED lights cast patterns...

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A 1954 building’s only public space, a roof terrace, was badly damaged in a storm and must be rehabilitated. A historic restoration is not desired by most residents. Working with countless existing idiosyncrasies (utilities, structures, layout), a carefully articulated system of asymmetrical linear patters is developed to harmonize all elements. New surfaces are treated as applications, leaving gaps to absorb sound and expose the existing structure at opportune moments. The design is meant to focus on the vast views. All work must last for 50 years, withstanding daily direct western Arizona sunlight....

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Expressing the audacity of our desert oasis: Shade structures are required at four diverse locations within a large park. The visibly adjacent, raised earth-buttressed canal brings water 350 miles from the Colorado River to Phoenix as the city continues to grow. We sought a way to describe the precarious scale of human intervention on the landscape. Comparing such an endeavor with weightlessness moments found in sporting events, 6,000 pound local stones can be quarried and set on posts in various configurations around the huge soccer tournament park, surrounded on 2 sides by the canal. Shapes mimicking...

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As our own needs had changed, we spent 2007 exploring opportunities for a new living space. These are designs created for three of the sites we considered. An urban site with a buildable area of 30x45 feet produced a 3-story townhouse. This plan connected the front and back yards through the living spaces with a studio floating above the public zone. 3 bedrooms facing the street are clad in flush sheets of glass. A desert oriented site looks at bold abstract forms and playing with ideas of privacy as well as complex arrangements of symmetry and asymmetry. A more suburban site on a busy...

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Working with the community, the creation of a public venue was to take shape in a city with very little public space. Hired to create artwork at a new light rail station, it is decided to add a public venue adjacent to the station. The design incorporates infrastructure at the station to enable the local community to sell goods and produce. The venue would also function when a market is not taking place by providing landscape, shade, and seating in order to make the option of public transportation more inviting. The polished stainless steel canopy reflects the activity of the market to the busy...

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The Arizona 9/11 Memorial Commission sought a living memorial that would provide a place for thought-provoking dialogue; a place to reflect on our evolving understandings of the events of 9/11 and their significance; a place to rekindle the unified energy with which we met the challenges after the attacks; and a place to ponder the mystery, magnitude, and impact of change. Stainless steel panels cast changing sunlight through 54 laser cut inscriptions onto a concrete base below. Phrases were placed to reflect the stratified emotional, political, and psychological sentiments that Arizonans grappled...

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Since 1850, Arizona has lost all but 4% of its wetlands. The introduction of a butterfly garden at the Tres Rios Wetlands Demonstration Site provided the opportunity to educate as well as provide the public with a sense of immersion within it’s natural environment. The graphics along the path of the man-made rabbit wall around the garden describes the history of development in the region from the creation of the landscape to early native settlements, to contemporary development and today’s effort to bring a healthy environment back to the wetlands. Six free-standing interpretive signs describe...

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This proposal for a temporary art installation asked that the Arizona State Fair be moved to coincide with the opening of a new carpool lane on the freeway system. Recognizing that freeways are a lifeblood of a city such as Phoenix, and that this particular interchange is a focus and center for residents, this project sought to put people in contact with such massive civil structures, as well as each other. The event would create one of the largest parties in the City’s history, while celebrating the addition of a lane for environmentally conscious drivers. The highlight of the project would...

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What started as a fascination with billboard structures became an obsession to utilize existing structures around the city to house its highly mobile citizens. Interior spaces are slipped into the city, barely noticeable. Unbelievable views abound. Each existing billboard configuration and location would offer new benefits and possibilities- from the ground huggers to the monumentally high reaching signs. Living space for singles is created with leases based on the 16-week contract of the billboard’s changing advertisements. By associating one’s self with a particular ad, a young transient...

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