Tucson, Arizona

The University of Arizona Northwest Sub Area Development Plan creates a unifying space out of a barren, urban, sun scorched site. The plan recommends building types, sustainable strategies and unifying elements that enhance connections and users’ comfort and experiences. 

Building types that celebrate the arts, identified as lacking on campus, become the focus of the area. Connections to existing arts buildings and their Colleges and strategies to activate the street scene between them generated strong ideas to drive planning and circulation.

The plan responds to solar orientation, the direction of prevailing cooling winds and the Venturi effect that is developed between buildings. Buildings scaled to the surrounding neighborhood, providing shade for users, creating transition zones around buildings, establishing entry sequence levels, such as approach, active transition and calming inner zones and adding landscaped areas are recurring elements used to create a unifying whole.

Rather than being a negative impact, the fact the site is a previously developed flood plane became an attribute that led to creative solutions to address this issue than enhances the experienced of users.