Mesa’s Answer to Urban Sprawl: The Major Redesign of a City Center
by Stanley Collyer
Winning Entry – Image courtesy Colwell Shelor
Designing a city plaza as a “people place” is no small challenge. One only has to recall the various redesigns that Pershing Square in Los Angeles went through, or Seattle’s Pioneer Square, to recognize how intent and reality were often in conflict. In both of these temperate climate municipalities, the image of an otherwise welcoming destination was tarnished by an unforeseen presence of the homeless. The City of Mesa, in sunny Arizona, believes that a new plaza, well connected to the surrounding urban environment, can present “a signature public space” that will not only serve as a destination for public activities, but also as a catalyst for downtown revitalization. It would appear that a number of favorable conditions already exist: city administration buildings are located directly within the two block site area; Arizona’s largest art center borders the area to the south; and the city library is in the block immediately facing the site to the north. With this kind of built-in pedestrian activity, the site should be well positioned to attract a higher-than-average number of locals and visitors. To flesh out the best design for the 18.3-acre site, the City decided to stage an invited design competition. The first step was a call for expressions of interest, to which 18 firms responded. Of these, three were shortlisted to compete in the subsequent design competition. The competing teams were undoubtedly aware of the passage of a $70M City bond issue, which is allowing Mesa to allot $750,000 for design of the plaza site. Because this was a real project, each firm was to receive $25,000 upon completion of their entry. Under the supervision of Jeffrey McVay, a planner and the Manager of Downtown Transformation, a committee made up of principals from the City administration with only one exception—the Director of the Downtown Mesa Association—convened to arrive at a shortlist for the competition. It consisted of:
Jeffrey McVay, AICP – Manager of Downtown Transformation
Christine Zielonka – Director, Development and Sustainability Department
John Wesley, AICP – Planning Director, Mesa
Marc Heirshberg, CPRE – Director, Parks, Recreation, and Commercial Facilities
Cindy Ornstein – Director, Arts and Culture
Zac Koceja, RLA – Landscape Architect, Engineering Department
Vincent Bruno – Engineering Designer, Engineering Department (At time of competition, he represented the Transportation Department)
Lori Gary, CEcD – Project Manager, Office of Economic Development
David Short – Executive Director, Downtown Mesa Association
The selected finalists were:ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ • Woods Bagot, Sydney/Portland (lead)with Surface Design, INC., San FranciscoÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ • Colwell Shelor, Phoenix (lead)with West 8 urban design & landscape architecture, Rotterdam/New York and Weddle Gilmore, Scottsdale, Arizona • Otak, San Francisco (lead)with Mayer Reed, Portland, OregonÂÂ
This initial phase of the competition was replete with site visits and public forums and left no stone unturned when it came to interaction between the competing firms and the client and public. The City thought this phase of the process worked well, and the Colwell Shelor team was especially active in fielding public input during this phase. Each team then had to translate those public priorities into a feasible design concept. As they say, this is where the rubber hits the road.
The FinalistsOtak / Mayer Reed
Image courtesy Otak
The primary strategy of the Otak / Mayer Reed team was a “Living Room Plaza,” featuring a great lawn, significant pool as water feature, and generous structural shading providing outside seating for leisure and café-style areas. A performance area featured a “Digital Light Bar” for viewing and enough paved area to accommodate outdoor market activity. Minimizing the paved area was one of the strong features of this proposal, and generous tree plantings were extended to the main thoroughfares bordering the site. On the other hand, there was the suggestion that a number of additional buildings be added to the site, configured in a way to form several courtyards.At first glance, the presence of a great lawn suggested high water usage in a climate noted for its short supply of this essential source. But according to McVay, sustainability was a high priority, and the irrigation issue could be solved by recycling rainwater and by using filtered grey water.This proposal appeared to be somewhat generic in that the features presented were exactly what one might anticipate in a large public plaza. Although this team’s plan was a straightforward approach, the addition of numerous structures to the site would have suggested some long-term planning.
Navigating through this scheme could only be characterized as adventure. To attract a younger crowd, a large shed (“The Hanger”) as dominating site feature was placed on the original Pepper Street site, as a performance and exhibition area and also containing sports facilities for below-grade soccer, etc.—a facility that any YMCA could only dream about. A series of winding pathways and “Hydro Rooms” as connectors were the primary landscape features, designed to lead people from the perimeter to their interior destinations. Due to the complexity and significant new structures to be added to the site, this proposal undoubtedly had to be realized in phases.
Images courtesy Surface Design (click to enlarge)
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The Winning EntryColwell Shelor / West 8 / Weddle Gilmore
Image courtesy Colwell Shelor (click to enlarge)
The winning design’s main feature, “Wind Dancer,” is a sculptural iconic element, which can accommodate festivals, performances and forms of recreation. As a central iconic structure, it is intended, much as Millennium Park in Chicago, to visually attract people to the center of the site. Thus, the focus of the landscape plan, replete with generous plantings of trees for shade, is to draw people to the center of the site. Then there are those gathering places within the site—plazas within the plaza—such as Neon Plaza and the Beer Garden. This approach is very simple and direct with no overreach, and with the iconic feature says, ‘we are the City Center.’ Because of its simplicity, there is little doubt that the design can be accomplished in a single phase.Aside from those important forums with the public, Principal Michele Shelor mentioned that bringing West 8 onto the team was essential in opening up the discussion to some new ideas, which hadn’t been considered initially. Although Shelor did not credit West 8 specifically with the major design features, she did suggest that the input provided by West 8 was a major contribution in tipping the balance in their favor.Below is an excerpt the memo to City Management stating the Selection Committee’s reasoning for choosing Colwell-Shelor/West 8/Weddle Gilmore as the competition winner and as the winner of a design contract to further refine and detail their design.
The method of public engagement during the design workshops was creative, engaging, and fun for the participants, and public engagement will continue to play a key role in further design.
Interaction with City officials and staff has been professional, engaging, and thorough.
The design concept was an exciting, innovative, and iconic reflection of the feedback received during the design workshops.
The design concept reflects a solid understanding of Mesa’s culture, heritage, and vision for the future.
The design concept has been well received by the general public as evidenced by the results of surveys completed by attendees of the design reveal event.
The design concept report is extremely thorough, even including an estimate of maintenance costs and a discussion of alternatives to fund maintenance to be explored with further design.
City staff has confidence that a positive and effective working relationship will be cultivated with the design team during further design efforts.
Images courtesy Colwell Shelor (click to enlarge)
At this writing, of the $750,000 allotted for this project by the City, the administration of the competition cost $150,000, leaving $600,000 toward construction of the site. As this will only cover 30% of the anticipated budget, the City intends “to use the results of the competition as a basis of the funding campaign.”
If cities in the U.S. are anticipating funding from government entities to solve a dire need for affordable housing, they should be prepared for a long wait. The national government, a traditional source of funds for such projects, has shown little if no interest in the issue, and state and local sources are at a minimum. To exacerbate the problem, the construction cost of affordable housing has risen exponentially the the past few decades. Gone are those days when architects such as Oakland-based Michael Pyatok could build affordable housing for $100 a square foot.
Form and Dichroic Light Scott Hall at Carnegie Mellon University Michelle LaFoe and Isaac Campbell OFFICE 52 Architecture Forward by Cesar Pelli, FAIA Introduction by Michael J. Crosbie, FAIA Leete”s Island Books, Maine USA Hard cover; 96 pages in color ISBN 9780918172709
In his introduction to Form and Dichroic LIght, Michael Crosbie never mentions the term, “wild card,” to describe Office 52’s participation in the invited competition for the Carnegie Mellon Engineering Building. The four finalists, picked from a list of 17 firms, also included three household names: ZGF, Wilson, and BCJ (Bohlin Cywinski, Jackson). So what possible chance could a firm, which had just recently opened a small office in Portland, Oregon, have against a competition lineup of this magnitude? But as OFFICE 52 Principal, Isaac Campbell explained, as a small firm, “we were quite nimble,” and the $50,000 stipend the firms all received to produce a design could allow OFFICE 52 more time to undertake the research involved than might be the case with a larger office, where a cost controller is constantly focusing on the operation.
The Rails to Trails program, which gained momentum after the1984 Federal Land Banking Law—supported by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy—has seen over 24,000 miles of trails established where rail lines once existed. Some sites were strictly urban, while others, sometimes over 100 miles in length, were primarily rural, while others combined some of both.
The reunification of Germany in 1989 not only had a great impact on the lives of many Germans, especially those living in the former DDR,but together with the decision to move the nation’s capital from Bonn to Berlin resulted in two major international design competitions in 1992: the first was to convert the existing Reichstag building into a home for the German parliament, the second being the Spreebogen planning competition, which included a chancellery for the head of state as well as needed buildings nearby for the Federal government.
The renovation of Miremont-le-Cret n 2012 was unusual in that the project was the subject of a competition. This building had long been landmarked as one of Geneva’s most significant modern accomplishments, designed in 1953 by a local architect, Marc-Joseph Saugey. The building’s design is remarkable in how it fits into a somewhat narrow, elongated site, but solving the issue of monotony that could naturally arise had the facades not consisted of a simple elevation with no protruding edges. Instead Saugey came up with the idea of a faceted treatment of the facade on both sides of the structure, thus eliminating any notion of boredom on the part of a casual visitor.
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