Mesa Arts Center
Mesa, Ariz.
DWL Architects + Planners / BOORA Architects

Spotlight shines on Mesa’s Shadow Walk

	Index | Project Specs
	Click here for slide show. Photo © Timothy Hursley

Operated by the City of Mesa, Ariz., the Mesa Arts Center complex includes four theaters, a community arts education center, and a gallery for contemporary art. It also houses an expansive new performing arts presenting program that brings touring arts and entertainment to Arizona’s rapidly growing “Valley of the Sun.” Located at the main intersection in Mesa’s downtown, the complex is intended to catalyze urban rejuvenation by restoring vitality and serving as a community icon to establish a sense of place in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

The site plan increases urban density well above that on surrounding streets, yet reserves sufficient room for a large outdoor civic plaza. In organizing program elements, the architects located spaces that are active during the daytime, such as the gallery and studio education building, along the public street, allowing it to benefit from the center’s vitality. By contrast, they placed the theaters at the center of the site, since these spaces are most active during the evenings. Their glass lobbies rise above the studio building and gallery, projecting architectural mass and light into the surrounding environment. The theaters’ fly towers cant in gesture to the mountains surrounding the Phoenix basin.

The contemporary art galleries nestle below grade to shelter their contents from the intense desert climate, while skylights filter a controlled quantity of natural light into these rooms. Above grade, the studio education spaces cascade in a series of stepped terraces and courtyards to the center of the site, where they meet the plaza. A landscaped circulation spine serves all of these elements on the west side of the site, where it helps buffer the studios from strong afternoon sun.

A shared lobby links the four performance halls and is defined by a folded glass plane shaded with a series of horizontal fabric shade sails. Called the Shadow Walk, this space responds to the power and intensity of the desert sun. The architects were inspired by a Moroccon souk, in which shadows temper intense desert light and simultaneously provide visual richness. On the Shadow Walk, a mixture of trees, desert fauna, trellises, and canopies create a multi-layering of dark shapes and light. Two large tensile fabric canopies interrupt the arc of the Shadow Walk, reinforcing the entry procession to the theater buildings. Uplit at night, the canopies create a glowing beacon in the night. Three major public art installations commissioned for the site from Ned Kahn, Beth Galston, and Catherine Widgery explore the theme of shadows.

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Formal name of Project:
Mesa Arts Center

Location:
Mesa, Ariz.

Gross square footage:
210,000 sq. ft.

Total project cost:
$65 million

Owner:
City of Mesa

Executive architect:
DWL Architects + Planners
2333 North Central Ave.
Phoenix, AZ 85004
602-264-9731 tel.
602-264-1928 fax
www.dwlarchitects.com

Design architect:
BOORA Architects
720 SW Washington, Suite 800
Portland, OR 97205
503-226-1575 tel.
503-241-7429 fax
www.boora.com

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