by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor

Summary: What once was a landfill for the city of Tempe, Ariz., has been transformed into a magnificent 26-acre park and performing arts center. The Tempe Center for the Arts (TCA) is a $65.7-million project jointly designed by Barton Myers Associates, Inc., Los Angeles, and Tempe-based Architekton. The TCA offers patrons a state-of-the-art 600-seat proscenium theater, 200-seat studio theater, 3,500-square-foot gallery, and spectacular views of the Papago and Camelback mountains.

“We were asked to create this iconic landform as you enter Tempe from the West and from the North,” says John F. Kane, AIA, LEED®-AP, principal, Architekton. The problem was that the site was less than perfect in both use and location. During the land remediation phase, 146,000 cubic yards of material were removed, with 101,000 cubic yards cleaned and re-used. The remainder of the dirt came from other building projects in Tempe. Notes Kane, “There was a lot of construction, and a lot of people needed to get rid of their dirt, so there was this wonderful symbiotic relationship between all of the projects that were going on in town at the time.” The new 26-acre park and public art sculpture garden, designed by local landscape architecture firm Design Workshop, overlooks the Tempe Town Lake and creates a new public space for residents.

Design influence
The TCA’s design is based on the Anasazis’ Chaco Canyon Pueblo Bonita Great House in New Mexico. Barton Myers, FAIA, principal Barton Myers Associates, says that his design concept stemmed from two Canadian projects he completed. “I’d done several buildings that I called big envelope/big shed because of the cold there. If you can make a big box and then articulate the inside, you can build very effectively,” he explains.

“I did two prototypical buildings,” Myers continues. “One was called the Seagram’s Museum, and within the museum building are independent buildings. It was a great way to deal with the cold. In Phoenix, you have exactly the opposite, but it works the same way because of the extreme heat. When for three months of the year it doesn’t get below 100 degrees, that same idea—making the big shed and doing the articulation inside—is a very energy effective way to build.”

Adds Kane, “One of the big things we did conceptually was to create this large protective roof, and underneath that roof we have a series of venues almost like a little village based on Chaco Canyon Pueblo Bonito: that tight cluster that’s protected on three sides.” In Pueblo Bonito—as in Myers’ Seagram’s Museum—an outer protective wall holds the many rooms within. The spaces between the kivas, or performance rooms, served as the streets and plazas, or lobbies and corridors, for the village.

Inherent site challenges
According to Myers, he and Kane went through between 10-15 potential roofs in perfecting the design. Designing from the outside in, they created a 16-pitch, 10-layer roof. Because of the TCA’s proximity to the Sky Harbor Airport—located only two miles east of the site—planes fly overhead for departure or landing every few minutes, not an optimal condition for a performance hall.

“We had a noise problem, so the idea of the big shed—of putting all the buildings inside—meant that we could deal with the environment and also block out the noise and make a very strong defensive building,” explains Myers. “In the early sketches, the fly tower always protruded through the roof. We eventually decided that was not a good idea, so we took the roof over top of the fly tower, so there is nothing inside that actually protrudes through to the outside. It has been very successful. You do not hear the aircraft.”

Myers believes that one of the most difficult things about designing a “theater in a park” is maintaining a high level of energy between acts, when people move out into the open spaces. “The worst theaters in my view are the ones that are in parks where everybody goes outside at intermission and you lose that energy and excitement that’s been built up in the first acts,” Myers says. To mitigate that loss of energy, “we pushed the theater close up to the lake and put a reflecting pond that reduced the amount of exterior space immediately off the theater lobby. That’s been very effective, so the lobbies are full of energy, and we don’t lose that dissipation to the outside.” The resulting 55,000-gallon, negative-edge reflecting pool creates a 300-foot-long waterfall at the north edge along Tempe Town Lake.

The completed Tempe Center for the Arts opened to the public the first week in September. On September 7, the TCA opened to all of the workers and designers. The next evening, they hosted a black-tie fundraiser, followed the next day with a community opening. According to Myers, 18,000 people attended the opening on Sunday and were treated to free hot dogs, hamburgers, and soda. About the opening and the level of excitement exhibited by the community, he exclaimed, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”