Mesa Arts Center
Location Mesa, AZ, USA | Client City of Mesa | Architect Boora Architects | Size 12 acres | Awards ULI Award for Excellence 2006, ASLA Honor Award 2007 | Status Completed 2005 | Photographs: Alan Ward | Tags Parks and Civic Spaces, Culture and Art, Climate Change
The central idea of the site design is to provide a grand promenade into and through the complex while providing opportunities for both large and small group gatherings, as well as places for quiet relaxation and enjoyment. The theme is a “Shadow Walk”: a place where the rich interplay of overlapping shadows, trees and architectural canopies create a cool and inviting environment. Long, curving lines of trees, shift back and forth as one walks along the promenade, throwing different shadow forms on the ground and creating different qualities and quantities of shadow. In addition to shadows thrown by vegetation, a series of colored glass canopies and raised glass screens will cast colored shadows on the ground.
These colored glass structures serve a double purpose in that they are also the structure for cooling mist jets that spray down to the walkway from above. Translucent colored glass screen walls, back-lit by the afternoon sun, will hold the shadows of cacti and other distinctly textured plants in silhouette.
Paralleling the Shadow Walk theme is a water story appropriate to the southwest: a boulder-filled arroyo runs along the western side of the Shadow Walk for its entire length. From time to time, a strong pulse of water will rush through the riverbed from north to south, recalling the flash floods characteristic of the region. A welcome side benefit of this exciting event will be the cooling and humidifying effect of the water evaporating from the wet boulders in the interval between episodes.
Another motif running through the Shadow Walk is that of the banquet table. The colored glass forms used to catch light will cast shade, and color shadows will also take the form of sculptural and symbolic tables and chairs. These forms are abstracted to create a poetic statement about people coming together in celebration, a perfect family-oriented image for the Mesa Arts and Entertainment Center and for the heart of the community.
