DOWNTOWN PHOENIX MODEL

The Phoenix Urban Research Laboratory is located in central Phoenix on the top two floors of the historic (circa 1928) Security Building, in the midst of ASU’s emerging Downtown Campus. Our location is advantageous: it marks the commitment of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts to the future of both downtown Phoenix and the new campus, our acknowledgment that the fortunes of the city and the university are inextricably linked.

Our administrative offices occupy a penthouse addition commissioned in the mid-fifties by Phoenix banker Walter Bimson, one of the drivers of the city’s extraordinary postwar boom. Our studio and conference spaces occupy a large and lofty space with tall windows and painted plasterwork that was once—back in the Roaring Twenties—a ballroom. Today the dance floor has made way for a design resource: a large model of downtown Phoenix. Fabricated in the college model shop and updated often as projects are announced, the 1/32-inch model functions as an explanatory and exploratory tool and has become a potent attraction for planners, developers, architects, and researchers.