^ It's from the Taylor Place website, and yeah, it looks like they got it from a helicopter.

http://www.asu-taylorplace.com/asu%2...su_tp=progress

Can someone explain to me how the Dorms are oriented to the downtown public space? If they chose not to orient their garden plaza toward that then it was a big mistake.

:previous: By “oriented towards” do you mean whether or not the wide façade of the buildings are facing the public space as opposed to the shorter ends? Well for reference the above aerial picture was taken from the north facing south. At the right of the picture or to the west of the dorms you can see the Cronkite School of Journalism under construction, the public space will be west of that building. So the orientation of the two dorms probably wouldn’t have mattered in regards to the public space since it is a full block away. Additionally the real consideration for the way the footprints of the two dorms would be placed probably had more to do with consideration of sun exposure then with view of the park.

I wish then they had put the dorms on the west lot and the WCSOJ on the east lot so that the garden spaces could have flowed together. I wonder how future buildings like the Jet or Copper Point would affect the shading of Taylor Place. Is the sun that big of an issue when most of the students will be there Sep-May?

the sun is that big of an issue 90% of the year, imo.
plus, i'm sure there will also be summer school students.

i don't think the Jet or Copper Pointe could ever be tall enough to affect
shading of Taylor Place.

is Taylor Place to include some special "garden space"?

From the Taylor Place site

"The 4,000-square-foot shade garden is overlooked by a private roof
terrace for students. This public garden includes seating and a water
feature and is linked with Taylor Street's landscape and pedestrian plan."

[QUOTE=Phxbyrd211;3171708]From the Taylor Place site

Sounds nice. glad it will be open to the public. thx Phxbyrd211.

I haven't heard much about retail or dinning planned for the Taylor St. pedestrian mall yet. Can anyone clue me in as to how they will keep this alive at night and on the weekends?

Here's a link to the WCSOJ Construction webcam. Don't know if this has been posted before or not.

http://www.azpbs.org/future/webcam.htm

Yeah, its been posted. I haven’t documented WCSOJ as I have with other projects, but I did take one screen shot back in June for comparisons. Quite a change in 6 months:

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/b...teBuilding.jpg

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/b...guy/WCSOJ2.jpg

Somebody asked about a rendering of the CivicSpace ... this is the best I got.

http://emvis.net/~sean/ssp/ASU_civic..._july_2007.pdf

I think they've tweaked the southeast entrance a bit since then, given how in newer models I think there's a ~2 story building fronting to Central from the back of the historic structure on 1st Avenue indicated in the siteplan as the PESD Administration building. I think, but am not certain the new building annex is supposed to be the ASU downtown library.

For me, the most exciting thing about the open space is the Union Terrace and the "street plaza" to the east. The terrace on the north side of the MU at ASU Tempe can be really crowded on nice days, I hope the spaces near the Post Office building (ASU downtown's student union) get similar use. I think that depends to an extent on the draw of the Post Office building itself. I also have high hopes for the A. E. England building; the use of that building hasn't been determined completely yet but I hope they figure out a good use that will draw people.

I think the weakest part of the plan is the southwest quadrant. The rationale for that area was more of a neighborhood-oriented, quiet/intimate park, which to me sounds like a great place to spend the night or hang out if you have nowhere else to go. Another thing I don't like about it is the way Taylor just dead-ends in the park. They should have made more of a grand entrance on the east side, as well as found a way to connect the alignment (at least for pedestrians) on the west side.

Another downside on a larger scale is the intense difficulty and confusion that driving (and, to a lesser extent, walking) around the park will offer the uninitiated. We're all gung-ho about the light rail, but the truth is, it's going to make driving downtown even more of a bear, even once it's finished. Seeing some of the plans for this site really drove that point home for me. I hope Phoenix drivers will figure out that we need to drive slower around the light rail, especially if they need to turn across the tracks. Just driving straight up or down Central is no problem, but trying to go west on Fillmore or anything like that is going to take some real preparation.

Andrew,
I agree with you that driving around light rail is confusing, its one of those learned things. However in many ways that is good thing. Most big cities are confusing to drive around if you aren't from there. At least it makes us a little more normal.

Pic's of DT ASU Dorms & Cronkite School of Journalism
 

A couple of sunset pic's of the ASU Dorms under construction and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/d9d151754e.jpg

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/ff2be7486c.jpg

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/d6031d701e.jpg

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/20fbb0c6f0.jpg

Nice!! How's the Cronkite School of Journalism on the front looks like?

:previous: The pic does show the front. The main entrance is to the far left in this shot. The sun was nearly gone, so I took this shot and called it a day.

School of Nursing hearing on Thurs (bad design)
 

FYI folks: this Thurs. is a hearing for "ASU School of Nursing Variance requests. They are requesting 8 variances - the last 5 on the list being the most critical because those will impact the pedestrian environment. The building design turns its back to the community by minimizing access, creating blank walls facing the street and reducing the amount of shade.

The Zoning Administrator Hearing is scheduled for 2:30 in Assembly Rm C at City Hall." All of this info is per Dean Brennan (a really nice guy.)

Dean Brennan, AICP
Principal Planner
Phoenix Planning Department
602-262-4499
602-495-3793 (fax)

Civic Space 3D Rendering
 

Here is a 3-Dimensional rendering of the Civic Space from the Dec-Jan issue of Contact Magazine. I am including the link for the story about the DT ASU campus from whence I snagged the rendering.

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/ad6d43868a.jpg

Nice quote from the article: "As ASU and Phoenix battle, build and spend their way toward their respective desired destinies—a new American university and a vibrant urban center—the downtown campus is the symbiotic overlap of both pursuits. It is a time of becoming for both city and university. With each passing day, one can only hope that the tantalizing potential for exponential synergy across cultural, economic, academic and aesthetic boundaries will continue its gradual escape from the realm of theory to the here and now."

http://www.contact-mag.com/kontakt/c.../65/index.html

They are planning to plant trees in the middle of the road on Central Ave? That's kind of cool, I had no idea.

Also, in the downtown model, the high rise across the street from the Westward Ho appears again. I wonder if it's done simply as a "could be" or if there are plans for something that we havn't heard of yet. I would like to think it's the latter as if it was just a speculation, then they could/would have done that for every empty lot downtown.

http://nitnelav.com/ASUModel1.jpg

If anyone would like to see the rendering of the school of nursing
expansion bldg, then please send me your email address; perhaps you can
post it to this forum. i do not know how - sorry!:shrug: