Posts Tagged ‘phoenix’

July 20, 2010

Kevin Kellogg, the 2010 Urban Laureate, on the Delights and Challenges of Phoenix

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Last week, I had the pleasure of talking with Phoenix’s urban laureate for the year, Kevin Kellogg, about all sorts of things about Phoenix. He’s a native of Arizona, went to ASU’s School of Architecture, later traveled the world for six years, went to Harvard for graduate school and came back to be a faculty member and an urban designer with the Joint Urban Design Program at ASU. While at ASU in the early 90s, Kevin was a part of some pretty major visioning projects in the Valley that have now come to fruition such as the design charrettes…

July 19, 2010

Stitching Together an Urban Experience around the Phoenix Art Museum

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Last week I went to the Cezanne exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum with my friend Sue Weil. We planned to eat dinner at Cheuvront’s beforehand, stop at Giant for coffee and dessert, then head over to the museum, all without a car. This is a perfect example of a walkable node in our city. We were able to make a nice evening out of this little spot in Phoenix without having to drive to every destination. This walkable node was hand-stitched by me and Sue because we’re in the know that both Cheuvront’s and Giant are within walking…

July 14, 2010

Empty Retail Stores: Turning a Plague into Opportunity

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet From the Phoenix Business Journal article “Retailers vacate 609,692 SF in first half – Phoenix Business Journal” on Tuesday July 13, 2010: Retailers continue to abandon property in the Phoenix area with a net loss of 609,692 square feet, or 0.4 percent of the market’s total space, so far this year, according to CB Richard Ellis. CBRE’s second-quarter MarketView for the Phoenix retail market shows a rise in vacancies to 12.2 percent from 11.9 percent last quarter and 10.5 percent a year ago. That’s the 13th consecutive quarterly rise. Vacancies are highest – above 14 percent – in northwest…

July 13, 2010

Why is Walking such an Alien Experience in Phoenix?

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Last week my friend Kevin Kellogg, the urban laureate at the Stardust Center, and I needed to find a place that was showing the World Cup semi-final match between the Netherlands and Uruguay. I was, as usual, officing out of Lux Coffee Bar that morning. Kevin suggested we watch the match at George & Dragon (G & D), the British pub on Central north of Indian School. It’s a classic venue to watch the World Cup. It occurred to me that Lux was close enough to G & D to walk! I know this should not have been such…

July 12, 2010

A Primer on ADA and Why it’s Important to Design

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Do you have people in your life with disabilities? I do. My mother, as she has aged, has experienced a considerable decline in her mobility. She often uses a wheelchair and a walker when she is out and about. I sometimes push my mother’s wheelchair when we are out together and whenever I do, I become instantly aware of ramps to sidewalks and to entrances of buildings. In those times, accessibility becomes an immediate reality, something I have to negotiate with personally, instead of the abstract notion that many times serves as a hindrance to architects and designers. Accessibility…

July 07, 2010

A Conversation with Chris Nieto about his Young Firm, merzproject

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet I sat down with Chris Nieto, the founding principal of merzproject along with Joe Herzog, last week at one of their projects, Giant Coffee. merzproject is a premier up and coming architecture firm in the Valley. They’ve done some excellent projects such as the After Hours Gallery, The Galleries at Turney and the Show Low Public Library. Many of the people who work at merzproject went to school with me, Joe Herzog, Jonah Busick and Alison Rainey to name a few. This firm is one of a handful in town that’s producing exciting, cutting edge work. I very much…

June 30, 2010

Any Building Lacking Passive Solar Design is a Failure

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet “Beginning in the early 1930’s, Chicago architects Fred and William Keck began a decade-long investigation of south-facing windows in residences that became the first to be called ‘solar houses’. During this same period, two internationally reknowned modern architects, Walter Gropius and Marcel Breur, both applied climatic analysis as major design determinants, as evidenced by generous south-facing and properly shaded windows. Frank Lloyd Wright in his Usonian house designs in Wisconsin and simultaneously in his design of Taliesen West in Arizona, all executed in the late 1930s, ingeniously and appropriately applied climatic design elements to diverse and contrasting climates, giving…

June 29, 2010

The Life that’s Passing Phoenix by as We Sit in Our Cars

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet This morning, I was running some errands and had to walk between the two banks on Central, just north of Thomas, you know – the Wells Fargo and Bank of America there. It didn’t make sense to get into my car, drive for 5 seconds, park and go to the next door bank, so I walked. As I walked out onto the sidewalk (thankfully it was in the shade on this 109° summer day) I was struck by the smell of the city, the growl of the cars as they whizzed by and the sight of people waiting for…

June 28, 2010

Sunday Studio Turns Blight into Bright with their Garfield Eco-Flip

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet I was very excited when I got invited to an open house by Sunday Studio a couple of weeks ago to check out the eco-flip they did on McKinley and 16th St. in the Garfield Neighborhood. The photo of the end product was gorgeous and it intrigued me. I was duly impressed when I got a tour, it was a house that any downtown resident would be proud to call their home. When I saw the slide-show of the before and after pictures of the house, I knew we had a visionary on our hands, a person who cared…

June 22, 2010

The Delightful Design of Giant Coffee

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Giant Coffee is finally open! It opened in May in fact and it’s a big hit with this coffee shop-loving architectural writer. I first went to Giant last Sunday to meet friends Aaron Kimberlin and John Jacquemart. I was absolutely delighted with it at first glance from my car. First, I give Matt Pool, owner of Giant (along with Matt’s Big Breakfast and The Roosevelt) a big thumbs up for locating his coffee shop near McDowell and Central. This corner, significant because of the Phoenix Art Museum, needed a serious injection of the coolness factor. And Giant, along with…