Drawing Students Outdoors

We reconceived the plaza as an outdoor hall for the Memorial Union. This alleviates some of the demands placed on the facility. Our work centered on how to make being outdoors more pleasurable year round in the hot desert climate, so that people would want to congregate outside of the Memorial Union to eat, gather, and socialize. We approached the renovation both horizontally and vertically. We added outdoor seating areas that are distinct from the pedestrian mall. These areas are shaded by a collection of canopies clustered around raised planter beds of grass, plants, and trees. The canopies have a unique, warped elliptical form that permits them to be organized in different spatial configurations. They can be rearranged to make room for the trees as they grow, and they guide foot traffic through the plaza.

As a design element, the canopies relate to a nearby well-loved allee of palm trees, Palm Walk. This reinforces the sensation of being at the heart of campus. Using shade structures provided an immediate relief from the desert heat for the Memorial Union Plaza, when palms could take years to reach adequate height. Each canopy is saddle-shaped, with a sock of double-faced shade cloth stretched over their tubular frame. Their light color reflects heat away from the concrete paving, lowering temperatures below the canopies, and their fabric construction mitigates glare. Because the canopies are lower and wider than mature palm trees, their dappled shade spans a larger area over the plaza. The seating areas are now a popular destination in the precinct.