Chandler City Hall: SmithGroupJJR Creates a Sustainable City Center for an Arizona Town

<a href="http://www.smithgroupjjr.com/">SmithGroupJJR</a> designed <a href="http://www.smithgroupjjr.com/?id=1772">Chandler City Hall</a> to provide the <a href="http://www.chandleraz.gov/">City of Chandler</a> with a community center that could generate pride for its citizens. The other design goal was to revitalize the historic downtown by building in an area that was in disrepair. From an environmental standpoint, the design responds to the harsh Arizona desert climate while still providing much-needed outdoor green space in the heart of the downtown area. Finished in October of 2010, Chandler City Hall has been named to the <a href="http://aiatopten.org/node/93">AIA Top Ten list for 2012</a>.

A hinged exterior shading device on the western façade provides shelter from the harsh western sunlight, and at night it turns into an artistic centerpiece. The perforated panels shine during the day as they move due to the wind, and at night <a href="http://inhabitat.com/tag/led/">LED lights</a> shine through the perforation creating art from the colored light.

The vibrant design of the campus has created a welcomed site for this suburban Arizona town.

<a href="http://www.smithgroupjjr.com/?id=1772">Chandler City Hall</a> is a five-story, 187,000 square-foot office building complex that takes up two city blocks and cost an estimated $47 million to complete.

Other sustainable features in the design of the Chandler City Hall include: daylighting, low-flow plumbing fixtures, recycled water for irrigation, energy use reduction, <a href="http://inhabitat.com/index.php?s=FSC+Wood">FSC certified wood</a>, and sustainable education.

Daylighting plays a huge role in the design of the interior of the Chandler City Hall. Very little energy is used to light the interiors of the lobby, the hallways, and most of the office.

The building incorporated a lot of materials that are either recycled, regional, renewable or certified as environmentally sensitive. A lot of the wood that was used in the building was FSC Certified.

The design provides daylighting for 80% of the building, and this among other energy-saving steps helped the project save more than 53% in energy consumption compared to the national average.

The design team also included a sustainable education tour complete with a book entitled “Sustainable Pathway”, which is complemented by a set of graphic signs through the campus.