Culdesac, located in Tempe, is the first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the U.S. The design for Culdesac Tempe was non-conventional from the very start at both the community and building scales, and it has not changed a lot since its inception.
Culdesac, a real estate developer and property manager, not only wanted to deliver car-free, mobility-rich living, but also wanted to innovate the type of community they were delivering in addition to the building design with a primary focus on creating a strong sense of community. A big part of this innovation was demonstrating a model that provided comfortable living in Tempe’s extreme desert climate. Not needing to accommodate spaces for car storage or circulation, given Culdesac Tempe’s car-free goal, opened up the opportunity to focus on creating people-oriented spaces.
Climate Control
The compact pattern of the Culdesac Tempe community is largely based on the study of other historic communities in desert environments that allows for the buildings to shade one another and for the ground plane to be shaded most of the day. Both of these components greatly reduce the amount of heat that can be gained over the course of a day.
There are many architecture features of Culdesac Tempe that are designed for heat reduction and greater livability in the region’s extreme temperatures, including a network of paseos. Instead of very wide streets that accommodate cars, these narrow pedestrian paseos, typically 10 to 15 feet wide, provide shaded walking routes through Culdesac. There is also no asphalt in the community and a majority of the ground surface is a soft decomposed granite, which greatly reduces heat gain on the ground plane.
The narrow and winding paths help allow winds to pass through. Also, the network of small and medium-sized courtyards within the community’s blocks are mostly shaded and strategically positioned with breaks throughout them to allow breezes to cool the spaces. In the larger Hub building, which has Aruma Café coffee shop and Archer’s Bikes bicycle shop, there is an inner block courtyard. When designing Culdesac Tempe, we wanted to make sure that this courtyard had openings on at least two sides to allow breezes to cool the spaces as well.
When designing building placements for Culdesac, we learned from other desert-responsive places, including in Egypt and the Barrio Viejo in Tucson. Shading elements are provided on Culdesac Tempe’s west and south elevations, and window openings are no larger than needed, to reduce the amount of heat gain inside the units. The buildings are white — which, surprisingly, was not common for buildings in Tempe before this project — in order to reflect the sun and reduce heat buildup. Another example of desert-conscious design is the courtyard housing buildings are only one room deep and have operable windows, so residents can use natural cross ventilation in the cooler evenings to cool down the inside of their homes.
Mixed Use
Having some commercial services and amenities within the community is key to providing car-free living and a walkable neighborhood. We worked with Lorenzo Perez from Venue Projects, who has developed and managed many successful commercial and food and beverage destinations in Phoenix, including The Orchard and The Newton, to establish program parameters for the community’s mixed-use center next to the Smith-Martin Transit station.
The original plan targeted a small market, coffee shop, a destination restaurant and other locally owned businesses. Cocina Chiwas was the first business and is a successful restaurant run by a husband-and-wife team. Additionally, there is Busan Mart, the aforementioned Aruma Café and Archer’s Bikes, and more, as well as several small businesses in the incubator spaces — including Sew Used, which has been so successful that it is moving into a bigger space in the community.
For businesses that want to be part of something new, different and inspiring, Culdesac Tempe can be very appealing. There is a strong sense of community and businesses can be part of that at Culdesac Tempe. It also offers a like-minded small business network, a strong brand and identifiable location, small spaces with affordable rents, six-month lease options, and flex spaces where owners can live and run their business, if they like. For example, the owner of the Ito Brand clothing store is an ASU fashion student who is running his business out of a flex space, making his clothing there and also living there.
There is parking available for visitors and customers of the community’s businesses. There are also several designated drop-off and pickup locations for carshare applications. Culdesac also paid to have a pedestrian crossing that goes directly from the eastern edge of the nearby light rail platform into the community.
Designed for Walking
It’s approximately a five-minute walk from most portions of Culdesac Tempe to the light rail stop as well as the mixed-use center. When our team at Opticos designed Culdesac Tempe, the concept was to provide a continuous, shaded route along the entire length of the community through the narrow design and orientation of the paseos.
There are frequent paseo intersections in the community, which means that, depending on where the sun is positioned throughout the day, there are several alternative routes for a shaded walk. Similar to historic Italian, Greek and French hillside towns, the numerous entries along the paseos and windows throughout the space help enable passive cooling, as well as help provide a sense of security.
The informal layout of Culdesac Tempe provides interesting visuals that draw you through the project. This is done with thoughtful and irregular building placement and orientation and, in some instances, the placement of architectural elements that are meant to catch the eye. All the while, the landscaping enhances the experience. The landscape design, led by Kris Floor of Phoenix-based Floor Associates, cools the spaces and also provides visual interest to draw you through the spaces.
Photos courtesy of Culdesac
Daniel Parolek is the founding principal of Opticos Design and led the architecture of the Culdesac Tempe community. Founded in 2000, Opticos Design is an award-winning team of urban designers, architects and strategists who specialize in the creation of sustainable, walkable communities for all and zoning reform.
Did You Know: In 2023, a Harvard researcher proved the microclimate, registering a 40-degree difference in temperatures between the sidewalk just outside Culdesac versus the cooler climate within the community.
