This 80,000-square-foot arts center is located within a 17-acre art park on the banks of Tempe’s Town Lake. The building’s monolithic roof encloses a multi-story “street” where two performance venues and an art gallery sit as distinct building forms. The public spaces incorporate several art pieces and offer striking views of the Rio Salado and Papago Mountains. To serve disparate professional, educational, and community arts groups, Theatre Projects designed the mainstage theatre—a 600-seat multipurpose venue—with demountable orchestra shell, adjustable forestage extension, full fly tower, and four seating levels that stack the audience vertically around the stage, creating an engaging interplay between audiences and performers. The Tempe Center’s smaller venue, a 200-seat studio theatre, features collapsible seating and modular staging, which allow the room to be configured into thrust, arena, endstage, or flat floor configurations. Additionally, the arts center features a large multi-use event space with performance infrastructure, lighting, rigging, AV, and storage, for events, small performances, and rental opportunities. Our team helped plan the building with a focus on highly operable and navigable support and public areas that help manage multiple simultaneous events. With performance infrastructure integrated into the venue’s visual arts gallery and outdoor areas, our team helped provide the Tempe Center with boundless opportunity for cultural impact, event hosting, and additional programming.