Gateway to McDowell Sonoran Preserve

Entry Point for the McDowell Sonoran Preserve

The Gateway celebrates visitors’ arrival and passage into the 30,580-acre McDowell Sonoran Preserve while minimizing the impact on the native desert—no small feat as it’s the access point to over 225 miles of hiking, bicycling, and horseback riding trails within the Preserve. The site design achieved the complete preservation of the existing network of arroyos and minimized any alterations to the natural habitat. The building walls are made of rammed earth, recalling a tradition of indigenous desert building while meeting all the performance requirements of modern use. The roof is covered in native desert cobble to blend into the desert when observed from the mountain trails to the east. Additionally, the Gateway incorporates numerous strategies for resource conservation, including a roof-integrated solar system that generates all the necessary energy and allows the facility to operate a Net Zero Energy (NZE) campus. Rainwater is harvested through roof collection and storage in a 20,000-gallon underground cistern–providing 100% of the water needed for landscape irrigation.