A Portal to the Fourth Industrial Revolution
by Amy Hellmund, AIA, LEED AP
“When you walk into this building, you are walking into the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” says Sanjeev Khagram, Dean, CEO, and Director General of Thunderbird School of Global Management. The building of which he speaks is the F. Francis and Dionne Najafi Thunderbird Global Headquarters. This is the new home for the storied Thunderbird School at Arizona State University. The school celebrated its 75th year this year by opening the doors on its new building in downtown Phoenix.
 
Moore Ruble Yudell and Jones Studio designed the new headquarters for the Thunderbird School of Global Management as an urban incubator dedicated to education for business and leadership management in the digital age. The global headquarters is built for the Fourth Industrial Revolution – a time when new technologies are merging the physical, biological, and digital worlds. The architecture of the 110,000-square-foot building is a physical and technological framework for 21st-century learning – and it is the heart of the school’s global network of learning hubs. Thunderbird is not just a school or a place, it is a global concept.
“We’ve been the vanguard of specialized international management education for almost three-quarters of a century,” says Khagram. “The way we’ve maintained our spot at the tip of the spear is through constant curriculum and delivery innovation to ensure we’re preparing our students for the demands of the economy and society. With the technological transformations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that are now driving how we live and work, we are accelerating and innovating yet again to make certain our graduates are equipped to lead in this new paradigm. It’s an exciting time to be in this world of management education.”
 
Thunderbird’s new global headquarters creates opportunities for onsite student consulting projects in emerging markets, cross-disciplinary concentrations, access to resources and international expertise through Thunderbird’s worldwide alumni network of more than 45,000 global professionals. The new headquarters models the leading edge of technology and global connectivity by bringing together diverse perspectives of business and leadership management in one global place.
 
Within the facilities, students connect with the world in real-time using active and multi-dimensional technologies, which remain flexible for emerging technological innovations. With a modular approach to space planning, and AV and IT fit for future plug-and-play, the headquarters is prepared to adapt to short and long term needs of all users. All communal gathering spaces are designed for multi-use programming, with the ability to quickly transform from a study space to collaborative work or event space. In this way, Thunderbird becomes a central hub for both planned and serendipitous interaction.

Moore Ruble Yudell – Co-Design Architect
Jones Studio – Architect of Record/Co-Design Architect
Moore Ruble Yudell at SCUP Annual Conference 2022
Moore Ruble Yudell is honored to be presenting at the upcoming SCUP Annual conference as part of the following two sessions:

  1. Empowering Students to Connect and Lead the Fourth Industrial Revolution
  2. Modernism Reborn: Reviving Brutalist Icons on the American Campus

Learn more about each session below!
Empowering Students to Connect and Lead the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Presented by: Sanjeev Khagram, Dean and Director General, Thunderbird School of Global Management | Buzz Yudell, Partner, Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners | Shawn Swisher, Project Architect & Designer, Jones Studio, Inc. 

Global connection is an inherent part of 21st-century leadership and management education. Arizona State University’s (ASU) new global headquarters for the Thunderbird School of Global Management demonstrates how integrated planning, learning space design, and technology can facilitate connections that are key to education for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Come learn how integrated planning and technology-suffused learning spaces can support student development, collaboration, and learning necessary for preparing global leaders to thrive.
Modernism Reborn: Reviving Brutalist Icons on the American Campus

Presented by: Jeanne Chen, Principal, Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners | James Kolker, University Architect, Associate Vice Chancellor, Washington University in St Louis | Neal Matsuno, Principal, Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners | Adam Padua, Senior Associate, Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners

In the aftermath of riots, killings, and the flu pandemic of 1968, America architecture conveyed its optimism for the future through Brutalism. In the wake of similarly troubled times, campuses are once again ready to embrace optimism through renewal. Brutalism has left universities with a legacy of historic concrete buildings, but fifty years later they’re often unpopular and in poor repair. This session will explore how three university campuses looked beyond the troubled exterior and chose whether to replace, repair, or restore their campus’s Brutalist buildings and put their campus assets back to work.
CELEBRATING
Westside Urban Forum: Honor Award

Westside Urban Forum has awarded Santa Monica High School Discovery Building an Honor Award.

Jury Comment:
"This project does a lot of great things very economically. Its calm exterior design belies a sophisticated planning strategy that is focused successfully towards the student experience.”