For ASU’s Decision Theater — the world is a stage

In the United Arab Emirates, Dubai is finishing work on the world’s largest airport. Now the Middle East’s burgeoning financial capital must devise a road system to handle millions of travelers moving in and out of its transportation hub.

More than 8,000 miles away, a California beach town is considering whether to allow taller buildings, but wants to protect residents’ ocean views.

Arizona State University is using the same tool to help policymakers solve these wildly different planning conundrums.

For two years, the Decision Theater — a viewing room with screens mounted on almost every wall — has given officials here pictures of how their choices might shape the Valley.

And in the coming years, ASU’s professors and equipment will open views of the future for people around the globe.

Decision Theater “is evolving into a much more robust and flexible tool,” said Rick Shangraw, the theater’s director.

Shangraw recently completed contract negotiations with the Dubai Aerospace Enterprise, a private agency responsible for the airport’s construction. ASU will supply the agency with technology to work through several infrastructure issues.

The Dubai agency and ASU are discussing whether to build the agency its own Decision Theater.

Dubai is hugely important to international business de- spite its blistering weather and reliance on desalinated water from the Persian Gulf. “It’s a city that’s come out of nowhere. There are cranes everywhere,” Shangraw said.

The airport, named the Dubai World Center, is a massive symbol of that success.

When finished, the terminals, landing strips and other facilities will cover 54 square miles, according to the agency’s Web site. A mediumsized city is being erected to operate the airport.

Dubai is similar to Phoenix, Shangraw said. Both cities are growing exponentially, and both have water issues and temperatures well above 100 degrees.

“We’ll be sharing technology,” he said, “and solutions.”

The university is also in talks to bring Decision Theater to China.

Four different Chinese higher education institutions have met with ASU officials about building theaters on their campuses.

In the midst of an industrial revolution, China’s rural farm workers are moving to the major cities in droves. The shifting population has overwhelmed the cities’ infrastructure.

If a deal is reached, Shangraw said ASU would put its name on the theaters, but the Chinese universities would operate them.

Similarly, ASU is consulting with Seattle city officials and University of Washington researchers on how to build a theater of their own.

While the theater has specialized in city planning, its capabilities extend far beyond.

A golf ball manufacturer used ASU’s media arts technology to learn how the ball’s dimples affect its trajectory. On the theater’s screen, a whoosh of colors show how air flows around the ball as it soars over a digital fairway.

Decision Theater opened in 2005 as a way to fulfill ASU President Michael Crow’s goal for the university to enmesh itself in the surrounding community. The university designed programs for Tempe, Surprise and the state Department of Health Services, among others.

Surprise’s population almost tripled in the past seven years and city leaders set out to write policies to protect the town’s dwindling supply of open space. Engineers at the theater used complex mapping software to show the impact of creating setbacks and altering how dense Surprise will allow future housing developments to be.

For Tempe, the theater’s engineers built a 3-D model of the city’s downtown that shows precisely how the numerous high-rises under construction will reshape the skyline.

Lisa Collins, a Tempe planner, said the city uses the technology when considering community development issues.

When Ray Patchett saw the electronic model of downtown Tempe, he wanted to take the theater home. The Carlsbad, Calif., city manager said that after flying through proposed developments at ASU, the traditional planning process seemed archaic.

“It really gives you a way to get beyond just the one-dimensional piece of paper,” he said.

Carlsbad is revising its development standards. Patchett said he wants to use the Decision Theater technology to visualize how different building heights and road widths might impact his city.

One of Carlsbad’s leading attractions, Legoland, already has a 3-D theater and has agreed to let the city “play in there,” Patchett said.

ASU is working with Legoland’s technicians to install the Decision Theater’s technology.

When Valley homebuilder Ira Fulton donated $3 million to build the first theater, Shangraw said university officials never envisioned franchising this technology.

“It was an experiment,” he said.

ASU's Decision Theater