Jones Studio

Every petal of the cross is built from the desert. Maria studied brittle bush, native grasses, and seasonal blooms from the McDowell Mountain Preserve, hand-drawing each species before the patterns were laser-cut into weathered steel. Look closely — the plants are still legible in the negative space.

Installed along the station’s north patio, the wall changes with the day. Morning and evening light pass through its cutouts and, for a few fleeting minutes, complete the emblem in full.

“Wholeness” now stands at Fire Station 612 in Scottsdale, a steel wall by Jones Studio Senior Associate Maria Salenger, AIA. It began with conversation — firefighters from Station 602 describing what it means to hold two families at once: the one at home, and the one at the station. That duality became the piece’s starting point, built around the Maltese Cross, the emblem firefighters have carried for generations.

Commissioned by Scottsdale Public Art for the City of Scottsdale.

Part two of our look at “Touch Home, Reach Sky” outside the Flagstaff Public Library.

Each of the installation’s 45 lanterns is fitted with dark-sky-compliant lighting. After sunset, the cut-metal patterns glow amber, and the plaza takes on the feel of a campfire circle — a place built to draw people in.

As with architecture, the studio approaches public art with as much thought given to how a space feels after dark as how it functions in daylight.

Let’s take a closer look at Jones Studio’s public art projects and moments where the studio’s designs elevate daily life.

We’re starting outside the Flagstaff Public Library, with “Touch Home, Reach Sky.” Designed by Jones Studio Senior Associate Architect Maria Salenger, AIA. The installation is made up of 45 sculptural cut-metal lanterns, arranged in clusters along the library’s accessible entry pathways. Northern Arizona’s identity is etched directly into the metal: celestial patterns, ponderosa pine, railroads, the San Francisco Peaks, Route 66, the Lowell Observatory dome.

At Jones Studio, public art isn’t treated as separate from architecture. The same process is applied at a different scale — understand a place and the people who move through it, then translate that understanding into form. Pragmatics guide the process. Poetry defines the outcome.

Arizona’s official state 9/11 Memorial sits quietly in Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza near the State Capitol, designed together by coLAB Studio and Jones Studio.

A pedestal holds rubble from the Pentagon and earth from Shanksville, PA, cradling a fragment of steel salvaged from Ground Zero. Each year at noon on September 11th, sunlight reaches through the structure to fall directly on that fragment.

As the day passes, shadows cast from words cut into the steel ring shift across the space — phrases gathered from Arizonans reflecting on the aftermath of that day.

The circle, open at its center, speaks to unity. A quiet place to sit, remember, and never forget.

Please join us in celebrating Ally Kwan, AIA, Jones Studio’s newest LICENSED ARCHITECT 🎉 We’re proud of her accomplishment and we’re lucky to have her vibrant personality and perspective on our team. Congrats, Ally!

For the students who attend, Desiderata offers more than a classroom, it’s a place to build life skills alongside a high school education. When Phoenix Union High School District moved the program from its original 1920s home into a 30,000-square-foot industrial building, our team gutted the shell and reimagined it from the ground up: classrooms, therapy rooms, a kitchen, and a fitness space, all arranged to support how students actually learn and grow.

Color and light do a lot of the work here. Glazing in shades of magenta, gold, and teal casts moving patterns across the halls, and a canopy of hand-formed aluminum leaves filters daylight over the reception area — a quiet nod to the mesquite trees just outside.

Grateful to have partnered with Phoenix Union High School District on a place built around the students it serves.

Back to school means walking past twenty plus years of ASU history for our team.

Designed alongside Gensler and dedicated in 2004, Lattie F. Coor Hall anchors the heart of ASU’s Tempe campus in board-formed concrete and layered glass. Look closer at the facade and you’ll find it’s telling its own story: etched letterforms pulled from languages around the world, a public art collaboration with artist BJ Krivanek that turns the building itself into a meditation on how we learn to communicate.

As students file back into these classrooms, we’re glad the courtyards are still sun-washed, the central breezeway still glows after dark, and the lecture halls are still filling up in Sun Devil maroon. Welcome back, Tempe.

📍 Lattie F. Coor Hall, ASU Tempe Campus
🏛️ Designed by Jones Studio + Gensler
🎨 Facade public art by BJ Krivanek

Back to school at ASU Thunderbird School of Global Management. Clad in Arizona sandstone with silver metal and shade louvers on the north and west faces, the 111,000 sq ft building is tracking LEED Platinum and shares its city block with another Jones Studio building, the Beus Center for Law & Society. Recessed gardens fed by captured rainwater cool the plazas below.
Welcome back, Thunderbirds

Back to school in Kingman, Arizona

Mohave College sits in a valley between the Hualapai and Cerbat Mountain Ranges, right at the edge of the Mohave Desert. As a commuter campus, Mohave College needed one clear, welcoming hub — a place where students could find services, study, and gather, all in one spot.

The Student Services Center does exactly that. Sited at the geographic center of campus, it consolidates administrative offices, library stacks, a reading room, tutoring center, and computing commons under one shaded, sunlit roof — with terraces and courtyards that carry the desert landscape right up to the glass.
Warm wood beams and stucco walls move seamlessly from outside to in, and an expansive roof lifts toward the south to bring in soft clerestory light. It’s a building built around one idea: give students a reason to stay on campus, connect, and call it their own.