Talking Stick Resort located in the East Valley in Scottsdale, Ariz., is like a modern-day mesa rising out of the Sonoran desert valley floor. The newly completed 15-story high-rise casino-hotel and resort is a combination of steel and glass, infused with woods and other natural materials exhibiting a subtle, contemporary flair behind a setting of tranquil beauty. Talking Stick’s exterior setting is a desert oasis, with its golf course greens and its pool blues juxtaposed behind a background of oranges, reds, and browns commonly seen in the southwestern landscapes of the United States.
Two local Native American tribes, the Maricopa and Salt River Pima Indians, both of whom have roots within the area that go back for hundreds of years, operate the resort. When the joint tribal community approached Salt Lake City-based architectural and design firm FFKR about taking on the project they wanted to ensure they had a voice in developing a design that showed their cultures, yet remained attractive to the outside local population in Scottsdale.
“They wanted to represent their communities and their traditions in subtle ways,” says Milt Elliott, IIDA, FFKR’s lead interior designer for the project. “It’s like their [the tribes] living room and how the public is going to view them.”
FFKR had an existing long-term relationship with the tribes, having worked with them on other gaming-related projects. So, there was a shared history that made for a smooth transition into the Talking Stick project. This idea that the tribes wanted to have an active voice in the project made collaboration paramount. And in order to be able to facilitate the tribes’ desires for the project, yet be able to manage the project properly, the tribal community had an existing design review committee in place to work with FFKR. This design review committee reviews all major projects within the community.
Kevin Mass, AIA, and FFKR’s principal architect for the project stresses the emphasis his firm places on collaborating with its clients, and he talks about his role as the “communicator” between parties as one of his responsibilities on the project. “I helped to make sure those stakeholders were communicating with the designers, engineers, and planners,” explains Mass. He served as a go between for the tribes’ design review committee, the gaming and hospitality groups, and his firm as well as participated with studies looking at the potential users outside the Native American communities.
Out of their initial conversations and meetings, FFKR came away with the mandate not to design an overly themed resort—like some of the Las Vegas Strip casinos had done—but rather incorporate the tribes’ cultures and to do so using natural materials. “It changed the way we looked at the project, because it really made us think, ‘if you take away this idea of [a theme], how do you create this place that meets all of those needs?’ It’s not a one-trick pony, and you need to stay fresh with the ideas,” asserts Mass.
A Natural Extension
In terms of the overall project and thinking of things on a macro design level, Mass talks about the Casa Grande Ruins, which is an archeological preserve south of Phoenix. It is an ancient village settlement with a Casa Grande or “big house” which is a four story structure built hundreds of years ago before European settlers had been to the area. Within this preserve is evidence there was commerce and entertainment, so this gave rise to FFKR doing something that was a natural extension for Talking Stick.
“When we discovered this, we thought, we weren’t really doing anything brand new,” explains Mass. “This idea of creating a civic-sized project that is tall and creates a point for way finding and for entertainment, and commerce, we can go straight back into the history of the Phoenix valley and find dozens of examples.”
In order to obtain a better grasp of their cultures and help in FFKR’s design plans, both Mass and Elliott had numerous resources to pull from, including photographic books, academic experts, and the two tribes’ communities themselves. This last resource was especially helpful for Elliott, who along with the tribes’ interior design committee, canvassed the outside areas of the tribal lands looking for inspiration.
“We took a trip to the botanical garden, and there was an area that was a refuge different from any other area,” says Elliott. “We decided we would take that as inspiration for the hotel rooms as the respite away from the busy casino and conference areas.”
Within this “respite” were rocks, trees, desert flowers, and the Salt River. It is here where Elliott was able to find his unique color patterns he incorporated into the resort’s rooms. “When a lot of people think of the desert and the southwest, they think of the oranges and browns,” explains Elliott. “And there is so much life in the desert and that’s what we wanted to portray—the greens, grays, and blacks.”
The Salt River’s reeds, which spring up ubiquitously throughout the river bed, were used in some of the tribes’ traditional housing and served as a specific focal point for the design team and were incorporated into the rooms’ colors and material patterns. As the Salt River Pima and Maricopa tribes are known as the river people, water itself is another important thread in their lives so to help encapsulate this theme, a wave pattern in the carpeting inside the casino was woven in, and a sheen was applied to many of the surfaces to simulate sunlight reflecting off the water.
Mass points out that the two tribes differed in some ways, most notably with the Pima tribe being basket weavers and Maricopa being potters. As pottery and baskets played a large role in each of their cultures a concerted effort was made to encompass that into the resort’s furnishing fabrics. Specifically the banquettes’ patterns reflect the tribes’ pottery and basket artwork.
As with any project of this magnitude, challenges did exist. For example, one of the main considerations was working on the site where an existing 70,000-square-foot casino was to remain open during the construction. Mass estimates they were 20 yards from the existing casino, and once the decision was made to continue the development within this area they had no choice but to contend with the existing casino. “We had to work around it,” says Mass. “It was a huge challenge for the community, for the contractor and to keep revenue up [for the casino].” As part of this challenge, the community and contractor had to deal with ingress and egress issues for commuter traffic and moving around big cranes and related construction vehicles.
Another challenge consideration was building in the desert climate. “We looked at how you build in the desert, and create shade in the building to reduce the heating load on the building,” says Mass. They decided upon recessed windows, shading trellises, and thick walls to counteract the brutal environment.
The Finished Project
The finished resort is a 407,000-square-foot resort housing 1,000 slot machines, 100 blackjack tables, machine-style craps and roulette, a 50 table poker room a players club lounge, sports bar, restaurants, and spa.
The design results are two-fold with subtle statements mixed in with more overt touches. Some of these features include the artwork adorning the walls and the resort’s name. There are two collections on display. One of the collections is sprinkled throughout the resort, and it is the largest, privately held collection of contemporary Native American art in the country, according to Elliott. It contains numerous artists from the southwest. The other collection is art created by members of the two tribes, and it is on the walls of the hotel lobby. The display includes photography, sculptures, beadwork, and paintings. He also says they commissioned artists for individual works throughout the Talking Stick resort.
The resort name is a Native American reference that has different meanings for individual tribes. For the Pima and Maricopa tribes, the talking stick was a long piece of wood used as a calendar of important occurrences, recording events such as floods or eclipses. These calendar sticks, so to speak, were denoted using mnemonic devices.
This overall subtlety and muted design statement of the Talking Stick is a stark contrast to the aforementioned “themed” Las Vegas Strip casinos that had been a popular design trend during the 1990s. The Talking Stick has a natural aesthetic, encompassing materials like warm woods and water-based sculptures; whereas, the Strip casinos have in the recent past gone for overly-themed opulent designs that transform visitors to a specific time and place.
Gaming resort destinations have evolved from offering just the usual staples like gambling, the hotel pool, and shows at night. Resorts have incorporated luxurious amenities such as spas, retail shopping, and a bevy of cuisine options to give visitors more reasons to visit—and Talking Stick certainly reflects this change in what a casino resort should be.
“When people come to a resort they are looking to restore, to rejuvenate,” explains Mass. “We have worked really hard with our client to create opportunities throughout the resort to highlight the restorative quality of the resort.”
This way, visitors have the ability to rest or play—it’s their choice.
See the slideshow on the Talking Stick. Photo Credits: Hut photo courtesy of the Jeremy Rowe Vintage Photography Collection. Remainder of the photos and renderings courtesy of FFKR Architects and Talking Stick Resort.