(light upbeat western music) - [Tom] This week on "Arizona Illustrated," Barrio Restoration.

- [David] We have pride in here.

There's so much culture, but we gotta show that in our streets too, and all you need is a shovel.

- [Tom] Arizona READI.

- [Marc] I don't have to wait until I get to the hospital to actually link all of the parties together.

I can do it from the point of our initial encounter with the patient.

- [Tom] And artist, inventor, and architect Art Brown.

- [Bob] He was this unvarnished guy who used materials to create spaces in a very simple but elegant and subtly, deceptively sophisticated way.

- Welcome to "Arizona Illustrated."

I'm Tom McNamara.

The AZPM crew and I are coming to you from South Tucson, known as the "Pueblo Within a City."

It covers an area of just over one square mile, and it was incorporated in 1940 and is home to about 6,000 Arizonans.

South Tucson has managed to keep its strong and unique character and cultural traditions.

And on a recent Saturday morning, groups of volunteers descended on these streets to weed and rake and create community.

This is Barrio Restoration.

- Good morning.

- Good morning, how you doing?

- [Woman] I'm good, how are you?

Thank you, guys.

There's masks here and sanitizer.

- We got a project called Barrio Restoration, basically cleaning up the streets of South Tucson.

Today is our third community cleanup.

Team, follow each weed-eater.

All right, and if so, if you wanna get weeds with the shovel there... We have people from the Barrio Restoration Facebook and Instagram here today.

I got my family members showing some support.

We got some city officials here as well, so they're kind of all jumping onboard to make a difference here in the neighborhood.

I'd say maybe 20 people so far, and I still have people showing up here in the meantime.

Probably when the hot dog stand gets here, more people will show up as well.

- [KP] Barrio Restoration, David Garcia.

The homie David, he invited us out here because he's helped us a number of times in Western Hills, Las Vistas.

- [David] You guys like the bike?

(laughing) - My name's KP, and I'm an organizer.

I work in food security right now, but I'm also working in just anti-gentrification work and taking care of our spaces.

Tucson, Arizona, has become a home for me, and so I wanna take care of my home with my abilities in any way that I possibly can.

We're cleaning up invasive plants, invasive weeds.

You can just see all along the roads and all along the sides how it's unmaintained.

And we're just trying to clean these spaces up so that we can plant trees that grow in people's yards that create bountiful amounts of shade.

And then, if people wanted to use these spaces for gardening, we wanna be able to do that type of stuff.

(yard equipment whirring) - Yeah, well, I actually live in the northwest side, so I'm far from here, but I don't think that should matter.

It's Tucson.

We should be more tight.

It doesn't matter if you're from the north, west, east; we're all from Tucson.

And I feel like we should take care of it and really appreciate what we have.

With COVID and everything going on, I wanted to really start meeting my community and helping others and really just do something more proactive and more with my community.

I feel like we've lacked that in these last couple years, and it's important.

It's hot, I will say that, but everyone made me feel super welcome.

It really is a positive energy that we have out here.

Guys, how do you feel?!

(lawn equipment whirring) (soft acoustic guitar music) - Well, there's Tucson, and then you have South Tucson, all right?

And South Tucson is my hometown.

I mean, my whole family's on South Tucson, you know?

We've lived here for many years.

I just know that there's hard workers here, hard workers that beautify other areas, get paid, but don't get paid enough to do very much else.

I don't know how funds and stuff like that get allocated to kind of take care of areas.

I feel like maybe we're being neglected somehow.

We have pride in here.

There's so much culture, but we gotta show that in our streets too.

And if we do that, we can represent our neighborhood a little bit better, and all you need is a shovel.

And you create respect at the same time.

You gotta be the spark in the neighborhood to get that going.

We got Sonoran dogs, we have YOPOS hot dog stand.

Their hot dogs are feeding our community, but they're also supporting Barrio Restoration and the neighborhood.

The food isn't just for our volunteers.

I mean, I hope that we can get some of the people in the area to come out and eat too, just kinda get to know what we're doing.

- I think it's important because people need help.

People need help every day, especially right now; we're in a pandemic.

And I think now that we haven't been able to be close to one another, share space with one another, we need to be more collective in our efforts in every way, right?

'Cause you can live anywhere in the world, but it's nothing without community.

People are nothing without other people.

And it could be a community of any kind, right?

As long as you have it, people are a lot happier, a lot more sustaining.

And I think if people are well-intentioned and they aren't trying to be a part of gentrifying areas and things like that, it's definitely always welcomed.

Just come in, do your part, speak to people, know people, become a familiar face.

If you have any ideas or any expertise, lend that in any way that you possibly can and help people survive on a daily basis.

- When I look around and I see everyone working, it fills my heart, it really does, and it makes me wanna do more.

It makes me wanna be able to do it next week or even do events myself.

And look, now there's about 40-50 people here, and that's an amazing accomplishment.

(soft acoustic guitar music) It's the world that we're trying to change, and I feel like it starts by one step at a time, and this is one small step to something that can be bigger in the future.

- They're doing amazing work.

David is a community warrior and a community leader.

And we're all community leaders in our own way and we can all help and we can all get out here and do our own part.

We wanna all thrive and live fruitful lives, and I think that we're all pushing towards that.

- [David] I've been landscaping for the majority of my life.

My grandfather took me on my first cleanup when I was seven years old.

I honestly feel like what I've learned and what my grandpa showed me about cleaning yards, and I wanna show the kids too, this is our turf, you know?

This is the south side.

This is where we live.

This is full of pride, yet it takes hard work.

It takes a bit of sweat equity, right?

How we doin', how we doin'?

- Teamwork.

- All right, makes the dream work!

So, I've been at it for three years now, just a little bit at a time, making my presence in different neighborhoods, just trying to spread the word and inspire the people to do the same.

It's all about community.

It's all about getting people together.

And it's pretty amazing of how many people showed up today just to make this happen.

My grandpa, I've always wanted to make him proud, and I think I'm making him proud by using what he showed me to make a difference in the community.

- To find out more about Barrio Restoration, including how to volunteer, visit Barrio Restoration on Facebook.

Emergency medical services and first responders in rural areas face unique challenges to providing care, such as long travel distances between patient and hospital.

Those travel times can mean the difference between life and death and can be costly to both the patient and the service provider.

But recently, University of Arizona Health Sciences and Banner University Medical Center launched a pilot project that can quickly connect rural responders with emergency medicine physicians, with potentially lifesaving results.

(soft acoustic guitar music) - As a paramedic, as a firefighter, we get into this profession because we wanna help people.

And when you're a paramedic and a firefighter in a rural environment, you're helping people with fewer resources and more austere environment than you would in a larger city.

So, when we get a call for a chest pain patient, on the way we're thinking, "Okay, this is an AzREADI-type call."

And when we get on scene, we'll start our assessment.

We'll usually run a 12-lead 'cause that's really important diagnostic information.

- Hello, ma'am.

- (panting) Hi.

- My name's Emma, I'm a paramedic.

That's Peter.

He's my EMT today.

What's your name?

- I'm Joanne.

- [Emma] So, why are we here, Joanne?

- [Joanne] My chest started hurting and it got hard for me to breathe.

- [Emma] Yeah, okay.

If it's okay with you, why don't we just get a really quick set of vitals on you and take a look at your heart and then see what we wanna do from there, okay?

- Okay.

- All right.

And I'm gonna go ahead and call a doctor and kinda get their opinion too.

Does that sound all right?

- [Joanne] Yeah, anything to get feeling better.

- [Emma] Yeah, okay.

- [Joanne] I'm scared 'cause this has never happened before.

- Hey, Dr. Gaither.

- Hello!

Hello, can you hear me okay?

- [Emma] Yeah, can you hear me?

- Good.

- Perfect, all right.

- So, AzREADI, A-Z-R-E-A-D-I, is a grant-funded project that's run outta the University of Arizona Center for Rural Health.

What the grant is aimed to do is to bring telemedicine services to our rural EMS communities.

It really brings physician-level care to communities that might not have good access to that care.

In the last four or five years, a new service has become available across the United States called FirstNet.

That FirstNet service is a wireless communication service that's dedicated to first responders.

With that new innovation, we thought this was a great opportunity to try out this program and see if it really did improve care for our rural communities.

For the AzREADI project, what we really focus on is providing care, for example, for patients with chest pain.

Before this program, if you developed horrible crushing chest pain, the paramedic would just call the helicopter and transport you to the hospital as quickly as possible.

With this program, the paramedic can get an EKG, send that EKG to our physicians.

We'll take a look at the EKG, talk with the patient, and help come up with a decision.

Is this patient okay to be transported by ground by an ambulance or can they even go by their own vehicle, saving that individual money and allowing the paramedic to stay in the community to provide the services that community needs.

(garage door whirring) - So, as operations chief at Sonoita-Elgin Fire District, my job is really to oversee the day-to-day running of the department, so making sure that our crews are scheduled and they have what they need.

Also responsible for the stuff around here, so making sure that our vehicles are on the road and running correctly.

And then, really, anything else that the fire chief needs me to do to make sure that we're basically mission-ready every single day.

Being in a rural community, and by ambulance we're roughly 45 to 90 minutes away from a hospital, depending on where we pick the patient up and which hospital we go to, Sonoita-Elgin Fire serves a fire district of 350 square miles.

We also are responsible for ambulance transports for 725 square miles.

- No stoplights.

We have, well, a Dollar General now, which makes us a little bit bigger, but before it was just a corner market store, one gas station, very spread out.

Rural EMS is a whole different animal.

You really have to kinda cowboy up and just do what you can with what you have.

As a provider, I like it in that way 'cause it really tests you and makes you grow, whether you like it or not sometimes.

You definitely learn from every call that you get, spending an hour in the back of the rig with a patient.

You're either really busy doing stuff or you're having a nice conversation with them and getting to learn about them and getting to learn about their family.

And at least for this hour, I'm gonna get you to the hospital safely and I'm gonna kinda comfort you and make you feel a little bit better on your way there.

- [Marc] We're less than 15 minutes out.

- [Peter] Cool, thank you.

- The way in which this program makes my job easier, frankly, but also more fulfilling is that between myself and my patient and the ER physician I'm bringing this patient to, I don't have to wait until I get to the hospital to actually link all of the parties together.

I can do it from the point of our initial encounter with the patient.

Now that we've been running the program for several months, we've entered into refresher trainings.

And refresher trainings is kinda what it sounds like.

It's going back and make sure we remember, "How do we use this phone?"

- Hi, thank you for coming.

My name is Aileen Hardcastle.

I am the project manager for the AzREADI program out of the University of Arizona- - [Emma] The refresher trainings, especially for this AzREADI program, I think, will be really helpful for us.

- So, AzREADI is the Arizona Rural Advanced Telemedicine Demonstration Initiative.

- [Emma] It'll help what are some things that we need to be doing different or what are some things we could be doing different to help the situation.

- A lotta people in a lotta places are looking at what we're doing and specifically what you guys are doing.

- And hopefully expand it beyond just chest pains and we can make it into that more of a use-me-whenever-for-whatever kinda tool.

- So, Dr. Gaither is the person who's on call today, and he's ready to accept test calls at any point.

- [Josh] Hello!

- [Peter] Hello.

- Can you guys hear me okay?

- Yep.

- My goal throughout my entire career has been to really help these talented healthcare providers utilize their skills and resources as best as they can, so this project really does allow them to do that.

The striking thing about medicine is I as a physician rarely save a life.

The paramedics and EMTs in our community are the real heroes.

They're the real lifesavers.

One of the great things about this program is that it allows those individuals to get a doctor on a phone to do a telemedicine consult during those really high-stress, life-critical times.

If they have a question, this allows them to get ahold of us and we can help them through those really challenging situations.

- Frankly, if this makes a difference for one patient, it's made a huge difference.

I would love it if more agencies that we interacted with and more fire districts in rural communities were able to participate in that, 'cause we've seen the difference it makes for us.

And if it's helping us and it's helping our patients, then I know it's gonna help other rural patients in other districts.

- It's kinda my life goal, I suppose, is to do whatever I can to build myself so that I can be, I like to think of it as like a servant to other people.

I really do genuinely get that enjoyment of if I'm able to make that personal connection with somebody in the ambulance for an hour and just talk to them about their day or talking about their life.

Being able to be there and be the person that somebody needs in that moment, I just wanna be able to look back and say that I made some kind of impact in their lives.

If it was for an hour or two hours or 20 minutes, it doesn't matter, but as long as I can do whatever I could to be able to be there and be the best person that they needed in that moment.

- Art Brown has been described as an architectural innovator whose experimental work helped to shape Tucson's post-World-War-II-built environment.

He described himself as an architect, artist, and inventor.

Regardless, as you'll see, Art Brown's architectural legacy remains vibrant to this day.

- My dad happened to be a very accomplished artist, and he went into architecture because he was afraid he couldn't earn a living as an artist.

- I grew up here in the 1960s, when Art Brown's buildings were everywhere.

It was my dentist's office, it was my elementary school, they were the houses in my neighborhood, and it just feels right to me.

This is how things should be.

- His buildings are quiet, though.

And so, people sometimes will walk by a house like this and not realize that it's even designed by an architect.

So, sometimes you have to search to see what's really important about Art Brown.

(soft piano music) - [Narrator] Arthur T. Brown was born in the year 1900 in Tarkio, Missouri, to middle-class parents of moderate means.

He was named after King Arthur.

He first studied chemistry, then architecture.

And in 1927, he moved to the biggest city he could think of: Chicago, Illinois.

- [Christopher] So, there's a very long tradition of modern architecture in Chicago, from Frank Lloyd Wright to Sullivan.

Those are people that he was looking at when he was starting to sorta try to figure out what he would do as he began his career as a young architect.

- And 1929 was when the Depression hit, and so, of course, all major construction stopped.

- [Narrator] After years of struggle in Chicago, in 1935, Arthur moved west to Arizona with his wife Caroline and two young children to find work in Phoenix.

As the story goes, he arrived with only $40 in his pocket.

- That might be true; it wasn't much money.

I thought it was $20, but maybe it was $40.

- [Narrator] A year later, they moved to Tucson, where he would stay 'til his death in 1993.

In more than 50 years, he would design and build over 300 buildings and work on 1,500 projects in Southern Arizona.

He would be called a regional master, a pioneer, and would become Arizona's first fellow in the American Institute of Architects.

- Even though the Depression cut short probably his career in Chicago, it brought him to Tucson at a really, really important time.

- Art Brown was our first modernist at a time when most of the buildings being built were designed in revival styles.

People were trying to give Tucson an old-world feel.

- He did not like the word "style."

He was offended when he heard that.

He felt that architecture was problem-solving.

And he felt that a building, the best building, would grow outta the site where it was.

- He was this unvarnished guy who used materials to create spaces in a very simple but elegant and subtly, deceptively sophisticated way.

- [Narrator] This is the Ball-Paylore residence in midtown Tucson, built in 1952.

It was designed for two librarians at the University of Arizona who wanted an egalitarian home.

- This home is large with ideas.

And the clients, I think, believed that with this small envelope, the architect met all of their needs 'cause one of their needs was economy.

- You don't need a style when you have all of these design determinants already.

You have the site, you have the owner's budget, you have the owner's desires, and you'll want to orient the house for, usually it's a combination of things.

You want a good view.

You also want some solar features too.

- As well as being a pioneering modernist architect in Southern Arizona, he was also a solar pioneer, utilizing passive solar design for both heating and cooling very, very early, before it was well known or widely practiced.

(soft meditation music) - [Narrator] The Rosenberg House, built in 1946, is a great example.

This solar wall would absorb sunlight all day and heat the house during winter.

The Rose School was called America's first public solar building.

It got up to 80% of its heat from the solar roof.

The Ball-Paylore home uses a different method to control the climate.

- He was known as an inventor and he liked to figure out ways to make active devices in the house that his clients could adjust.

So, in this case, they're adjusting these roller awnings.

- [Narrator] The awnings can be adjusted to allow heat into the house during the winter and keep it out during the summer.

Arthur used simple roof extensions to accomplish this on other projects.

- [Christopher] And I think today, if people remember that, we could bring these devices back to a lot of homes and they would be more logically suited to the place we live.

- This was his modernist creed.

He believed in doing things that made sense as an architect.

He didn't do wacky, crazy things just for pure formalism.

He did them because they were necessary.

- [Christopher] Even though you can see some things that are stylistically unique to Art Brown, I think he arranged his palette of materials and the interior layout and its strategy for adapting to the desert to each client, and that makes everything unique.

- [Narrator] Unique, like this home in Tubac designed for World War II pilot Colonel Van Sicklen.

It was designed to look good from the ground and the air.

The colonel could park his airplane in this hangar and then he could jump into the pool for a swim before going inside his home.

- The exterior of every building should have a good center of interest that draws the eye to it.

Just the rhythm makes a design nice.

It's a little bit like music.

You have notes and you have the rhythm of the music.

This is a visual rhythm that you have.

- [Narrator] Gordon Brown became an architect himself and worked with his father in this office for 25 years.

- He never asked for work.

He waited until it was given to him.

He thought that all your clients should come by word of mouth from other satisfied clients.

You have less trouble that way because they want you.

- [Narrator] The University of Arizona wanted him to design these dorms on campus.

They've been in use since the 1950s.

- Generations of students have been to his dormitories.

He also was famous for churches.

He designed a lotta churches here in and around Tucson.

- [Narrator] Arthur brought his modernist mentality and straightforward use of materials to every church he designed.

- [Gordon] And here's the repetition that's part of design.

And here's the center of interest.

And here's the front entrance to the church.

- [Narrator] You can still find examples of Arthur Brown's work in Southern Arizona, but many of his buildings have been altered or demolished.

- There was a time when Art Brown's architecture was very out of fashion.

Right around the time Ronald Reagan got elected, we went into a very reactionary phase of architecture.

We had postmodernism.

Suddenly, historicist styles looked good to people again.

Tucson General Hospital, which is a whole hospital, was only about 40 years old when it was completely destroyed.

They saved the steel skeleton and reused that, but hung a whole new postmodern facade on it.

(soft piano music) - I think my dad was an architect's architect.

He had a reason for all of the things he did.

- He lived for most of the 20th century.

I mean, he lived through two world wars, a Great Depression.

He lived a very full, creative life and he left a great legacy.

- A lot of scholars, as they begin to look at this period and begin to understand the connection between the aesthetic ideals of modernism and the performance ideals of modernism, you start looking at people like Art Brown and it becomes more and more important.

- The reason Art Brown's buildings make you feel good is because of their openness and their simplicity and their directness.

You just walk in and it's like you relax.

You go, "Oh wow, this is great."

There's good light, there's nice views, and he was just a really, really, really good architect.

- Watch "Arizona Illustrated" stories on demand at our website, azpm.org/ArizonaIllustrated.

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Before we go, here's a sneak peek at a story we're working on.

(soft acoustic guitar music) - Tucson was at one point the northernmost point of the Spanish Empire, founded in the 1770s.

Originally, all of the streets in Tucson were in Spanish.

They were streets like Calle de la Alegria, or Happiness Street, which is now Congress Street, or Calle del Arroyo, which is now Pennington Street.

During the early-1870s, they surveyed and renamed the streets, but at that point all the street names switched over to English.

- Thank you for joining us here on "Arizona Illustrated."

I'm Tom McNamara, and we'll see you soon.

(soft acoustic guitar music) (bright orchestral music)