A glass curtain on the building's southern facade is steadily rising. Scaffolding is everywhere, propping up a metal skeleton that will soon support a massive atrium.
Workers scurry amid exposed electrical wires and unpainted trusses inside the imposing structure.
But there's no need to drive all the way to Phoenix to eye the emerging federal courthouse. A group of University of Arizona architecture students is bringing the edifice to you, documenting each step in excruciating detail on the Internet for your inspection. The undergraduate students started the Phoenix Federal Courthouse Web site last summer as part of a class project. What started out as a routine assignment has turned into a nationwide architecture collaboration between the UA, the U.S. General Services Administration and several architectural firms. The students take turns making the 230-mile round trip from Tucson to the state capital to document, sketch and photograph the ongoing work.