Inspired by the area's natural landscapes and environment, Studio Gang reveals the latest visuals for their most recent mix-used project Populus. Located in Denver, along the city's historic Civic Center Park, the project pulls reference from the aspen tree by using its highly recognizable "eye-shaped" marked bark to design its facade, distinct building color, and vertical scalloped exterior.
The 13 stories tall building will house forty micro-apartments as well as 250 hotel rooms. Studio Gang collaborated with Denver-based developer Urban Villages. With the aspen tree as its visual muse, it's hard not to see the resemblance. According to the studio, the project's name "Populus" was also pulled from the scientific classification of the aspen tree populus tremuloides.
View more project images below.
59 Comments
The mismatch between Studio Gang's popular accolades and the student-level quality of their design is shocking.
Could not agree more!
Their design may be "student quality", but they do get it built...
GRIFTERS MAY BE SCAM ARTISTS, BUT THEY GET MONEY
And not even ‘A’ grade student work!
‘Hitmen’ may be killers, but they get money…..too.
Compare the above, to this beautiful, and thoroughly researched project; Clyfford Still.
One is genius, and one will certainly fail to meet its energy dictats.
What does this housing project have anything to do with that museum, other than being in Denver?
I think despite the rather simplistic parti, the façade resolution here could be quite interesting
the paintings in that museum are gorgeous
espacio, don't be so obtuse, and read my comment again. The point wasn't to compare typologies, but to compare depth of research, and outcomes.
And yes, Clyfford Stills paintings are absolutely gorgeous.
still need to visit this museum. I love Clyfford Stills.
still need to visit this museum. I love Allied Works.
the Clyfford Still museum is really stunning, and it's worth visiting for both the paintings and the architecture. And, they have free days: https://clyffordstillmuseum.org/plan-your-visit/free-days/
That said, I don't know if all the research made it a particularly contextual building, but that whole area of Denver is basically a collage of every kind of architectural style anyway. In which case, the Studio Gang building will fit right in!
Really checks all the boxes: Clumsy "natural" metaphor that doesn't go beyond visual similarities, first-year Illustrator axons justifying preconceived forms, a dash of solar diagrams for green washing, zero reconciliation between form and detail. All this before value engineering turns it into a parody of what was already a middling design. Some of Studio Gang's early work were exemplary but their recent commercial projects are the poor man's Snohetta - and that really isn't saying much.
The only traditional thing about this design is the continued disparity between the rhetoric and the results of most contemporary architecture. The only thing that will make this read like an Aspen forest is a delicious edible. Btw, if this concept had any validity, one would expect to see future buildings fill out this imaginary forest, but as we know, their next "concept" will be just as superficial and vacuous.
ew. my trypophobia is in overdrive here.
Totally came her to say this, square. I don't even have trypophobia much but this project totally triggers it in me. As does Herzog DeMueron's Elbphilharmonie.
Housing micro-units are so pre-pandemic!
I love all the people posting here on an online forum shitting on Studio Gang. Meanwhile, they are Studio Gang and you/we are losers posting in an online forum. LOL
Hot take right here!
catfight!
if studio gang is considered winning, i'll take losing with my online comrades any day.
Most of these accounts are anonymous, you really don't know what type of offices they work in to be fair.
Indeed. I could be Elizabeth Diller.
Not everyone can be the cream of the crop in Columbus, Michael.
I normally love Studio Gangs work and I have a ton of respect for Jeanne as a professional & as a person... but this is a definite miss for me.
thisisnotmyname if you're Diller I can no longer speak or listen to you. #folkMoMA
@ Donna Sink: Pretend I'm Alejandro Aravena. :)
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
Gimme A Thermal Break!
Ugh!
^ The real bummer about that one is that it could be done thermally broken without that much more effort. *OR* it could be done in a dry hot climate and be a thermal sink on purpose.
effort, schmeffort. IT COSTS US MONEY
I could be Phyllis Diller. (Late, I know.)
love aspen trees but this grasshopper tryout should have remained just that...
Even worse if so!
michael!
Reminded me of this unbuilt project from years back that was also inspired by an alder grove - & I think manages the metaphor with a certain calm that this tower lacks.
Trypophobia is right.
Edward Durell Stone got there first, but without the aspen trees thing.
Perpetual Savings Building, Beverly Hills, CA
This is nice.
Love EDS's work!
elegance is underrated
Grandad
.
https://www.theplan.it/eng/awa...
Hell yes.
I wanted to like that building, now I am not so sure...
As for social housing, not bad...
Architectural mimicry or the simulacrum of nature has always been at odds with me. And if they also used the term, "contextual" then I would have flipped a table or two.
I just came here for the comments.
I just came.
I want some of that LSD that makes you believe this building looks anything at all like a an aspen grove.
but not the LSD that makes giant spiders crawl out of the openings.
what about tiny spiders but more of them?
you have to ride the giant spiders
Would you rather fight 100 spider sized horses or one horse sized spider?
I just want some acid
OK the hot take commentary on this one is legitimately making me laugh. Well done all.
so do you guys like it or not?
this project is fine. A bit wonky, but as someone pointed out Denver is a mashup of a mashup so what do you want? As architecture there is no correct answer to what should go in this weird city. What I miss is the sense of anything like a place at the urban level. This building does not connect, divide, invite or repel. It is mostly inert, and that is a pity because there is a need for something beyond the exterior decoration of a simple form.
Studio Gang is a brilliant office, however they rely on cities working without them for most of their projects. Probably not their fault and not a task they were given, but I cant help but wonder what could have happened if they started with the street and the allusions came at the end. A missed opportunity, in my mind, but not worth shitting on. No more than the mikimoto building by Toyo Ito in Ginza (which is what I see as related more immediately than the neo-classical stuff above, just because Gang is not after history in any way).
Ito kinda works on the same assumption as Gang (that the city will do the heavy lifting) with a similar outcome. Except Tokyo works pretty well no matter what is built in it. And the building is awesome. It is almost good enough to think Ito has done exactly all that an architect CAN do. But then if you walk 5 minutes down the street and see Shigeru Ban's Swatch building it is clear that architecture can be much more than exterior design. It can change how we engage with the city and be entirely oriented to the human experience and still act like a big sign post for all the hungry eyes to eat up too. Seems like such a 2020 idea that I almost expect it all the time. And yet it remains so rare. Maybe next time.
Well put.
The studio's more urban and tall buildings have always struggled at the ground plane, urban connection and pedestrian entry. Interestingly, her institutional/ educational projects that have a bit more breathing room around them don't have that problem at all, several rising to the level that you hold Ban's Swatch building to. (Arcus, U of Chicago Dorms)
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