Today marks the long-awaited debut of Studio Gang’s Populus hotel project in Denver. The 265-room design is being promoted as the first ‘carbon-positive’ hotel development in the United States and features a combination of highly sustainable building materials and offsetting strategies that target a LEED Gold certification.
The firm’s first project in Colorado precedes their involvement on the Phase 1 redevelopment of the adjacent Civic Center Park. It is designed, as its name suggests, to mirror the natural processes of endemic Aspen trees (aka Populus tremuloides) with a textured facade featuring an arrangement of scalloped windows that contribute passive shading while channeling rainwater with widths tailored to the public and private spaces contained within.
Founder Jeanne Gang says: "Denver strikes a unique balance between being a vibrant city and a gateway to some of the country’s most awe-inspiring natural landscapes. Our goal was to draw from this distinct urban character and rich ecology to create a building that would help define the skyline of this thriving city."
As such, the hotel unfolds over 13 stories to include 135,000 total square feet of space defined by its triangular lot. This is the city's first hotel to be designed without the inclusion of onsite parking so as to encourage use of the available public transit options nearby.
Addressing the neighborhood context equally from all three sides, the building’s exterior envelope is composed of a fly ash-infused low-carbon Holcim concrete product that offers a 30 percent reduction in embodied carbon. Those considerations are repeated once again on the inside, where reclaimed wood from Wyoming snow fences leads a carefully selected palette that includes other natural finishes, beetle-kill pine headboards in the guest suites, and Reishi leather alternative tapestries and furniture items throughout.
Guests will have their stays recuperated by the planting of a new tree for each night stayed in one of three national forests in the state of Colorado, equalling around 5,000 acres. The design's biophilic program also contributes to its sustainable credentials. The rest of the hotel includes two restaurants, a ground-floor coffee bar, and a green roof that doubles as an active urban habitat for local wildlife species.
Urban Villages is the developer for the project. Also in Denver, MAD Architects' first North American residential apartment tower – the 16-story One River North – was completed recently featuring its own dramatic canyon-like facade.
9 Comments
Where are pics from inside the room?
Third picture from the top?
Wow! I really like this project, a lot!
Me too! I'm going to have to make a trip to Denver to see it. It's $295 a night for two people. I may have to stay there over a weekend.
Just plain super ! Those Lou Kahn ceilings are interesting - an architecture lesson for the 10% who can afford to stay. So many sexy curves.
Lou Kahn ceilings?
I don't buy this for a second. They're not measuring the carbon in the first place.
Every other one of their high rise projects looks like a heat sink, FFS, and operates just as efficiently.
Those window opening shapes give me the creeps. Do not like.
Carbon positive is a bit of a stretch. We've been using fly ash concrete for at least 20 years so not exactly ground breaking tech. I also read in another article that the commitment was to plant around 70k trees. While that sounds like a lot, it really isn't. An experienced tree planter can plant around 2k trees per day depending on the land. 70k trees would take a good tree planting crew around a week to complete. Not a very expensive investment to get some green credibility for a project. Would be curious to know exactly where, what species of tree, size of tree, etc. If these are sapling pines it equates to almost nothing as many won't survive.
I'm kind of agnostic on the design, don't love it, don't hate it. Appreciate the effort as I can also appreciate how hard it is to get anything built.
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