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JUNE 2017 \ BUILDING DIALOGUE \

and business districts? And why not utilize blank or window-

less building facades as climbing walls?

Image3:

To take this idea on step further, onemight look at the

Dutch company SolaRoad. SolaRoad has developed and tested

the first functional road and bike path that doubles as a solar

panel. The U.S. currently has 2.65 million miles of paved road.

With 300 days of sunshine and the National Renewable Energy

Lab located in Golden, how might we think aggressively about

taking advantage of our climate as well as developing afford-

able technologies that might continue to reallocate our city’s

use of varied energy resources?

Image 4:

In terms of the public realm, as the city continues to

densify, there often becomes a redistribution of existing public

vs. private space. One of the more successful models of carving

out public space in privately owned buildings is San Francisco’s

POPOS (Privately Owned Public Open Spaces.) Ranging from

public lobbies to rooftop gardens, could we imagine a network

of vertical public spaces that prioritize urban agriculture, recre-

ation, culture and leisure?

Image 5:

Similar to providing vertical public spaces, the city of

Helsinki employs a “Chief Design Officer” who is championing

the traditional idea of “talkoot” (i.e., the idea that if something

has to be done, let’s do it together). Helsinki’s CDO has imple-

mented this concept through encouraging design gestures

that “humanize cities on any scale.” While there have been

many proposals that reimagine Civic Center Park, the space

remains a critical node in Denver’s urban fabric that would

benefit from strategic, world-class programming.

Image 6:

The city of Cleveland is currently repurposing aban-

doned shopping malls as greenhouses. Sunlight-harvesting

atriums equipped with hydroponic systems create year-round

opportunity for produce that is then sold at a weekly farm-

er’s market. With Denver’s abundant sunlight and continued

shift to ecommerce, this model of suburban farming opens

up many possibilities for how we might think about existing

infrastructure.

Image 7:

Amidst densification, affordable housing continues

to be a hot-button issue. Pritzker Prize winner Alejandro Ar-

avena has proposed “incremental housing” in which govern-

ments fund construction of “half a good house,” with residents

completing the other portion as resources allow. Aravena has

even gone so far to upload Elemental’s most successful hous-

ing designs for free to dissuade developers and government

agencies from believing that they are “too expensive.”

Image 8:

Singapore has created an open source database.

City-dwellers can download real-time information regarding

topics ranging from traffic congestion, electricity usage and

education from 70 public agencies. Part of the goal is to pro-

vide citizens with information that might enable them to seek

solutions that might improve their own lives. Why not em-

power Denver residents to live in a more open source city that

encourages problem solving vis-à-vis the city’s emerging tech

and creative economy?

Image 9:

Much of downtown Denver was developed in the

1970s. Repetitive window modules and bay systems have

turned Denver’s vertical city into a series of mundane grids.

As building owners begin to “reposition” their assets with new

building envelopes as well as brighter, more active remodeled

lobby spaces, could building owners use these repositioning

projects as an opportunity to create a unique, iconic urban im-

age that transforms the quotidian into the artful?