CREJ

/ BUILDING DIALOGUE / JUNE 2017

it’s the street, the space in between two structures or plazas

purposely placed, as opposed to just being leftover no man’s

land. That informs our design. Places where people are at

and want to be is equally important to us as the architec-

ture.”

Case in point: Tryba was one of the firms that worked on

the Denver Union Station redevelopment. “That building

has no back, but it has to function to service restaurants and

everything else,” says Moon.

Electrical transformers and Amtrak’s baggage system

were designed with form and function in mind, he adds.

“We spend just as much time and passion on those types

of things instead of saying, ‘You know what? Let’s not worry

about that.’ We care passionately about that because that’s

where the people are.”

The firm has steadily grown to more than 60 employees

at the historic 1896 Fisher Mansion and Ballroom in Denver’s

Uptown neighborhood, Tryba’s headquarters since the late

1990s.

The firm’s success partly stems from a thoughtful division

of labor. Explains Moon: “Your name’s on the door and you're

responsible for everything, and that’s true with David, but

we’ve really worked hard to build an organization that al-

lows David to spend as much time as he can and he’d like to

in the projects doing design.”

Tryba Architects now works in 12 states, with projects rang-

ing from the Firestone & Robertson distillery in Fort Worth,

Texas, to Park Towne Place apartment complex in Philadel-

phia for Aimco.

The list of current marquee projects in metro Denver is