CREJ

December 2020 \ BUILDING DIALOGUE \ 79 W hat will renters be looking for during COVID-19? This was not a question we could have possibly known to ask our- selves when we designed and built Kabin, Zeppelin Development’s recently completed apartment building and the newest phase of the Taxi campus in Denver’s River North neighborhood. The growing demand for market-rate affordable hous- ing became evident several years ago, but it has accel- erated dramatically during the pandemic. Kabin is a 194-unit apartment building with a focus on economy and humanistic design. Every apartment features Zep- pelin’s signature glass garage doors, high ceilings, clean concrete floors and warm cedar wood finishes. It turns out that when people spend most of their working, and liv- ing, hours at home during a pandemic, the quality of their environment mat- ters even more. Kabin sits at the south end of Taxi, a 28-acre campus that began in 2001 when Mickey Zeppelin repurposed Denver’s then-Yellow Cab Depot into the city’s first creative, open floor plan office. Former me- chanics’ garages were converted to archi- tecture studios and other office uses. Garage doors were replaced with their glass counterparts, rolling open to let in fresh air and natural light. Wild grasses and cot- tonwood trees became a prominent feature, taking cues from the native species that grew along the nearby South Platte River. The low-slung Taxi building blended into its natural environment, and creative office tenants found inspiration in the urban hinterland. The campus since has expanded to become a mixed- use community of residents, innovators, entrepreneurs and businesses who are collaborating daily to shape in- dustries like sustainability, tech, design, architecture, social enterprise and the arts. Over 1,500 people work and live at Taxi every day in 10 buildings – a mix of adap- tively reused midcentury industrial structures and con- text-sensitive new construction. Zeppelin Development expressed early design successes from the original Taxi building throughout each phase – glass garage doors on both offices and residences, polished concrete floors, na- Kabin’s Economical Design Drives into the River North Taxi Campus Justin Croft Vice President of Development, Zeppelin Development Kabin's standard apartments are 400 square feet. Polished concrete floors are a Zeppelin hallmark.