Denver, Colorado
Located in downtown Denver, Populus, a 135,000-square-foot hotel with 265 guest rooms, combines creativity and conservation. “Denver strikes a unique balance between being a vibrant city and a gateway to some of the country’s most awe-inspiring natural landscapes,” says Jeanne Gang, founding partner of Studio Gang. “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.”
The hotel and social center draw inspiration from Colorado’s native Aspen trees or Populus tremuloides. On the exterior, acid-washed glass fiber-reinforced concrete panel cladding and distinctive windows draw the viewer’s eyes to the building. Populus sits on a corner site with all three sides featuring the same unique exterior design. An interesting exterior feature includes the vertical scallops that texture the building’s facade and correspond with the width of the guest rooms. This reflects the design of Aspen tree branches. Similarly, each of the unique windows varies in size based on the type of room within.
The building’s location connects Denver’s civic, arts and commercial districts. Emphasizing this pedestrian-oriented area, the windows on the ground floor rise to 30 feet to frame the hotel’s entrances and views into the hotel. From inside the building, guests can enjoy views of the Colorado State Capital, Civic Center Park and the Rocky Mountains. Some rooms even provide built-in window seating that invites guests to feel closer to nature. Additional amenities include Stella Jay, a rooftop restaurant open to both hotel guests and the public, as well as the restaurant’s outdoor bar and terrace.
Designed with sustainability in mind, Populus has many design aspects that were specifically chosen to reach Studio Gang’s sustainability goals. “The building is designed to maximize the use of its compact, triangular site and foregoes any space dedicated to parking - a first for a newly built hotel in Denver - to encourage greener modes of transport,” says Studio Gang. “Its concrete structure incorporates fly ash to minimize the need for cement, lowering the amount of carbon emitted during the construction process,” they continue. Additionally, exterior “lids” on the windows help shade interior spaces and channel rainwater. On the interior, much of the structure remains exposed to reduce the use of finishes. Where finishes are necessary, many of them use high recycled content such as the recycled leather veneer in the elevator cabs and guestroom desks.
The showstopping geometric design of Populus’s exterior is just a preview of the amazing interior amenities and the hard work that went into creating a sustainable, distinctive space.
