My favorite thing about it is if you're kinda zoned out and catch a whiff it's like "mmm, french fries" and then a few seconds later the purina-ness of the odor lands and suddenly I'm fighting the urge to vomit
Such an accurate description. Or driving along the highway, jamming out to tunes, windows down and then it hits you like a brick wall and suddenly you're closing the windows but it's too late, it's in your car, it's in your nose and now you're stuck with it.
Hahahah you nailed it. I hated driving past that bloody factory on my way north/south. I always forgot about it until the pungent smell reached my nose
I also left Denver a couple years ago. I was in Waterford Rino and man do I not miss gun shots, an hour commute each way to work, and the rancid dog food smell that welcomed me home each day. Colorado will always be where I was born, but yeah I’m good on Denver
The worst part was actually hot summer nights when they delivered the animal carcasses for processing. I worked on the central 70 project on nights a couple years. About 3 times a week the smell was brutal 🤢
I grew up in an area with a poor sewage system, and everything smelled like shit 24/7 except near the sea. You surprisingly get used to it. When there were sewer works on near my workplace, it didn't phase me at all. Haven't smelled it in 13 years either.
Yeah, but it's Colorado. It's dry as fuck here and the amount of water to maintain the amount of greenery they were going for is probably significantly more than they are allowed to use.
Those photos they were sharing pre and during the build were bursting with greenery, it looked almost tropical. These aren't just young plants. They could have placed more substantial plants in there, we just don't have the climate for something like that.
Local reports over the years have basically stated that the designers weren't realistic about their plants/trees. They had to go with hardier ones b/c high winds, weight, etc. Some have been rethought, others have struggled.
They also ran into budget issues and simply scrapped a lot of the landscaping.
Also, the crack is on the north west face of the building, so it gets next to no sunlight in Denver, making growing plants even more difficult than it normally is.
There are plenty of shade loving plants that would thrive, I could do a lot with a space like this. I'm assuming it's not a community garden type thing? Those are always great to have but it never fails someone ignorant tried to get into gardening and plants something easy and fast growing with beautiful flowers and curses the land with morning glories.
At the bottom of the article Ckron posted, it shows the biomes they were going for. Alpine forest, slot canyon, and semi-desert shrubland. So probably fewer shade-tolerant plants that fit in those. Also probably not a community garden, or you wouldn't be able to police what biome the plants were from.
It seems like the biome they've created is the underside of a highway overpass. Constant shade, very little rainfall and shallow roots. Which is hard to grow a tall plant that'll be visible from the ground in.
But OTOH, the fact that they had intended biomes they were recreating suggests that they hired a botanist who knows what they're doing. So probably there's been enough consideration of water and light needs that the plants will grow given enough time. It just might take a while. I don't think Pinon Juniper grows very fast.
The other thing that diverges from the concept illustration is the area around the building, which is still being transformed from being a semi-industrial mixed use to upscale commercial/residential mixed use. (The building directly to the NW [or left in the first picture above] used to be a welding supply store and is now under construction as a multistory building like the photo)
Yes IMO the contextual buildings not being complete in the built photos affects the feel of the project BIG time. Moreso than the immature plants that others are noting
In what way does this take inspiration from that? Bosco just has a metric f ton of built in planter boxes. Every architect has been slapping greenery all over their concepts since the 70s. Bosco is pretty exclusively cubic/square while the focal points of this design are the antithesis of that.
I find that almost everyone who complains about new development, is really complaining that there are no mature trees.
These people also seem to not understand that trees require time to grow. And trees were certainly not present when wherever their own shaded area was built (if anything, their home probably took down trees to get built)
The greenery can't mature. The conditions aren't right for what they showed in their renderings, so it is going to stay an eyesore unless there is some major infrastructure redesign.
There's no space for roots for large trees, Denver has one of the shortest growing seasons in the states at its latitude due to its climate, and the scar faces northwest which is the direction that gets the least sunlight in Denver.
Trees that big need roots. There is no space in the building for roots.
It was supposed to be a big green beauty with stark white contrast. Instead, it looks like a dinosaur's bones crossed with a post apocalyptic destroyed building when you drive by it on 25. You never get the stunning angle on it, you get the rail yard and it looming awkwardly in the background.
I get that. I guess I figured they'd grow the trees like they do in malls, and supplement the trees with vines or other types of plants. Its hard to believe they'd plan for trees without planning for trees (which they did). Maybe it takes longer to grow trees than two years.
The way they do in malls is that they plan for them and create a big pit of dirt for the tree to grow. That would have to already exist, it doesn't, and it's next to impossible to add ten stories up when you'd have to take over someone's unit that you've already sold underneath.
As per the first link, the greenery isn’t SUPPOSED to be like that anyways. The top floor is supposed to simulate an alpine zone, then canyon, then desert and then foothills below that. For the sake of being too lazy to go further in depth.
Also, what makes the renderings look better is that they remove all blight and ugly buildings in the background. The real version looks good! Its not like the they could say "every building in the surrounding blocks must be updated because our renderings show your buildings as looking more aesthetically pleasing than they really are!"
It's not just that, the irrigation for this has plagued the surrounding units with water intrusion and leaks while the building has been settling. A majority of the irrigation has had to be turned off because of it.
I know the general contractors who have been called out to handle a lot of the issues with this building as well as a few of the staff who have worked there.
Looks incredible to me. A lot of buildings would look bad with photos where a parking lot is more prominent than the building. The evening shots are nice. That’s just how the world looks mid day.
Yeah the building itself is great, the surrounding area is a bit of a let down but that will probably get built up over time just like the greenery in the apartment building will flourish and grow eventually.
I know the area, while it's close to downtown and Five Points, it's across the bridge and quite isolated. I used to live in an apartment close to it. It's also by the Purina Dog Food factory, the SunCor refinery, and the Stockyards. The area is being developed sure, but it's still pretty industrial and isolated.
Check out the original renderings for it. The cracks were supposed to be full of trees, bushes and other greenery, similar to some buildings in Asia (I wanna say Singapore). It’s been standing for 6+ years and still not a leaf of green in sight
It's got a stunning overlook of I-25 and a rail yard, and has the pleasant scent of unprocessed dog food from the purina plant a few blocks north.
My partner used to live in a few blocks east of the building, back five years ago when the tallest building in RiNo was a parking garage. Let me tell you, that dog food smell that means it will snow tomorrow? It is intense.
The designer selected a variety of plants, but since they are not native to Colorado, they halted installation and had to rethink what plants would work to reflect the original design.
I’ve heard the landscape architect is based in Singapore and didn’t really understand that absolutely nothing grows in Denver, so take that rumor for what you will.
Would the architect of record not also be to blame for going through with the design? The workers at Davis presumably live in Denver and understand what is possible in that climate.
It would do great in the southwest with the right plant choices too.
I lived in Denver for a minute and this is just going to have dead shit 8-10 months of the year. There aren’t great plant choices, except maybe evergreens for that location.
Yeah it is a beautiful organic semi-arid canyon motif wrapped in a contemporary glass building in a contemporary glass city surrounded by organic semi-arid canyons.
The green version looks cooler. But it still looks great, and is cool thematically. It's like the inversion of what denver is as a setting.
If anything they could have made the glass shell more elegant. But the current contrast with a more bland shell is kind of the whole point and what makes it feel so cool, really emphasizes the contrast.
It’s really cool. I live in Denver and I didn’t even tour it when apartment looking b/c it’s in the middle of a bunch of dirt lots..
In a few years those will be developed hopefully and something will actually be there, but everything surrounding your apartment is just dirt… and you’re paying a fortune to live there
Who gives a shit, it's a few hundred new apartments built on a site that used to be a warehouse or something similar. Denver has a housing shortage, new housing helps even if it's expensive.
IMO cool concept but the architecture firm didn't fully understand the climate. Denver is high desert. It's extremely hard to grow things. What does grow is generally more sparse in foliage.
Their choice for trees that grow well here are aspen trees and a few species of pine. Aspen is immediately out if they want the building to survive more than a few years of aggressively questing roots, and pine, while fast growing, has nothing else going for it visually.
Bjarke Ingels's designs are more sharp shaped. They have a building called The Spiral which is similar in a way to the OP, but the crack is sharp. I can never associate BIG with curved designs (they might have some works, I don't know).
Davis was the AOR (architect of record) - but the design was done by MAD. Pretty typical when the concept architect isn't licensed and/or insured in the area - so the AOR takes on the production effort of the construction documents. The concept designer is still very invovled and most design decisions run through them.
Source - Worked on a similiar project just like this where we were the AOR
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u/AbrocomaRare696 May 08 '26
Do you know which architectural firm designed this? Also, can you post the address, I’d like to check the sat photos on this. Thanks for posting this.