February 19, 2013
Roth Sheppard’s design competition is inspired by micro-units in Europe, such as this short-stay apartment in The Hague by Maff. Photo courtesy of Maff
Architects love to design micro-apartments, but do people love to live in them? Jeff Sheppard, principal of Roth Sheppard Architects, hopes so. He and his colleagues at the Denver Architectural League are betting that tiny units will appeal to young Denverites who find themselves priced out of the mortgage market and who want to live in dense neighborhoods. The league recently launched a tiny-dwelling design competition that adds up to a particularly tall order: an eight-unit net-zero building on a difficult slice of riverbank on the outskirts of downtown. At 375 square feet a pop, the units will definitely be more generous than the 220-square-footers planned for San Francisco and the 250 now allowed in New York—but still diminutive compared with Denver’s 500-square-foot prefab tiny Starbucks. Read more!
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October 16, 2012
The DasHaus on view earlier this year in Tempe, Arizona.
By David Hill
For the last year, a compact energy-efficient house built in Germany has been crisscrossing North America, making stops along the way in 11 cities. Now, dasHAUS—an A+ Sustainability Award winner, perhaps?—has arrived in Denver for its final stop before heading back across the Atlantic. See more!
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October 11, 2012
St. Louis’ iconic, midcentury flying saucer structure, which now houses a Starbucks. The space was threatened with demolition until the coffee company came to the rescue.
Say what you will about its coffee; when it comes to store design Starbucks deserves an A+ — hey, maybe even an A+ Award — for making some surprising gambles in recent years. The chain’s latest effort preserves a midcentury modern gas station in a historic St. Louis residential district. After a taco joint occupying the space closed last summer, the flying saucer, as it is known locally, was threatened with demolition before Starbucks came to the rescue (with an equally giant demitasse cup, we hope!).
The blogosphere has faithfully followed Starbucks through its experiments with current design fads, from repurposed shipping containers to the tiny-house movement—which a new Denver Starbucks is channeling with a petite snow-fence-clad box that’s almost as big as a Trenta frap. The company owes much of its success to architect Arthur Rubinfeld, president of global store development (and an A+ Award juror!)
Herewith, a photo tour of the proverbial third places that actually inspire us to pay four bucks for a latte. See the photos!
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June 21, 2010
When a city is defined by a geographic feature (as many, if not most, cities are), do its residents begin to take their specialty for granted? Istanbul exists because of its location straddling two continents on the Bosporus Strait, while Denver, Colorado enjoys its prime view at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.
The residents of the latter certainly don’t forget about what makes them special—Denver named their Major League Baseball team the Colorado Rockies while the Denver International Airport passenger terminal was designed by Curtin Fentress to mimic the snow-capped mountains in the distance. (I prefer to think of that terminal as badminton birdies in a line, as I fancy my architecture allusions indirect.)
Colorado is a natural holiday spot for those of us in the neighboring Great Plains; we will happily drive ten-plus hours to find prime skiing or hiking trails. Boulder, Colorado Springs and Aspen are all nicely tucked away in the mountains while Denver, the big city, is held back a bit. But the air in Denver is still thin and otherworldly.
This is the type of place that one can never leave. It’s those damn mountains! And… the architecture?
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