The Cherry Creek neighborhood is one of Denver’s Urban Design success stories. This mixed use project embraces all the best parts of this district’s scale and uses, with the added dimension of the enhancing an existing plaza into a new urban green - a destination which can function as a meeting place, a place for summer art & film festivals, a farmer’s market or a restful counterpoint to the surrounding density.
The project embraces its neighborhood with three major moves: it reinforces the perimeter with low-rise mixed use architecture; it signals its presence along an adjacent boulevard with a point tower at the district edge; and it creates a new green destination in the neighborhood through an internal courtyard. The connections from these symbiotic spaces alter both the perception and use into a single, large landscape surrounding the project’s east wing, blurring traditional coding of edge and identity.
Program elements have been configured into thin wings that press the project’s perimeter, maximizing daylight and natural ventilation opportunities. Ground floor transparency, a cladding palette that alternately holds and reflects light, and buildings crowned by greenscape combine to further define a unique sense of place.
This Architecture of placemaking speaks to the careful insertion of a diverse program into its neighborhood, while playing the role of visionary citizen who leaves their city richer than they found it.