Touted as the nation’s first carbon-positive hotel, Populus recently broke ground in downtown Denver. Scheduled to open in late 2023, Populus is a 13-story, 265-room hotel with a rooftop restaurant and bar, all designed by Studio Gang.
Developed by Urban Villages, the triangular-shaped, 130,000-square-foot building will be entirely carbon positive, from construction to operations. Populus will minimize its carbon footprint in the development stage by using low-carbon concrete mixes and high-recycled content materials, maximizing structural efficiency, using fewer finish materials, and minimizing waste. The team will consider the carbon footprint of the origin and creation of the materials as well as their transport. The hotel’s overall use (operational carbon) and every guest stay will be offset, in addition to the building’s embodied carbon.
The project also will involve an offsite ecological effort, including an initial commitment to plant trees that represent over 5,000 acres of forest, offsetting the equivalent of nearly 500,000 gallons of gas.
With design by Studio Gang, and with the Beck Group as the architect of record, Populus draws inspiration from the area’s iconic Aspen tree. Studio Gang designed the hotel, its first building in Colorado, with eye-shaped windows that echo the Aspen eyes. As part of the overall green vision, “lids” over each window extend slightly outward to shade the interior, improve energy performance, and channel rainwater.
Inside, the windows change in size to reflect the public or private aspect of various spaces—with windows up to 30 feet high at the building’s base. In the rooms, the windows not only provide immersive mountain and city views but also serve as seats or desks, further connecting occupants with the outdoors.
“Improving the resiliency of our cities has never been more urgent—and it includes reducing carbon emissions as well as strengthening community bonds,” Jeanne Gang, founder of Studio Gang, said in a statement. “We’ve designed Populus to be a new destination in downtown Denver that combines these environmental and social ambitions.”
On the Building Team:
Owner and/or developer: Urban Villages
Design architect: Studio Gang
Architect of record: The Beck Group
MEP engineer: Klok Group
Structural engineer: Studio NYL
General contractor/construction manager: Matt Archuletta
Related Stories
Modular Building | Oct 12, 2018
DeSimone Consulting Engineers designs the tallest modular hotel in the United States
The hotel was originally designed as a cast-in-place concrete structure.
Mixed-Use | Oct 4, 2018
Four-story hotel and adjacent affordable housing community opens in California’s Sonoma County
Axis/GFA Architecture and Design was the architect for the project.
Reconstruction & Renovation | Aug 21, 2018
The massive facelift of New York’s famed Waldorf Astoria moves into Phase Two
The refurbished hotel will feature fewer, but larger, guest rooms.
Hotel Facilities | Aug 10, 2018
How hospitality design makes spaces of all types better for users
Responding to these shifting expectations, building owners and design teams working in other markets now regularly embrace leading ideas from the world of hospitality and infuse them into their projects.
Hotel Facilities | Aug 1, 2018
'Home away from home' is hoteliers' newest theme
Creating an experience, with the accent on local color, is flavoring hotel design.
Mixed-Use | Jul 17, 2018
Water Street Tampa’s developer reveals details about this project’s public spaces
This $3 billion waterfront neighborhood will also include three hotels.
Sponsored | Hotel Facilities | Jul 13, 2018
Hotel renovation: More than just minding the dust
Do you know the vital signs for avoiding moisture & mold problems? Will your brand standards cause you headaches? How will you recover costs if you do get into trouble?
Adaptive Reuse | Jul 9, 2018
Work, park, live: Inside Cincinnati’s parking garage turned lifestyle hotel
The Summit hotel and conference center is a converted parking garage that was once a factory.
Hotel Facilities | Jun 20, 2018
Zaha Hadid Architects-designed Morpheus Hotel includes world’s first free-form high-rise exoskeleton
The hotel provides 147, 860 sm of space across 42 floors.
| May 30, 2018
Accelerate Live! talk: An AEC giant’s roadmap for integrating design, manufacturing, and construction
In this 15-minute talk at BD+C’s Accelerate Live! conference (May 10, 2018, Chicago), Skender CEO Mark Skender and Chief Design Officer Tim Swanson present the construction giant’s vision for creating a manufacturing-minded, vertically-integrated design-manufacturing-build business model.
