Populus Hotel

Beck is providing preconstruction and construction services for a new, 13-story, 265-key hotel at the corner of 14th and Court Streets in Downtown Denver.  The project, designed by Studio Gang, is a triangular layout and has an exterior skin designed to mimic aspen trees. The building will also have a rooftop amenity with beautiful city and mountain views. The Populus Hotel will be the first carbon-positive hotel in the United States.

According to the designers and architects at Studio Gang, the texture and rhythm of the hotel’s sculptural façade is strongly tied to its function. At the base, the windows grow up to 30 feet in height to frame entrances and views into the lobby, restaurant, and amenity spaces. Each vertical scallop is the width of a hotel room, and its windows change in size in response to public and private spaces. The distinctive shapes are informed by studying the characteristic patterns found on Aspen trees (Populus tremuloides). As the trees grow, they shed their lower branches, leaving behind dark, eye-shaped marks on the papery bark of their trunks.

Upon entering their rooms, hotel guests are greeted with immersive views of the nearby State Capitol and Civic Center Park and the mountains beyond through the generous apertures. Made from glass-fiber reinforced concrete, the convex walls will shape the triangular building that slips between Colfax and Fourteenth Streets like a vessel easing through the sea.

All Populus renderings are provided courtesy of Studio Gang.