Awards Archive - ASLA Colorado

Working Water: Reinventing the Storm Drain

‘Working Water: Reinventing the Storm Drain’ demonstrates how the vision of Ian McHarg, described over fifty years ago in his book Design with Nature, can be implemented to better manage urban water resources in ways that support more efficient water use, clean urban runoff, support natural systems, and enhance the vitality and livability of our cities. ‘Working Water’ evolved as a reflection on multiple decades of Wenk Associates professional work. Much more than a richly illustrated monograph, it is “a wide-ranging exploration of the role of water practically, spiritually, and as a quintessential element of the survival of our species.”

Problems of degradation of urbans rivers and stream are well-known, and rivers are flooding across the nation make this issue more urgent. ‘Working Water’ is a call to action to those who influence the built environment about the importance and opportunities of designing systemically with water

Where the Pollinators Are

The Pollinators’ and Bird Garden in Center County, Pennsylvania is the direct extension of an ongoing research agenda to understand and explain the recent decrease in pollinator and bird populations across the world. Conducted in close collaboration with a leading institution for pollinator research, the purpose of the project is to disseminate knowledge on pollinator and bird habitats. The 3-acre garden now offers multiple new opportunities: 1) to directly convey and interpret scientific research being conducted on site, 2) to offer an engaging place for people to learn about pollinator and bird habitats, 3) and to inspire everyone to create habitats within their own private gardens, which could significantly grow healthier networks across the developed landscape. The ultimate goals of the project are to enhance biodiversity, to encourage appreciation and care for the natural world, and to demonstrate that healthy, functioning ecosystems are beautiful.

VelociRFTA Bus Rapid Transit

In 2010, the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority (RFTA), received a Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Very Small Starts Grant to implement the first and only rural Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in the country. Extending over 40 miles in the Roaring Fork Valley and connecting communities from Glenwood Springs to Aspen, the system encompasses seven political jurisdictions and three USDA plant hardiness zones.

Through a competitive bid process, the landscape architect was engaged by RFTA to transform seven BRT stations and three park-and-ride lots from placeless, generic-looking bus stops into environments whose consistency in design, planning, signage, and educational elements supports and encourages community ridership. Creative and brand-consistent solutions, inspired by BRT’s VelociRFTA branding, reference local geology applied at each station, while utilizing sustainable materials such as minimized snowmelt paving for safe access during winter months, native plantings, pervious paving in park and ride lots, high-efficiency irrigation systems, four-season seating areas, ample covered bike parking, bathrooms, and safe pedestrian connectivity.

The Ellinikon Metropolitan Park and Coastal Front

Rarely does a city build a park that sets a new standard for ecological restoration and sparks a paradigm shift for the design, programming, and funding of future public parks across the world. The Ellinikon Metropolitan Park and Coastal Front is doing just that—striving to become the social heart of Athens, and Europe’s largest urban coastal park. The site contains traces of multiple histories—prehistoric settlements, once thriving agriculture, an obsolete international airport, and a dilapidated collection of former Olympic venues. After nearly two decades of work to establish a funding and governance mechanism and multiple rounds of master plans, the center of Europe’s largest urban redevelopment project is the 600 acre (243 hectare) park, which will be gifted back to the citizens of Athens with a private entity responsible for operating and maintaining the park for 99 years. The park’s design centers on ecological restoration, material reuse, and cultural programming that honors the site’s layered histories while introducing novel experiences in a city that does not have a public park at this scale.

West Meadows Residence

Set within the high elevation windswept grassland of Southwest Colorado, the 220-acre property is surrounded by expansive views to Telluride’s most iconic peaks and rolling vistas. An existing residence in a neighborhood that had been subdivided with intrusive earthwork, the challenge was to return the property to its natural, resilient character within a myriad of site and environmental hurdles. The project aims to not only understand, but respect the larger scale environmental factors such as elevation, weather and wildlife that contribute to the ecosystem of the landscape. The design mirrored natural riparian systems to restore two ponds, distill the palette of formal and native plantings around the residence, and create authentic amenity spaces that complement the experience of a luxurious residence in the west. A true collaboration between client, design team and contractor, the landscape and ecological specialists maintained an adaptable process over the course of several years to bring the property back to its ecological integrity.

The Arapahoe Steps

When a historic church was granted rights to develop a section of Arapahoe Street in downtown Golden, Colorado, they called a well-known landscape architect to brainstorm. Considering multiple options over several years, the church was unwavering in their goal to create a space that would build community and serve as the heart of the city. Aligning with Golden’s 2030 plan to make the city more green, walkable and social, the landscape architect helped to envision a plaza that has since become a popular town square.

Elements include abundant landscaping, cafe seating, custom lighting and woodwork, a water feature, accessible ramps and terraced steps – including built-in infrastructure for future use as an amphitheater – and an expanded parking deck that has helped to address a city-wide need not only for parking but also for event space. The project turned an extremely steep and barely functional street into an active pedestrian thoroughfare, connecting the adjacent Colorado School of Mines and residential neighborhoods with the Washington Street retail district and Clear Creek’s active recreation hub a few blocks away.

Sugar Beet Park

Sugar Beet Park is a profoundly impactful park to the residents of Fort Collins, particularly to Mexican/Hispanic residents of the Tres Colonias neighborhoods, where basic infrastructure, transportation, and open space needs have a history of neglect. As a cultural bridge, the park celebrates the rich heritage of the sugar beet in Fort Collins, a large and quirky vegetable that transformed Fort Collins into the nation’s largest sugar producer in the early 20th century. With a brightly colored wooden vegetable as the centerpiece, the park restores honor and significance to those who labored in the sugar beet fields; recognizing the unmistakable contributions of migrant workers to the economic and cultural development of the city, while creating a fun-filled, enriching park environment enveloped by a native Colorado landscape.

Riverbend

On the banks of the Roaring Fork River, the landscape architecture of Riverbend sets a tone appropriate for its extraordinary natural setting. Using the surrounding environment as the impetus for design, the landscape architect’s sensitive site planning reflects a deference to the nuances of seasonal change and the whims of its riverside environment. A healthy montane forest ecosystem teems with a rich palette of native grasses, forbs, and wildflowers, setting the stage for an environmentally sensitive design, one that proffers both a sense of adventure and peace to the owners and their guests.

A collaborative effort combining the creative talents of the landscape architect and architect, Riverbend presents a refreshing vision of holistic mountain design, one that draws inspiration from its setting by dissolving the barrier between interior and exterior. Exemplifying a silent, yet compelling design hand, outdoor living spaces merge almost imperceptibly with forest and meadow, imbuing the home with a sense of peace, permanence, and resilience.

Reimagine Nature and Inclusion for Salt Lake City

The plan delivers a transformative vision for equality and stewardship of landscape to tackle complex and contentious issues that are unorthodox for park system plans, such as homelessness, racial justice, urbanization and air quality. Reimagine Nature is the first public lands master plan in 30 years, charting a course for the future of Salt Lake City’s 83 parks and public spaces, 70-miles of trails, 1,700-acres of natural lands, 108 holes of golf, and 86,500 urban trees.

Reimagine was the most successful public engagement effort in the city’s history. With a focus on inclusion that utilized trailblazing methods, the plan reached 12,000 community members and benefited from elevating the voices of underrepresented populations during the height of COVID-19. The resulting plan is a model for communicating audacious community aspirations and directing equity priorities based on rigorous data analyses. An actionable 10-year vision identifies 92 locations for improvements to ecosystem health and livability. The effort galvanized collaborations across City departments, formed community partnerships, and garnered City officials’ support, increasing yearly capital expenditures on Public Lands by 2,400%.

Roaring Fork Club Cabins

Twenty years after the founding of The Roaring Fork Club, leadership turned attention to an underutilized fifteen-acre parcel of its campus to expand their residential offerings and on-site employee accommodations. Under the leadership of the Landscape Architect, the most recent phase represents a marriage of imagination and community living, rendered as an environmental restoration effort and establishment of a new place.

Thirteen new cabins and a robust employee housing program are holistically designed in harmony with the natural setting. Instrumental to the project’s transformative success, the reappropriation of the Club’s existing water rights creates a significant contribution through the creation of a functioning water system. Through a unique blend of disciplines that blurs the edges between landscape architecture, planning, engineering, architecture entitlements and golf course design, the design expands its car-free campus, replaces flood irrigation methods with high-performing water strategies and minimizes waste via on-site cut/fill strategies. In doing so, the design extends the environmental legacy of the nationally recognized Club.

Pikes Peak Summit Complex

Pikes Peak – America’s Mountain is a beloved landmark and tourist destination for people locally and from around the world, even inspiring Katherine Lee Bates to pen America the Beautiful after experiencing its panoramic vistas. At 14,115’ the summit’s harsh and high-altitude conditions deteriorated the facilities to the point where the team was tasked with reenvisioning the entire summit complex to be a sustainable, well-functioning campus that hosts more than half a million annual visitors, scientific research facilities, and large events throughout the summer. The final design meets the built environment’s most rigorous performance standard, the Living Building Challenge, that mimics nature’s model: cleanly, beautifully and efficiently – the first of its kind at this elevation. The subalpine-alpine region provides critical habitat for wildlife and birds and necessitated delicate solutions to protect and restore the ecosystem that takes decades to establish and thrive. Ultimately, the planning and site design balanced these many goals to guide and disperse crowds of multimodal arrivals and provide singular visitation experiences that honor the historical and tribal stories of its grandeur.

Poudre River Whitewater Park

The Poudre River Whitewater Park is a co-created, treasured downtown public space along the Poudre River for all residents and visitors to enjoy. The park appropriately balances the safety, environmental, economic, and recreational needs of community members, creating an enduring legacy for future generations. The park recognizes and celebrates the historic contributions of the Poudre River to agriculture, industry and recreation through interactive and engaging art, sculpture, and interpretation. The native and riparian vegetation throughout the park enrich the visitor experience and promote and demonstrate sustainable strategies including water conservation, integrated stormwater management, and site restoration. The park infuses new economic activity into a formerly industrialized area of the city that has historically suffered from crime, negative behavior, poor wildlife movement, and flooding. The park has been enthusiastically received by community members, businesses, river enthusiasts and environmental advocates alike. Thoughtful and collaborative planning efforts followed by an integrated, holistic park design resulted in renewed trust from residents and stakeholders, with a charge to ultimately complete an interconnected river park system in downtown.

Nature Discovery Zone at the Sombrero Marsh

The Thorne Nature Experience’s mission is to “build Earth stewardship by providing youth with joyful, hands-on, place-based environmental education experiences that foster an emotional connection to nature.” This envelope-pushing project aimed to provide a gateway experience into nature at Sombrero Marsh for those who otherwise would not have the opportunity or access to the bounty that Colorado’s natural landscape provides.

Working within the strict regulatory framework of childcare policy, the design team and staff at Thorne Nature Experience team took this challenge and created a series of nature ‘vignettes’ – carefully chosen slices of natural habitat to provide this access within the site boundaries. These nature play experiences were layered with sensory play, shifting the focus in a holistic approach to the mental, physical, and social well-being of the child and not simply on what is deemed ‘fun’. With these sensory rich experiences, the children learn from nature and then become the teachers to in turn connect their parents to nature.

Market District

According to census data, Des Moines has grown 18.6% in the past decade, making it the fastest growing midwestern city by percentage in the country. With domestic migration trends pointing to America’s Heartland, Des Moines population is expected to reach one million by 2050. Based on the typical suburban development trends throughout the Midwest, there is concern that nearly 1 million acres of land could be consumed to accommodate Des Moines’ growth in the next 30 years.

The Capitol View South neighborhood – situated ½ mile from downtown Des Moines – had once been the industrial backbone of the city and the neighborhood was largely bereft of people. The industrial activities are moving out of the neighborhood, leaving a 39-acre transformational opportunity in the heart of the city. Market District focuses density at the city’s core to alleviate development pressures on the exurban landscape. With emphasis on closing the parks and open space gap and promoting sustainable transportation and infrastructure, Market District creates a model for urban neighborhoods for the City of Des Moines.

Loudoun County Linear Parks and Trails and Trails Plan

With the COVID pandemic, the need and desire for open space dramatically increased. Loudoun County, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., sought a linear parks and trails vision plan to guide investment in nature access for its highly diverse and growing population. From a dense suburban population in the east to a rural environment in the west along the Blue Ridge Parkway, the desire was for a countywide vision that linked these varied landscapes and populations into a cohesive whole. Spatial equity, diversity and inclusion were plan priorities. The landscape architects used GIS to overlay natural resource mapping and identify the benefits of alternative schemes. A robust community engagement process built public support for the system. The landscape architects developed a training scheme for volunteers to inventory all existing trails within the county. They created an initial design of the first demonstration project. And the vision plan will guide the county’s negotiation with developers through the proffer system, ensuring that public trails get built and at-risk landscapes protected in pace with the county’s rapid growth.

History + Context: A Landscape Framework for Present and Future Life at The University of Colorado, Boulder

Boulder, Colorado is a city rich in context. The Flatirons cascade down from the Rocky Mountains to the Eastern Plains creating a dramatic setting for this uniquely nature-oriented college town. For over a century, The University of Colorado, Boulder, has sat at the heart of the city and defined its character almost as much as the city’s iconic landscape. So how does a master plan respect this powerful context and rich history? The 2021 Master Plan for CU Boulder sets forth an ambitious framework for the next 30 years of growth that leverages this rich context while honoring the spatial history of the campus. This planning effort pivots away from a car-dominated urban system and towards a pedestrian-first network that recalls historic patterns of buildings and open spaces. The resultant framework proposes an enhanced network of open spaces that weaves together resiliency strategies and restorative landscapes with student life programming to connect CU Boulder to its natural and urban context.

Globeville Landing Park

Globeville Landing Park is the outfall for a regional stormwater project that incorporates environmental protections, site history, and cultural context on a Superfund site to create an integrated urban design project in northeast Denver.

The project created unique engineering strategies for the conveyance of 100-year floodwaters to the river, involved adjacent underserved communities in program development, and used the context and history of the site to create a cohesive, connected, and unique sense of place

The project serves as a model for integrating a regional outfall into an urban park within a historically contaminated ecosystem. The strong collaborative design team allowed the landscape architect to lead the effort toward a fully integrated, elegant, dynamic design solution to a complex technical and regulatory challenge. The extensive public process allowed the landscape architect to fully understand and implement the community’s vision for this important park. It is a prime example of reimagining underutilized sites to provide health and social benefits to adjacent communities and the regional network beyond.

New Belgium Brewery Asheville

Our client operates by their mission statement that business’ can be a force for good. The core values of building community and environmental change inspired our client to seek out a brownfield site on the banks of the French Broad River and River Arts District in Asheville. Restoring the unlicensed dumping ground perfectly aligned with these values. The landscape architect created plans where every choice was a conscience decision to support company values. Rather than demolition, the site was de-constructed with all wood systematically stored for reuse in the project. Importance was placed on the site creating sustainable solutions including solar power, harvesting rainwater for irrigation, stream restoration and storm water best practices. Acting as a catalyst for the community, in partnership with the City of Asheville, these values encouraged improvements to the adjacent street with bike lanes, detached sidewalks and rain gardens. To welcome and create community, a greenway was created on the banks of the river. The project has been awarded LEED Platinum for the visitor focused portion of the site.

Bar B Bar

Resting quietly beneath the shadows of the majestic Tetons and near the braided channels of the mighty Snake River, Bar B Bar Ranch successfully transitions a modern architectural home into its surrounding context through poetic yet restrained interventions.

The design – a minimalist plan influenced by a couple’s shared appreciation modern design – artfully weaves together living and equestrian program elements into a refreshing vision of holistic mountain ranch design. Outdoor living spaces merge almost imperceptibly with the meadow, imbuing the home with a sense of peace, permanence, and resilience. Together with a restorative hand, the design brings native plant ecologies into the design, elevating the natural qualities of the working land along its riparian zones.

Bingxue Park （Vanke Snow and Ice Park）

Bingxue Park is a Desertification Mitigation Park with a unifying element and urban green under the shelterbelt grid, a new urban area in Baotou City of Inner Mongolia. Today, the park is an inclusive hub of Inner Mongolia’s life outdoors but for years, this was not the case. Before the completion of the park, the park was an abandoned land degradation in drylands, an uninviting and inaccessible crumbling place where garbage piled up. The new park provides an elegant sustainable soil remediation strategy, and creates connections that transform abandoned shelterbelt lands into a living ecosystem, and a new kind of urban ecological park, encouraging use throughout the day with a variety of programming.

39th Avenue Greenway

The 39th Avenue Greenway creates a mile of vibrant urban community space along a newly developed drainage channel in the Cole and Clayton neighborhoods of north Denver. In addition to providing flood protection and 100 year storm water conveyance within an urban context, the design for this $80 million project creates a much needed recreational amenity, enhances multimodal connectivity and improves water quality from an ecological perspective. The team was heavily engaged with the community in an inclusive process to improve the aesthetic and visual character of the corridor while respecting its historic industrial context. Designed for year-round use, amenities include: Denver’s first shared street, bridges, low-flow crossings, natural play areas, urban plazas, shade structures, wayfinding, water quality features and specialty areas for events and gatherings. The project restores a historically underserved community in an urban corridor, connecting neighborhoods to recreation, nature and each other. Through creative placemaking, it preserves the built legacy of one of Denver’s most diverse communities, making a universally accessible urban space that current and future residents will enjoy for generations.

Denver Art Museum Campus

The transformation of Denver Art Museum’s (DAM) North Building—Gio Ponti’s 1971 mid-century modern masterpiece—has re-established the museum as the city’s cultural complex hub. The new, resilient campus is the key urban link between downtown Denver, its cultural institutions, and city neighborhoods, connecting Denver’s Civic Center and cultural and public buildings, including Denver’s Central Library, Clyfford Still Museum, and the City and County Building.
The rehabilitation of the North Building and removal of a dilapidated, non-historic building allowed for the grounds of the historic setting to be redesigned. New outdoor spaces and experiences, resilient gardens, the redesign of Acoma Plaza, and the addition of the Sie Welcome Center has created a new center to the DAM campus. The grounds unite its buildings, provide critically needed programmatic space, and activate the public realm. The DAM site redesign weaves together historic preservation and sustainability with exemplary urban design to create a spectacularly beautiful and cohesive campus that is resilient and welcoming to museum visitors and the public alike.

Reimagining Three Historic Downtown Parks

Common struggles for hundred-year-old downtown parks include periods of disinvestment, safety concerns, failing infrastructure, social stigmas of the unhoused, and environmental stressors. These are complex societal topics that park design alone is unable to solve. The Downtown Historic Parks Master Plan wrestled with these topics for three parks and the downtown simultaneously, studying the past, evaluating current policies and influences, and sparking community conversations about the future. Like a folktale the history contains glory, tragedy, and the project provides universal moral lessons with hope of transformation.

Once upon a time, the Colorado Springs city founders granted three blocks to become parks for this growing frontier town. As decades passed the urban fabric changed around the parks, their purposes faded. Prominence greeting train passengers was no more and their games and dances no longer delighted. The parks languished into secret gardens of trees, enjoyed by few. This is the story of how four-thousand community members reimagined these parks as vital places, how they prepared for climate threats, and investments to welcome all and reflect the people.

Viestenz-Smith Mountain Park

Viestenz-Smith Mountain Park is a park and natural area along the Big Thompson River and US34. The park was destroyed in 2013 by a devasting flood. This reconstruction was the opportunity to create a more resilient river and public park that is appropriate for its setting in the Foothills Life Zone of the Rocky Mountains. The park features a realigned and more natural river, native aquatic and terrestrial habitat restoration, trails, picnic areas, river access, and educational exhibits and structures. A unique platform provides an authentic river fishing experience for users of all abilities, overlooks and benches are located along the trails, and visitors can learn about the history and ecology of the site. Remnants of a 1920’s hydroelectric plant, a settlers’ cabin from the 1860s, Civilian Conservation Corps shelters, and other historic structures provide not only visual interest, but are a reminder that many lessons learned in the past are still relevant today. The park is loved by Loveland residents and visitors, and is at capacity every weekend that it is open.

Montbello Open Space Park

Montbello Open Space Park fulfills a local community’s vision to transform a degraded vacant site into an ecological much needed open space for northeast Denver. Realized through the local non-profit organizations and its partners, the site is now a 5.5-acre natural open space and outdoor learning laboratory serving a predominantly Hispanic, Multiracial, and African American community that traditionally lacked equitable access to public parks and outdoor experiences. As the city’s first nature education park, this project brings much needed open space with important experiences for healthy active recreation and learning.
This dynamic landscape is a restored short grass prairie ecosystem of native plant communities, green infrastructure that filters stormwater and a robust system of park features for play, outdoor skills development and immersion in science, art, and nature. Designed in collaboration with the community and the non-profit’s students, Montbello Open Space Park is the living laboratory for environmental programs. Youth play a key role as emerging leaders, serving as Urban Rangers sharing programs with the community, and serving as mentors and park stewards.

Curtis Park Residence

The Curtis Park Residence landscape was designed to reflect the vibrant neighborhood in which it sits. Curtis Park located north of downtown Denver, is a neighborhood that embraces its industrial heritage, celebrates art, community and creativity in a real and raw manner. The intent was to celebrate and honor that context with a fresh and modernist approach. The
owner, a father of two daughters, wanted a pool, outdoor fireplace, outdoor dining, rock climbing wall, basketball court, lawn space, a rooftop garden and a dog run. The landscape
architect was able to harmonize the indoor and outdoor spaces while complementing the modernist architecture with clean lines and geometric forms. To further honor the context of
the site, the landscape architect worked to preserve trees, structural elements, and reuse brick from the original structure with a careful and refined approach. Walls made of the reclaimed brick frame the space while new concrete is interconnected with existing structures. Enveloped within those walls each area of the garden has its own unique and intimate feeling and purpose.

Denver’s Outdoor Downtown

Downtown Denver is booming. But while the center city has seen billions of dollars in private investment over the past two decades, public investment in parks has not kept pace. With thousands of new residents and an expanding local economy bringing a diversity of needs, the formal civic spaces that are typical to Downtown are not meeting the daily expectations of the residents, visitors, students, and employees that use them. The Outdoor Downtown provides a 20-year blueprint for the future of Downtown’s parks and public spaces through the strategic partnership of the public and private sectors. The plan aims to re-establish a collective stewardship of the entire public realm of Downtown Denver and invest in people and places that will transform the way we value public space.

Meadow House Residence

Located in the highly desirable Double Bar X Ranch, this 4.8-acre lot within an agricultural easement was treated with the utmost respect for the surrounding meadow. The house all but disappears into the adjacent landscape from the vantage point of passersby, achieved through an extensive vegetated roof system. Inspired by the client’s love of art and the sculptural design on the grounds of the Scottish National Gallery, the defining element of the landscape architecture is a raised grassy ‘embrace’, a meandering linear dance between man-made and natural, containing human activities within, while transitioning to the wild beyond. The whimsical berm, deliberately designed as functional land art to stage the client’s burgeoning sculpture collection, doubles as stormwater facilities in lieu of depressions. The incorporation of a reflecting pool and water cascades adjacent to the stairs enhance the serene tranquility of the home, as well as providing an additional reflective dynamic sculptural element. The unkempt “bad hair day” effect of the textured grass adds the final sculptural touch to the outdoor space of this unique residence.

Aria Denver Infill Redevelopment

Aria Denver is a diverse, intergenerational, mixed-income, urban infill neighborhood designed intentionally to create community with a focus on the health of its residents and the surrounding neighborhoods. The ideals of community and environmental stewardship are instilled by the Sisters of St. Francis, the former owners of the property, and are woven into all aspects of the Aria Denver development. Located within one block of Regis University, the Aria Denver Neighborhood fosters a unique relationship with the University, along with other project partners, for learning new skills, to maximize personal health, and establish physical connectivity for a neighborhood that was severely isolated by Federal Boulevard and I-70. Programs established onsite promote an active lifestyle with walking paths and exercise facilities, increase access to healthy food including a one-acre production garden and community plots, and with Regis, offer integrated health services for a community that is designated a “food and health care desert.” Dedicated to environmental sustainability, Aria Denver commits to conserving energy, planting drought-tolerant/water-wise landscapes, and employing durable materials.

Baotou Vanke Central Park

Baotou Vanke Central Park transformed a former wasteland into a lush landscape of lake, rolling hills, meadows and gardens. The design was shaped by an extensive community process and is now celebrated as an important destination and center for Baotou City. The most dramatic aspect of the site transformation has been the restoration of its ecosystem – carve pedestrians to create new green spaces a new freshwater lake, to bring Baotou’s water into the open, new forest types and amended soils respond to the design’s microclimates and showcase a diversity of species specifically suited to each area.