As for the building itself, Denver seems to be running for a "civic building" look. It's from the same mold as the Libeskind design and the Convention Center. If anything, it's too close to the art museum to have that sort of repetition in this brand of design. It's not my favorite style anyway, but it makes a decent enough contrast to the ING building.

My thinking is going this way because of two presentations at that conference. One from the folks at IDEO and the other Bjarke Ingels and Michel Rojkind. The latter being one of the more inspiring strings of 'why not, let's try it, makes sense, why didn't I think of that, how come that doesn't happen more often' examples I've ever seen. Bold and outrageous at times? Yes. Completely logical and representative of place at others? Yes. The main message from it all was to think a little bit bigger outside of the box, don't be afraid to try and maybe something survives that is unique or referring to place. There were a few grumbles about youthful exuberance displayed by Rojkind and Ingles but they were far exceeded by the "That was pretty amazing, how do I bring that back to my practice" (also youthful exuberance. BTW Rojkind and Ingles are somewhere in their 30's) comments as well. Can it be so hard to reach somewhere in between here in Denver????

Suggestion #1: Design in section – not just plan – to produce some spatial interest. Then, try expressing some sense of volume and internal space on the exterior of the building. This could be a suburban office building. Suggestion #2: There are so many new and exciting ways to do curtainwall these days, why not try one? The overly horizontal stripedness of this design ran out of intellectual steam in the late 1990s. Suggestion #3: Make the entrance more inviting. It is very heavy and not drawing people in. Use something better and more appealing than a 15 foot high limestone "beam" to mark the entrance. Daylight feature maybe? Suggestion #4: How about designing a building – that is ostensibly dedicated to our state's history – with design themes, forms, or ideas that have ANYTHING to do with Colorado…is that too much to ask???

Good going Tryba.

Civic center is now almost beyond hope (in terms of the problems), with almost every surrounding city block being a single parcel, occasionally two parcels, consisting of a single-use building, generally only open from 8am to 5pm.

The buildings are large, uniformly treated and generally not at a pedestrian scale (there is architectural diversity, but that's not what I'm talking about). If they were standing alone, like the museum in City Park, then the concept works better. Instead you get an entire neighborhood of buildings that do not relate well to the pedestrian experience, save the tourist and someone appreciating architecture.

In the end, if you live in Cap Hill, GT or downtown, you don't enjoy hanging out in this neighborhood unless you're going to one of the buildings. Traveling through provides little relief for the pedestrian, with 5 story monoliths and only a few entrances per building.