When I signed on with ColoradoBuildingWorkshop through the University of Colorado Denver, I never could have expected the unique nature of this year's program. A global pandemic has forever changed all our lives, and college and university students have seen some of the most profound impacts. Despite a global pandemic, I have had the incredible opportunity (along with fellow Sopher Sparn architectural designer Eric Kuhn) to join this year’s ColoradoBuildingWorkshop project. CBW is a design-build certificate program through the University of Colorado Denver’s Department of Architecture. It has served the broader community for the last decade by partnering with non-profit organizations on a variety of innovative projects. For over ten years, students have learned practical application of architectural theory, developed a blend of hands-on skills and creative design, and worked with cutting-edge materials to construct buildings for a variety of communities. 

This academic year (2020), the ColoradoBuildingWorkshop partnered with the Auraria Higher Education Center’s Auraria Sustainable Campus Program (ASCP), home to CU-Denver’s campus, on a project to promote bicycling as a carbon-free mode of commuting to campus. This was in response to the ASCP’s ‘alternative transportation’ mission. Eric Kuhn and I, both current graduate students at CU-Denver, were selected as students and scholarship recipients for this year’s CBW project. We have been working on this project for over a year now, beginning with research and design in the Fall 2019 semester. With the current semester and the unpredictable 2020 year coming to a close, we are excited to share the academic work of this year’s ColoradoBuildingWorkshop project. 

Project Overview:

From its rich history as the earliest neighborhood in Denver to its development as the country’s first shared higher education campus, Auraria has always been a sum greater than its parts. The Auraria campus is home to Metropolitan State University of Denver, Community College of Denver, and University of Colorado Denver. Collectively, the three schools serve a diverse, often nontraditional student population scattered across the Denver Metro area. Each institution’s mission is as unique as the students they serve, while their resounding shared value is a profound dedication to the local community, students and visitors alike. 

As an ever-evolving campus in the heart of downtown Denver, AHEC is increasingly focused on multimodal transportation for its students, faculty and staff. While the urban nature of the campus makes car parking prohibitive, that same urban setting makes bike parking even more difficult. One bike rack location on campus reportedly has the highest bike theft rates in all of Denver. Student surveys underscore a reluctance to bike to campus due to these high theft rates, and call for measures to increase bike security. In response to these surveys, this year the Auraria Sustainable Campus Program (ASCP) is devoting student sustainability fees to fund the building of two bike storage facilities by the ColoradoBuildingWorkshop in strategically placed locations on the campus’s main thoroughfares. The overarching goal of the project is to increase bike commuting on campus.

To encourage new ridership and protect current bikers, ColoradoBuildingWorkshop operated within a framework of three Core Design Principles: Sustainability, Security and Utilization. The two bike storage pavilions designed by the 26 students of the ColoradoBuildingWorkshop house up to 50 bicycles per structure. The project focuses on innovative sustainable design solutions and materials as promoted by the ASCP, with a strong emphasis on building security, and unique design features to attract students to utilize the structure as both a bike shelter and a communal gathering space.

Construction:

Throughout the last few months, our team has spent many long hours in construction of these bike storage facilities on campus. We broke ground on August 1st, and completed the project mid-November. This year, COVID hit right at the beginning of our mock-up phase of design as we prepared for construction during last summer’s Maymester. We spent our summer months in back-to-back Zoom meetings wondering when we might meet up again as an in-person team to build the projects we spent so long designing.

1st Photo: Olivia Collier ties rebar for 8’-0” retaining wall. 2nd Photo: Backyard mockups while awaiting approval for in-person construction to begin. 3rd Photo: Eric Kuhn grinds welds on steel louver angle to HSS connections. 4th Photo: Olivia poses with teammates while assembling retaining wall framework for concrete pour the following day at 5:00am.

“Foundations are this mysterious construction detail that ultimately just gets covered up, and yet are literally fundamental. There’s nothing like tying rebar at the end of a 12-hour day in 96-degree August heat with a mask on. And then you’ve got it. For the rest of your career, you really, truly understand a foundation.”

- ColoradoBuildingWorkshop Student, 2020

Faced with design challenges unlike any ColoradoBuildingWorkshop project of the past, every student and faculty member stepped up for this year’s project to adapt to remote learning. We all worked tirelessly to fabricate mock-ups and models individually in our own backyards. After a long summer, we were finally given the green light to begin construction on August 1st, 2020. With masks and PPE in full supply, we worked ceaselessly to construct every square-inch of the two bike storage pavilions, from the foundation to the smallest hardware details.

Eric and I are so excited to share this year’s ColoradoBuildingWorkshop project with you and our colleagues at Sopher Sparn Architects. We look forward to the utilization of these bike storage pavilions for the students, faculty and staff of AHEC’s tri-institutional campus in the new 2021 year. We are thankful for Sopher Sparn Architects for the continued support we were shown throughout our ColoradoBuildingWorkshop adventure.