we are living in the era of cities
migration from the country to the city
hit a tipping point in 2008 more people
now live in cities than in rural areas
in the United States a staggering 8 out
of 10 people live in cities and this
number continues to grow if you are one
of the eight you’re one sleepy city
probably wide awake maybe you live in a
city with an exploding startup scene an
economy supported by diverse industry or
the rare city still dubbed affordable
maybe you’re enjoying new cultural
amenities and the job opportunities that
a bustling city provides more likely
you’re feeling increasingly frustrated
by traffic congestion the increasing
cost of living and a lack of
authenticity in new construction as a
resident of Denver one of the fastest
growing cities in America I feel the
growing pains I’ve witnessed my commute
get longer I’ve wondered about housing
decisions my family will make as prices
continue to skyrocket and I’ve watched
as soulless apartment buildings pop up
on what seems like lot after lot
throughout the city our neighborhoods
and our cities are changing before our
eyes at times it feels like urban growth
is happening to us that we have to sit
back and watch as the familiar becomes
unrecognizable but as an architect I’m
here to tell you you have more power
than you think
I believe the architectural process
provides us with a different way of
thinking a process that is collaborative
and imaginative and might help give us
agency to shape the connected
urban lives we aspire to lead now and in
the future but how do we engage in this
process and what do architects actually
do I decided I wanted to be an architect
at the age of three my parents were
happy to facilitate my interest in
buildings rather than Barbies and
provided me with an arsenal of wooden
blocks Here I am at age seven
constructing my favorite building
typology zoos to further cultivate my
interest my parents introduced me to the
most famous American architect of the
20th century
Frank Lloyd Wright I was hooked
as I learned about Wright’s
uncompromising almost militant approach
to realizing his sole design vision I
imagined right to be the example of what
all architects must be like lone
inventors I imagined Wright sketching
buildings cantilever in over waterfalls
and ascending into spirals only to be
built in a matter of days for an
open-ended school project I took the
liberty of recreating Wright sketchbook
on the last page before the days of
Photoshop I collaged myself next to
right
a bit awkward in my eighth-grade
dinner-dance dress we stare out into the
future imagining the epic visions and
realities to come so fast forward to my
first year of architecture school where
I quickly learned and humbly learned
that what I thought architects did and
what most architects actually do are two
very different things as it turns out
architecture is a fundamentally
collaborative process this Frank Lloyd
Wright ideal of solitary creation it’s a
myth
and there’s good reason for that
buildings last fifty to a hundred years
if not longer and they impact countless
numbers of people so the role of an
architect it’s to discover rather than
to invent to listen to the goals and
ideas and desires of the client and the
community and to work through many
different iterations until you find a
solution that works best for everyone
and at the heart of this architectural
design process is not accepting what is
but imagining what could be to be an
architect is to be a futurist we know
how to design a building that works for
people in 2017 but how do we design a
building that works for people in twenty
sixty seven how and where will people
work where will people live when we’ve
run out of land space how will people
arrive at buildings
how can building design accommodate
constantly evolving solutions for
technology human connection and occupant
health these are questions architects
ask themselves now because a
well-constructed building it will last
that long one example of
forward-thinking design is Denver’s
Union Station it’s hard to even remember
what the building used to look like
but the 120 year old station was an
island stranded in a sea of parking
meanwhile Denver was experiencing a
profound transition from a declining
polluted
city into a vibrant urban hub the
downtown needed a physical marker that
reflected what it could become
to create this vision not only was the
station renovated but two winged
buildings were added on either side the
captured space between the buildings was
then imagined as public plaza rather
than parking activated day and night by
seating fountains and most importantly
people this is what Union Station looks
like now by asking what if the many
contributors to this project transformed
an urban artifact into a beloved city
landmark so I’ve been practicing
architecture for almost a decade now
interning and working in cities like
Shanghai Chicago New York and Denver
I’ve worked with public private and
nonprofit clients on a range of projects
and because I’m constantly engaged in
this design process I started to see and
think about the world differently I’ve
come to see the field of architecture as
optimistic by asking what if rather than
accepting what is we’re forced to
imagine possibilities rather than
dwelling on ideas with limited potential
or that simply don’t work so let’s go
back to that thing that isn’t working
urban growth yes it’s true our cities
are evolving before our eyes that is an
opportunity now more than ever we need
everyone to engage in the question what
kind of city do we want to live in
because I live in Denver I’ve spent a
lot of time imagining possibilities for
our city like many American cities
Denver is experiencing rapid growth the
city is currently experiencing a
five-year building boom with two and a
half billion dollars worth of
development and 3 million square feet of
new construction added to the downtown
in 2016 alone so today in the spirit of
architectural optimism and to hopefully
start a dialogue I’d like to share a few
design scenarios I’ve created that I’m
imagine the future of Denver and really
imagine the future of any growing city
in America by drawing inspiration from
cities across the world we can imagine
new but importantly viable strategies
for transportation ideas of how we might
use public space and most importantly
how we might experience our day-to-day
lives in the years to come
so first what if Denver was a seamless
City Denver is and always has been the
trading post of the West across the
country there is untapped potential in
regards to high-speed rail a
well-established technology throughout
Asia and other parts of the world not
capitalizing on high-speed rail seems
the continued missed opportunity that
would position Denver as a critical link
in a national network moving people
Goods and ideas imagine popping over to
LA for the weekend without ever getting
on a plane or heading to Boulder for a
meeting or a hike and arriving five
minutes later what if Denver was a truly
active City traffic is one of the
ugliest byproducts of urban growth as
one of the fittest cities in the country
and already equipped with a robust bike
share program could we now look to
cities like Beijing and Copenhagen and
consider elevated all-season bike paths
that would connect our downtown’s
seamlessly with our many urban
neighborhoods and given Denver’s
athletic climbing culture why not
utilize big blank walls on buildings and
infrastructure as climbing walls so to
take this idea one step further let’s
look at two major forms of urban and
suburban infrastructure roads and
shopping malls as society shifts to
driverless cars and e-commerce aka
Amazon Prime
what if Denver was a self-sustaining
City the United States currently has two
point six five million miles of paved
road the Dutch companies Solar Road has
developed a road and a bike path that
doubles as a solar panel now we know
Denver has 300 days of sunshine if not
more could we maximize our climate and
new technologies to shift the balance
towards renewable resources and on the
building scale let’s look at wait for it
Cleveland Cleveland is in the process of
repurposing shopping malls as
greenhouses so imagine your mall that
you go to sometimes now imagine your
mall but it’s equipped with hydroponic
systems daylight harvesting atriums and
a farmers market that you can go to
every weekend to buy fresh produce all
year round one question we are probably
all asking ourselves daily is what if
Denver was a more affordable city
maintaining affordable housing options
omits gentrification it’s an age-old
problem Chilean architect Alejandro
Aravena has successfully designed
incremental housing in which the
government funds the construction of
half a good house in other words a home
without any embellishment but all the
necessities as time and resources allow
home owners can add to their home with
things like personalized finishes
landscaping and even infill in close
square footage where you see those empty
Bay’s now given Denver’s dire need for
entry-level housing near the downtown
could we follow suit with more agile
housing strategies along those same
lines
what if Denver was a wild and equitable
City as cities continue to densify
there’s often a redistribution of public
and private space one of the more
successful models of maintaining public
access to private buildings is San
Francisco where private buildings of a
certain size must designee
space for public use so as your city
continues to develop and densify imagine
being able to visit the downtown and
being able to access a network of public
spaces ranging from galleries to rooftop
gardens to lobbies that would facilitate
much-needed Culture leisure recreation
and amidst all the servants a ssin a
sustained connection to nature
lastly wide if none ver was a bold city
much of downtown Denver was developed in
the 1970s and let’s face it it feels
like an endless grid of Windows building
owners are in the process of
repositioning these buildings with new
designs to appeal to a new generation of
tenants could these renovation projects
also be seen as an opportunity to
transform our urban image from the
mundane into the dare I say it whimsical
embrace change and bold visions let’s
treat our city as an architectural
laboratory unlike New York and Chicago
developing cities are still teenagers
they have not experienced hundreds of
years of maturity marked by history and
density and development these cities are
knee-deep right now in exploring design
solutions that will address urban growth
in the next few years
decisions will be made regarding
transportation public space open space
not to mention the addition of hundreds
of new homes and buildings we already
passed them every day these decisions
will change how and where we live so how
do we all play a part in imagining what
could be before we’re asking ourselves
what could have been the design process
only works if it’s collaborative and
based on a shared vision and perhaps the
first step is just engaging with your
city in a different way the next time
you’re out and about or asked to weigh
in on a design decision pull out your
own pair of VR goggles and try to
imagine
the what-if scenario with the greatest
long-term impact we are living in the
era of cities our urban lives are busy
they require a constant balancing act
between the personal and the
professional at times it’s
understandably really easy to forget the
biggest driver of development that no
matter which city you live in
cities are made by people for people we
are all architects trying to build lives
defined by options and experiences that
give our days meaning now if we could
collectively apply that sense of care
and thoughtfulness to the development of
the cities that we live in it’s hard not
to get excited about the what-ifs
[Applause]
migration from the country to the city
hit a tipping point in 2008 more people
now live in cities than in rural areas
in the United States a staggering 8 out
of 10 people live in cities and this
number continues to grow if you are one
of the eight you’re one sleepy city
probably wide awake maybe you live in a
city with an exploding startup scene an
economy supported by diverse industry or
the rare city still dubbed affordable
maybe you’re enjoying new cultural
amenities and the job opportunities that
a bustling city provides more likely
you’re feeling increasingly frustrated
by traffic congestion the increasing
cost of living and a lack of
authenticity in new construction as a
resident of Denver one of the fastest
growing cities in America I feel the
growing pains I’ve witnessed my commute
get longer I’ve wondered about housing
decisions my family will make as prices
continue to skyrocket and I’ve watched
as soulless apartment buildings pop up
on what seems like lot after lot
throughout the city our neighborhoods
and our cities are changing before our
eyes at times it feels like urban growth
is happening to us that we have to sit
back and watch as the familiar becomes
unrecognizable but as an architect I’m
here to tell you you have more power
than you think
I believe the architectural process
provides us with a different way of
thinking a process that is collaborative
and imaginative and might help give us
agency to shape the connected
urban lives we aspire to lead now and in
the future but how do we engage in this
process and what do architects actually
do I decided I wanted to be an architect
at the age of three my parents were
happy to facilitate my interest in
buildings rather than Barbies and
provided me with an arsenal of wooden
blocks Here I am at age seven
constructing my favorite building
typology zoos to further cultivate my
interest my parents introduced me to the
most famous American architect of the
20th century
Frank Lloyd Wright I was hooked
as I learned about Wright’s
uncompromising almost militant approach
to realizing his sole design vision I
imagined right to be the example of what
all architects must be like lone
inventors I imagined Wright sketching
buildings cantilever in over waterfalls
and ascending into spirals only to be
built in a matter of days for an
open-ended school project I took the
liberty of recreating Wright sketchbook
on the last page before the days of
Photoshop I collaged myself next to
right
a bit awkward in my eighth-grade
dinner-dance dress we stare out into the
future imagining the epic visions and
realities to come so fast forward to my
first year of architecture school where
I quickly learned and humbly learned
that what I thought architects did and
what most architects actually do are two
very different things as it turns out
architecture is a fundamentally
collaborative process this Frank Lloyd
Wright ideal of solitary creation it’s a
myth
and there’s good reason for that
buildings last fifty to a hundred years
if not longer and they impact countless
numbers of people so the role of an
architect it’s to discover rather than
to invent to listen to the goals and
ideas and desires of the client and the
community and to work through many
different iterations until you find a
solution that works best for everyone
and at the heart of this architectural
design process is not accepting what is
but imagining what could be to be an
architect is to be a futurist we know
how to design a building that works for
people in 2017 but how do we design a
building that works for people in twenty
sixty seven how and where will people
work where will people live when we’ve
run out of land space how will people
arrive at buildings
how can building design accommodate
constantly evolving solutions for
technology human connection and occupant
health these are questions architects
ask themselves now because a
well-constructed building it will last
that long one example of
forward-thinking design is Denver’s
Union Station it’s hard to even remember
what the building used to look like
but the 120 year old station was an
island stranded in a sea of parking
meanwhile Denver was experiencing a
profound transition from a declining
polluted
city into a vibrant urban hub the
downtown needed a physical marker that
reflected what it could become
to create this vision not only was the
station renovated but two winged
buildings were added on either side the
captured space between the buildings was
then imagined as public plaza rather
than parking activated day and night by
seating fountains and most importantly
people this is what Union Station looks
like now by asking what if the many
contributors to this project transformed
an urban artifact into a beloved city
landmark so I’ve been practicing
architecture for almost a decade now
interning and working in cities like
Shanghai Chicago New York and Denver
I’ve worked with public private and
nonprofit clients on a range of projects
and because I’m constantly engaged in
this design process I started to see and
think about the world differently I’ve
come to see the field of architecture as
optimistic by asking what if rather than
accepting what is we’re forced to
imagine possibilities rather than
dwelling on ideas with limited potential
or that simply don’t work so let’s go
back to that thing that isn’t working
urban growth yes it’s true our cities
are evolving before our eyes that is an
opportunity now more than ever we need
everyone to engage in the question what
kind of city do we want to live in
because I live in Denver I’ve spent a
lot of time imagining possibilities for
our city like many American cities
Denver is experiencing rapid growth the
city is currently experiencing a
five-year building boom with two and a
half billion dollars worth of
development and 3 million square feet of
new construction added to the downtown
in 2016 alone so today in the spirit of
architectural optimism and to hopefully
start a dialogue I’d like to share a few
design scenarios I’ve created that I’m
imagine the future of Denver and really
imagine the future of any growing city
in America by drawing inspiration from
cities across the world we can imagine
new but importantly viable strategies
for transportation ideas of how we might
use public space and most importantly
how we might experience our day-to-day
lives in the years to come
so first what if Denver was a seamless
City Denver is and always has been the
trading post of the West across the
country there is untapped potential in
regards to high-speed rail a
well-established technology throughout
Asia and other parts of the world not
capitalizing on high-speed rail seems
the continued missed opportunity that
would position Denver as a critical link
in a national network moving people
Goods and ideas imagine popping over to
LA for the weekend without ever getting
on a plane or heading to Boulder for a
meeting or a hike and arriving five
minutes later what if Denver was a truly
active City traffic is one of the
ugliest byproducts of urban growth as
one of the fittest cities in the country
and already equipped with a robust bike
share program could we now look to
cities like Beijing and Copenhagen and
consider elevated all-season bike paths
that would connect our downtown’s
seamlessly with our many urban
neighborhoods and given Denver’s
athletic climbing culture why not
utilize big blank walls on buildings and
infrastructure as climbing walls so to
take this idea one step further let’s
look at two major forms of urban and
suburban infrastructure roads and
shopping malls as society shifts to
driverless cars and e-commerce aka
Amazon Prime
what if Denver was a self-sustaining
City the United States currently has two
point six five million miles of paved
road the Dutch companies Solar Road has
developed a road and a bike path that
doubles as a solar panel now we know
Denver has 300 days of sunshine if not
more could we maximize our climate and
new technologies to shift the balance
towards renewable resources and on the
building scale let’s look at wait for it
Cleveland Cleveland is in the process of
repurposing shopping malls as
greenhouses so imagine your mall that
you go to sometimes now imagine your
mall but it’s equipped with hydroponic
systems daylight harvesting atriums and
a farmers market that you can go to
every weekend to buy fresh produce all
year round one question we are probably
all asking ourselves daily is what if
Denver was a more affordable city
maintaining affordable housing options
omits gentrification it’s an age-old
problem Chilean architect Alejandro
Aravena has successfully designed
incremental housing in which the
government funds the construction of
half a good house in other words a home
without any embellishment but all the
necessities as time and resources allow
home owners can add to their home with
things like personalized finishes
landscaping and even infill in close
square footage where you see those empty
Bay’s now given Denver’s dire need for
entry-level housing near the downtown
could we follow suit with more agile
housing strategies along those same
lines
what if Denver was a wild and equitable
City as cities continue to densify
there’s often a redistribution of public
and private space one of the more
successful models of maintaining public
access to private buildings is San
Francisco where private buildings of a
certain size must designee
space for public use so as your city
continues to develop and densify imagine
being able to visit the downtown and
being able to access a network of public
spaces ranging from galleries to rooftop
gardens to lobbies that would facilitate
much-needed Culture leisure recreation
and amidst all the servants a ssin a
sustained connection to nature
lastly wide if none ver was a bold city
much of downtown Denver was developed in
the 1970s and let’s face it it feels
like an endless grid of Windows building
owners are in the process of
repositioning these buildings with new
designs to appeal to a new generation of
tenants could these renovation projects
also be seen as an opportunity to
transform our urban image from the
mundane into the dare I say it whimsical
embrace change and bold visions let’s
treat our city as an architectural
laboratory unlike New York and Chicago
developing cities are still teenagers
they have not experienced hundreds of
years of maturity marked by history and
density and development these cities are
knee-deep right now in exploring design
solutions that will address urban growth
in the next few years
decisions will be made regarding
transportation public space open space
not to mention the addition of hundreds
of new homes and buildings we already
passed them every day these decisions
will change how and where we live so how
do we all play a part in imagining what
could be before we’re asking ourselves
what could have been the design process
only works if it’s collaborative and
based on a shared vision and perhaps the
first step is just engaging with your
city in a different way the next time
you’re out and about or asked to weigh
in on a design decision pull out your
own pair of VR goggles and try to
imagine
the what-if scenario with the greatest
long-term impact we are living in the
era of cities our urban lives are busy
they require a constant balancing act
between the personal and the
professional at times it’s
understandably really easy to forget the
biggest driver of development that no
matter which city you live in
cities are made by people for people we
are all architects trying to build lives
defined by options and experiences that
give our days meaning now if we could
collectively apply that sense of care
and thoughtfulness to the development of
the cities that we live in it’s hard not
to get excited about the what-ifs
[Applause]
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