With One River North, MAD Architects Experiments with Biophilic Design in Denver | Architectural Record
In Denver’s gritty, graffitied, postindustrial northeast, where local creatives have long flocked, developers have been busily transforming surface parking lots and former warehouses near the Union Pacific depot into new housing stock. When the din of construction equipment finally clears and the nearby tracks are free of passing trains, the sound of running water cuts through the silence. Where is it coming from? One might expect this while trekking through the Rockies, where runoff and snowmelt form brooks and creeks—but not here, on a sidewalk in the semi-arid Eastern Plains. What’s more, the trickling sound emanates from above.Bringing home a slice of the far-flung wilderness was the principal idea behind MAD Architects’ One River North, a 187-unit apartment building. The designers furrowed a meandering biomorphic channel—peppered with vegetation and a cascading water feature—into the upper reaches of the 16-story building’s bowed, glazed curtain wall. This inhabitable space was not only intended to attract outdoorsy tenants, but it reflects the pandemic era in which the project was conceived. “We were going through all these studies while stuck inside,” says project director Jon Kontuly. “Creating spaces where people could still be together, but be outside, was really ideal,” he adds, with physical, mental, and social well-being top of mind.