With less than 17 months to go before construction is scheduled to be underway on all three phases of Denver’s planned $378 million downtown justice center, the project’s architectural team is under the gun to get design work started.
“It’s a very tight schedule,” said Lee Becker, a principal with Hartman-Cox Architects of Washington. “But deadlines are good because they force people to think creatively quickly. It’s high stress from time to time, but it can actually be a lot of fun.”
Becker and the project’s other designers and consultants met for the first time Wednesday to hammer out details of their contracts, learn more about the city and the site and begin gathering ideas for designs.
“I’m walking around a lot and listening,” said Steven Holl of Steven Holl Architects of New York City. “Today will be a session of planning and listening to other people’s thoughts – everybody that’s involved.
“Architecture really is about analysis, which I liken to breathing in (he demonstrated by inhaling), and synthesis (he exhaled), and you better not do too much synthesis before you do a lot of analysis.”
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper introduced the architectural team to reporters during a media gathering and offered a few thoughts on the process.
“To envision these architects working and what their buildings will be like is, I think, one of the most exciting moments you have in life,” Hickenlooper said.
“And that is that moment of anticipation when you start, where there is nothing, just an intention, and that intention becomes transformed into some kind of reality.”
Denver undertook an international competition to choose design architects for the project’s two main buildings on West Colfax Avenue between Delaware and Fox streets – a $127 million courthouse and $165 million jail.
The city pared the list of interested architects to nine finalists, and a selection jury of government officials, neighborhood leaders and area architects chose Holl to design the courthouse and Hartman-Cox to oversee the jail.
“We have two architects who have a somewhat different way of working, and it’s going to be a really fun process to have that synergy between the two of us and the rest of the team and see what evolves,” Becker said.
James Mejia, the justice center project manager, said design fees will be $9.6 million for the courthouse and $10.9 million for the detention center.
Groundbreaking is expected to be in late spring for the adjacent parking garage and post office building, January for the jail and June 2007 for the courthouse.
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-820-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
