When the sun started to warm the piles of snow atop the steep angles of the Denver Art Museum’s new wing Friday, there was no place for the white stuff to go but down.
This week, the new wing got its first test with wintry weather when more than 5 inches fell in downtown Thursday.
As the snow began to slide, it didn’t drop off in one spectacular torrent.
“It was more like a chunk here, a chunk there,” said Andrea Fulton, communications director for DAM.
When the Frederic C. Hamilton building was being designed, the architects anticipated snow slides and added barriers and drainage systems to the roof.
But, Fulton said, no one could be sure how effective those safeguards would be. Now that the building is complete, the builders and contractors are working on a permanent solution.
“This is not an oversight,” she said. “Until everything is in place, it’s hard to know how the building will react.”
Fortunately, no one was hit by the plummeting chunks of chilliness, but to be safe, the museum cordoned off a large area in front of the building with yellow caution tape.
The heavy snowfall exposed one other bug in the new building. One of the skylight windows leaked in the stairwell because of a problem with the sealant. Fulton said the museum has known about the leak for some time, but the priority was to open the building to the public, she said, even if all the kinks were not worked out.
Fulton said the museum’s contractors and builders likely will decide to install more snow barriers when they meet on Tuesday.
“When you build something that’s never been built before, there’s always going to be a learning curve when you begin to use it,” Fulton said. “This is our moment for that, but this is not going to be an ongoing issue.”
Staff writer Katharine Bernuth can be reached at 303-954-1752 or kbernuth@denverpost.com.
