Denver Architecture: Why you should email Jeff Sheppard

It's a big deal when Denver's top architect publishes an essay saying this city is failing at design downtown. That we are building one mundane apartment building after the next. That we are wasting the opportunity to become a national leader and ruining the urban landscape by putting profit above civic pride.

Jeff Sheppard said all that, though in more polite ways, in a guest editorial in last Sunday's Denver Post. And we'd be wise to hear him and do what he's suggesting: Knock it off immediately.

Sheppard

Actually, he said that part more nicely, too, proposing that we "pause and consider whether there might be more appealing, innovative approaches to building a timeless, dynamic residential urban core before it's too late."

My interpretation: No more blocky apartment buildings that create nearly flat, five-story walls along our pedestrian streets, obliterating sunny sidewalks. No more structures that ask people to live in shoe boxes with a bare minimum of windows and balconies. No more quick construction of lofts-that-aren't-really-lofts, set along anonymous corridors that dissuade neighborly interaction.

At least until we make a plan to encourage developers to do a little better. And we can, as a community, do better than to erase our own past by tearing down important buildings that tell the city's history, replacing them with nondescript structures that increase our housing stock but don't improve it.

Now's the time, as they say. This city is experiencing a building boom unparalleled in any era. The economy is strong and demand for housing will only rise because our population is expanding rapidly. We can afford to slow down and think for a minute.

Developers won't shape up unless we make it attractive to them. Architects won't lead the charge because they don't want to bite the hand that feeds them. They are a notoriously silent bunch.

That's what makes Sheppard's essay so interesting. He's taking a business risk. Though, he's not just any architect.

He's the official Colorado Architect of the Year, an honor recently bestowed upon him by the state chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

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Denver Architecture: Why you should email Jeff Sheppard