Students' work shows how Denver has grown up

Two University of Colorado Denver urban and regional planning students have taken over a the kiosk on the 16th Street Mall at Welton Street to demonstrate how the city has evolved over time.

Ryan Sagar and Jake Sacks are using figure-ground maps to show how much Denver has changed between 1887 and 2012. The area they studied covers California to Tremont and 15th to 17th streets. A figure-ground map is a two-dimensional map of an urban space that shows the relationship between built and unbuilt space.

"In 1887, it was small wood-fram buildings on small lots," Sagar said. "Now it’s huge buildings on huge logs. The Pavilions take up two whole blocks. In general, it just got super-sized, and that’s what tends to happen to a city over time."

The Downtown Denver Partnership and the Business Improvement District made the eight retail kiosks on the Mall available to the University of Colorado Denver College of Architecture and Planning to showcase the diversity of students' work. The student designs will be on display, weather permitting, through the end of the month.

Vendors will return to the kiosks in June.

“This is an example of how we try to activate the Mall with non-traditional activation and partnerships that we are creating downtown,” says Jenny Starkey, Communications and Media Relations Manager for the DDP.

Contact Confluence Denver Development News Editor Margaret Jackson with tips and leads for future stories at margaret@confluence-denver.com.