3 Colorado Institutions Complete a Science Building Once Famed as a Hole in the Ground

A year and a half ago, the three Colorado colleges that share the Auraria Higher Education Center had a big hole in the ground and nothing to put in it, because state officials had pulled $37.5-million out of the financing for a planned $120-million science building.

But after the hole got a lot of publicity—none of it good—the state came through with money from mineral leases, and construction proceeded. Now the building (left; Auraria Higher Education Center image) is nearly finished, and The Denver Post gives it a great review, calling it “a big, brick-and-glass block that functions well as a versatile set of classrooms, but also offers visual thrills for motorists who speed by.”

The new structure is actually a four-story, 197,000-square-foot addition to the existing science building on the campus, which is shared by the Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State College of Denver, and the University of Colorado at Denver. The architects, from the firm Anderson Mason Dale, gave it big walls of glass and an interior that features a different bold color on each floor. The glass also makes the building’s infrastructure visible.

As the Post points out, the building is located alongside a thoroughfare used by nearly 60,000 vehicles a day. Creating visual interest was a good public-relations move—it makes the building, as the newspaper says, “a suitable ambassador for the academic programs that will take place when it opens in January.” The structure houses labs, classrooms, offices, lounges, a greenhouse, a cadaver room, and a suite for nursing mothers among the students. As an additional bonus, the building is designed to earn gold-level certification in the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program.