‘A Vertical Landscape for Its Residents’

We learned about the 16-story building at 40th and Blake Streets, along the eastern edge of Denver's River North District (RiNo), in late 2021, when renderings of the then-under-construction One River North were released to the public. The canyon-like space functions as a “trail-like walkway” for the building's 187 residential units across four floors, and as private terraces for a smaller number of units across six floors. The canyon elevation faces northwest, onto Blake Street and a just beyond it a swath of railroad tracks, the latter of which guarantees that views of this attention-getting facade remain visible for a long time.

In a statement from MAD upon the building's completion, Ma Yansong rhapsodizes about “three-dimensional urban spaces where high-rise office buildings and high-rise hotels introduce sky gardens, canyons, and waterfalls. In this vision, the future city is not just made of concrete boxes anymore; it becomes a place that integrates and connects people with nature.” Such a vision is hardly new in places like Singapore, where buildings with elevated gardens frequently garner awards, but in the United States it is extremely rare. Yet Yansong has managed to create such urban spaces in two of his first three buildings in the US, the other being Gardenhouse in Los Angeles, with its vertical green facades and elevated courtyard.

Comparisons between the renderings from 2021 and recent photography of the finished building show not only similar views but a remarkable execution of MAD's design, particularly in the canyon-like outdoor spaces that cut across the contrasting curtain wall from the 6th floor to the pool 16 stories above the street. Columns for the cast-in-place-concrete structure pierce the elevated urban space, as seen in the photos here, but it's the FRC (fiber-reinforced stucco) employed for the undulating surfaces that makes the landscaped space look particularly stunning and true to the renderings.

Developed by The Max Collaborative with Uplands Real Estate Partners and Wynne Yasmer Real Estate, One River North was designed by Ma Yanson/MAD Architects, with Denver's Davis Partnership Architects working as executive architect and Saunders Construction as general contractor.