University of Denver COMMUNITY COMMONS
Community Commons & Dimond Family Residential Village
LOCATION Denver, Colorado, USA
PROGRAM Student Community Center and Housing
SIZE 138,000 gsf new construction
SUSTAINABILITY LEED Silver Certified
COMPLETION 2020
PROJECT TEAM
Design Architect, Community Commons: Moore Ruble Yudell
Overall Architect of Record/Design Architect, Residential Village: Anderson Mason Dale Architects
Sustainability: France Sustainable Solutions
Structural/Civil: Martin/Martin Consulting Engineers
Mechanical/Electrical/Plumbing: Cator, Ruma & Associates
Landscape Architect: Didier Design Studio
Acoustics/AV: K2 Audio
Food Service: Laschober + Sovich
Energy Modeling: Energetics Consulting Engineers
SELECTED AWARDS
USGBC Colorado Local Market Leadership Quality of Life Award 2024
Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Award 2023
North American Copper in Architecture (NACIA) Award2023
Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Award, Honorable Mention 2022
Metropolis Planet Positive Awards, Honorable Mention 2022
ENR Mountain State Best Higher Education Award 2021
A First-Year Hub of Campus Interaction
The University of Denver’s (DU) new Community Commons welcomes a diverse community of students, faculty, staff and visitors to the center of campus. The project delivers a primary goal of the University’s strategic plan—consolidating student services from across campus and creating an inspiring hub of dining, socialization, and studying through spaces that promote self and community exploration.
Centered at a natural campus crossroads, and adjacent to the new first-year residence hall, the Community Common’s fluid-dynamic shaping encourages organic interactions, and strengthens campus’ identity as an inspired, humancentric learning institution that is reshaping the campus.
The building conveys a message of openness and invitation through transparency that invites participation—places where you can see yourself and where you can express yourself. The inviting space serves as the heart of campus, offering a variety of spaces for both students and faculty to dine, meet, socialize, and study. Its transparent design invites students from the neighboring residence hall to dine and socialize, celebrates cultural diversity through varied food options, and unites student-focused services under one roof.
Sustainability and wellness play an integral role in the design with input from the DU community. The Commons was designed with student well-being in mind, integrating abundant natural light, social stairs, and outdoor areas, including the largest green roof on campus.
PROJECT APPROACH: A SENSE OF BELONGING THAT ACCELERATES SUCCESS
Our built environments have the potential to contribute to a more equitable society in the ways we engage each other and in the kinds of spaces we create. Collaborative design teams, a master planning team, and the campus community were involved in a highly participatory design process that revealed evolving priorities of the University’s community and supported DU's strategic goals: actively strengthen community, prioritize access, and integrate sustainability and well-being.
That outcome of this deeply collaborative approach is a transformative heart of campus for an equitable and interconnected community where a sense of belonging accelerates success. The Community Commons creates multiple scales of connectivity along tiered paths that evoke the canyons of Colorado’s regional landscapes and, in concert with the new, adjacent Dimond Family Residential Village, transforms the historic campus core into a center of student life and activity. Through its planning and massing, the project strengthens campus identity within its Denver context, creating a gateway along Evans Avenue and its nearby light rail station. The building also strengthens connections with its community by blurring boundaries between shared and individual space and indoor and outdoor space.
Canyon Flows are compressed, concentrated, animated. Flows carve and shape architecture.
Community Commons Residence Towers
Dimond Family Residential Village Burwell Center for Career Achievement Light Rail Station N
PROJECT GOAL: A PLACE THAT PROMOTES STUDENT WELL-BEING & SUCCESS
Psychologists identify the need to belong as a primary need, secondary only to the most basic survival needs of food and shelter. A recent national study found that 64% of college students struggle with feelings of loneliness and isolation. These feelings can contribute to drop-out rates which are especially high for first-generation students, one-quarter of whom leave college after their first year. A primary goal of the Community Commons is to improve students’ quality of life and help them form connections. The Community Commons’ immersive and vibrant setting offers the kinds of experiences and centralized supportive resources that students need. It creates places where everyone can see themselves and feel they belong—an inclusive and welcoming environment that promotes cultural awareness and empathy as part of daily university life.
The project nurtures a sense of belonging to improve quality of life and support the emotional well-being of students. Psychologists identify the need to belong as primary, and the Commons is designed to engender social connections at multiple levels. The plan’s fluid-dynamic shaping encourages serendipitous interactions and lasting connection through the concept of “FLOW”—a guiding design principle—to encourage the flow of people, ideas, and resources.
Generous openings interconnect multi-levels that bring daylight to interior spaces. At the rooftop an unexpected pavilion provides an intimate house-like scale of multi-use space and offers another distinctly different experience of community. In this sense, the architecture “walks the walk” of diversity with its own inclusive mosaic of spatial experience.
Health and wellness strategies include:
• Activated bridges and social stairs
• Sustainable dining operations with healthy global dining options
• Outdoor terraces at every level provide easy access to fresh, outdoor air
• Active green roofs with 360-degree views connects users directly to nature
• Operable windows, low-emitting materials, displacement air, and individual controls improve indoor air quality, comfort and wellbeing.
• Daylighting has been shown to positively influence inhabitants’ circadian rhythms and mental health:
• Central, canyon-like space with north-facing clerestory spans the entire building length providing equitable access to daylight.
• Glass interior walls lining the spine allow glarefree daylight to permeate deep into the building’s interior and leverage Denver’s 300 annual days of sunshine.
• Exterior sunshades and vertical fins improve comfort by reducing solar heat gain and glare.
Designed as a 200-year building for a long-standing educational institution, withstanding change with a flexible armature became one of the Community Commons’ key implementation missions.
A Commons for the Common Good
With its abundance of natural light, multi-level spaces, green architecture and co-location of all campus student services, the Community Commons promotes learning by engaging with students in advancing scholarly inquiry, cultivating critical and creative thought, and generating knowledge. The Community Commons conveys a message of openness and invitation where all perspectives and experiences can converge. Inclusive and welcoming environments that promote critical thinking, cultural awareness, selfknowledge, and empathy as part of daily life propel local and global communities connected to the University of Denver to contribute to a sustainable common good.
Food Unites All People
Moving away from the decentralized dining model used throughout campus, food is used strategically to unite the entire community. The Commons has become the central campus dining room with gathering spaces open 24/7 to the DU Community. Sustainable dining operations and healthy dining options reflect the diversity of a global community and reinforce a sense of belonging that is key to keeping students on campus and supporting their success.
• Main Level: Global Kitchen where students can prepare and share cuisines from around the world is prominently located
• Level 2: a Food Hall features nine micro-restaurants that serve rotating multicultural food options
• Roof Level: home to a small, multiuse event space with complete culinary kitchen that opens onto a rooftop terrace with stunning views of the mountains and campus and is surrounded by a green roof—the largest on DU’s campus.
Multi-Use Common
Forum 3. Student Administration
4. Student Gallery
5. World Cultures Cluster Community
6. Cluster
7. Faculty Lounge 8. Centralized Campus Dining
The Community Commons’ development was also about co-locating 15 programs previously dispersed across campus, providing a place of unity and community integration at the campus’ heart. These programs are all made highly visible in the building’s core interior canyon, ensuring that students have access to the resources needed to succeed.
Support, Belonging, and Community—All Under One Roof
The Community Commons’ planning revitalizes the campus core and activates student life in a big way. The project interconnects a variety of indoor and outdoor spaces for students, faculty, staff and visitors to dine, meet, socialize, study, and build connections. All student services, previously dispersed across campus, are co-located to proactively encourage dialogue and provide students with the skills and resources they need to navigate campus life on their own terms. They include the Office of DEI and Cultural, English Language, Veterans, Recovery, Community/Sustainability, Health Services, International Studies, and Career Centers.
Innovation That Meets the Bottom Line
To achieve alignment with project budget, the team utilized several innovative strategies including:
• Use of an innovative horizontal fire curtain system to maximize openness and interconnect multi-levels without triggering costs of atrium construction
• Open loft-like spaces that expose the primary structural system on floors and ceilings to support future flexibility and adaptability
• Use of low maintenance and durable copper and brick for exterior cladding
• Incorporation of exterior sunshades and vertical fins to reduce heat loads and improve comfort via reducing solar heat gain and glare instead of leaning on mechanical systems for cooling.
9. Undergraduate Lounge 10. Lounge 11. Recovery Lounge
12. Veterans Services
13. Student Activities
14. Academic Services
15. Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
16. Garden Rooftop
17. Rooftop Terrace
A SUSTAINABLE LABORATORY FOR LIVING AND LEARNING
The Community Commons is designed to serve as an energy-conservation learning tool for the DU community. It is built to be a 200-year building that allows for future flexibility using a concreate frame that creates highly flexible spaces to support a variety of uses from activelearning classes to community gatherings, to practice and performance spaces and offer a resilient environment that can adapt as the University’s needs evolve.
By reutilizing an existing campus site and repurposing an existing asphalt parking lot, the Community Commons transforms the heart of the campus into a place that is inclusive of a fully diverse University population, supports the ecological health of the campus, and recognizes that water is precious in semi-arid Colorado climate. A variety of flexible outdoor spaces infiltrates stormwater run-off while enhancing social connection and interactions for the entire DU community. Outdoor terraces at every level provide opportunities for interaction for students and water infiltration and retention strategies. The rooftop pavilion offers 360-degree views to the campus, downtown Denver, and to the mountains and it is set on the largest green roof on campus.
Additional strategies include:
• Reuse of campus site and removal of existing impervious asphalt parking lot
• A stormwater management system that collects and treats 100% of stormwater before release into regional waterways
• Green roofs and native planted retention areas slow and infiltrate storm water and reduce heat island effect
• Biodiverse planting palettes with shade trees, droughtresistant planting, permeable walking surfaces creates habitat for flora, fauna, and beneficial insects and replaces existing turf grass
• Use of highly durable materials including copper, brick and exposed concrete as the primary exterior and interior materials
• Use of local materials and materials with recycled content including exposed concrete, copper and wood that require low or no maintenance
• 99% of wood (by cost) is FSC Certified
• Low emitting materials for occupant comfort and wellbeing
• Specifications prioritize materials with Environmental Product Declarations. Over 40 products with this information were submitted for review, allowing the project team to select materials with optimized environmental, economic and social life cycle benefits.
KEY SUSTAINABLE DESIGN FEATURES
Location and Transportation
1 Proximity to rapid transit encourages use of Public Transportation
1. Proximity to rapid transit encourages use of public transportation
2. Reuse of campus site and removal of existing impervious asphalt parking
2 Reuse of campus site and removal of existing impervious asphalt parking Location & Transportation
Sustainable Sites
Sustainable Sites
3 Redevelopment of occupied site preserves adjacent open spaces
3. Redevelopment of occupied site preserves adjacent open spaces
4. Rain gardens and on-site bioretention ponds provide water quality treatment through filtration and then send water downstream per Colorado state water laws
4 Rain Gardens retain storm water on site and support native vegetation
5 Intensive garden roofs provide habitat for local wildlife
5. Intensive garden roofs provide habitat for local wildlife
Water Efficiency
6 Low flow plumbing fixtures and kitchen equipment for reduction in water usage
6. Low flow plumbing fixtures and kitchen equipment for reduction in water usage
Energy and Atmosphere
Energy & Atmosphere
7. Displacement Ventilation contributes to 49% reduction in energy use over ASHRAE baseline
7 Displacement Ventilation contributes to 49% Reduction in Energy Use over ASHRAE Baseline
8 Clerestory glazing optimizes daylight penetration
9 Energy recovery at each level
8. Clerestory glazing optimizes daylight penetration
9. nergy recovery at each level
10 Refrigerant management reduces carbon emissions
11 Portion of electricity delivered from photovoltaics
10. Refrigerant management reduces carbon emissions
11. Portion of electricity delivered from photovoltaics
Materials & Resources
Materials & Resources
12 99% of wood (by cost) is FSC Certified
13 Anti-microbial locally sourced exterior copper cladding
12. 99% of wood (by cost) is FSC Certified
13. Anti-microbial locally sourced exterior copper cladding
Indoor Air Quality
Indoor Air Quality
14 Displacement air provides e cient cooling ventilation
14. Displacement air provides efficient cooling ventilation
15 Low-emitting materials for occupant well being
16 Individual control through operable windows and thermostats
15. Low-emitting materials for occupant well being
16. Individual control through operable windows and thermostats
Building Envelope
Building Envelope
17 Sunshades and vertical fins improve view while reducing solar heat gain & glare
17. Sunshades and vertical fins improve view while reducing solar heat gain & glare
18 Robust thermal envelope with low-e glazing reduces demand for mechanical conditioning
18. Robust thermal envelope with low-e glazing reduces demand for mechanical conditioning
19 High albedo pavers and garden roofs reduce heat island e ect
19. High albedo pavers and garden roofs reduce heat island effect
20. North-facing clerestory provides diffuse light for canyon spaces
20 North-facing clerestory provides di use light for canyon spaces
Health and Wellness
Health & Wellness
21 Centrally located bridges and stairs promotes increased activity and social connections
21. Centrally located bridges and stairs promotes increased activity and social connections
22 Clerestory and perimeter glazing deliver abundant daylight to interior spaces
22. Clerestory and perimeter glazing deliver abundant daylight to interior spaces
23 Healthy dining options with a focus on sustainable operations and healthy ingredients
23. Healthy dining options with a focus on sustainable operations and healthy ingredients
24 Outdoor terraces for occupants provide connection to nature
24. Outdoor terraces for occupants provide connection to nature
25. Outdoor dining seating provides flexibility during pandemic
25 Outdoor dining seating provides flexibility during pandemic
26 Copper Cladding provides anti-microbial surfaces reducing viral transmission.
26. Copper Cladding provides anti-microbial surfaces reducing viral transmission.
