Chicago-based architecture and urban design firm Studio Gang, takes inspiration from Colorado?s native aspen trees to design the nation's first carbon positive hotel, Populus.

You’ve probably heard of carbon neutral constructions ? architectural projects promoted by designers, builders, and developers as a proactive countermeasure to the carbon emittance tied to new constructions and their lifelong impact upon a site. Such projects require a balancing act of calculations, costs, and choices made from start to completion. But what about a carbon positive building, specifically a hotel"
Scheduled for a 2024 opening in Denver, Colorado, Populus is set to become the first carbon positive hotel in the United States. The development purports to accomplish this feat by combining eco-progressive construction and thoughtfully chosen materials alongside collaborations with local agricultural and forest partners to sequester more carbon than the building emits throughout its lifecycle.
The towering perforated white hotel with a Flatiron Building wedge-styled footprint draws inspiration from the locale’s Aspen tree forests, with its unique windows imagined to echo the ?Aspen eyes? of the trees while also optimized to aid in the climate control of the building in response to Denver?s varied climate. Studio Gang describes the texture and rhythm applied across the hotel’s facade as a structural means to “optimize the hotel?s interior, with ‘lid...