Shears Adkins Rockmore Architects and Lake|Flato worked together to make The Burwell Center for Career Achievement a thoughtful space for University of Denver students in Denver, Colorado.

Designed to facilitate connections within the DU community, the focus of the new 23,000 square foot Burwell Center for Career Achievement Center will be on student career development, employer engagement, and alumni activities. The Burwell Center is situated at a key nexus between the traditional campus core and the growing urban edge, helping draw people in to learn how to best engage with the university’s community and beyond.

The Burwell Center includes classrooms, lecture and events spaces, break-out and meeting rooms, and offices for DU’s Career Services and Advancement. Indoor-outdoor spaces encourage flow into and through the building, promoting chance encounters and serendipitous collaborations. Career advising, interviews, and alumni events are hosted throughout the building, engaging the broader DU campus and the Burwell Center’s program.

The Burwell Center combines traditional DU materials like brick, limestone, sandstone, slate, and copper with a photovoltaic roof structure and mass timber structural system that put the school’s and the building’s commitment to sustainability and authenticity on display. Thanks to the progressive DU approach, it will be one of the first all-mass timber projects in Colorado and is aspiring to be LEED v4 Platinum-certified.

Opened in the fall of 2020, the design was led by Lake | Flato Architects, with SAR+ providing local design, coordination, and construction support. Through rigorous and joyful collaboration with DU’s Advancement, Career Services, Facilities and Architecture departments, the Burwell Center for Career Achievement combines communities, departments, and spaces that form the full continuum and foster the full potential of the DU experience.

Design: Shears Adkins Rockmore Architects and Lake|Flato
Contractor: PCL
Photography: Frank Ooms