“We got to think about this in terms of a presentation pendulum, the idea being that we start off with a lot of something we over exhausted and then eventually people recoil and there’s more preservation towards the end of it.”
Did you realize that any American can freely live on all but 30% of Utah’s land mass, but that over 99% of Rhode Island is entirely off limits to the public? With Denver real estate continuing to skyrocket, it’s hard to imagine that 4 out of every 10 American acres is owned by the American public, and that most of that land is freely accessible to any of us, at any time. Join us as we dissect the fascinating history of how the American West avoided becoming a quiltwork of private landholdings like its neighboring states to the East, and learn about eDEN (ecodesign DENver), a project by CU Denver’s College of Architecture and Design, to repurpose select, existing Denver streets into a city-wide network of green infrastructure and motorless transportation.
About the speaker
Jim Abraham is the co-creator of Baker Gardens, an experimental, publically accessible micropark based within the treelawns of his and his neighbors’ homes on 4th avenue. With the help of his wife Bridget, friends, neighbors and local volunteers, Jim has transformed the underutilized tree lawns that run parallel to their properties into a small public piazza.
Equipped with a meandering path, patio with seating, organic garden, pollinating plants, and 17’ street mural, Baker Gardens encourages pedestrians along 4th Avenue to enjoy a more scenic and sustainable path, and has become a well used space for their corner of Baker neighborhood.
Through this neighborhood project, Jim has collaborated closely with the faculty and students of CU Denver’s College of Architecture and Planning on eDEN (ecodesign DENver), a proposed network of public spaces where select roads in each of the city’s neighborhoods are repurposed and returned to the people. A vision of Dean Nan Ellin, eDen would result in a connected transportation network of green infrastructure, punctuated by outdoor dining, public art and productive landscapes.
When not working on the repurposing of urban infrastructure, Jim, and his wife Bridget own and operate Postcard Foods, a from-scratch frozen prepared meal business serving greater Denver. Jim is also an artist, hand-sculpting topographic maps from steel. He enjoys whatever free time is left over with his family, largely spent retrieving pacifiers from underneath furniture for his newborn daughter.
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CU Denver - College of Architecture and Planning
1250 14th Street, 2nd floor
Denver, Colorado United States 80202
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