Meow Wolf Denver

This 95,000 square foot structure is home to one of the most ambitious immersive artexperiences ever created in the United States.

The 5-story building includes 4 floors of interactive exhibits, a café, a retail space, and a 450-person live performance venue. By utilizing a site that might have been passed over by many developers, the client created a memorable, new opportunity to deliver this unique arts center in the center of the growing City of Denver. Surrounded by a triad of viaducts, the design team made careful structural and material choices in order to manage the life safety of building visitors and the long-term durability of the building’s shell.

At first glance, across the city’s skyline, the building’s unique site, and neon-lit white façade, immediately encourage the curiosity of visitors, engrossing them in a world quite separate from the one they already know to be Denver. Inside, actors in costume wander the space and point at hidden clues; telephones connect you to mysterious live messages if you dial the right number; unexpected tunnels create gateways throughout; and projections react and change in response to motion.

From the start, the project was – in many ways - an improbable undertaking, and its successful completion is validation of the team’s mission to make the work of artists tangible in the context of today’s social experience. Unlike a traditional museum that might lean on outward articulation to communicate the mission of the institution, this project required an understated exterior that was the perfect balance of intrigue and simplicity. The architectural team ultimately worked with more than 300 creatives, including 100+ local collaborating artists, to create this alternate world and the structure to support their experiential vision. Thanks to the determination of so many -from government regulators to developers to designers and artists – the team helped realize this challenging urban concept through four years of complex problem solving.