DECEMBER 2014 \ BUILDING DIALOGUE \
95
WORDS:
Stephanie Darling
F
or the Denver architectural firm Semple Brown Design, the world – and much of its
work – is a stage.
The full-service design firm, founded in 1982 by architects Rusty Brown, AIA, and Sarah
Semple Brown, FAIA, has a distinguished track record in orchestrating award-winning
projects on behalf of public and private-sector clients.
However, it is Semple Brown’s signature work on a long list of Colorado performing
arts spaces that may best express the firm’s energy, expertise and passion. Since the early 1990s, it
has completed at least 25 performing arts projects, including re-imagining the Temple Hoyne
Buell Theatre; renovating the sparsely elegant Ellie Caulkins Opera House; and designing the
Parker Arts, Culture and Events Center, a 50,000-square-foot, multi-use facility linking the city’s
historic downtown and civic areas. One of the firm’s most recent projects, completed in August,
involved both renovation and new construction on the Colorado Ballet’s new home in the
Santa Fe Arts District.
Up next on the boards? Semple Brown and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra have un-
veiled an initial renovation plan for the symphony’s traditional home, Boettcher Hall. It’s
likely that vision for a “Better Boettcher” will be on the table for discussion as Denver’s public-
and private-sector arts leaders consider possible changes to the venue.
It doesn’t take a leap in logic to understandwhy architects and performance artists might
be so
sympatico.
After all, both create and appreciate aesthetics. However, it was Semple
Brown’s specific expertise in creating new visual and functional life within existing build-
ings that led to its first performing arts design project.
“We’ve always had a strong sense of interest in significant civic structures – buildings
that help define their communities and give them a sense of identity and place. Per-
forming arts spaces often fulfill that role,” Rusty Brown explained.
“The Buell Theatre, within an existing space, was our first arts project,” he added. “We
quickly got involved in more specialized issues within the performance arts design
world. Once we began to accumulate that experience, we sought similar work in the
region.”
The firm’s reputation in this niche sector soared, buoyed by a design team whose
professional strengths parallel the creative and pragmatic skill sets that any success-
ful performance troupe needs: vision, inspiration, creativity, leadership, tenacity.
Chris Wineman and Bryan Schmidt, AIA, LEED, AP, BD+C, are Semple Brown prin-
cipals who create both rain and rationale for the firm’s performance arts jobs. Wine-
man acts as the team’s cultural “translator” and “surrogate client” – a former theater
executive and professional actor with the formal education, experience and vision
to tirelessly advocate for themany and highly specialized concerns of performing
arts clients.
Architect Schmidt has overseen some of the firm’s most notable projects. The
seamless melding of catwalks, rigging, rich acoustics and perfectly sited stages
enthralls him. He is the problem solver, the tenacious pursuer of “inspired solu-
tions,” rather than mere compromises.
Semple Brown Design:
Staging Inspiration
for the Arts
