The 2025 HD Awards Project Winners

SUSTAINABLE
Populus, Denver

Nature touches every aspect of Populus, touted as the country’s first carbon positive hotel. Every night a guest spends at the property, for example, leads to the planting of a tree in partnership with the National Forest Foundation. Beyond these reforesting efforts, Populus collaborates with regenerative farms and ranches, composts 100 percent of its food waste, and runs on renewable electricity. Most notably, its carbon footprint is offset by eco-friendly construction and design practices. An insulated façade system and materials like low-carbon concrete are balanced with biophilic interiors that “embrace imperfection, creating details that play together for an overall sense of harmony,” says Heather Wildman, principal and design director of Wildman Chalmers Design. In the 265 guestrooms, carpets are spun from recyclable materials that biodegrade in landfills, and many headboards are spawned from locally fallen beetle-kill pine. Distressed wood slats on the lobby’s ceiling were repurposed from snow fencing in Wyoming and are joined by a striking tapestry assembled from Reishi, the mycelium-based alternative to leather.

Architecture Firm: Studio Gang, Chicago | Interior Design Firms: Wildman Chalmers Design, Pittsburgh, with Fowler Architecture and Design (interior architect of record), New York | Owner: Urban Villages | Operator: Aparium Hotel Group | Purchasing Firm: RW Purchasing