Denver Art Installation Doubles as Skate Park and Stormwater Mitigation

A new art installation in Colorado is more than just sleek design. At first glance, the “Community Forms” project might just look like shaped concrete made to intrigue passersby. But it’s also been designed to be played with — and it has a key infrastructure job for its Denver neighborhood.

Artist and skateboarder Matt Barton merged public art, play space and stormwater mitigation at a 25-acre former Yellow Cab site near the Globeville neighborhood just north of downtown Denver. It’s an area known for flooding concerns adjacent to the region’s South Platte River. The site, now a work-live development called TAXI, has an asphalt parking lot that was turning into a lake when it rained hard. The stormwater mitigation was not working.

Read more at Next City.