Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

Designed to enhance the experience of reaching the top, GWWO Architect, RTA Architects, and DHM Design’s Pikes Peak Summit Visitor Center is a minimal low-rise structure that looks like it is carved within the mountain.

GWWO Architects have used forms and materials, with stone inspired by Pikes Peak granite, to evoke the crags and rock formations found above the tree line.

The project has been awarded with a 2024 American Architecture Award from the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

Seen from below, the building appears as a building of the mountain rather than one on the mountain, yet as visitors arrive at the summit it emerges into view as a clear destination.

Entering the building from the peak, visitors are taken aback by the perfectly framed view of Mount Rosa, the summit that Zebulon Pike climbed on his 1806 expedition to survey the territory that had been recently acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase.

While the explorer never reached the higher summit that bears his name (in fact, he considered it unclimbable), reports of Pike’s journey first brought Colorado’s majestic landscapes into the broader American consciousness.

For those arriving by foot or the Broadmoor Pikes Peak Cog Railway—a part of Pikes Peak history—the journey continues through the visitor center to reach the peak.

The architecture of the pavilion highlights the relationship between the two landforms; the viewing angle from the top of the lobby steps to Mt. Rosa slopes down 3.5 degrees, with the same angle echoed by the roof’s upward slope.

Stairs to the main level appear to fold down out of the mountain, as visitors descend to the main floor to access exhibits, dining, a gift shop, and restrooms.

Warm, rustic colors and natural materials, such as locally sourced timber, further connect the interior to the landscape.

With its terraced design, the building itself serves as an ideal platform from which to survey the views.

It features two accessible roof decks: one poised above an outdoor dining terrace, the other an overhang that shelters the lower-level entrance.

Together with a third elevated viewing platform, the North Overlook, and a network of protected walkways, the new Visitor Center stages a series of opportunities to experience the drama of the landscape.

the team embraced the challenge to create a highly sustainable building in one of the most difficult settings imaginable.

The Visitor Center is designed to achieve at least LEED Silver certification, and also to meet the Living Building Challenge, an even more progressive environmental performance standard; it will be the first federal building, and the first in Colorado, to meet this goal.

Passive design strategies significantly reduce the building’s energy needs, starting with the building’s southern orientation on the site to take advantage of daylight and increased solar gain at altitude.

A highly insulated concrete shell and in-floor radiant heating, together with the thermal mass of the stone cladding, help to retain heat.

These strategies equip the building for an extreme climate, where winter temperatures can reach as low as negative 40 degrees.

Moreover, the building is designed to achieve net-zero energy, with future remote solar arrays that can supply the building’s operational energy needs.

Local building materials, free of toxic and Red List chemicals, further reinforce the commitment to healthy and sustainable building practices.

The visitor center is also designed to significantly reduce water use, a crucial consideration given its remote location.

Previously, freshwater was trucked up the mountain and wastewater trucked down every day to serve the facility.

The new building, with vacuum flush toilets and blackwater to greywater conversion, reduces these vehicle trips by more than half, by saving more than 350,000 gallons of water per year.

Project: Pikes Peak Summit Visitor Center
Architects: GWWO Architects
Design Team: Alan Reed, Amanda Moore, Patrick Fava, and Zach Grajewsk
Architect of Record: RTA Architects
Landscape Architects: DHM Design
MEP Engineer: BranchPattern
Client: Pikes Peak – America’s Mountain
Structural Engineer: HCDA Engineering
Photographers: Nick Lehoux