Denver's Roth Sheppard Architects is launching seven new law enforcement and municipal projects to be completed over the next 18 months.

Rendering courtesy of Roth Sheppard Architects

Museum and Learning Center for the Colorado State Patrol

The firm’s new projects include the city of Cherry Hills Village and South Metro Fire Rescue Authority’s Joint Public Safety Facility, the Arapahoe County Justice Center lobby expansion, a museum and learning center for the Colorado State Patrol, the Houston Police Department’s Fondren Station, a services building for the Erie Police Department, a public safety complex in Northern Chafee County and the town of Del Norte’s Municipal Complex Regional Incubator and Business Center, in association with Del Norte-based Helmstetler Architects & Associates.

Each of the projects is being designed to respond to its unique context in an environmentally sensitive way, said Jeffrey Sheppard, design principal at Roth Sheppard Architects. For example, the design of Fondren Station in Houston takes the state’s extreme heat and humidity into consideration through the use of deep overhangs, enhanced natural ventilation and an exterior sun control louver system.

In Colorado, rural projects on the Western Slope—like the Northern Chafee County Public Service Complex—are designed to respond to more severe diurnal temperature swings and extreme winter snow by incorporating sloping roofs, overhangs and thermal mass walls. Iconic building forms further reinforce the surrounding agrarian context by visually connecting the buildings to the land.

In contrast, metro-Denver and urban-based projects tend to be more dense and volumetric in response to a city's tighter sites and the close proximity of surrounding structures. Thus, window orientation, solar exposure and site circulation influence how building forms and massing are designed to impact surroundings.

“We are grateful to have been selected for so many important community projects during this challenging time for our profession,” Sheppard said.