Denver Design Festival Builds Five Mobile Installations From Wood and Ratchet Straps

Five temporary installations built from wood, ratchet straps, and metal joints will go on display at the inaugural Denver Community Design Festival, running September 24th to October 7th, 2026, at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Titled Common Ground, the festival is co-developed by Leyuan Li and the Denver Mayor's Office of Community Outreach.

The structures use a flexible assembly system designed for easy dismantling and reassembly. That decision drives the festival's core premise: the installations will not be scrapped after the event closes. Instead, each one will be relocated to the neighborhood of its community partner and continue to function as a space for public interaction and community activity.

Who built the installations?

Office for Roundtable led the design, with Leyuan Li and Danny Wills as lead designers. The organizing team included Elaine Minjy Limmer, Zach Kotel, and Meg Touborg. A student team from CU Denver — including Andrea Malta, Santiago Aguilera Cepeda, Camden Cramer, Esra Hima, Kevin Harris, and Andrew Kauffman — worked alongside practicing designers to realize the structures.

Each of the five installations responds to the needs and stories of a specific community-based organization:

• Colorado Nepalese Community — a contemporary interpretation of a Falcha
• Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition — a piece functioning as both display shelf and stage set
• Empower Media Exchange — a mobile bookstand
• Greater Denver CARES Mentoring Movement
• Lavender Hill Cultural District

The forms include a performance stage, a storytelling kiosk, and the mobile bookstand, arranged along a linear display framework across the festival site.

What happens after the festival ends?

During the two-week run, the structures will host community-led performances, discussions, and workshops. The organizers then intend to extend the festival's reach into Denver's neighborhoods by moving each installation to its partner organization's community, where the reusable construction system allows the pieces to adapt to different settings.

Through its combination of design-build installations, community partnerships, and reusable construction systems, the festival positions architecture as a tool for public exchange while bringing community-authored perspectives into Denver's built environment.

Photographers Mickkail Cain, Esra Hima, and The Unfound Door documented the project. If the relocation model works as planned, Denver gains five permanent-to-community public structures from a fourteen-day festival — a template other cities could watch closely.