Call me a workplace enviromentalist.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff
• Position: Rundles Wrap-up

A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO MY WIFE GOT CALLED FOR JURY DUTY, was selected for a trial and, well, she did her duty.

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It was quite an experience for her, and while I expected that she would learn a lot about the justice system--she did--the most interesting thing about her time turned out to be the building where she learned it: The City and County Building of Denver.

Afterward, she talked a lot about how the building was regal, inside and out, and just being in it elevated her sense of the important work the court, and her jury, was doing there. The setting alone raised her level of responsibility, and she is very responsible to begin with.

I went down there one day during her jury service for lunch, and I got the chance to see yet another example of architecture lending itself to a higher purpose.

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Just a block or so from the court house is the new Frederic C. Hamilton wing of the Denver Art Museum, designed by the renowned architect Daniel Libeskind.

With all the hoopla surrounding the addition's opening in October, I was concerned that it was more about Libeskind than the art, but I have changed my mind. It is a building that speaks to art on the highest level, so even if the museum's art collection doesn't now match its surroundings, it soon will. The bar has clearly been raised.

That's what we should be interested in when it comes to our built environment, raising the bar for the quality of the activity it is meant for.

Several of my children, for instance, went to East High School, and there is an example of an edifice worthy of the lofty goals of education. Too bad they didn't do that with all schools; one of the middle schools my children attended looked very much like a cell block, as if what went on in the inside was the making of license plates.

The look and feel of a place should, as I said, elevate the experience expected in that place. I think about this a lot when I visit restaurants. Too often the emphasis is on the chef and the food, when the feel of the environment just doesn't inspire me to spend money there another time no matter what the meal was like.

Then there's all the new houses being built. One new entrant in my neighborhood looks amazingly like a medical-office building, and I always wonder if they have decorated it with eye charts and back-lit X-ray viewers.

A house should look like a home, a place that enhances the value of family life.

I also can't help thinking...