Over the years Alan Golin Gass, FAIA, has demonstrated that a busy professional can serve both private clients and the public in architecture and urban design. He is a founder of AIA/Denver Urban Design Committee. Throughout his time in practice, and to the present day, Alan continues to provide pro-bono services as a member of public committees and boards, urban design and transportation committees, Denver, Colorado West, and New York City Chapters of the American Institute of Architects, the City and County of Denver, the City Club of Denver, and Temple Emanuel. He continues as president of the Babi Yar Park Foundation, that originated, and continues to advocate for the City of Denver’s 27-acre Holocaust memorial.

Alan has participated in juries, given lectures, tours and presentations on architecture, urban design, and solar energy to such diverse groups as consulting engineers and the vice-governor of China’s Hunan Province, as well as students and faculty at the University of Colorado, University of Denver and University of Chicago. He has given several courses in architecture and urban design in the University of Denver’s VIVA! (now OLLI) program. In addition, he has given “Expert Tours” of Downtown Denver in the Doors Open Denver program, OLLI, and to other interested groups.

Gass’s last project, before retiring, was an addition to a Starwood/Aspen house that he designed in 1969. Returning to Denver from Aspen, Alan assisted Cab Childress, FAIA, with design of the Daniel Ritchie Center at the University of Denver, and. later, designed and managed the addition to and renovation of Dennison Elementary School for Jefferson County Schools, with the assistance of The Davis Partnership.
Upon his return to Colorado in 1991, he was senior associate and project manager in the Aspen office of Harry Teague, AIA, for the Joan & Irving Harris Concert Hall for the Aspen MusicFestival, and the Charles & Dee Wyley Painting Building at Anderson Ranch Arts Center.
As senior associate with Lee Harris Pomeroy Associates of New York City, during the 1980’s, Alan managed additions to and preservation of six New York City landmark designated buildings, including: Swiss Bank Corporation’s 38-story addition to the Landmark Saks Fifth Avenue Store, 
historic Trinity Church’s bridge, a roof for Grand Central Terminal, renovations to the Plaza Hotel public spaces, Compton/Goethals School for Art and Dance at City College of New York, and the relocation of the offices of the firm to the landmark cast-iron building at 462 Broadway.
Alan designed Chatfield High School, in Jefferson County and was Anderson Architects partner in charge of the landmark Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility renovation, the Yale and Jewell Schools in Aurora, CO, and renovation and three additions to Evergreen Junior High. A member of the design team for the Solar Energy Research Institute, (now NREL), he was project manager for the Field Test Laboratory, its first built facility.
Gass designed the Sentry Insurance Denver office building (now the office of Fentress Architects), and the Operations & Maintenance Facility for the Western Area Power Administration in Boulder City, Nevada. He was project architect for the 1975 Front Range Community College, in its time, the largest solar heated occupied facility in the world.
As principal at James H. Johnson, FAIA, Alan designed an addition to the Englewood, CO, Federal Correctional Institution, and residences in Aspen, Lakewood, and Cherry Hills, CO, as well as the Condominios Vida del Mar, in Manzanillo, Mexico.
CO-AUTHOR: “Integrated Transportation and Urban Design Study” (ITUDS) for the Denver Region sponsored by DRCOG, City of Denver, and U.S. Department of Transportation, with A. G. Melcher, 1969. ITUDS predated Blue Print Denver and the DRCOG 2020 plan.
AIA/DENVER’s representative, on the Regional Transportation District (RTD) Formation Task Force. of the Denver Chamber of Commerce to lobby for the state law that forming the RTD in 1970.
CO-AUTHOR, with Albert G. Melcher: “ANALYSIS of the Interim Report of the DMATS Technical Steering Committee,” Citizens Advisory Committee of the Denver Metropolitan Area Transportation Study (DMATS). The 1967 ANALYSIS set the stage for rebirth of transit in Denver, as RTD CHAIR, Colorado AIA Task Force, Urban Design consultant for the 1963 Downtown Denver Master Plan Committee‘s Downtown Development Guide, including a Sixteenth Street Mall.
As partner of Gass-Gay Architects, Alan designed the 16th St. World Savings Building, a Sorority House at the University of Denver, seven schools in South Dakota, and the Court House and Presbyterian Church, in Sturgis, SD, a residence in Cherry Hills, and his residence in Denver.
On his return to Denver in 1958, Alan assisted J. S. Sudler, FAIA, and R. S. Davis, AIA, in the design of the Federal Court House and Office Building, and designed Mr. & Mrs. Thomas B. Knowles’s Polo Grounds Residence for the Sudler Office.
Early in his career, Alan worked in the office of I. M. Pei, FAIA, gaining experience in the design of three major contemporary urban complexes: the Mile High Center, Court House Square / Zeckendorf Plaza in Denver, and Kips Bay Plaza Apartments development in New York City.
He has a Master in Architecture, MArch, from Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Bachelor of Arts,, cum laude, from Harvard College. Alan is a fourth generation Denverite, and a graduate of East Denver High School.