A Desert Mirage from Nevada: Shapeshifter House

 House of two collectors in the Nevada desert

Architects: Ogrydziak Prillinger Architects

 Luke Ogrydziak and Zoë Prillinger

 Photos  ©  Joe Fletcher

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A unique 548 square meter (5,900 square foot) Shapeshifter House three-level family home in arid northern Nevada overlooking the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the city of Reno in the distance. The location was chosen by its owners, two collectors and art dealers who specialize in contemporary art and works by artists of the American West. The owners wanted their interests to be reflected in the architecture of the house and its interiors. Ogrydziak Prillinger Architects: "They wanted a home that both reflected the modern era and clearly belonged Wild West".

Ogrydziak Prillinger Architects :

The building site is a fluid, extremely Mercury-like sandbox, constantly changing shape to suit the imagination of the observer, a space of ambiguity and uncertainty... We transformed the site into anticlines and synclines, dunes and cliffs, and gradually the shape of the house emerged along with the landscape.” As a result of the research, the shape of the house emerged, which should merge with the surrounding landscape. The sculptural earthen mounds surrounding the house “flow” into the roof. These shafts, along with thick walls, help reduce solar heat gain and protect against overheating. The grounds are planted with dozens of native wildflowers, shrubs and grasses that further integrate the home into the natural landscape.

Works by contemporary artists and sculptors, together with designer furnishings, are visually complemented by colorful local vegetation through the continuous glazing and create a stylish atmosphere of a fashionable art gallery. The location of the house in close proximity to the city of Reno, located on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the area known as Truckee Meadows and widely known as a major gambling center, will allow the owners not only to live comfortably in the Shapeshifter House, but also to successfully use it for running your business as an extraordinary art gallery.

Spatially, the house has many corners and terraces and viewing platforms. Entering at the courtyard level - behind the wine cellar and two-car garage - there is an open-plan living room that includes a dining room and kitchen. The upper two floors contain a bedroom, a bathroom and a private terrace. The office and gallery conventionally “complete” the house. Much of the residence features angular segmental ceilings, floor-to-ceiling glass sections, white walls, and areas of exposed concrete. Metal panels, arranged in large, irregularly shaped sections, fit together at different angles and slopes to form a building envelope made of flat edges. Every edge is common: no edge ends in the middle of another edge. Structural I-beams overhead, steel rail plates and polished concrete floors create a modern, industrial ambience.

Ogrydziak Prillinger Architects 

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