Project: Wapiti Valley Residence
Architects: studioryker
Location: Wapiti Valley, Wyoming, USA
Photographs by: studioryker
Wapiti Valley Residence by studioryker
Wyoming’s rugged landscape has always been known to attract adventurers. But most of them just visit the place as tourists. Some, however, intend to stay there, so they hire studioryker to design and build a house for them.
This is the story of the Wapiti Valley Residence that is located in the Wapiti Valley of Wyoming, USA.
The owners of the house tasked the architects to create a vacation house that is aggressive and interesting but also respectful of its surroundings at the same time.
After some extensive research, they decided to use rammed earth to make the residence feel at home with the surroundings.
From the architects: “The wapiti valley landscape is vast, the weather is dramatic, and the changing light and seasons provide for an endless transformation of phenomena. The prominent stone figure of the China Wall resides over the land breaking up an otherwise near constant pitch downward to the river below.
The landscape in which the Wapiti Residence is situated is exposed and revealing. The series of structures that comprise house, gym and guest house were developed to blend into the landscape, but not disappear. Slipped between the seasonal drainages, native grass, and sage brush, the building forms are strong on the land like the China Wall, itself.
Without apology, the simplified architectonic forms expressed through walls of rammed earth, steel, and teak screen, sheltered by a butterfly canopy, are at times the drama of the valley, and at others a shadowy figure in the land.”
