The AIA Wyoming Twenty-Five Year Award recognizes a built structure that has most influenced design and lifestyle in the state of Wyoming.

Location: Kelly, WY

This project is one of the earliest and strongest examples of Dynia Architects work. Since the firm’s founding, its mission has been to create architecture of integrity and authenticity. The key principles are the clear expression of structure, transparency that connects interior space with nature, and an ordered discipline of space and form.

The structural system, a moment frame independent from the building envelope, allows for the unencumbered placement of large areas of operable glass on a site with views everywhere and no interior partitions interrupting the exterior walls. The structural frame, made of wood and concrete, is fully exposed throughout the space. The seven, 16-foot structural bays accommodate and organize the program with four bays accommodating living/dining, kitchen and family, and three private bays of individual offices and bathrooms leading to the primary bedroom, alternately accessed by a library/circulatory spine with sliding privacy panels at each structural bay.

The siting of the garage/guest house and the main house allow for an axial view of the peaks of the Grand Teton as you approach the house. One unceremoniously slips into the house laterally to be reconnected with the majestic view once inside.

The sectional form of this extruded house is shaped to allow light from the southeast through uninterrupted clerestory windows that wash the ceiling with early daylight. Continuous glass on this side of the house also warms the internal structural concrete slabs that provide transverse shear.

The external structure on the northwest side allows for continuous operable glass. The low-profile form of the house integrates into the landscape on this prominent butte 500 feet above the valley floor. Further blending into the landscape is achieved by the oxidized steel roof and siding — a durable choice in a severe climate where temperatures can vary greatly in a single day.

Most importantly, the significance of this house is the boldness of the design in an era when log and wooden structures dominated the built environment of a community steeped in nostalgia for the old West.

The power of the landscape called for heroic architecture. The first impression of this site, with its jagged mountain range landing hard on a flat valley, is what ultimately inspired the scheme. The building possesses muscularity combined with generous glass and an overall horizontality in response to impressive geology and the gravity of the built environment created with timber and unmilled lumber. This project combines a respect for the history of the place with the advances of modern technology.

But the most important testimony to the success of the design is that of the owners, who have lived and raised a family there for a quarter of a century. Previously residing in conventional houses, the architecture changed the way they lived. The combination of openness and intimacy, achieved by attention to spatial proportions, accommodated the chaos of a young family, both husband and wife and extended family during holidays.

The house succeeded in affecting both the owner’s and the community’s perception of architecture and has withstood the test of time.