Recently our west coast design team, led by Architect David Shirley AIA, NCARB, CPHB, were approached by the owner of a very remote ranch property located in the Alvord Desert of southwest Oregon to design a functional horse barn for him and his wife, who is an avid horse lover.
“The owner and his wife had approached a handful of other well-known architects in the region prior to reaching out to New Energy Works but felt that their design needs were not fully understood, as well as there being a general lack of experience building with heavy timber, which to them set our team apart,” David explained. “Once the design process started, our team worked closely with the owners on the look and feel of the barn which will be part of an active working ranch once it is completed.”
Taking all the early collaborative design conversations with the owners to heart, David and the team developed three early design options for the ranches remote build site. The first was a very straightforward utilitarian timber design, the second a classic lyrical New Energy Works design, and the third a reverent cathedral-style design, modeled loosely after rib vault cathedral ceilings commonly found throughout Europe.
“To our surprise, when the clients came into our office to review these three very different options, they enthusiastically selected the cathedral option saying; “You son of a gun! You know darn well which one I am going to pick!”, David expounded. “After that meeting the clients really trusted us to fully design the rest of the space and have our timber frame shop start working on fabricating the timbers and assemblies to raise the frame on their beautiful ranch property.”
“The horse stalls were collaboratively designed with the owners, who are avid horse enthusiasts, to meet their functional needs,” David explained. “We also designed some custom fabricated light fixtures, the arched custom main double doors, and also included some design elements for the future use of the barn, which can be partially converted to include a year-round living space for the owners with a bathroom, kitchen, and bedroom space complete with wood burning fireplace.”
“Because the site for this barn is a remote ranch in the Alvord Desert, which is actually a (mostly) dry lakebed that stretches for miles, we had to be really thoughtful about the design choices we made as they transitioned into physical construction for this large and complex barn,” David continued. “Concrete was an early construction challenge, as the ranch is easily 100 miles from anything resembling civilization, making it difficult to transport the large volumes of concrete that would typically be used in the foundation of a barn of this scale.”
“Our solution was to incorporate a series of concrete piers that would support the frames posts, requiring minimal amounts of concrete, and then pair that with a wood floor system on grade with gravel, which was possible because of the very dry site-specific conditions in the desert,” David continued. “We looked to many other barns in the area, some of which were well over 100 years old, as precedent and inspiration to solve some of these challenges, putting a lot of time and effort into doing our due diligence to make sure this new barn would also last for generations to come.”
David and the team also put extensive consideration to how the barn sits on the landscape, taking full advantage of the surrounding mountain views with exterior porches, designed with people in mind.
“Our design also includes that big old rock’in porch, as my grandmother would say, down the one side of the barn,” David mused. “That was really all about allowing groups of people to enjoy the ranch and take in the unique natural atmosphere of the Alvord Desert, as the owners plan to have events and gatherings at the barn in the future.”
Once the design and fabrication process was completed the project was largely handed off to our timber frame team who spent two weeks on site in the Alvord Desert raising the frame in 40 mile an hour winds, with intermittent blazing hot sun some days, and snowstorms on others.
“The owners really built up a level of trust with us, and we had a lot of fun doing something fun and creative with this horse barn,” David concluded. “That strong foundation of communication, collaboration, and trust is important on any project, but for legacy structures like the Wild Horse Ranch, it is fundamental to the success of the design. It is such an honor when clients place that kind of trust in us, and the results really show that.”
Read more about the raising of the Wild Horse Ranch: Snow in the Desert: A Wild West Coast Raising | New Energy Works
