Missouri architecture firm Hufft has designed an expansive two-storey residence for a couple with a large private art collection in Kansas City, complete with a subterranean gallery.

The 10,650-square-foot (989-square-metre) Artery Residence provides a family home for clients who are "repeatedly named by ARTnews in the top 200 contemporary art collectors globally", according to Hufft.

"When an art collector and his wife asked us to design and build them a new home, we used their extensive collection as the genesis of the residence," the studio said.
The Missouri house is laid out around three triple-height atriums, referred to as its "arteries", which extend from the basement gallery to living spaces on the two floors above.
These feature large expanses of wall and spaces for displaying the impressive collection of paintings, photography and sculpture. Specific lighting and climate control are used for preservation purposes.

"Art installations are thoughtfully placed along these gallery-like spaces, accented by soft, indirect lighting, creating deliberate moments of pause and allowing art and residence to coalesce into a single experience," Hufft said.

The most dramatic of the "arteries" is a long thin space that extends perpendicular to the main bulk of the house.

It contains two straight flights of stairs ? both rising in the same direction ? which link the basement to the ground-floor living spaces, then this level ...