prototype 180[1] is an artwork by American conceptual artist Mary Ellen Carroll who lives and works in New York City and Houston. prototype 180 is "the centerpiece of Carroll's Innovation Territories, an initiative co-sponsored by the Rice University Building Institute.[2] prototype 180 is located at 6513 Sharpsview Drive, Houston.[3]Houston was self-selected itself as the site of the artwork because it lacks an official land-use policy.
The artwork "will make architecture performative."[4] It is literally a ground-shifting exercise, because it structurally involves the rotation, back to front, of a single-family, ranch-style house and its surrounding land in the development of Sharpstown, a suburb of Houston, Texas.[5]
Following the rotation, the structure will be retrofitted and rehabilitated to become an occupied structure that will be become an institute for the study of considered urbanism.[6] In planning for 10 years, prototype 180 is described as "reconsideration of monumentality that combines live performance, sculpture, architecture and technology."[7]