Ruhl Walker Architects

We were encouraged to read last month that the non-profit, Architecture 2030 announced some rare good news from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) that shows that energy usage by commercial and residential buildings in the US has dropped so dramatically in the last 7 years that the EIA’s projections for building energy usage in the year 2030 are now almost 70% lower than their projections were in 2005.  While the reduction in energy consumption by buildings contributes dramatically to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, these lower energy usage projections also translate into an astonishing savings in energy costs, projected to be $3.66 trillion between 2012 and 2030 in the US alone. If we continue to incorporate the most ambitiously sustainable building technologies at our disposal, these savings could top $6 trillion, and energy consumption and CO2 emissions in 2030 could actually fall substantially below 2005 levels.

One reason for this dramatic improvement is that architects and our builder collaborators have aggressively integrated sustainable building technologies into our daily routines, and our clients have enthusiastically joined our efforts. How can you help build on this momentum? Hire architects who not only care, but have the knowledge to help you design and build sustainably.  We love helping our clients benefit from lower utility bills while they contribute to a better future for our planet.

To read the full Architecture 2030 report, click here.

Drawing, designing, and dreaming are all gratifying aspects of being an architect, but we also really love when the projects we’ve designed begin actual construction. That is after all the primary goal of what we do all day in the studio! We work with some fantastic general contractors, and working closely with them until the day our clients move in is an exciting, collaborative process. Check out the projects below, and we’ll keep posting updates in the coming weeks.

The renovation of this Boston rowhouse includes opening up the middle for a dramatic, three-story living space, with natural light eventually pouring down from a large skylight above.

A couple we met when we designed new faculty housing at St. Mark’s School in Southborough, MA, asked us to design a small addition to their two-room house in the Berkshires. The new space will provide additional living space as well as a bedroom and bathroom; the existing house with only an open sleeping loft, lacked the kind of privacy needed with older children. The flat roof of the addition is accessed from an exterior stair tower, and will eventually have a railing around it for small rooftop gatherings for star-gazing and enjoying views extending deep into Vermont.

A view of a steel stair above the front entrance of a new house in Lincoln. The stair treads and partial risers will be solid red oak, and the stair landing will have red oak flooring and red oak veneered plywood below.

Major earthwork is evident at this substantial renovation project in Chelmsford. Here you see the beginnings of an excavation that will become a landscaped garden and terrace cut into the ground in order to bring daylight into new lower level living spaces. Natural light is so critical! Only small parts of the existing house will remain untouched when the project is finished later this year.

We are really excited about several new projects in the early stages of design, including new houses, two new lofts, and a master plan for a small school in northern New Hampshire. We will share some more information about each of these projects in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, check out the images and information below.

One of several potential conceptual designs for a new house built on an enormous, shifting sand dune on the outer reaches of Cape Cod, this view shows the house on the water side. The main living space is elevated above the ground, under an asymmetrically curved roof, to enhance views and natural ventilation. The inland side of the same Cape dune house is more introspective, with smaller windows in a collage of overlapping and sliding curved planes and volumes. The main house is to the right and an art studio is to the left, connected by a deck / bridge. We are also in the very early stages of design for a new house designed for a wooded site on Martha’s Vineyard, for wonderful clients we have known for over 20 years. An early proposal for the Vineyard house illustrates our effort to design a house that appears to almost melt into the land, not unlike the stone farmers’ walls that snake through the woods. A conceptual site model for five small houses built into a hill on Cape Cod. In the upper right corner is the client’s existing glass and steel house; each new house is to have a green roof so that the view down from the main house is of a modern sculptural landscape, not just a collection of roofs. The conceptual site plan shows how the houses hug close to one setback line to allow for each house to have surprisingly large side yards that can be designed to open to the dramatic views as well as capture ocean breezes. This conceptual digital model shows material and formal ideas for the redesign of a penthouse at the W hotel condominiums in Boston. The unit will have a new steel and glass stair to a roof deck, and boasts 270 degree views stretching from the Harbor Islands to the Charles River and Cambridge beyond. The proposed new kitchen for the W unit. We’ve just started redesigning two lofts at the Channel Center in Boston, both units that we happen to have designed for previous owners several years ago. This photo shows an intermediate owner’s idea of appropriate loft décor — not exactly our cup of tea! — and a subsequent owner ripped out the polycarbonate and steel sliding doors and built full height plastered walls, crown mouldings, and a plastic raised panel door around the custom steel, fir, and acid etched glass shelving… The existing heavy timber beams and columns in the Channel Center have steel column caps that are open in the middle to allow for steel tension rods to pass through them; a very cool industrial detail. We have also been working on a master plan for The White Mountain School in Bethlehem, NH. The plan includes renovations and energy enhancement improvements to all existing buildings, converting underutilized older buildings into staff housing, bringing the original Frederic Law Olmstead landscaping back to its original glory, bringing the 1960’s vintage main administrative / classroom building into the 21st century, and adding a new theater / gathering space and arts classrooms, a 16-bed dorm addition with two faculty apartments, and a new 28-bed dorm with 3 staff apartments. Clearly this ambitious plan will take many years to realize. Most of the administrative, classroom, and gathering spaces are within a rambling main building. Much of the building was rebuilt in the early 1960’s after a devastating fire destroyed most of the original structure, which had been a private estate prior to being donated to the school. The plans above show preliminary thoughts on how to add a new entrance that includes an elevator and other accessibility improvements, new art classrooms with a green roof, a new theater, converting underutilized ground floor space to a fully accessible infirmary, and converting the former upstairs infirmary into staff housing.

I had the great pleasure of a tour of Isaac Julien’s video installation, Ten Thousand Waves, as well as Jessica Jackson Hutchins’ show (her first solo museum presentation) at the ICA last night.

Jenelle Porter, Senior Curator of the ICA, presented Hutchins’ show first, sharing her fascinating assessment of the artist’s transformations of everyday objects into art, and you can read her comments on the ICA blogsite here, as well as her interview with the artist here. Almost like being there! Although you missed a lively discussion of the comma and other punctuation marks in Hutchins’ work. Perhaps you can tell from this blog how much I happen to also love commas, transitional punctuation that both separates and mediates between linked thoughts, not unlike my architectural obsession with planar forms…

Anna Stothart next led us into the Isaac Julien video installation, an incredibly dynamic, spatial experience, as well as deeply poetic. I won’t try to compete with the more scholarly ICA summary as well as an interview with the artist, which you can see on the ICA website. Absolutely stunning, and I could have stayed for hours.

The ICA will be presenting Jenelle Porter’s next major curatorial effort, Figuring Color: Kathy Butterly, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Roy McMakin, Sue Williams, which opens on February 17^th. Visit the ICA website for a preview.

Will Ruhl

Credits:

The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston: www.icaboston.org
Jenelle Porter, Senior Curator, ICA: Jessica Jackson Hutchins introduction by Jenelle Porter
Isaac Julien: www.isaacjulien.com

Jessica Jackson Hutchins’ drawing, Landscape, 2011, Acrylic, collage, and ink on paper. Photo: Dan Kvitka A scene from Isaac Julien’s video installation, Ten Thousand Waves, 2010. Photo: Peter Haroldt

Architects are sometimes perceived as design aesthetes, imbued with an overabundance of “creativity” but only a modicum of common sense about how to build things and solve real world problems. A savvy homeowner, however, understands that architects are actually uniquely trained as problem-solvers, with fluid analytical skills and the ability to visualize what others cannot. More and more we find ourselves applying these skills with residential projects by engaging with our clients in pre-purchase feasibility studies, to help determine if a particular plot of land, or an existing building to be renovated is actually suitable for the intended purpose.

Recently one of our clients was negotiating with a developer for the custom build-out of an already gutted 5 story row house. Because the developer was proposing traditional detailing where the owner preferred modern, we were hired to prepare a design to the owner’s liking that the developer could then price out and presumably build. As with all of our projects we learned a lot about the owner during this exercise, and helped him better understand his own likes and dislikes and the kinds of spaces that would be best for him. We worked out some really interesting ideas around a double-height space that solved a lot of problems with the row house format’s limited daylight and multiple, cramped levels. In the end, our client determined that pushing these ideas in this particular project would be too expensive and the results would be compromised.

Undeterred, and armed with our work, he was able to negotiate a great deal on another project where others hadn’t seen its possibilities. Now we’re designing a great apartment, with a dramatic three story skylit atrium as an unexpected surprise, bringing light and a feeling of spaciousness to the innermost reaches of the apartment.

Check back soon and we’ll be posting construction photos!

Our initial feasibility study was for the redesign of a five-story row house with a very tight footprint. To gain a larger sense of space, we proposed removing a portion of one floor, resulting in the types of connecting views shown below. Our current project, for the same client and now in construction, builds on the lessons learned from the earlier double-high connecting space. Here, we can join three larger floors around a central, skylit core. In the initial feasibility study, entry is at street level, with a stair going up to bedrooms, and a bridge to the left connecting to a small living room with an open kitchen below. In the current project, the dining table anchors the high vertical space. Just visible at the top of this rendering is a glass bridge leading to the master bedroom.

A December 30, 2011 article in the Wall Street Journal‘s Friday Journal focused on architectural regionalism and its reemergence in house design. After decades in which well known architects designed houses that could be seen as idiosyncratic homages to their previous artistic preoccupations and that paid little attention to local climatic realities, architects (and their clients!) are once again finding joy and artistic inspiration in the house’s local surroundings and reinterpreting local traditions in fresh, inventive ways. We can only hope that this catches on with mass production and speculative house builders, which represents the vast majority of our country’s new housing stock…

Here are a few examples from our own portfolio that express our preoccupation with important regional architectural issues.

A house on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, designed by Rhoady Lee Architecture in collaboration with Ruhl Walker, has deep roof overhangs to protect the house from too much solar heat gain, and takes advantage of local trade winds with its expansive lanais. All wood is locally sourced, as are the lava rock walls. Credit: Rhoady Lee Architecture In New England, as in this Ruhl Walker house in Westport, MA, we also need to protect our houses from harsh summer sun with roof overhangs, but they need to be designed to also allow for abundant winter sunlight to enter the house to passively warm the house. Windows can be opened to allow for ample natural ventilation, but most windows are fixed in place to maximize energy efficiency (and views, which aren’t marred by window screens!). In the Big Island House, enormous walls of glass (detailed by Ruhl Walker’s Sandra Baron and Lilly Smith) mechanically slide out of the way to open the house up to the cool ocean breezes, and to allow for uninterrupted access to the house’s lushly landscaped grounds. Credit: Rhoady Lee Architecture In our Westport house, we have a more transitional connection between inside and outside, with the main living space opening up to a large screened living space, which in turn opens to a raised deck, then down wide steps (wide enough for sitting as well as carrying trays of drinks!) to the yard and ultimately the Westport River. Alas, we have mosquitoes, green flies, rain, and snow!

Did you see the recent Maurizio Cattelan show, “All”, at New York’s Guggenheim? While the Guggenheim is a favorite of many architects, it has often been criticized for the inherent difficulty of hanging art on its curved walls, to be viewed from spiraling ramps. Fortunately, as the museum passes its fiftieth anniversary, art sometimes seems to be catching up to it, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s rotunda has inspired more than a few amazing site-specific installations. Cattelan’s assemblage of hanging objects has to be one of the best.

See Aaron Seward’s recent article on how the exhibit was hung, “Get A Rope” in The Architect’s Newspaper here.

Credits:
The Guggenheim Museum: http://www.guggenheim.org
The Architect’s Newspaper: http://www.archpaper.com/

Maurizio Cattelan’s sculpture,“All”, at New York’s Guggenheim. Cattelan really takes advantage of Frank Lloyd Wright’s tour de force, the Guggenheim’s central Rotunda. Credit: Guggenheim Museum Museum goers rotate up, down and around Cattalan’s sculpture on Frank Lloyd Wright’s spiraling ramps. “All” is an assemblage of representations of all of Cattelan’s work since 1989. Photo: Molly Heinz, AN

Having worked on several cool projects in Hawai‘i over the last few years, our eyes have really been opened to architectural possibilities that rarely exist in New England. For example, we collaborated with Rhoady Lee Architecture and Design on the Big Island on a new house near the Four Seasons at Hualalai that had custom motorized rolling walls of glass and teak (detailed by our own Sandra Baron and Lilly Smith!) that disappear into lava rock walls, opening virtually every room in the house to trellised lanais, an edge-less pool, lushly landscaped courtyards, and sweet tropical breezes. So, how can we introduce these exotic possibilities to the custom houses we design in New England?

One answer is through bi-folding glass walls from companies like Nanawall, and we’ve designed several recent houses that utilize their exceptional technology. Our clients wanted to have large screened porches so they could live outdoors spring, summer and fall without the ubiquitous New England mosquitoes and flies, and wondered how they might join those porches to the rest of the house. Voila, we proposed Nanawall doors and something that has traditionally been a barrier in older New England houses becomes an opportunity. Added benefit: makes a great party house even better!

This bi-folding wall of glass and aluminum slides easily to the left, opening up the living/dining space to a large screen porch. Photo: Peter Vanderwarker Compared to conventional sliding glass doors, bi-folding wall openings can be much wider within the same unit width. Photo: Peter Vanderwarker Living / dining and screen porch become one; ready to entertain! Photo: Peter Vanderwarker Who would want to interrupt views like this with conventional doors?! Photo: Peter Vanderwarker A twenty-one foot wide Nanawall system for a house under construction in Lincoln, MA; this spring the happy homeowners will be able to combine their living space seamlessly to their new screen porch. A view of the bi-folding wall from the exterior, showing the factory-finished aluminum clad finish on the exterior, while the interior is natural wood; so many options!

After a very long, exhausting day flying from Boston to the Big Island of Hawai‘i, and after a bizarre drive across seemingly endless miles of lava – usually at night with little sense of scale – harried visitors are often welcomed by a warm “aloha”, friendly faces, cool towels, fresh guava juice, and hotels unlike anything most of us have seen before. Who knew that hotels didn’t really need walls? As with Hawaiian houses, the main public spaces of most Hawaiian hotels are essentially large open air lanais; no screens as you would find in the Caribbean since flying insects are less prevalent in Hawai‘i, and it is rare to see the discrete bi-folding shutters or sliding skylights closed. The next morning you wake up, and you see views like those below.  Pure heaven! And fresh ideas for how these design possibilities might translate into our own work on custom vacation houses in New England…

Credits:
Mauna Kea Beach Resort: Mauna Kea Beach Hotel
Four Seasons Hualalai: Four Seasons Resort At Hualalai

One of William Ruhl’s (principal of Ruhl Walker Architects) favorite hotels on the Big Island is the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, designed by SOM and completed in 1965. All of the public spaces are cooled naturally by being designed without walls, taking advantage of the trade winds and natural convection, and allowing uninterrupted views of the magnificent coastline. One of Mauna Kea’s open air restaurants, Manta, overlooking Kauna‘oa Beach, one of Hawaii’s most breath-taking beaches. And yes, you do occasionally run into manta rays as you snorkel, and during dinner. The inversely-stepped profile of the Mauna Kea’s main lobby enhances the natural cooling of the space, with cool breezes flowing freely and warm air disappearing through the roof openings. The main stair of the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, looking down to its spectacular beach and crystal clear waters. Photo credit: Jeff Green Another favorite hotel on the Big Island is the Four Seasons Hualalai. As with many other Hawaiian hotels, all public spaces are open air, with bi-folding screen and/or glass panels providing protection during the occasional inclement weather. Above and to the right is Pahu i‘a restaurant, directly on the beach. Just magnificent… Without walls, views are infinite and fresh air is abundant. The Four Season’s lobby is a separate pavilion (“hale” in Hawaiian) which is essentially open to the elements but does have sliding and bi-folding glass doors in case of (rare) inclement weather. You have to look pretty hard to see the glass and mahogany doors in the main lobby (lanai) of the Four Seasons. Furnishings are perhaps a bit too faux-historic, but sure are comfortable…

Having just returned from the Big Island of Hawai‘i – the first time in five years not related at least partially to working with the Hawai‘i Wildlife Center – I still have Hawai‘i on my mind… It doesn’t help that the temperatures dipped into single digits this weekend, with wind chills below zero!

Architects have a hard time traveling without focusing obsessively on local architecture, and Hawaii’s – the openness to the elements, the blurring of inside and outside, the direct link to Asian architecture in both form and spatial flow – is particularly alluring. One key element is the “lanai”, a term first used in Hawai‘i in the early eighteenth century, and elsewhere known generically as a porch or veranda. The Hawaiian Islands are well known for their steady tropical breezes, a benefit and sometimes curse of being located so remotely in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Hawaiian lanais are often a house’s primary living space, and provide much needed shade and help Hawaiian buildings breathe by catching the trade winds and using that constant supply of fresh, naturally cooled (by the Pacific) air to remove hotter, more stagnant air. Below are a few of my favorite examples of modern lanais.

Send us your own images and thoughts! And look forward to future posts showing how we bring this “exotic” knowledge to our New England projects!

Will Ruhl

Credits:

Belzberg Architects, Santa Monica, CA: Belzberg Architects
Olson Kundig Architects, Seattle, WA: Olson Kundig Architects
Craig Steeley Architecture, San Francisco, CA: Craig Steely Architecture
Legoretta + Legoretta, Mexico: Legorreta + Legorreta

An abstract, open air entry lanai at a house designed by Belzberg Architects; with less than 10” of precipitation a year, shade is more critical than protection from rain. Deep roof overhangs and a raised infinity-edged pool help keep this lanai cool. Credit: Belzberg Architects This lanai is defined by two stone and glass walls and a narrow lap pool; the walls are tall enough to provide ample shade, and the shape of the space helps funnel fresh air through. Credit: Belzberg Architects Opposite view of the same lanai shown on the left; note the lanai’s modern “trellis” ceiling, which helps create shade while also allowing warm air to escape between the wood beams. Credit: Belzberg Architects A house on the Big Island of Hawaii designed by Olson Kundig Architects. Its primary lanai is located between the main living space and guest suites. View of the lanai, which flows into the main living space. Credit: Olson Kundig Archtiects This house, designed by Craig Steeley Architecture, has a screened lanai on the upper floor. Inside Steeley’s screened lanai; note the floor boards, which are held apart to enhance natural ventilation. Another house by Craig Steeley Architecture, with the open air lanai separating the main house and a separate studio. The ceiling of this lanai is raised slightly to allow warmer air to rise up through the gap and be replaced by cooler, fresh air brought by the trade winds. Yes, that is lava… A house by Ricardo Legoretta on the Kohala Coast of Hawaii. The continuous lanai protects the house from intense western sunlight and allows ever space to flow freely towards the ocean terraces. Legoretta’s lanai utilizes a small salt water plunge pool to help keep the space cool, the steady sea breezes being cooled as they blow across the water.