CATEGORY studio
We had a surprise visit the other day from the beguiling Emilia Petrokas, age 2 months; what a charmer!
-
- Emilia and Nerijus
-
- The Petrokas family; Emila, Nerijus and Marsida
On a visit a few weeks ago to Rome and Venice, I kept noticing beautiful stairs. A visitor to Venice encounters a steep stair up and over a canal about every 250’, and Rome has some great examples of sculptural staircases indoors and out. In Venice, the canal bridges were built over hundreds of years, with modest stylistic differences, but always with a fluidity necessitated by the simple need to get from one side to the other, whether or not the landings were across from each other, in line, at different heights, or leading to streets (calle) of different widths. Rome’s amazing examples of both Renaissance and Baroque stairs make even the casual user understand that the physical change of level is being employed to signal a change in psychological aspect as well.
Our encounters with stairs in America are usually less exciting – in fact with our comprehensive accessibility requirements, we encounter fewer and fewer public stairs at all. But recently, and perhaps because of advances in computer aided design, architects are designing modern stairs that seem nearly baroque in their sumptuousness, especially in retail settings. Perhaps there’s a revival of the idea that stairs can be uplifting – spiritually and emotionally, as well as pragmatically.
Brad Walker
-
- Borromini’s sinuous helicoidal stair at Rome’s Palazzo Barbarini (early 1600s)…
-
- …and the Armani 5th Avenue store in New York City, designed by Massimiliano & Doriana Fuksas Architects. (2009)
-
- A typical canal stair in Venice, probably from the 19th century…
-
- …and Carlo Scarpa’s Olivetti showroom, also in Venice, (1958) and now beautifully restored and open to the public again (2012).
-
- Rome’s Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, Gabriele Valvassori, (after 1666)…
-
- …and one of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson’s catalogue of glass stairs for Apple (2005)
-
- And finally, Michelangelo’s stair at the Laurentian library in Firenze (1525) …
-
- …and Longchamp NYC, by Heatherwick Studio (2006)
Westport River House featured on Houzz.com
Houzz is featuring Ruhl Walker’s Westport River House today, in an essay focusing on a design issue we care a lot about, and spend a lot of time and effort on. When designing a custom house, one of the most important design considerations is to recognize solar and wind orientation, views and privacy needs, which of course are not the same on all sides of the building.
You can check out the full portfolio for this project here:
-
- The entry side of the house has limited glazing, each window focused on a particular view and enhancing cross ventilation and natural daylighting
-
- The river side of the house is virtually all glass, to take full advantage of river and sunset views, as well as to enhance passive solar heat gain in cooler months
Modern Planar Field of Crocuses
Should anyone use the words “beautiful” and “modern” in the same sentence? Of course, and often! Check out the images of Matthew Cunningham’s own garden — below and on facebook — to see what 7,000 to 8,000 crocuses looks like in a small (only 500 square feet) lawn. Stunningly beautiful, as well as crisp and modern. You can see why Matthew is one of our favorite collaborating landscape architects.
-
- After our unusually mild winter, Matthew says his “thousands” of crocus bulbs – planted in the fall of 2010 — multiplied into 7,000-8,000 and bloomed non-stop from February 1 through April 1.
-
- Matthew took a sloping back yard, created a crisp edge with stone walls, and created a 500 SF planar field of crocuses.
-
- Thousands of crocus bulbs were planted by hand in late 2010, but have since multiplied and filled in.
-
- Matthew smoothed out the soil, leaving it a few inches low, then spaced the bulbs out, covered with soil, and then laid sod on top.
Ruhl Walker Architects featured on Houzz.com
Check out today’s Houzz.com feature article Exterior Materials Mix It Up to see two Ruhl Walker Architects projects featured for its use of mixed exterior materials.
Project portfolios for these projects may also be found here:
-
- eBay House
-
- Westport River House
We are frequently fortunate enough to have editors interested in our projects, and I always encourage our clients to participate. Writers and photographers want to create flattering impressions of their subjects, and it’s kind of fun to see your self as others may view you thorough the lens of your house. If we as designers have done a good job, you’ll feel very comfortable with the published result!
When my own house was featured this winter in Boston Home magazine, several friends and clients who hadn’t seen our house were surprised that it’s not more like our professional work – in fact it’s not especially modern at all, despite having a few pieces of contemporary furniture and art. The fact is, I like furniture and decorative objects from a variety of periods – things that reflect the purposes and imperatives of their time. If anything, it helps me understand how objects relate to those who created them. But as a creator myself, if you ask me to design something, I can only design in my own time – something new. I like to think my house shows that those are not incompatible thoughts.
Brad Walker
You can check out the Boston Home article on our website at http://tinyurl.com/RWA-Boston-Home
all photos © 2012, Bob O’Connor / Boston Home Magazine
-
- Brad Walker, his partner Rodin Shaw Cole, and their Italian Greyhounds in front of a custom bookcase.
-
- A console table of Walker’s design grounds a composition of black-and-white drawings and a locally made pitcher.
-
- The living room has much of its 1860s architectural detailing intact. A mirror and flanking sconces from the 1820s would be something the original owner might have had. The large graphic is a reproduction of Nolli’s famous architectural map of Rome.
-
- Because the small kitchen is open to the living room, we chose base cabinets, a toe kick and flooring all of the same material. The result blurs the peripheral “horizon line” making the spaces feel larger.
-
- Black slate at the kitchen backsplash is an update of the 70s “exposed brick” look. The counters are a compatible matte finish granite.
-
- This bookshelf was also customized to house a few folio books horizontally as well as an edited collection of drawings and objects.
We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Emilia to the extended Ruhl Walker family! Congrats and hugs to proud mom and dad, Marsida and Nerijus. We can’t wait to meet your adorable daughter! And, Nerijus, we’re looking forward to your return; you’ve been missed.
Emilia
GOOD NEWS ON SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVES
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.
New designs at Ruhl Walker Architects’ studio
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 coastal bank 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 beach 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.
Isaac Julien and Jessica Jackson Hutchins at the ICA Boston
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 17th. 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
