Ruhl Walker Architects

We posted progress photos a few months ago of a small project in Boston’s South End, where we were asked to update a stair connecting an upper level entry hall to a lower level combined living / dining / kitchen.  The previous stair was fairly utilitarian, and did nothing to unify the two levels of the house.

We’ve kept the original stair structure, but resurfaced the stair treads with a new and more substantial profile, stained a rich gray/brown to coordinate with the owner’s furniture.  The thickened treads are keyed into a white slatted wood wall on the lower level, which conceals doors to storage closets.  The slats, in turn, are punctuated with small cutouts backed with LED programmable lighting. The outside wall of the stair is re-surfaced with large-scaled high-gloss panels, which visually connect the two stories with one common element.  On the upper level, the entry now feels much larger after we replaced a solid half wall with a glass and stainless steel railing.  A new paint scheme makes the entire experience lighter and calmer.

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.

We’re nearing completion of a renovation to a large apartment in a mid-rise Boston building.  As with all of our projects, a number of larger design goals were established early on for this residence, and subsequent details and decisions were made to bring the design vision to fruition. One of the primary goals of the design was to illuminate the entry level, just inside the front door, by cutting away floor structure and borrowing as much light as possible from a glassy penthouse above.  The entry space would be bright, uncluttered, and welcoming.  The newly created light wells form a bridge on the upper level, which unfortunately could not be centered above a door to an existing private study below.  To make matters worse, the study door could not be moved either.  This juxtaposition is quite prominent, and the distracting misalignment was driving us crazy.

Finally, we understood that we could create a balanced arrangement of flush painted wall panels to align with the bridge.  The study door is then completely disguised through some careful detailing and spring-loaded hinges.  Problem solved.  Added bonus: who wouldn’t want a secret study?

The existing study door looking forlorn and awkward under a new bridge.

We’ve been working for what seems like a very long time on the renovation of a South End duplex.  The project started out as a general clean up of finishes along with a new kitchen and baths.  As the design phase progressed, however, and as the poor condition of the existing construction was revealed during some preliminary demolition, we ended up very nearly gutting the two story space. We were ably assisted along the way with one of our favorite contractors, John Benjamin of Benjamin Construction, as well as Zhanna Drogobetsky of Casa Design.

The construction is now nearly complete and we’ve taken delivery of some new furniture.  Still to come are a few more key pieces – dining chairs, a rug or two, and accessories.  We’re also eager to get started on a completely new rear garden, designed by Keith LeBlanc of Keith LeBlanc Landscape Architecture.

While final completion and photography are still a couple of months out, we wanted to share a few close-up details as a hint of what’s to come.