TAG Cape Cod
Griffin Island House Design Update – a “floating hole”
One of the most critical design imperatives for a new custom house is that it should be fully integrated with its unique landscape. We are currently collaborating with Kris Horiuchi of Horiuchi Solien Landscape Architects on a new house for a spectacular four acre site on Griffin Island in Wellfleet, MA. The site photos and digital model we posted back on March 19th show a design that takes its formal cues not only directly from Cape Cod Bay but also from the actively shifting, sliding, sandy topography of its dramatic coastal bank. The coastal bank’s movement is almost visible to the naked eye, with sand and trees moving together in dramatic harmony, and our house will also appear to shift and slide with the landscape. One interesting surprise we have proposed to both the owners and Kris is a “floating hole” strategically placed in the middle of the house adjacent to the main entrance as well as main living space, where landscape and building architecture, earth and sky, sun and shade all come together, anchoring house to nature. See below for several building sections that we are developing, as well as additional details of the “hole”. And we’ll keep you posted as we continue to develop the design.
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- Rendered section facing Cape Cod Bay illustrating the relationship between the linear house and the Bay’s horizon, as well as how the new house will be both anchored to the site’s dynamic coastal bank and floating above the horizon.
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- Rendered section through the “floating hole”, facing north / uphill. Three sides of the hole will be glass, and the fourth will have a trellis to support an aromatic, flowering vine. The stone and river rock terrace below the hole will be a perfect shady spot for reading on hot days, with the surrounding native vegetation growing up and essentially into the house.
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- Rendered section through the “floating hole”, facing south towards the main living space with its curving metal roof. Here you can see the operable windows that line three sides of the “floating hole”, which will provide tantalizing views of ground and sky and also help naturally ventilate the entire house during even rainy days.
Design update: Griffin Island House in Wellfleet
We are really excited about a new beach house we are designing for a magnificent waterfront property on Cape Cod Bay in Wellfleet. On Monday I had the pleasure of spending a full day with our clients, basking in the 70 degree sunshine and exploring the four acre site from end to end with three phenomenally talented prospective landscape architects. We discussed ways to integrate the design of house and land, as well as opportunities for enhancing the diverse site features — hilly and thick with gnarled pines on one side, more open and low-scaled with beach plum, bayberry, and beach grasses on the other. We can’t wait to start collaborating with the landscape design team and seeing how things develop. Yes, we’ll keep you posted.
Will Ruhl
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- Looking north towards the high point of the coastal bank, into a bayberry clearing where we plan to insert the new house. Given the complexities of building on sand, we no doubt will have to move and / or remove some trees, but the goal in the end will be to have the woods grow back up tight to the house on the inland side, and for the bayberry, beach plums, and beach grasses to grow up tight to the house on the Bay side.
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- The new master suite (including a huge, skylit and windowed shower) will have this stunning view along the coastal bank, with the inner Cape visible along the horizon. The site has an existing house high on the bank, but it is in terrible disrepair and threatened by erosion and sand inundation; it will be removed and its site will be re-naturalized. The new house will be much more discreet in terms of its siting, built as gently as possible into the hill rather than dominating the site.
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- The inland side of the house is composed of shifting and curving volumes, appearing almost to be sliding off of the coastal bank which extends up and to the right in this digital image. At right is the main house and on the left is a small art studio with open air storage below; a raised deck bridges the gap between the two, and leads to paths to the beach.
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- On the Bay side, the house is virtually all glass, with an asymmetrically curved planar roof capping the living /dining / screened porch volume. Materials are currently proposed as cedar shingles and horizontal siding with copper at the curved roof, fireplace surround, and bathrooms.
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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- The proposed new kitchen for the W unit.
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- 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…
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
Ruhl Walker Architects’ Projects Featured Online
Check out some of our recently published work, featured in several online design blogs and magazines!
The Hawai'i Wildlife Center
The Hawai’i Wildlife Center in Dezeen
The Hawai’i Wildlife Center in AECCafe
The Hawai’i Wildlife Center in Archello
Urban Living XXL
Bridge House
Truro Dune House
eBay House
A new house for an art collector on Martha’s Vineyard, the renovation of a beach house we originally designed 10 years ago, the complete reconstruction of an urban townhouse, the total redesign of a glass walled penthouse at the W Boston, not to mention over 10 additional projects in design or under construction from Cape Cod to Hawai’i… It’s going to be a VERY busy summer at our studio…
 We just started the design of a new house for an art collector on an extraordinary site on Martha’s Vineyard |  The house will enjoy spectacular views of the Atlantic as well as brackish ponds and adjacent conservation land |
 We have begun redesigning a glass walled penthouse at the new W Boston |  The unit has magnificent views of Boston, including the harbor, the Public Garden, the Back Bay and Financial District skylines, and the Charles River. The generic existing plan will be opened up to enhance the dramatic views and allow for a more relaxed lifestyle. A new sculptural glass and steel staircase will lead through a motorized skylight to an enormous roof deck with lap pool |
 We are just beginning the design for a completely rebuilt South End row house |  Five floors have already begun to be demolished in preparation for all new structure and finishes, inside and out |
 Construction has just begun on an expanded unit at The Esplanade, a condominium complex built on the Charles River and designed by Moshe Safdie |  The expanded space will serve as both a home office as well as a guest suite for two young entrepeneurs, whose families visit regularly from India |
 We designed this Cape Cod beach house over 10 years ago for a family with two young daughters. Since then, the family has out grown the original house, so we are helping them expand it in every direction, including up |  All interior walls on the ground floor as well as a brick and concrete chimney have been removed, and large steel beams have been added for a totally open living / dining / cooking / entertaining space. This open living space will extend up to a second floor family room with deck that faces out to the Atlantic. The wood posts in this photo are only temporary… |
Nearly Complete: House in Brewster
Inching closer and closer to completion is this new house facing north to Cape Cod Bay. The owners, a commercial general contractor and his venture capitalist wife, did not want your average Cape Cod with dormers and picket fence. They loved their loft in Boston, and wanted to replicate that feel on their quiet side street in Brewster. The lot was previously undeveloped, and included a natural low “bowl” surrounded by dunes. The typical suburban reaction would be to fill in the site and build a setback-busting McMansion, but instead we took advantage of the existing topography so that a basement level family room could have large sliding glass doors opening out to a courtyard and lap pool. The house is essentially two separate stand alone “lofts” — main house and guest house — joined by a glassed-in bridge that floats above the lap pool and courtyard. The main house has a family room on the lower level, a large living / dining / cooking space on the middle level, and a master suite with office on the top floor. The guest house has storage on the lower level, and two guest bedrooms and baths on the upper level. The bridge acts as a casual dining room with both southern exposure and an ocean view to the north, and below are wide bleacher stairs that lead up from the pool below to a stone terrace within the dunes, and a path to the beach.
 Digital model view of entry to house view of bridge between main and guest house. |  View of entry bridge and front door the planar walls lining the central courtyard are sheathed in clear finished Cedar lap siding; the double height window is located adjacent to the main stair. |
 Digital model view of the central courtyard and lap pool, facing south towards the street. |  Digital model view of steel entry bridge, concrete support, and steel stair leading down to the courtyard and pool. |
 Interior stair leading up to master suite. |  Interior of bridge. |
 Exterior view of bridge looking towards top of bleacher stairs and pool. |  View of Bay side of house from top of dunes. |
 View of Cape Cod Bay from top of dunes. |