Ruhl Walker Architects

The Hawai’i Wildlife Center, designed by Ruhl Walker Architects, was featured in ArchDaily on August 20^th.  ArchDaily is one of the leading and most influential architecture website in the world, and gets over two million visits and eighteen million page impressions per month according to Google Analytics.

Please visit our portfolio website for additional information on the design of the HWC, and join us in supporting this critically important environmental cause by visiting the HWC’s online donation page!

The exterior of the HWC has been completed, and the interiors will be finished in November, in time for a grand opening celebration on November 19th.

The images below show one of our most interesting current projects.  We have been hired to not only improve and enlarge a suburban “colonial” house, but also to address the owner’s fundamental dislike for the current house’s outward appearance.  The owners need larger spaces in most every direction, and because the existing house also needs new windows and siding, the opportunity exists to completely change the style of the house.

Perhaps the most exciting of the new changes is the conversion of the former basement into a day lit lap pool, with folding doors opening onto a new lower terrace with a grassy berm, seating wall and fire pit.  The new living and dining spaces are then designed to float above this sunken terrace.

We’ll keep you posted as the design progresses, but below is where we are to date.

BEFORE: front and side of existing house	AFTER: front and side of new house showing new entry sequence
BEFORE: rear of existing house	AFTER: rear of new house showing new decks and indoor pool courtyard / terrace
Aerial view showing new lower level indoor pool courtyard / terrace	Aerial view showing new entry sequence
Lower level pool courtyard with seating integrated into landscaped slope	Lower level pool with glass walls opening out to the courtyard / terrace

Ruhl Walker Architects was hired by a young couple — he a high tech consultant for a bio-tech company, she an MIT-trained corporate architect — to design a new house for a steeply sloping site along lower Mystic Lake in Arlington, MA.  An existing house was slowly crumbling into its site, its concrete block foundation failing and its dimensions uninspiring, so demoliton was job number one in the project brief.  Our clients asked for a reasonably sized house by today’s standards, with an above-ground lower level being unfinished but available for future use; a main level consisting of a large, open living / dining / cooking space, an entry hall with sculptural stair, a separate multi-purpose space to accomodate a sewing passion and home office, and a two car garage, with a courtyard deck in the center; and an upper level with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, an exercise room, and a roof deck off of the master bedroom.  The owners did not exactly see eye to eye on the look of the exterior, which was quite an adventure during early design meetings, but a reasonable solution made all parties happy in the end.  The general conotractor is Berkshire Wilton Partners of Newton, MA and  Wilton, CT.  Landscape architecture will be by one of our favorite collaborators,  Matthew Cunningham.  Interiors will be by Ruhl Walker Architects.

The new house steps down its steeply sloped site, with the living room cantilevering out beyond its above ground basement. The heart of the house is a courtyard / deck facing the lake, between the living room on the left and the sewing room on the right.	The living room cantilevers six feet out from the lower level on the left, and the sewing room cantilevers out beyond the basement on the right.
The north side of the cantilevered living room is mostly solid, with a fireplace and A/V equipment inside.	View down from the roof deck off of the master bedroom; the upper roof deck will be sun-soaked most of the time, while the lower courtyard deck will provide much needed summer shade.
The main living / dining / cooking space is fourteen feet high at the lake end, and nine feet high at the dining room and kitchen.	The central entry / stair hall has an eighteen foot high window opening out to the lake.
View of Mystic Lake from the master shower window.	The existing house; curb appeal, but failing structure.