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.

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.

Ruhl Walker Architects is pleased to announced that Keith Case has become certified as a LEED Green Associate demonstrating expertise in environmentally sustainable design, construction, and operations strategies. The exam tests knowledge of the US Green Building Council’s LEED rating systems.

As part of our commitment to annually contribute a minimum of 1% of our time to pro bono causes, Ruhl Walker Architects has been working with the Hawai’i Wildlife Center since 2006 on Hawai’i's first and only native wildlife recovery, rehabilitation, and education center. The HWC is located in Halaula, Hawai’i, on the Big Island of Hawai’i. 

It is difficult to think about problems of any kind amidst the overwhelming natural beauty of the Hawaiian Islands, but the sad truth is that the Islands are host to more threatened and endangered native species per square mile than any other place in the world. A report from 2010 on Climate Change states that 93% of Hawaiian birds are at medium to high vulnerability. In February 2007, the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) declared that the forests of the Hawaiian Islands are the most threatened bird habitat in the United States. The ABC stated that “most (native species) are dependent on vigilant conservation measures to survive at all.” Having seen many of the Big Island’s native birds on a recent trip sponsored by HWC founder and director, Linda Elliott, and renowned wildlife biologist and widely published photographer, Jack Jeffry, project architect Will Ruhl has an even more profound feeling of the urgency for this facility. The BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is all the proof one needs that tragedy can occur even in paradise.

This continues to be a labor of love as we progress with fund raising to complete the interiors of the HWC; needless to say, fund raising has been particularly difficult due to the Great Recession! But we are proud to be part of an amazing team of architects from Boston and Waimea, engineers from California and Hawai’i, a landscape architect from Oahu who grew up near the HWC site, construction managers from Hawi, and many local contractors and subcontractors who have contributed so much of their time and donated materials. The spirit of aloha is alive and well!

The interiors of the HWC are framed and roughed, but the good news is that the exterior shell and rough landscape, grading, and parking is now substantially complete.

The Hawai'i Wildlife Center from Lighthouse Road.	The HWC with, from left to right, staging porch, entrance to rehabilitation facility, central public lanai, and open air classroom.
The front facade of the HWC is composed of fiber cement siding that alternates from solid lap siding to slats spaced apart at different intervals to allow natural ventilation into the education pavilion and staging porch.	The entrance to the HWC treatment facility is defined by planes of vibrant color set within an otherwise monochromatic composition the HWC's lanai will eventually lead to a native species garden, currently being propogated by a local school group, and will house educational displays focusing on native endangered species.
The front wall of the staging porch -- essentially the emergency room entrance for delivering injured birds -- is sheathed with composite siding held apart to allow natural ventilation, a new take on an old agricultural building tradition.	The side walls of the education pavilion are sheathed with clear corrugated polycarbonate paneling, allowing natural illumination into the space while also keeping out the prevalent rain and mist that North Kohala is known for.
Entry to the open air education pavilion is through the central lanai.	Closeup view of the slatted front plane of the education pavilion seen through the corrugated polycarbonate paneling.
The HWC will host talks to local school groups, educational outreach on environmental issues to locals, and talks geared towards vacationers.	By varying the size of the composite slats as well as the openings between slats, a virtual "window" was created in the front facade of the education pavilion.

You can find a lot of facts and figures about our team on our portfolio website, but the facts do not tell the whole story.  We are more than the sum of our parts; we like to think of our studio as a family, including our alumna/ae who may have moved along to other firms in other parts of the world but continue to have an impact on us to this day.  We have been so fortunate to have worked with so many incredibly able, talented, intelligent, and INTERESTING men and women over the years.

You might be interested to learn that we have attracted an unusually large number of surfers, like our first associate, Mark Bandzak, who thought nothing of surfing in Maine in the middle of winter; or Matt Ostrow, who surfed competitively all over the world prior to joining our studio; or Grant Scott, who grew up in New Zealand and surfed his way around the world, cut his dreads and found his architectural calling in London, somehow landed in Alabama of all places, then turned up in Boston, luckily for us.  At the moment, we do not have any surfers on board, other than our lead snow-boarder, Lilly, and other than the token surfer wanna-be – Will Ruhl – thanks to his love of the Big Island of Hawai’i…

So, we tend to be a pretty laid-back crowd for the most part, other than that we work intensely during normal working hours.  The office can be pretty quiet as we crank away on behalf of our clients…  Brad and Will work really hard to maintain the office equilibrium and work loads, and other than one period of 3 weeks when we had to charette due to the frantic This Old House TV schedule featuring a house we designed in Cambridge, [click here for a link], we have been able to keep to unusually normal schedules, rare for design studios in Boston.  We do this not just for ourselves and our quality of life, but for our clients, since no one benefits from being on full-time panic mode! So, laid back, passionate, intense…

We can’t resist bragging about our current team. Our senior associate, Sandra Baron, is a LEED Accredited Professional and Registered Architect, with architectural degrees from UVa and MIT, and brings the benefit of almost 9 years of professional experience to our studio and our clients.  Lilly Smith is not only our lead snow-boarder but is also our resident artist (BFA Summa Cum Laude from UMass, Amhearst), another MIT graduate, a LEED Accredited Professional and brings almost 8 years of diverse experience to the team. Lilly directs sustainability issues in our practice. Nerijus Petrokas brings his wit and refined sense of humor to our studio by way of his Master’s Degree in Architecture from Penn; 3 years of architectural experience at firms such as Machado + Silvetti, office dA, and Howeler + Yoon; 2 years building custom houses on Nantucket; and growing up in Lithuania.  Keith Case is yet another MIT grad, where he received the Alpha Rho Chi medal, received his undergrad degree from Middlebury, and has worked in Maine, Vermont, and NYC, where he interned with Tod Williams Billie Tsien.  Paul Commito is the most recent addition to our studio, and joined us after spending four years in Washington and London as a Marketing Manager for an executive networking/education board, and two years with Gensler in Washington working in marketing and business development. It’s a great team, with each person bringing unique strengths and interests, and the mix being a genuine benefit to our clients.

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Hillary and Dragomir

Lilly and Wyatt

2010 saw the addition of two more honorary RWA family members.  In May, one of our all time favorite associates, Hillary Mateev, who had rejoined us in February after 3 years at Cambridge 7, and her husband Slavi brought baby Dragomir (nicknamed “Dari”) into the world! And then on Thanksgiving night, Lilly Smith and her husband, James, gave birth to Wyatt James Smith! Hillary is now back at Cambridge 7, and Lilly is on maternity leave, but they and their families are still an integral part of our studio.