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.

The custom prefab house we designed in Lincoln is nearing completion, and the owners are getting excited about moving out of their temporary apartment and into their new, sun-filled dream house! The cedar tongue and groove siding looks fantastic; it has a temporary protective coating and will be stained in the spring after studying some color options. There is a lot of frantic activity inside also, with the quarter sawn red oak flooring being finished this week, tile and trim almost complete, the stainless steel cable railings being installed, and the Pedini kitchen getting final adjustments.

Last week we posted images of recent progress on our transformation of a speculatively-built house in suburban Boston, and this week we have windows to show off, adding a dose of scale and reality. Perhaps not as dramatic as when an entire custom prefab house is set in two or three days, like our Lincoln house, but the rainy weather we’ve been having is less potentially destructive with site-built structures than it can be with custom prefab modular. It’s fun to see the new spaces coming together, especially the new living spaces that hover over the basement level excavation, and the new master suite.

There has been some real progress recently on our transformation of a speculatively-built “Garrison Colonial” house in suburban Boston. Since we first posted the design back in June, 2011, you will notice that there have been some substantial changes, namely to keep more of the existing house’s shell including its gabled roof. This was initially proposed as a cost-savings measure, and even though it didn’t ultimately result in substantial cost savings, the owner preferred keeping more of the original house for sentimental reasons. The excavated basement is also no longer going to include a lap pool; instead the space will be used as a home theater and guest suite. Last week we had steel and concrete, this week we can see the actual form of the “new” house!

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.

Architects are sometimes perceived as design aesthetes, imbued with an overabundance of “creativity” but only a modicum of common sense about how to build things and solve real world problems. A savvy homeowner, however, understands that architects are actually uniquely trained as problem-solvers, with fluid analytical skills and the ability to visualize what others cannot. More and more we find ourselves applying these skills with residential projects by engaging with our clients in pre-purchase feasibility studies, to help determine if a particular plot of land, or an existing building to be renovated is actually suitable for the intended purpose.

Recently one of our clients was negotiating with a developer for the custom build-out of an already gutted 5 story row house. Because the developer was proposing traditional detailing where the owner preferred modern, we were hired to prepare a design to the owner’s liking that the developer could then price out and presumably build. As with all of our projects we learned a lot about the owner during this exercise, and helped him better understand his own likes and dislikes and the kinds of spaces that would be best for him. We worked out some really interesting ideas around a double-height space that solved a lot of problems with the row house format’s limited daylight and multiple, cramped levels. In the end, our client determined that pushing these ideas in this particular project would be too expensive and the results would be compromised.

Undeterred, and armed with our work, he was able to negotiate a great deal on another project where others hadn’t seen its possibilities. Now we’re designing a great apartment, with a dramatic three story skylit atrium as an unexpected surprise, bringing light and a feeling of spaciousness to the innermost reaches of the apartment.

Check back soon and we’ll be posting construction photos!

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.

Bigger is not always better. One of our favorite current projects under construction is also one of our smallest.  For this two-story unit in an urban row house, we were asked to find a way to better connect the upper level entry to the lower level main living spaces.  Budget and logistics precluded anything drastic, and happily, this is a case where a few architectural tweaks can go a long way.   We’ve kept the original stair structure, but resurfaced the stair treads with a new chunky profile, to be stained a rich gray/brown.  The outside wall of the stair is being re-surfaced with large-scaled, floating panels, to visually connect the two stories with one common element.  On the upper level, the entry hall will feel much larger after we replace a solid half wall with a glass and stainless steel railing. Downstairs, the wall supporting the stair is being re-clad with a custom patterned “clapboard” which aligns with the steps and conceals closet doors. LED lighting strategically placed between the clapboards will add some evening sparkle.

We’ll keep you posted as the project progresses! In the meantime, let us know what you think!

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.