Life at the Edge
PHOTOS BY Michael Graydon + Nikole Herriott
As an architecture student at Yale, William Ruhl was instructed to spend a day in a wheelchair, navigating such campus landmarks as Paul Rudolph’s Brutalist Art and Architecture Building, which he remembers as an “inaccessible masterpiece.” His understanding of how those with mobility challenges negotiate the built environment only deepened when he cofounded Boston-based Ruhl Walker Architects and began grappling with his clients’ aging-in-place concerns.
The professional became personal when Will’s younger daughter, Caroline, became the legal guardian of Raul, a young boy from Romania with severe epidermolysis bullosa, a skin-blistering condition that left him
