skylight detail: hMa's Redhook Center for the Arts in Brooklyn, NY click here to view more photos of the project on www.hanrahanMeyers.com

hanrahan Meyers architects (hMa) have designed most of their buildings around the use of natural light.  hMa works with natural materials, light and nature using a minimal palette to achieve unique spatial experiences for clients. hMa's clients include private and public organizations who build public buildings, including monasteries, churches (Tenth Church of Christ, Scientist, NY), Community Centers (Battery Park City Community Center), institutes and universities (Pratt Institute, for whom hMa designed Pratt Pavilion), as well as private clients, who build residential projects, including Holley House, and Ash 4Ways. Redhood Center for the Arts, above is a public building where the public spaces are bathed in natural light, mediated by painted surfaces that create washes of color.

Holley House, below, uses a palette of natural materials.  The various materials, including local stone, wood, and glass, create a powerful transitional sensibility through the house, and light creates the sequences from public to private spaces.

skylight detail:  hMa's Holley House in Garrison, NY click here to view more photos of the project on www.hanrahanMeyers.com

skylight detail: interior view of Meditation Hall: hMa's Won Dharma Center in Claverack, NY click here to view more photos of this project on www.hanrahanMeyers.com

Won Dharma Center in Claverack, NY, is a Buddhist Retreat where hMa designed a campus including five building.  Shown above is the Meditation Hall, in construction.  The rear wall of the Hall has a niche topped with a skylight, to create a powerful play of light on the rear wall.  Windows on this wall and the adjacent, east facing wall are low, so that they allow light into the space, but talk about the low eye level of the seated meditators.  The west wall features large expanses of glass, with unobstructed views toward the Catskill Mountains.

Arts International, below, was designed as as a large interior gallery, surrounded by private offices.  The office areas had large windows, and clear glass panels to the Gallery, so that even as an interior gallery, this inner space is still flooded with light.

hMa's Arts Inernational Headquarters in NY, NY click here to view more photos of the project on www.hanrahanMeyers.com

To read more about hMa and the firm's use of natural light in architecture, please visit our website, www.hanrahanMeyers.com.

hMa is a firm of five architects, as well as interns, and the practice is run as a collaborative design studio.