Harmon’s Karmous-Edwards house in Raleigh’s Coley Forest neighborhood will be open for public touring during Triangle Modernist Houses’ “TMH Modern 2010” tour in Raleigh on September 25. Completed in 1998, the house features deep overhanging rooflines and natural cedar shingles. It is nestled into the edge of a large corner lot, preserving most of the property for a park-like setting. Porches and a large terrace extend the indoors into the landscaping. The house was featured in Raleigh Metro Magazine in 2006.

Harmon’s award-winning Strickland-Ferris house in the Laurel Hills neighborhood will be featured in the first-ever homes tour sponsored by the Triangle section the American Institute of Architect’s North Carolina chapter (AIA Triangle) a week later on October 2. Completed in 2004, the house perches on a steep, wooded hillside above Crabtree Creek on broad-shouldered wood trusses for minimal site disturbance. The northern elevation features a glass and steel façade from floor to ceiling. A butterfly-shaped roof seems to hover above it.

The Strickland-Ferris house has received both AIA North Carolina and AIA Triangle design awards. In 2009, it won the Grand Award in Custom Home Magazine’s Custom Home Design Awards. It has been featured in Architectural Record, Dwell, Wood Design & Building, and Raleigh Metro magazines, and was included in Triangle Modernist Houses’ 2009 fall homes tour.

Frank Harmon Architect PA was founded by Frank Harmon, FAIA, in 1985. For more information on his firm and other projects, visit www.frankharmon.com.

For more information on the TMH Modern 2010 Tour, visit www.trianglemodernisthouses.com/2010.

For more information on the AIA Triangle homes tour go to www.trianglehomestour.com.

June 3, 2010 (RALEIGH, NC) –  Architect Frank Harmon, FAIA, principal of the award-winning firm Frank Harmon Architect PA in Raleigh, will present a talk entitled “On Building with Craft” at HandMade: The Western North Carolina Craft, Architecture & Design Expo in Asheville on Friday, June 25, from 3-4 p.m.

The Expo, a two-day event that brings the public together with artists, architects, builders and designers to share and learn about collaborations between craft artists, homeowners and industry professionals, will take place June 25 and 26 at the NC Arboretum, 100 Frederick Law Olmsted Way, Asheville, NC.

Recognized nationally as a leader among architects who advocate regionally appropriate, sustainable modern design, Frank Harmon has incorporated work by local crafts people and artisans in many of his projects, including a series of 10 metal screens fabricated by Raleigh metalsmith Christian Karkow for an award-winning house Harmon designed in Mt. Pleasant, SC.

“We talk about a concept and the artists take it from there,” Harmon told Residential Architect magazine for a 2007 article on the benefits of working with artists, rather than contractors, when a design detail needs a creative and often handmade solution. “Working with craftspeople is the most efficient way to get things done… Their hands-on ingenuity is often invaluable.”

Harmon said he was delighted when the organizers of the Asheville HandMade Expo asked him to give a talk.

“A simple pleasure I enjoy each day is drinking tea from a hand-made bowl,” he said. “I know that a potter made the bowl, and touching its shape I indirectly touch his or her hands. It’s also possible to imagine the creek bottom where the clay was dug, and the geology that millions of years ago laid down the earthy sediment that I now hold in my fingers. In this way, however small, I feel a connection to the world.

“I believe that one of the primary goals of architecture is to make it possible for people to understand the world around them,” he continued. “If we sense that a building is rooted in the earth and warmed by the sun, that fresh air flows through its windows and its materials are friendly to the touch, then we may feel that the building belongs to its place, and so do we.

“I am not certain that architecture, whether a house or town, can always have the friendly familiarity of a hand-thrown clay bowl,” he added. “But I am certain there is virtue in trying.”

Harmon said his talk will address the values shared by craft and building, and how, together, they may contribute to “an architecture of wellbeing.”

Tickets to the HandMade Expo are $15 per day or $25 for both days and are available online, along with information on the event, at http://designexpo.handmadeinamerica.org/tickets.html.

For more information on Frank Harmon and to see other examples of his work, visit www.frankharmon.com.

The Visitors Center, designed by Frank Harmon Architect PA of Raleigh, was completed this spring to serve as a gathering point and educational facility for Merchants Millpond State Park, a Registered Natural Heritage Area that covers 1900 acres and includes the millpond and part of Lassiter Swamp.

Mays describes the new 7500-square-foot center as a “modest, wood-framed structure [that] incorporates a low-tech approach to sustainable design and recalls a historic mill that once occupied the site.”

Recalling the old mill fulfilled a commitment that principal architect Frank Harmon, FAIA, of Frank Harmon Architect PA in Raleigh, made to his client, the North Carolina Division of Parks & Recreation.

“I promised the client our building would have the feel of the old mill,” Harmon told Mays. “It wouldn’t look like the old building, but it would have the qualities of a rustic, wooden structure with rafters and deep overhangs.”

The article discusses the building’s position on the sensitive site for solar orientation, natural ventilation, and panoramic views of the surroundings. It also stresses the architect’s use of eco-friendly materials – from cypress reclaimed from hurricane-felled trees felled in the Great Dismal Swamp to floors of recycled heart pine – and sustainable building systems, including ground-coupled heat pumps, daylight sensors and a rainwater collection cistern.

“Harmon envisioned the visitor center as ‘a big, well-lighted tent’ with lots of flexibility,” Mays writes. “The building is not only economical—constructed simply with 2×6s, 2×10s, and prefab wood trusses—but also green, with a target of LEED Gold.”

Available online at http://www.architectmagazine.com/green-design/merchants-millpond-visitor-center.aspx, Architect magazine’s coverage of the Merchants Millpond Visitors Center includes a slide show of photographs of the building by Charleston, SC-based photographer Richard Leo Johnson/Atlantic Archives, along with a complete list of materials and sources and all members of the design and construction teams.

Published by Hanley Wood, Inc, Architect covers architecture news, market intelligence, business and technology solutions, continuing education, building products, and other resources for practicing architects. For more information, go to www.architectmagazine.com.

For more information on Merchants Millpond State Park, visit http://www.ncparks.gov/Visit/parks/memi/main.php.

For more information on Frank Harmon Architect PA, visit www.frankharmon.com.

The Gala and lecture are open to the public. AIA Jacksonville is a chapter of The American Institute of Architects (AIA) representing and serving AIA Florida members in Duval, Clay, St. Johns and Nassau counties.

Harmon, founder and principal of the Raleigh, NC-based firm Frank Harmon Architect PA and a Professor in Practice with North Carolina State University’s College of Design, served as the chairman of AIA Jacksonville’s 2010 design awards jury. Harmon’s firm has received more AIA North Carolina design awards than any other firm in the state and was recently ranked 13^th among the Top 50 Firms in the nation by Architect magazine. He is recognized nationally as a leader in modern “green” architecture.

A frequent speaker at state, regional and national design conferences, Harmon will discuss certain elements and themes that run through regional architecture – landscape, materials, construction methods, climate, roof forms and clients – and suggest how each can and should be used to create modern, sustainable architecture in the South.

“A balanced architecture rises up from the land it is built on, its hills, streams, weather and its people, their connections, ideas and stake in the future,” Harmon wrote in a recent article on North Carolina architecture for Inform magazine in Virginia.

He will use his own work to demonstrate regional modernism in the South, such as the new North Carolina Botanical Gardens Visitors Education Center at UNC-Chapel Hill, a cluster of buildings on a wooded hillside joined by deep porches and breezeways. The center is slated to be the State’s first LEED Platinum building.

For more information on AIA Jacksonville’s Design and Honor Awards Gala, including how to purchase tickets, go to www.aiajacksonville.org or email hgrimes@grimespg.com.

For more information on Frank Harmon, FAIA, visit www.frankharmon.com.

Frank Harmon Architect PA moves up in Architect Magazine’s annual list of best firms.

May 12, 2010 (RALEIGH, NC) – Frank Harmon Architect PA, a multi-award-winning firm based in Raleigh, NC and recognized nationally as a leader in innovative, modern, and regionally inspired “green” architecture, has placed 13^th on Architect magazine’s 2010 list of the top firms in the nation, moving up from the 26^th spot the firm held last year.

Frank Harmon Architect PA, founded by principal Frank Harmon, FAIA, in 1985, is the only firm in North Carolina to make the “Architect 50” this year. The Freelon Group in Durham placed 60^th and Little in Charlotte placed 71^st.

Unlike many other “top firms” lists, the “Architect 50” emphasizes ecological commitment and design quality as much as profitability as the editors determine the country’s very best firms. In fact, many firms ranking far lower than Harmon’s report revenues in the multiple millions.

Senior editor Amanda Kolson Hurley also notes, “Some commercially focused firms that were prominent last year have dropped off the list; conversely, this year’s biggest upward movers tend to be those with a bedrock of public-sector and infrastructural projects.”

Harmon’s firm has been working on and completing several “green” public-sector projects since the 2009 Architect 50, most of modest size and budget. They include Visitors Education Centers at Walnut Creek Urban Wetlands Park in Raleigh, the North Carolina Botanical Garden at UNC-Chapel Hill, Merchants Millpond State Park (recently featured in Architect magazine), and the N.C. Zoological Park (Children’s Nature Zoo). The firm is also working on oyster hatchery research facilities at UNC-Wilmington and in Northern Neck, Virginia, as well as a new Crafts Campus at UNC-Asheville.

Each of these projects embraces the principles of sustainability, both low-tech and high-tech, within regionally appropriate, modern designs. And each underscores the enjoyable aspects of energy conservation, such as natural light and ventilation; simple, familiar materials; and the use of deep porches for circulation and access to the outdoors.

In an introduction for Harmon at a North Carolina State University College of Design lecture, architecture Professor Paul Tesar stated:

“[Frank Harmon’s] buildings range from houses in the Bahamas to AIA Headquarters in Raleigh, from Eco-Stations to Parish Houses, from Iron Studios to Pottery Centers, and from Dog Boxes to Oyster Hatcheries – commissions, in other words, that most of us only can envy him for, because they somehow seem a little more inspiring than, say, 40,000 square feet of speculative office space next to a K-Mart parking lot.”

Of the higher ranking in this year’s “Architect 50,” Harmon said, “The usual rating of firms by gross billing, number of employees, etc., does not include our firm. But when we are rated on design recognition for our clients, sustainability, and financial performance, our firm shows up well.”

To see the entire 2010 Architect 50 list, go to www.architectmagazine.com.

For more information on Frank Harmon Architect PA, visit www.frankharmon.com.

The symposium is sponsored by the UNCG Biology Department with financial support from Syngenta. The theme for the 2010 symposium is “Practical Steps Toward Sustainability.”

As a designer and educator, Frank Harmon has been a leader in “green,” or sustainable, architecture for decades – long before the concept entered the general lexicon. He has spent years educating the public through speaking engagements at conferences and conventions across the country, including Dwell Magazine’s annual “Dwell on Design” convention and several national conventions of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).

He has also spent years educating his clients on the imperative for sustainable, regionally appropriate design and recently completed three thoroughly “green” projects: the NC Botanical Garden’s Visitor Education Center at UNC-Chapel Hill (slated to become the state’s first LEED Platinum building), the Walnut Creek Urban Wetlands Park Education Center in Raleigh, and the Merchants Millpond State Park Visitors Center in Gatesville, NC.

Among the current “green” projects Harmon’s firm is working on are the Oyster Research Hatchery at UNC-Wilmington, the UNC-Asheville Craft Campus, and AIA North Carolina’s Center for Architecture & Design in downtown Raleigh.

The other three speakers at the symposium are: Dr. Robert Jackson, director of Duke University’s Center on Global Change who will discuss the problems of nitrogen pollution; Dr. Patricia Gober, co-director of the National Science Foundation’s Decision Center for a Desert City, who will discuss water resource sustainability; and Dr. Susan Smalley, director of the Michigan State University C.S. Mott Group for Sustainable Food Systems, who will discuss community-based food systems.

UNCG’s Environmental Symposium 2010 is free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.uncg.edu/bio/index.

For more information on Frank Harmon, go to www.frankharmon.com.

Appetite 4 Architecture (A4A) is sponsored by Triangle Modernist Houses (TMH) as a way for the general public to dine with prominent members of the Triangle’s design community in an intimate, small group setting. Dinner guests will be able to discuss anything they want with the designers, from their dream home or renovation project, to the designers’ work or a house they’ve admired.

Frank Harmon is best known for his work in modern, innovative, environmentally sustainable and regionally appropriate architecture. Two houses he designed – one in Raleigh, the other in Charleston, SC — received the 2009 Custom Home Design Awards in the “less than 3000 square feet” category from Custom Home Magazine. His design of a vacation home in the Bahamas has been featured in numerous journals and books on green architecture and was included in a special exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. His residential work has also been featured in the Raleigh News & Observer’s “Home of the Month” series in association with the NC State University College of Design.

Currently, Harmon is working closely with David Crawford on the future AIA NC Center for Architecture & Design. Harmon won the commission in a professional design competition.

“A4A dinner events are rare opportunities to enjoy free-ranging discussions in an informal but upscale dining environment,” said TMH founder and director George Smart. “Participants will have access to some of the area’s best residential architects and professionals, many of whom are mentioned on TMH.  Explore architecture, homebuilding, the economy for design, furnishings, real estate – or anything else on your mind.”

Tickets to the Harmon/Crawford dinner are $59 per person. Dinner will begin at 6:30 p.m.

TMH is hosting nine A4A dinners. For information on the special guests for each dinner, the dates, and locations, go to www.trianglemodernisthouses.com/a4a.htm.

To reserve tickets for the Harmon/Crawford dinner or any of the others go to www.trianglemodernisthouses.com/a4a.htm.

Harmon, a multi-award winning architect and frequent speaker at seminars and symposia on design, will again make his case for sustainable building and development at the Center for Design Innovation in Winston-Salem, NC, when he participates in the CDI’s Idea Exchange on Tuesday, February 16, from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

CDI is a multi-campus research center for the statewide University of North Carolina. According to its website, the Idea Exchange is “a public forum for considering creative processes, digital techniques, business strategies, and other interests related to developing the knowledge economy of North Carolina’s Piedmont region.”

Frank Harmon is well known nationally for his firm’s modern, innovative, “green” and regionally appropriate architecture. From September to November 2009, he saw the completion of three high-performance, or “green,” projects in North Carolina, including the NC Botanical Gardens Visitor Education Center at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill that is slated to be the state’s first LEED Platinum building – the highest level of certification given by the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building rating system.

“It seems natural to me to design green buildings,” he said, “to catch the sun, accept the breeze and grown naturally out of the earth.”

In lectures and seminars, and as a Professor in Practice at NC State University’s College of Design, Harmon frequently asserts the necessity for modern buildings to be regionally appropriate – to address the specific context, materials, textures, colors and forms of a special region, using both traditional and non-traditional methods.

“The most sustainable – and liberating – thing we can do is acknowledge the places we are in,” he told Dwell magazine in January of 2008 when he was featured in the magazine’s “Conversations” section.

The CDI’s Idea Exchange is held in the Winston Tower, Suite 2105 (21^st floor) at 301 North Main Street in downtown Winston-Salem.

Currently CDI’s constituent schools are the UNC School of the Arts and Winston-Salem State University, collaborating with Forsyth Technical Community College. Sessions are recorded and web-streamed for remote access. For more information, go to www.centerfordesigninnovation.org.

For more information on Frank Harmon, visit www.frankharmon.com.

Sponsored by the College of Design and the Triangle section of the American Institute of Architects/North Carolina, the annual lecture is endowed by the estate of the renowned architect Harwell Hamilton Harris, FAIA (1903-1990) who served on the faculty of NC State’s College of Design from 1962 to 1975.

Frank Harmon is a fellow of the American Institute of Architecture and a Professor in Practice at the College of Design. He is the founder and principal of Frank Harmon Architect PA, a multi-award-winning, LEED AP, green architecture firm established in 1985. He was also a close friend of Harris for many years, and he credits Harris with steering his design sensibilities towards modern, innovative and regionally appropriate design.

In 2005, when Harmon’s firm was named Top Firm of the Year by Residential Architect magazine, he told writer Vernon Mays, “[Harwell Harris] taught me that every client and every situation is different and new. And it is the architect’s job to understand the needs of every situation and every client. He loved to say that the house is a portrait of the client.”

Harris also taught Harmon to infuse warmth and familiarity into modern architecture by embracing what Harris called the “sticks and stones” of the place:  the landscape, materials, climate and culture specific to the region in which a building will be built.

“What people thought was cold and threatening modernism, he made warm and approachable,” Harmon says.

Harmon’s lecture will focus on “why Harwell Hamilton Harris is important today,” he said. “His work embraces the whole of the environment – from the living room to the city – and all the particulars that go into making a building. He was also the first architect to write about the importance of regionalism in modern architecture.”

Harmon will discuss specific Harris projects – including his personal home and office on Cox Avenue in downtown Raleigh and St. Giles Presbyterian Church in North Raleigh – that strongly influenced Harmon’s own work.

Originally from California, Harwell Hamilton Harris was a sculptor who changed careers after he visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House in Los Angeles. He worked with Richard Neutra from 1928 until 1932 then merged the ideals of modern and California regionalist architecture into his residential work of the ‘30s and ‘40s. He served as Dean for the University of Texas School of Architecture from 1952-1955 and practiced in Dallas until 1962 when he moved to Raleigh to teach at NC State. He retired from teaching in 1973 but continued to practice until shortly before his death. He was a professor emeritus at the university when he died at the age of 87.

The Harwell Hamilton Harris Lecture is free and open to the public. Parking is available in the Coliseum parking deck. Limited parking may also be found in the Riddick or Peele parking lots after 5 pm. Parking along campus streets is not permitted unless otherwise noted.

For more information on the lecture call 919.515.8350.

For more information on Frank Harmon, go to www.frankharmon.com.

The Havens House designed by Harwell Hamilton Harris, FAIA. Photo by Man Ray.

]]> http://blog.frankharmon.com/press-releases/frank-harmon-to-deliver-special-lecture-at-nc-state-university/feed/ 1 http://blog.frankharmon.com/press-releases/future-aia-nc-center-for-architecture-design-featured-on-architects-artisans/ http://blog.frankharmon.com/press-releases/future-aia-nc-center-for-architecture-design-featured-on-architects-artisans/#comments Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:31:10 +0000 kweiss http://blog.frankharmon.com/?p=615 January 26, 2010 (RALEIGH, NC) – Under the headline “David vs. Goliath in Downtown Raleigh,” the new design-oriented blog Architects+Artisans: Thoughtful Design for a Sustainable World looks at the future AIA NC Center for Architecture & Design in downtown Raleigh and its location near the state Government Complex.

The post includes a video of the building model as it transforms into a real structure in space via computer-generated imaging.

Writer and editor for the blog, J. Michael Welton, spoke with architect Frank Harmon, FAIA, principal of Frank Harmon Architect PA, the firm that won the project through a professional design competition in 2008. Harmon explained how he approached the “pork chop” shaped site (his description) and the context, which includes the monolithic Archdale building overshadowing Peace Street along which the Center will be built.

“Ours is a horizontal statement,” Harmon told Welton. “The real face of the building is to the south, looking toward the State Capitol.” He also notes: “It’s on less than an acre, and we placed it parallel to Peace Street. It’s a long, thin building with a porch on the south side. You’ll find that all over the South – at Mount Vernon, for example – so we knew that was a good pattern to follow.”

The new building, a thoroughly “green” structure that will embrace all the high-tech as well as low-tech principles of sustainable design, will serve as headquarters for the North Carolina chapter of the American Institute of Architects. According to the AIA NC website, it is also intended to serve as “an architectural example for the entire state.”

To read the entire post and to see the video of the future building, go to architectsandartisans.com and click on “David vs. Goliath in Downtown Raleigh.”

For more information on Frank Harmon and to view more images of the AIA NC Center for Architecture and Design, visit www.frankharmon.com and click on “current” projects.

About Architects+Artisans:

Architects + Artisans is a sophisticated, well-informed provider of content, images, and knowledge concerning excellent architecture, artisanship and sustainability for the 21st century.  It is not just about designers – but about the people and products that make a well-designed place ring true. It is written and edited by J. Michael Welton, whose work on architecture, design and travel has appeared in The New York Times, Interior Design, Dwell, Green Source and Travel + Leisure. Visit http://architectsandartisans.com.