awards and news

“I don't know who this guy is, but he's either a genius or a schizophrenic.” - Jury member Max Protetch of Max Protetch Gallery in New York after Frank Harmon won three 1999 AIA/NC design awards

Frank Harmon Revisits “America’s New Regionalism” During 2012 AIA Convention

Tuesday, March 6th, 2012

The award-winning architect will present his popular seminar in

Frank Harmon, FAIA

Frank Harmon, FAIA

Washington, D.C.

March 6, 2012 (Raleigh, NC) — For the fifth year, Frank Harmon, FAIA, principal of FrankHarmon Architect PA in Raleigh, NC, will present his popular seminar, “Architects Discuss America’s New Regionalism,” during the 2012 American Institute of Architects National Convention and Design Exposition.

The Convention will be held May 17 to 19 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. The theme for this year’s convention is  “Design Connects.”

Harmon’s seminar explores regionalism’s influence on contemporary design and building techniques that connect it to the social, cultural, economic and environmental needs of its place. It illuminates practical and advanced techniques and technologies for creating an architecture that is firmly connected to the people and the place in which it is built while maintaining budget and contributing to environmental sustainability.

“For architecture to truly connect to its place and its community,” Harmon says, “it must conserve, protect, and engage the specific culture, climate, materials, topography and best building practices of the region in which it is built.”

David Jameson, AIA, of Alexandria, Virginia, Peter Q. Bohlin, FAIA, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Mark McInturff, FAIA, of Washington, D.C., will join Harmon for 90-minute seminar. The three award-winning architects will use examples of their own work to demonstrate real applications of the principles of modern regional design that should “inspire other architects to unlock their potential and ignite changes in how they design and construct buildings in their own regions,” Harmon says.

Frank Harmon, Professor in Practice at North Carolina State University’s College of Design, is recognized nationally as a leader in modern, innovative, sustainable, and regionally appropriate buildings. His work has received numerous awards, has been featured in many journals and books on the subject, and has been exhibited in the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. Recently, Architect magazine ranked Harmon’s firm 22nd among the nation’s top 50 firms.

For more information on the 2012 AIA National Convention and Design Exposition, go to www.aia.org.

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

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NCSU Landscape Architecture Lecture Series To Feature Frank Harmon, FAIA

Monday, February 27th, 2012

Award-winning architect will discuss how the two professions can FH headshot xsmwork together.

February 22, 2012 (Raleigh, NC) – Frank Harmon, FAIA, principal of Frank Harmon Architect PA in Raleigh and Professor in Practice at the North Carolina State University College of Design, will give the February 27 lecture for the 2011-12 Landscape Architecture Lecture Series. His theme will be “How architects and landscape architects can work together.”

Free and open to the public, Harmon’s lecture will begin at 6 p.m. in the Burns Auditorium in Kamphoefner Hall.

A nationally recognized leader in modern, sustainable, regionally appropriate architecture, Harmon says he will discuss the urban and rural landscape, how architecture fits into it, and how architects and landscape architects can combine efforts “to leave the landscape better than we found it,” he said.

“For the past two decades I’ve chosen to have a landscape architect working beside me when I begin a design,” Harmon said. “At Merchants Millpond in eastern North Carolina, for example, I canoed and camped with landscape architect David Swanson before we drew the first line for the new Environmental Education Center there. I teamed with landscape architect Gregg Bleam to design the recently completed AIA NC Center for Architecture and Design in downtown Raleigh.”

Harmon frequently asserts that the most important decision an architect makes is how to position a building on its site. “That particular throw of the dice determines everything that follows: orientation, aspect and prospect, day lighting, cross ventilation, hydrology, micro-climate, and most importantly, a sense of place. My belief that all good architecture begins with the land makes me value and appreciate landscape architects’ skills and understanding.”

The 2011-12 Landscape Architecture Lecture Series is produced by the Department of Landscape Architecture in partnership with the Student Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects and the Landscape Architecture Advisory Council.

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

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Frank Harmon Chairs Boston Society of Architects Awards Jury

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

To select the best new buildings by Massachusetts architects.

FH headshot xsm

February 2, 2012 (Raleigh, NC) –  Frank Harmon, FAIA, principal of Frank Harmon Architect PA in Raleigh, NC, recently served as chairman of the 2011 Boston Society of Architects/AIA design awards program and presented the awards to the winners during a gala ceremony held January 26 at the Marriott Copley Place.

The sole judging criterion for the Boston program was design excellence. The jury was empowered to determine the extent to which design excellence is defined by aesthetic, functional, contextual, sustainable, social or other characteristics. The jury could also elect to honor all or part of a project, in any category they choose. The categories included: Accessible Design; Education Facilities Design, John M. Clancy Award for Socially Responsible Housing, Sustainable Design, Unbuilt, Honor Awards for Design Excellence, and the Harleston Parker Medal award.

“The work of the Boston Society of Architects is quite simply exceptional, some of the best in the country,” Harmon said. “It was a pleasure to review their work.”

This year’s Boston jury was composed of members of the Triangle Architecture and Design Society (TADS), a group of architects from Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, NC, that fosters collaboration among competing area practitioners and encourages greater public understanding of architectural design. TADS has proven so successful that it has garnered national AIA attention.

TADS members participating with Harmon on the Boston jury were: Roger Clark FAIA, Distinguished Professor at the College of Design NCSU, and David Hill, AIA, Associate professor at the College of Design; Dennis Stallings, AIA, and Irv Pearce, AIA, of Pearce, Brinkley, Cease + Lee; Ellen Weinstein, AIA; Phil Szostak, FAIA; Bryan Bell, AIA; and Victoria Bell as an alternate juror.

Frank Harmon is a sought-after jury member and jury chairman for professional design competitions across the nation. For more information, visit www.frankharmon.com.

For more information on the Boston Society/AIA, visit www.architects.org.

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“Appetite4Architecture” Dinner Features Special Guest Frank Harmon, FAIA

Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

The first in a series of dinners sponsored by Triangle Modernist Houses.

Frank Harmon, FAIA

Frank Harmon, FAIA

January 18, 2012 (Raleigh, NC) – Frank Harmon FAIA, founder and principal of the award-winning firm Frank Harmon Architect PA in Raleigh, will be a featured guest at the first 2012 “Appetite4Architecture” dinner on Tuesday, January 31, beginning at 6:30 p.m. in 18 Seaboard restaurant in Raleigh.

Now in its third year, “Appetite4Architecture” dinners are sponsored by Triangle Modernist Houses (TMH), an award-winning, non-profit organization dedicated to documenting, preserving and promoting Modernist residential design. The purpose of the dinners is to give the general public a chance to dine with, and talk with, some of the Triangle area’s finest architects in a relaxed, informal setting.

Frank Harmon is well known for modern, innovative, sustainable and regionally appropriate architecture of all types, including houses. Among his best known, award-winning residential designs are:

  • The Taylor Vacation House in the Bahamas, which is included in the book Tropical Modernism and was featured in an exhibit in the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., among many other accolades.
  • The Strickland-Ferris Residence in Raleigh, which has been featured in a number of architectural magazines and received both Custom Home and Wood Design awards.
  • The Low Country Residence in Mount Pleasant, SC, which also received a Custom Home Design Award and a national AIA Housing Award.
  • And his own modern home and gardens that he shares with his wife, landscape architect Judy Harmon, in Raleigh, which were featured in Sarah Susanka’s book Outside The Not-So-Big House.

In 2011, Frank Harmon was included in Residential Architect magazine’s “RA 50: A Short List of Architects We Love,” and in 2005 his firm received the magazine’s “Top Firm of the Year” honor. He has been profiled in Dwell magazine and Architectural Record, and he has been a featured guest on American Public Media’s “The Story” with Dick Gordon.

Joining Harmon for TMH’s inaugural 2012 “A4A” dinner will be Durham architect Ellen Cassilly, AIA, who worked in Harmon’s firm before founding her own firm Ellen Cassilly Architect Inc., and Randy Lanou, president of BuildSense/Studio B Architecture, also in Durham. Dona Aguayo of Go Realty is co-sponsoring the January 31 dinner.

The TMH “A4A” dinners are all held at 18 Seaboard, 18 Seaboard Avenue, No. 100, Raleigh, NC 27604. The dinners include three courses from a preselected menu (vegetarian options are available) plus coffee, water, tea, tax, and gratuity. Price per person is $53. Tickets are available at www.trianglemodernisthouses.com/a4a. Payments are nonrefundable except for event cancellation. All proceeds benefit TMH’s ongoing documentation, preservation, and house tours programs. For more information on TMH call George Smart, 919-740-8407 or visit www.trianglemodernisthouses.com.

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

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Frank Harmon Discusses the New AIA Center for Architecture and Design in New Video

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

Harmon and landscape architect Gregg Bleam talk about the design process.

AIA NC-1_sm

December 6, 2011 (Raleigh, NC) — Architect Frank Harmon, FAIA, of Frank Harmon Architect PA, recently posted a new video on his website (www.frankharmon.com) in which he and landscape architect Gregg Bleam discuss the design process behind the soon-to-be-completed AIA NC Center for Architecture and Design in downtown Raleigh.

Segments of the video will be updated as AIA NC (the American Institute of Architects North Carolina chapter) moves in and the landscape matures.

Harmon explains at the beginning of the video that the project is the result of his firm winning a professional design competition. One of the reasons Harmon won, according to the judges, was that his concept for a modern, thoroughly sustainable, and regionally appropriate Center embraced building and landscape as a single interdependent, interlocking whole.

“We knew this was a landscape problem,” Harmon says, because of the oddly shaped, triangular site and the parking requirements. As a result, he enlisted Bleam “before we drew a single line” and felt including Bleam in the video on the building was imperative.

Directed and shot by Allen Weiss of Allen Weiss: Works on Film and Paper in Raleigh, the video features Harmon in his warehouse-turned-office in Raleigh’s Boylan Heights neighborhood and Bleam in his office in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia. It also includes a variety of footage of the building under construction; of Harmon and Bleam walking the site, looking over plans and laughing together; and behind-the-scenes moments in the construction trailer.

Frank Harmon, FAIA

Frank Harmon, FAIA

This is the first video that Frank Harmon, a multi-awarding winning architect and Professor in Practice at NC State University’s College of Design, has done for his website. Why did he choose this particular project?

“Because of its design, the AIA NC Center for Architecture and Design is destined to be an icon in downtown Raleigh,” said Kim Weiss, Harmon’s public relations coordinator. “It’s also the first from-the-ground-up, ‘green’ AIA headquarters in the nation.

“But equally important,” she continued, “is that the general public rarely gets to hear an architect talk about the process that lead to the design of a building, especially one as iconic as this one. Through the video, Frank is creating a rapport with his audience, whether that means students, clients, future clients, or folks just interested in architecture. Together, he and Gregg are communicating more than a written description could.”

She also pointed out that “videos are entertaining. It’s simply a fact that people today are more likely to click on a video than to read a written description.”

The man behind the camera, Allen Weiss, noted how comfortable Harmon and Bleam were in front of the camera. “There was no script,” he said. “They just started talking and were of such a similar mindset that I could easily cut from one to the other as they discussed the design process. I was impressed.”

The video opens and closes with audible off-camera voices. Weiss said he purposefully left the “chatter” in during the edit to give the piece a casual, relaxed feel, “unlike the garden-variety, industrial, talking-head videos that are dry and offer no clues into the personalities behind them. I don’t believe you can separate the product from the dynamic and interesting personalities that lead to its creation. My intention was not only to showcase this important structure, but to allow viewers to get to know Frank and Gregg in a simply, personal, human way.”

To hear Frank Harmon and Gregg Bleam discuss the design process behind the AIA NC Center for Architecture and Design, visit www.frankharmon.com and click on AIA North Carolina Center for Architecture Design – Video.” To read more about the project, click on “current” projects.

For more information on Gregg Bleam Landscape Architect, go to www.gbla.net.

For more information on Allen Weiss, visit www.allen-weiss.com.

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Modern, Green Playhouse Designed To Inspire Imagination

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

Frank Harmon Architect PA participates in Playhouse Parade fundraiser, auction.

Color scheme, elevations

Color scheme, elevations

September 20, 2011 (Raleigh, NC) — Award-winning architect Frank Harmon, FAIA, believes “the best toy is one that allows the greatest freedom. Lego is a good example, a child under a table with a tablecloth surrounding her is another, and nothing is better than a muddy stream.” That’s why the custom-built playhouse his firm has designed for the upcoming Playhouse Parade in Raleigh is about creating spaces that will inspire a child’s imagination.

The Playhouse Parade is a collaboration among the City of Raleigh Parks & Recreation Department, Cameron Village Shopping Center, the Triangle Builders Guild, and a variety of designers, architects, businesses, and individuals to raise funds for the Sassafras All Children’s Playground, a new playground in Laurel Hills that will be accessible for children with special needs.

Frank Harmon’s design team is well-known for modern, sustainable and regionally appropriate

Exterior (under construction)

Exterior (under construction)

architecture, and this playhouse – like the Dog House the firm designed in 2005 to raise funds for Triangle Beagle Rescue of North Carolina — is no exception.

In modern architecture, form follows function. But in the playhouse, form follows play — to allow children’s imagination the greatest freedom.

Rather than designing a themed playhouse — a pirate ship or a firehouse, for example — Harmon’s playhouse “lets a child use his or her imagination,” he says, “from tea parties to puppet shows and even making mud-pies.”

The tall, narrow structure features a covered porch/stage, a lower-level playroom with two windows, and a loft level with a balcony or ”Juliet” window. On the first level, behind the ladder that rises to the loft, is the “kitchen,” where a shelf with buckets sits ready for mud-pie making. Sliding shutters at both lower windows open for puppet shows but close to keep out rain — and imaginary forces

Interior showing the upper-level loft

Interior showing the upper-level loft

attacking a fort. The large main door at the front of the playhouse can be thrown open for stage productions. In its closed position, a smaller door-within-a door allows children to enter and exit, and a “peep hole” window above the small door allows sun light in and serves as a “spy portal.” A planter in front of the porch/stage invites children to grow flowers and vegetables.

“How important is it,” Harmon asks, “for children to learn where a tomato comes from?”

In keeping with the principals of green, or sustainable, design, the structure is composed of locally available materials: painted wood (plywood and 2×4s and 2×2s), metal (galvanized pipe), and translucent corrugated polycarbonate for the roof. The windows provide natural ventilation and lighting, and the deep roof overhang protects the interior from the hot summer sun.

Harmon and his design team consulted with a child psychologist and several children during the design process, and built the playhouse to the scale of a three- to seven-year-old child.

“It’s real, but small,” says Courtney Evans, Harmon’s architectural intern, who spearheaded the

Window with sliding shutter

Window with sliding shutter

project.

Twelve design teams are designing, building, and donating playhouses that will be displayed in Cameron Village on two Saturdays, October 8 and 15, then auctioned off on October 22 during the “Night Under The Stars Playhouse Parade Gala.” Proceeds from the auction will be used to restore the city’s one-of-a-kind playground that gives kids, no matter what their abilities, the chance to play. For more information: http://sassafrasplay.org/playhouse.

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

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Frank Harmon Architect PA Wins High Award For Simple Project

Thursday, September 15th, 2011

JC Raulston Arboretum Lath House at NC State University wins AIA NC Honor Award. Lath House_sm

September 15, 2011 (Raleigh, NC) – Frank Harmon Architect PA has received a 2011 Honor Award from the North Carolina Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA NC) for the firm’s design of North Carolina State University’s JC Raulston Arboretum Lath House in Raleigh.

The Lath House received one of only two Honor Awards presented this year, and it was a pro bono project for Harmon’s firm as a gift to the Arboretum.

The Lath House is an open-air laboratory for horticultural research. Its screen of wood two-by-twos fulfills the specific light-to-shade ratio young plants need before they transition into the larger gardens.

According to the firm’s principal, Frank Harmon, FAIA, the structure was designed as an abstract of a tree that spreads its branches to protect the plants.

The Lath House replaced an older structure that sheltered approximately 700 young and tender plants that perform best in shade. The new structure may provide space for 1000 new plantings.

The 10 and a half-acre JC Raulston Arboretum is a nationally acclaimed garden with one of the largest and most diverse collections of plants, shrubs and trees adapted for use in Southeastern landscapes from over 50 different countries. Plants are collected and evaluated in an effort to find superior plants for use in southern gardens. The Lath House is a key element in the arboretum’s work.

“Over the last three decades, the JC Raulston Lath House has nurtured some of the most successful plants for use in Southern Detail_smgardens, including hostas, ferns, hydrangea and rhododendron,” Harmon said. “We were honored to be a part of the Arboretum’s mission by designing the new Lath House.”

Will Lambeth, a former member of Harmon’s design team who left to attend Harvard University, served on the design team for the Lath House, which received a Merit Award this summer from the Triangle section of AIA NC and has been published at ArchDaily.com.

Harmon’s firm is known for designing projects that celebrate plant life, such as the cluster of buildings for the NC Botanical Gardens Visitors Education Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Walnut Creek Wetlands Education Center in Raleigh, and the NC Museum of Natural Science’s open-air classroom at the Prairie Ridge Eco-station, also in Raleigh.  For more information visit www.frankharmon.com.

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The Bridge at Concord

Monday, July 25th, 2011

By Frank Harmon

At museums and visitors centers, less interpretation is more.

One day in the 1970s, I wandered into the rare documents room at the British Museum, where cloth-shrouded glass cases held poems, speeches and letters written by famous people. You could pull back a cloth, read the document, and

North Bridge at Concord by Frank Harmon

North Bridge at Concord by Frank Harmon

cover it up again. When I pulled back one of the cloths, I caught my breath: Before me was the Magna Carta. How amazing, I thought, to find the most important document in British history displayed so diffidently, in a glass case with a curtain over it. I was thrilled.

In America, we handle our history differently. The Declaration of Independence, for example, is encased in bulletproof glass in a gold-plated, titanium frame filled with argon gas. The case is lowered each night into a crypt beneath the National. Archive. The display is so overpowering that it is possible to feel that the container is more important than the founding document inside. It makes me feel as if I am being told of its importance rather than invited to discover it. Yet history is best discovered by each of us, just as democracy is best preserved as a personal responsibility.

I had another epiphany recently when I visited the North Bridge at Concord, Massachusetts, where the first battle of the American War of Independence took place. Now preserved as part of the Minute Man National Historical Park, the Bridge at Concord is a simple wooden structure spanning a stream about fifty feet wide. At each end of the bridge stand two stone monuments, one erected by the Americans, one by the British, many years after the battle. There is no visitors center nearby, no auditorium with a twenty-minute film, no interactive video recreating the battle, and certainly no titanium cases containing artifacts in argon. Instead, in a clearing next to the bridge, visitors sit in a small semicircle of wooden benches. A park ranger stands and tells how the British army, marching out from Boston to intimidate the colonists, approached the bridge and was met by a volunteer group of Minutemen.

The effect of his story is compelling. We can see the short distance between the two groups of men, who, muskets drawn, faced death that morning. We can imagine how the roar of guns silenced birds’ songs on that spring day. We can see the road where the American farmers approached the bridge, and we can see the road down which the British fled. The ranger quotes a poem written by Ralph Waldo Emerson for the dedication of the American monument on July 4,1837:

On the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood

And fired the shot heard round the world.


There at the North Bridge, nothing stands between our history and us except sunlight reflected in the dust. We are enlightened without being pushed, always a welcome experience.

Sometimes the best thing for a designer to do is to not get in the way.

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Frank Harmon Architect PA Makes “Architect 50″ List for Third Straight Year

Monday, May 16th, 2011

The small Raleigh, NC,  firm ranks 21st this year among the top 50 firms in the nation.

May 16, 2011 (Raleigh, NC) – For the third consecutive year, Frank Harmon

Frank Harmon, FAIA

Frank Harmon, FAIA

Architect PA has made Architect magazine’s “Architect 50” list of architectural firms from across the nation, placing 21st.

Architect magazine ranks firms for its annual Architect 50 list based on a composite assessment of the firms’ commitment to sustainability, design quality, and profitability.

“The usual rating of firms by gross billing, number of employees, etc., would not include our firm,” said Frank Harmon, FAIA, principal of Frank Harmon Architect PA. “But when we are rated on design recognition for our clients, sustainability, and financial performance, our firm shows up well.”

“By looking at the whole picture, we’re able to honor not the biggest, but the best,” writes executive editor Amanda Kolson Hurley in the May 2011 edition of the national journal. “The 2011 Architect 50…shows that [architecture] and [architecture/engineering] firms, large and small, can do well in this economy.”

(more…)

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Frank Harmon Architect PA Project Designer Accepted at Harvard

Wednesday, May 11th, 2011

Will Lambeth will enter Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.

Will Lambeth

Will Lambeth

May 11, 2011 (Raleigh, NC) – Frank Harmon Architect PA is pleased to announce  that project designer Will Lambeth has been accepted into the graduate program in Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.

For the past four years, Lambeth has worked in Frank Harmon’s award-winning firm on a variety of significant projects, including the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science’s Prairie Ridge Eco-station in Raleigh, the North Carolina chapter of the American Institute of Architect’s new Center for Architecture & Design in downtown Raleigh, and the Children’s Learning Center at the North Carolina Zoological Garden in Asheboro, NC. His most recent project, the Lath House at the JC Raulston Arboretum, NC State University, won a merit award from the Triangle section of the AIA in April 2011 and was published in ArchDaily.com, an international online architecture magazine.

A Greensboro, NC native, Will Lambeth joined Frank Harmon Architect PA as an intern architect in May 2009 after working part-time for the firm for two years. He was the 2009 valedictorian graduate of the NC State College of Design, Bachelor of Architecture program, where he received the Faculty Award for design excellence. He studied at the Prague Institute in 2007.

Lambeth’s areas of expertise include digital and physical modeling, graphic design, schematic design, and site analysis.

“I’ve learned so much about life and architecture working at FHA,” Lambeth said. “The firm has been like a family to me.”

“We are very proud of Will and wish him great success at Harvard,” said Frank Harmon, FAIA. “We look forward to seeing his future work.”

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

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