May 21, 2010 (RALEIGH, NC) – “Even small buildings can have an important, and positive, environmental impact,” writes architecture critic Vernon Mays in an article on the Merchants Millpond Visitor Center in Gatesville, NC, for Architect magazine, one of the nation’s leading professional architecture journals.
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.