February 28, 2005 (RALEIGH, NC) — Raleigh architect Frank Harmon, FAIA, has been awarded two projects that will add to his already impressive portfolio of arts- and nature-oriented projects.
The University of North Carolina at Asheville has hired Harmon’s firm, Frank Harmon Architect, to design its new Crafts Campus for the school’s Wood, Ceramics, Metal, and Glass Arts majors. The state-of-the-art facility will be designed in accordance with the “green” or sustainable design practices for which Harmon has become known, and, consequently, will underscore the university’s stated commitment to sustainability.
“There couldn’t be a better discipline than craft to serve as a champion for the regional and global need to create places that respect our natural, sustainable resources,” Harmon said. “Arts and crafts could not exist without access to those same resources.”
The setting — an old Buncombe County Landfill – will also serve as a “laboratory” for ecological site planning and renewable energy evaluation and demonstration.
According to Harmon, this project is also “a canvas on which to build a structure that honors and celebrates the beauty of the North Carolina mountains in general and the UNCA campus in particular.”
North Carolina’s Division of Parks and Recreation hired Harmon recently to design a 6500-square-foot visitor’s center plus outdoor educational building at Merchants Mill Pond State Park in Gatesville, NC. Merchants Millpond is a Registered Natural Heritage Area that covers 1900 acres and includes the millpond and part of Lassiter Swamp.
Originally known as Norfleets, the millpond was formed when Bennetts Creek was impounded to serve as a grist and sawmill in 1811. It became known as Merchants Millpond in the early 1900s and was the county’s chief trading center. Mill operations stopped just before World War II. A.B. Coleman purchased it in the 1960s. The area became a state park in 1973 when Coleman donated it to the state to protect the area’s natural diversity, which includes old-growth stands of cypress-gum forests. The same year, the Nature Conservancy contributed 925 acres of woodlands to the park.
Tags: Buncombe County, green architecture, NC architects, sustainable architecture, UNC-A Crafts Campus, UNC-Asheville