Charleston houses | frank harmon architect pa

“From site, client, and experience, Frank Harmon spins a highly specific, easy-living modernism.” - Vernon Mays, Residential Architect magazine

Low Country Residence Wins 2009 National AIA Housing Award

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

April 21, 2009 (RALEIGH, NC) – “All good buildings begin with the land.” That’s the edict that informs every building Raleigh, NC-based architect Frank Harmon, FAIA, designs. It is also one of the key reasons his design of a residence in Charleston, South Carolina, recently received one of the American Institute of Architects’ 17 Housing Awards for 2009.

For nine years the AIA has presented its annual Housing Awards to promote the importance of good residential design as a necessity of life, a sanctuary for the human spirit, and a valuable national resource.

In an article on this year’s award-winners in the Wall Street Journal, author Christina S.N. Lewis observed: “With obvious opulence on the outs, the winning AIA homes offer a glimpse of the styles and features that might appeal to homeowners of the future. Many incorporate eco-friendly ideas: solar panels, radiant heating and ‘daylighting,’ the practice of maximizing natural light while reducing glare and heat. Another theme was the celebration of hardy, maintenance-free materials like stone, steel and copper, and reliance on locally available resources.”

Harmon’s Low Country Residence, completed in 2005, is exemplary of all points. It was designed to tread lightly on its lush site overlooking historic Shem Creek, and to evoke the feeling of living outdoors. The long, one-room-deep floor plan creates a slender footprint on the land and allows each room to have windows and porches overlooking the creek. The operable windows also provide natural cross-ventilation and lighting. Approaching the house under a canopy of moss-draped live oaks, the view of the marsh appears like an element in a Japanese painting.

Harmon’s modern interpretation of Charleston’s historic shutters – a series of 10 perforated steel screens that a single person can raise or lower — provides the glass wall overlooking the creek with protection from harsh weather and summer sun. In their upright position, the screens create shade for the glass wall overlooking the creek. In their closed position, they protect the wall and house from hurricane forces and flying debris – an essential need for an area that was ravaged by Hurricane Hugo in 1989.

For strength, the 2500-square-foot house is built of steel and laminated-wood (Southern yellow pine) framing that rests on matt-concrete footings. The roof is a large, simple plane that shelters the house from the area’s torrential rains. Brazilian hardwood porch floors and pool decking avoids heat absorption and radiation during the hot summer season.

This is the third design award Frank Harmon’s Low Country house has received. It has also been featured in numerous magazines and journals and was a “House Of The Month” in the Raleigh News & Observer.

Jurors for the 2009 awards were: Kenneth Workman of RWA Architects; Rainy Hamilton Jr. of Hamilton Anderson Associates; Jane Kolleeny of Architectural Record and GreenSource magazines; and Jeff Oberdorfer of First Community Housing. Project summaries for all of this year’s award-winning designs can be found at aia.org.

For more information on the Low Country Residence and other projects by Frank Harmon, visit www.frankharmon.com.

Tags: AIA Housing Awards, Charleston houses, modern architecture, residential architecture
Posted in Press Releases |

Frank Harmon Wins Triangle/AIA Design Award for Residence That Captures National Attention

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

May 5, 2007 (RALEIGH, NC) — Frank Harmon, FAIA, principal of Frank Harmon Architect PA in Raleigh, recently received a Merit Award from the Triangle AIA Awards program for a house he designed on Shem Creek in Charleston, South Carolina, that is quickly garnering national attention. The Low Country residence will be featured in both Architectural Record and Waterfront Homes & Design magazines this summer.

The Triangle AIA Awards are presented annually by the Triangle section (comprised of 10 counties in central North Carolina) of the N.C. Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. The jury consisted of New Orleans and Tulane University-based practitioners Coleman Coker, Mona El Khafif, Doug Harmon and Cordula Roser. The awards were presented April 10 during a gala reception at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

According to Harmon, the client wanted for his award-winning design wanted a spacious house with an abundance of windows open to the view of nature and wildlife on Shem Creek, which includes 100-year-old, Spanish-moss-draped live oaks. That request came with two enormous challenges: (1) The best view of the creek would be on the western elevation, where the sun would bake the house on hot summer afternoons, and (2) the house would be located in a hurricane zone, so the windows, as well as the structure itself, would have to withstand up to 150-mph winds and accompanying debris.

According to the architect, the house required “a 21^st-century solution to 400-year-old problems.”

For strength, the house was built of steel and laminated-wood (Southern yellow pine) framing that rests on matt-concrete footings. The roof is one large, simple plane that shelters the house from the area’s torrential rains and collects rainwater in cisterns for landscape irrigation. Carports are dramatically cantilevered to shelter the owner’s cars and, in the off-season, boat.

The house’s long, thin shape allows each room to have windows and porches overlooking the water. The operable windows create natural cross-ventilation for the interior, which features locally available Southern yellow pine paneling.

To capitalize on the view of the creek, a large glass wall fronts the southwest side of the house. Yet this same wall had to be protected from excessive summer heat gain, while allowing cooling breezes into the house, and had to be protected from extreme weather. The solution was a series of 10 screens, hinged above the porch, constructed of hand-fabricated metal frames, which house perforated-metal panels, which can protect the house during any season. In their horizontal (open) position, they shade the house in spring and fall. In their vertical (closed) position, they create a shaded porch, allow cooling breezes to enter the house, and keep damaging debris out. Made of hot-dip galvanized steel to resist wind-borne, corrosive salt, the 800-pound screens were also designed and installed to allow a single person to lift and balance them easily as they are moved from one position to another.

After approaching this house from the long, sandy drive under a canopy of moss-draped live oaks, and climbing the gentle ramp up to the house, the view of the salt marsh – replete with blue herons, ibis, and water lilies – unfolds “like elements in a delicate Japanese painting,” Harmon said. Yet the rock-solid structure and metal screens demonstrate” the graceful strength needed to survive in a beautiful, if sometimes brutal, coastal landscape and climate.”

The innovative screens have received their own awards: one from Residential Architect magazine, a national professional journal, and another from Inform magazine, a publication of the Virginia Chapter of the AIA.

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

Tags: Architectural Record, Charleston houses, Inform magazine, Low Country houses, Residential Architect Magazine, Shem Creek SC, Triangle/AIA awards
Posted in Press Releases |