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

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.”

Frank Harmon Architect PA, an intentionally small firm, specializes in modern, sustainable, and regionally appropriate design. Among the firm’s 2010-2011 design awards, its thoroughly “green” Sunday school addition at the Circular Congregational Church in downtown Charleston, SC, received three awards: a national award from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art and Architecture; an AIA NC Honor Award; and an AIA Triangle Honor Award.

Harmon’s firm also received three awards for the Walnut Creek Wetland Center over the past year: an AIA NC Merit Award; an Environmental Design award from the City of Raleigh; and a Sir Walter Award for Community Appearance, also from the City of Raleigh.

The only other North Carolina firm to make the 2011 list is Pearce Brinkley Cease + Lee of Raleigh and Asheville, at 23rd.

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

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

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.

Raleigh architect will discuss modern, sustainable design in San Antonio

Frank Harmon, FAIA

March 1, 2011 (Raleigh, NC) — Frank Harmon, FAIA, principal of Frank Harmon Architects PA in Raleigh, will be the featured speaker for the AIA Lecture Series in San Antonio, Texas, on March 30, beginning 6 p.m. in the historic Pearl Studio conference center on Grayson Street.

Harmon is a multi-award-winning leader in modern, innovative, sustainable architecture, and frequently lectures on the importance of regionally appropriate architecture – which address the particulars of climate, topography, forms, colors and culture of a region — as a means of creating both environmentally friendly architecture and a sense of place.

“A simple pleasure I enjoy each day is drinking tea from a hand-made bowl,” he explains. “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. 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’m not certain that architecture, whether a house or town, can always have the friendly familiarity of a hand-thrown clay bowl. But I am certain there is virtue in trying.”

The AIA San Antonio Lecture Series began in 1999 as a collaborative effort between the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the University of Texas at San Antonio. It is now presented independent of the University and focuses on architects’ professional development and continuing education credits.

Harmon’s lecture and all others in the series are free and open to the public. For more information on the entire series, visit www.aiasa.org.

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

December 30, 2010 (RALEIGH, NC) –  For the first time in its history, Residential Architect magazine has published its “RA 50: A Short List of Architects We Love.” And Frank Harmon Architect PA of Raleigh, NC, is among them.

According to editor Claire Conroy, “This collection comprises [firms] whose names keep rising to the top.” Along with Harmon’s firm, the list includes such illustrious names as Glenn Murcutt, Brooks-Scarpa Architects, Lake/Flato, and Michelle Kaufman.

Senior editors Nigel Maynard, Cheryl Weber, Meghan Drueding, and Bruce Snider say the RA 50 represents “a broad collection of people who simply – day in and day out – do very good, interesting work.”

Frank Harmon Architect PA is no stranger to Residential Architect’s pages. In 2003, the Taylor Vacation House the firm designed for a couple in the Bahamas was named RA’s House of the Year. In 2005, the firm received the magazine’s Top Firm of the Year accolade.

Since then, founder and principal Frank Harmon, FAIA, has been featured in a number of the magazine’s articles on sustainable, regionally appropriate residential design and construction, and he has been a speaker at RA’s annual “Reinvention” design symposium.

The RA 50 list first appeared in the magazine’s November-December digital version then in print. Harmon’s firm appears on page 30 beside Australian architect Glenn Murcutt, Hon. FAIA. Expanded versions of each architect’s profile will soon be featured on the website www.residentialarchitect.com.

“One of the most exciting things about this is that my firm is featured on the same page as Glenn Murcutt, the most important contemporary architect working today, and a designer from whom I have learned so much,” said Harmon. “I’m also honored simply to be included in the pages of Residential Architect. RA is truly the finest publication on residential design and construction in the nation.”

Residential Architect is an award-winning national magazine focusing exclusively on the residential architecture profession.

“We put this short list together as an end-of-year tribute to this admirable profession,” the editors state.

For more information, visit www.residentialarchitect.com.

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

By Alison Furuto

After two years of planning and waiting for financing, the North Carolina chapter of the American Institute of Architects, designed by Frank Harmon Architect PA, finally held its official, public groundbreaking ceremony for its new headquarters building and design center on Thursday, December 9, at 11:30 a.m.

The building will be constructed on an oddly shaped, previously unused lot on Peace and Wilmington streets between Peace College and the NC Government Complex.  The new building will also be designed to meet LEED standards at the Platinum level. The AIA NC Center for Architecture & Design will be “a modern building with a green heart,” as Frank Harmon, FAIA, likes to call it, whose firm won a professional competition for the project in 2008. More images and project description after the break…

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE

Future LEED-Platinum building breaks ground in downtown Raleigh.

December 8, 2010 (RALEIGH, NC) – After two years of planning and waiting for financing, the North Carolina chapter of the American Institute of Architects will finally hold its official, public groundbreaking ceremony for its new headquarters building and design center on Thursday, December 9, at 11:30 a.m. The building will be constructed on an oddly shaped, previously unused lot on Peace and Wilmington streets between Peace College and the NC Government Complex.

Designed by Frank Harmon Architect PA after the firm won a professional competition for the project in 2008, the AIA NC Center for Architecture & Design will be “a modern building with a green heart,” as Frank Harmon, FAIA, likes to call it.

The building has been designed to meet LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards at the highest Platinum level, and AIA Committee On The Environment (COTE) goals, which include regional appropriateness and the use of regionally available materials, land use and site ecology, sustainable materials and methods of construction, reduced water usage, and increased energy efficiency.

“As we come out of the recession, we won’t be building in the same wasteful ways,” Harmon said. “With new emphasis on alternative energy and sustainable design, the AIA NC Center will show us a new way to build.”

Harmon also believes the Center will be a compelling example for responsible revitalization of the cores of towns and cities across the state, including Raleigh.

“It will demonstrate sustainable urban development and put Raleigh ‘on the map’ as a leader in this endeavor,” he noted, “from re-using every shovel of earth removed for the footprint, to the porously paved parking garden and state-of-the-art ‘green’ technology.”

Deferring to the natural topography, the new building will be situated along the edge of the property and porously paved so that the majority of the site will be park-like – a public park in an area of the city that doesn’t have one. This will provide an outdoor gathering space for AIA NC and community events and effectively expand AIA NC’s outreach program.

“One of AIA NC’s goals is to contribute to the vitality of that section of downtown by transforming an awkward, unused piece of property into a ‘people center’ that will, in turn, impact the businesses around it,” Harmon said.

Architecturally, the overriding objective of the building’s concept is “to demonstrate and encourage aesthetic and ecological integrity – to create a flagship for green architecture in North Carolina that is architecturally, environmentally, socially, and aesthetically inspiring,” Harmon said.

Construction should be completed in 10-12 months.

For more information on the building’s design, visit www.frankharmon.com/current/3/. For more information on AIA NC, visit www.aianc.org.

by Vernon Mays

Natural beauty is what draws people to Merchants Millpond State Park in Gatesville, N.C. Its 760-acre lake and adjacent swamp are home to towering bald cypress and tupelo gum trees, primitive species of fish, and a countless variety of birds. Helping visitors understand the park’s unique ecosystem is a challenge, fostered by a new 7,500-square-foot visitor center, which demonstrates that even small buildings can have an important, and positive, environmental impact.

Designed by Frank Harmon Architect, of Raleigh, N.C., the modest, wood-framed structure­ incorporates a low-tech approach to sustainable design and recalls a historic mill that once occupied the site.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE

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.

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.

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.

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.