Frank Harmon » NC State University

AECCafe.com: JC Raulston Arboretum Lath House at North Carolina State University by Frank Harmon Architect PA

kweiss — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 16:43:59 +0000

September 24th, 2011 by Sumit Singhal

The eight-acre JC Raulston Arboretum is a nationally acclaimed garden with the most diverse collection of cold-hardy temperate zone plants in the southeastern United States. As part of North Carolina State University’s Department of Horticultural Science, the Arboretum is primarily a working research and teaching garden that focuses on the evaluation, selection and display of plant material gathered from around the world. Plants especially adapted to conditions in the Piedmont region of North Carolina are identified in an effort to find better plants for southern landscapes.

The Arboretum needed an open-air lath structure to replace the existing dilapidated shade house adjacent to a Japanese garden. Conceived of as an open-air laboratory for experimental horticultural techniques and methods, and designed as an abstract of a tree spreading its branches to protect the plants, the new pro bono structure will fulfill the specific light-to-shade ratio needed for the plants in the spring, using a screen of wooden two-by-twos…

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Frank Harmon Architect PA Wins High Award For Simple Project

kweiss — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:48:53 +0000

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

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 gardens, 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.

Frank Harmon Architect PA Completes New Lath House for JC Raulston Arboretum

kweiss — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 21:01:04 +0000

The new structure will help young plants transition to the gardens.

October 27, 2010 (RALEIGH, NC) – Frank Harmon Architect PA, an award-winning firm located in Raleigh, NC, well-known for designing projects that showcase and celebrate plant life, has completed the design and construction of the new Lath House at the JC Raulston Arboretum at NC State University in Raleigh.

The ten and one 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. Every October since the early 1990s, the JC Raulston Arboretum gives away literally thousands of rare and choice plants it has cultivated during its Friends of the Arboretum Plant Distribution event.

The Lath House is a key element within the Arboretum’s work. An open-air laboratory for horticultural research, the original structure sheltered approximately 700 young and tender plants that perform best in shade as they transition towards planting in larger gardens. The new lath house may provide space for 1000 new plantings.

When the Arboretum’s previous lath house needed to be replaced, Frank Harmon, FAIA, volunteered his firm to design a new structure pro bono that would fulfill the specific light-to-shade ratio needed for the plants, using a screen of wood two-by-twos. According to Harmon, the new structure was designed an abstract of a tree that spreads its branches to protect the plants.

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

Other projects the firm has designed that involve support and protection of plant life include the North Carolina Botanical Gardens Visitors Education Center at UNC-Chapel Hill and the Prairie Ridge Outdoor Classroom and Garden Pavilion at the NC Museum of Natural Science’s Prairie Ridge Eco-station in Raleigh. The firm is currently designing Prairie Ridge’s future Eco-Lodge, a residential dormitory for students, teachers and visiting researchers.

The design team for the Lath House included Frank Harmon, FAIA, Erin Sterling, AIA, and Will Lambeth, architectural intern. For more information, visit www.frankharmon.com.

Located at 4415 Beryl Road in Raleigh, the JC Raulston Arboretum is largely built and maintained by NC State University students, faculty, volunteers, and staff. It is named for the founder, former director, and Horticultural Science Department teacher the late J.C. Raulston, Ph.D. For more information, visit www.ncsu.edu/jcraulstonarboretum.com.

Leaving The Land Better Than We Find It: Frank Harmon Takes His Message To Idea Exchange

kweiss — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:56:52 +0000

February 2, 2010 (RALEIGH, NC) — For three decades, Frank Harmon, FAIA, principal of Frank Harmon Architect PA in Raleigh, has insisted that architecture can and should do more than produce buildings, especially since conservation of energy and natural resources has become imperative. It should also make a didactic contribution, he says, demonstrating the best use of the land by responding to, respecting, and conserving the site; integrating building and landscape; and promoting both passive and technological sustainable design principles.

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.

Frank Harmon To Deliver Special Lecture at NC State University

kweiss — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 03:04:32 +0000

January 28, 2010 (RALEIGH, NC) – Frank Harmon, FAIA, will deliver the annual Harwell Hamilton Harris Lecture on February 15 at 7 p.m. in the Burns Auditorium of Kamphoefner Hall at North Carolina State University’s College of Design in Raleigh.

Sponsored by the College of Design and the Triangle section of the American Institute of Architects/North Carolina, the annual lecture is endowed by the estate of the renowned architect Harwell Hamilton Harris, FAIA (1903-1990) who served on the faculty of NC State’s College of Design from 1962 to 1975.

Frank Harmon is a fellow of the American Institute of Architecture and a Professor in Practice at the College of Design. He is the founder and principal of Frank Harmon Architect PA, a multi-award-winning, LEED AP, green architecture firm established in 1985. He was also a close friend of Harris for many years, and he credits Harris with steering his design sensibilities towards modern, innovative and regionally appropriate design.

In 2005, when Harmon’s firm was named Top Firm of the Year by Residential Architect magazine, he told writer Vernon Mays, “[Harwell Harris] taught me that every client and every situation is different and new. And it is the architect’s job to understand the needs of every situation and every client. He loved to say that the house is a portrait of the client.”

Harris also taught Harmon to infuse warmth and familiarity into modern architecture by embracing what Harris called the “sticks and stones” of the place: the landscape, materials, climate and culture specific to the region in which a building will be built.

“What people thought was cold and threatening modernism, he made warm and approachable,” Harmon says.

Harmon’s lecture will focus on “why Harwell Hamilton Harris is important today,” he said. “His work embraces the whole of the environment – from the living room to the city – and all the particulars that go into making a building. He was also the first architect to write about the importance of regionalism in modern architecture.”

Harmon will discuss specific Harris projects – including his personal home and office on Cox Avenue in downtown Raleigh and St. Giles Presbyterian Church in North Raleigh – that strongly influenced Harmon’s own work.

Originally from California, Harwell Hamilton Harris was a sculptor who changed careers after he visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House in Los Angeles. He worked with Richard Neutra from 1928 until 1932 then merged the ideals of modern and California regionalist architecture into his residential work of the ‘30s and ‘40s. He served as Dean for the University of Texas School of Architecture from 1952-1955 and practiced in Dallas until 1962 when he moved to Raleigh to teach at NC State. He retired from teaching in 1973 but continued to practice until shortly before his death. He was a professor emeritus at the university when he died at the age of 87.

The Harwell Hamilton Harris Lecture is free and open to the public. Parking is available in the Coliseum parking deck. Limited parking may also be found in the Riddick or Peele parking lots after 5 pm. Parking along campus streets is not permitted unless otherwise noted.

For more information on the lecture call 919.515.8350.

For more information on Frank Harmon, go to www.frankharmon.com.

The Havens House designed by Harwell Hamilton Harris, FAIA. Photo by Man Ray.