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.

December 15, 2010 (RALEIGH, NC) – Frank Harmon, FAIA, founder and principal of Frank Harmon Architect PA in Raleigh, is pleased to announced that Courtney Evans has joined his award-winning architecture firm as a project designer and architectural intern.

Evans was recently honored as the recipient of the Kamphoefner Honor Fellowship for the 2010-11 academic year. Established by Henry Kamphoefner, the first dean of the North Carolina State University School of Design (now College of Design), and his wife, the award recognizes and supports the Colleges outstanding Master of Architecture student of each class. The jury was comprised of faculty members who are Fellows of the American Institute of Architects, including Georgia Bizios, Roger Clark and Patrick Rand.

In 2007, Evans was named Senior of The Year when she received her Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering.

“Courtney has a wonderful design imagination and sense of place, illustrated in her work,” Harmon said.

Evans grew up on her family’s farm in Fremont, NC. She credits her summers spent on the farm and her father with her appreciation for environmentalist and the “green,” or sustainable, regionally appropriate architecture for which the Harmon firm is known.

“My father taught me how to work, how to view the world, and gave me an intrinsic love for nature,” she said. “I am truly honored and excited to be working with Frank, Will [Lambeth] Mike [Spinello], and John [Caliendo]. I could not be happier about this extraordinary opportunity to work with such a talented group of people.”

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

Frank Harmon is a recognized leader in modern “green” architecture and an adjunct professor of architect at North Carolina State University’s College of Design. He is also a frequent juror for design awards programs across the country and a frequent speaker at design conferences on the subject of modern, innovative, regional architecture.

The AIA Northern Virginia Chapter Design Awards recognize its members’ achievements in the design of the built environment. Any licensed AIA member of the Northern Virginia Chapter may enter a project. All work submitted for the 2009 awards program had to be completed after June 1, 2004.

Categories for the awards are: Institutional Architecture, Commercial Architecture, Residential Architecture, Interior Architecture, Historic Architecture, Conceptual / Unbuilt Architecture, and Urban Design and Master Planning. A special category — the Herlong Memorial Award – recognizes work by associate or intern AIA members.

AIA/Northern Virginia is headquartered in Alexandria, VA. For more information on the chapter’s awards program, go to www.aianova.org.

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

The Strickland-Ferris Residence, designed by Frank Harmon, FAIA, principal of Frank Harmon Architect PA, will give TMH tourists a chance to see exactly what’s beneath the huge butterfly-shaped roof that seems to flutter above the treetops on a steep hillside overlooking Crabtree Creek in the Laurel Hills subdivision in West Raleigh.

The house is perched on nine, broad-shouldered wood trusses that allowed Harmon to save every single major tree on the site and that permit air and water to flow under the building. The butterfly-shaped roof opens the interior to views northwards to the creek and funnels rainwater into a collection system on the south side. The entire creek-side elevation is glass.

Entrance to the house is a progression from the top of the hill, across a bridge, and into a balcony foyer, at which point the drama of the scenery outside fills the interior through north-facing glass walls. From the balcony, a metal staircase descends past the glass (in essence, through the trees) to the main living/dining room, which, in turn, opens onto a partially secluded south-facing terrace below the entrance bridge. The kitchen and second bedroom are located on this level. The master bedroom is located on the upper level, off the balcony entrance.

Under the roof’s deep overhangs, the view of nature fills every room. Laminated wood columns and beams, plainly bracketed together and reminiscent of a tree house, also strengthen the presence of nature indoors. Partition walls between rooms stop short of reaching the exposed-wood ceiling. Pocket doors between spaces feature “frosted” central panels in the spirit of shoji screens.

Owned by Lynda Strickland and Marty Ferris, the house has received design awards from the North Carolina Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (NC/AIA), NC/AIA Triangle section, and from the Triangle Architecture Awards program. The TMH Tour is the first time the house has been open for public touring.

The April 4^th tour celebrates the 60^th anniversary of North Carolina State University’s College of Design. All of the modernist houses on the tour represent the work of NC School of Design alumni and/or faculty, including Frank Harmon,  James Fitzgibbon, Brian Shawcroft, George Matsumoto, Henry Kamphoefner, Robert Burns, Vinny Petrarca, John Reese,  Milton Small and Carter Williams.

For more information on TMH and the tour, go to www.trianglemodernisthomes.com. For more information on Frank Harmon and the Strickland-Ferris House, visit www.frankharmon.com.

Originally from Charlotte, NC, Cole moved to Raleigh in 1999 to pursue a master’s degree in architecture at North Carolina State University’s College of Design where Frank Harmon, FAIA, also serves as an associate professor.

“Frank was a professor of mine, and I’ve always been very impressed with his work,” Cole said. “I also appreciate the fact that sustainability is of interest to him.”

Cole’s father is landscape architect Michael Cole of Cole Jenest & Stone in Charlotte and his grandfather is Robert Cole, formerly of TVA Architects in Portland, Oregon. Both were NCSU graduates.

Will Lambeth, a Greensboro native, is a rising senior at NCSU, where his father, Thomas Lambeth, graduated in both product design and landscape architecture. The senior Lambeth is now chairman of the Interior Architecture program at UNC-Greensboro.

“This is the best place I could ask to be,” Lambeth said about his new position. “Frank was also a professor of mine, I love his work. There’s such substance in it, rather than just flash. I also like the size of his office, and I enjoy the types of scales he works in. All of his projects are very client-based.”

Harmon’s firm is widely recognized as a successful training ground for young architects, many of whom have gone on to found their own firms. Located in a former industrial warehouse building on Mountford Street, Harmon and his small staff work in a casual setting that recalls a university architecture studio. In 2005, Frank Harmon Architect was named “Top Firm of the Year” by Residential Architect magazine.

For more information, visit www.frankharmon.com.

Harmon’s seminar will identify principles of innovative regional architecture. The purpose of the seminar, he says, is to help architects across the nation learn how to: (1) discover the many influences a building derives from its region, from overall design to construction details; (2) identify methods for combining traditional building components and techniques to create new, sustainable buildings; (3) analyze systems for designing comfortable buildings that minimize damage to the environment and maximize the enjoyment of light, air, color, texture, and patterns; (4) comprehend public perception of regionally appropriate design; and (5) evaluate techniques for achieving design excellence on limited budgets.

Internationally acclaimed architects Ted Flato, FAIA, of Lake/Flato in San Antonio, Trey Trahan, FAIA, of Trahan Architects in Baton Rouge, LA, and AIA Gold Medal winner Antoine Predock of Albuquerque, NM, will join Harmon for the seminar and, along with Harmon, use their own work to demonstrate “America’s New Regionalism.”

Harmon’s work, which ranges from small sheds to 70,000-square-foot corporate headquarters, has won more AIA/NC awards than any other firm in the state and has been published in international, national and regional periodicals and books, including Architectural Record and Waterfront Homes & Design. His work has become synonymous with sustainable, or “green,” architecture, and his firm was named Top Firm Of The Year by Residential Architect magazine in 2005. In 2004 he received a Business Week/Architectural Record International Honor Award for his design of the Blacksmith Studio at the Penland School of Arts & Crafts, Penland, NC. His work is currently featured in the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

Harmon is a veteran design awards judge and speaker at regional and national design conferences, and an accomplished writer. He has presented seminars for past National AIA conferences and his writing on architectural issues has been published in numerous periodicals including the international Docomomo Journal.

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