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.

Raleigh architect will discuss modern, sustainable, regionally appropriate design in

Frank Harmon, FAIA

Madison, WI.

February 18, 2011 (Raleigh, NC) — Frank Harmon, FAIA, principal of Frank Harmon Architects PA in Raleigh, will be the featured speaker for the Wright Lecture Series in Madison, Wisconsin, on March 10, beginning 7 p.m. in the Monona Terrace Community & Convention Center.

Harmon will also serve as a juror for the AIA Wisconsin Design Awards program.

Frank Harmon is a multi-award-winning leader in modern, innovative, sustainable, and regionally appropriate architecture, and he frequently lectures on the subject “Place Making: America’s New Regionalism.” The AIA Wisconsin lecture will follow a similar presentation he is making at the Dalhousie University School of Architecture in Nova Scotia on February 28.

Both lectures will discuss how regional architecture can produce high-performance, or sustainable, buildings by addressing context, materials, textures, colors and form particular to the region in which they are built, using both traditional and non-traditional methods.

“I believe that one of the primary goals of architecture is to make it possible for people to understand the world around them,” Harmon says. “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.”

The Wright Lecture Series is sponsored by AIA Southwest Wisconsin, the Monona Terrace Community & Convention Center, and the Frank Lloyd Wright Wisconsin Heritage Program.

Harmon’s lecture free and open to the public. For more information on the entire series, visit www.aiaw.org.

For more information on Frank Harmon, 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…

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The Gala and lecture are open to the public. AIA Jacksonville is a chapter of The American Institute of Architects (AIA) representing and serving AIA Florida members in Duval, Clay, St. Johns and Nassau counties.

Harmon, founder and principal of the Raleigh, NC-based firm Frank Harmon Architect PA and a Professor in Practice with North Carolina State University’s College of Design, served as the chairman of AIA Jacksonville’s 2010 design awards jury. Harmon’s firm has received more AIA North Carolina design awards than any other firm in the state and was recently ranked 13^th among the Top 50 Firms in the nation by Architect magazine. He is recognized nationally as a leader in modern “green” architecture.

A frequent speaker at state, regional and national design conferences, Harmon will discuss certain elements and themes that run through regional architecture – landscape, materials, construction methods, climate, roof forms and clients – and suggest how each can and should be used to create modern, sustainable architecture in the South.

“A balanced architecture rises up from the land it is built on, its hills, streams, weather and its people, their connections, ideas and stake in the future,” Harmon wrote in a recent article on North Carolina architecture for Inform magazine in Virginia.

He will use his own work to demonstrate regional modernism in the South, such as the new North Carolina Botanical Gardens Visitors Education Center at UNC-Chapel Hill, a cluster of buildings on a wooded hillside joined by deep porches and breezeways. The center is slated to be the State’s first LEED Platinum building.

For more information on AIA Jacksonville’s Design and Honor Awards Gala, including how to purchase tickets, go to www.aiajacksonville.org or email hgrimes@grimespg.com.

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

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.

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January 15, 2010 (RALEIGH, NC) – Award-winning architect Frank Harmon, FAIA, principal of Frank Harmon Architect PA in Raleigh, NC, will serve as moderator for a panel discussion entitled “Architecturally Speaking: Discussions on Staying Current in Architecture Curricula” during the Winter Symposium presented by American Institute of Architects’ Atlanta, GA, chapter.

The symposium, including a question-and-answer session following the panel discussion, will be held at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture on Tuesday, January 19^th, from 6-8 p.m.

Bringing together three schools of architecture in Georgia, the panelists include George Johnston, director of the Georgia Tech Graduate Program in Architecture; Brian Wishne, dean  of the School of Building Arts at Savannah College of Art and Design; and Tony Rizzuto, associate professor of architect at Southern Polytechnic State University.

The following evening, January 20^th, Harmon will present a lecture entitled “Grits, Glass and Steel: The Evolution of Modern Architecture in the South.”

Harmon, an award-winning architect recognized nationally as a leader in modern, innovative, sustainable design, has spent decades studying vernacular buildings – what he calls “buildings with a conscience” — and lecturing on the lessons he has learned from them across the nation.

“Buildings with a conscience have existed in Southern farmhouses and barns for as long as farmers have erected them,” Harmon says. “These are simple structures built of wholesome, vernacular materials, perched on stone piers so rainwater flows under them. They nestle lightly into the hillsides without disturbing the land. They are rooted in their region and embody the principles of livability. And they speak of the Southern culture as eloquently as bluegrass music or clay pots.”

His lecture will examine the elements and themes that inform contemporary Southern architecture — landscape; materials and construction (the “sticks and stones” of a place); weather and climate; roof forms that shelter or collect; and clients — and illustrate the importance of ‘place’ in the process of creating innovative, sustainable, and appropriate contemporary design.

Harmon, who also serves as Professor in Practice for North Carolina State University’s College of Design, notes frequently that these vernacular structures were always “green,” or sustainable, because they had to be.

“Farmers had an instinct for understanding their land,” he said during a radio interview on “The Story” with Dick Gordon. “They never built on the best part of their land; they saved that for their crops, because that was their sustenance. They typically built on a low-rise for good drainage. They knew exactly where the breezes came from to cool their houses and their barns… They knew how to plant trees to shade their houses in the summer… All of these things the farmers did quite naturally. But it was also for survival.”

The AIA Winter Symposium will be held in Georgia Tech’s Reinsch-Pierce Family Auditorium. For more information contact Brian Buckner at 404-688-4990, ext. 27.

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

About Frank Harmon Architect PA:

Frank Harmon Architect PA is an award-winning architectural firm based in Raleigh, NC, that was ranked 26^th among the top 50 firms in the nation in Architect Magazine’s “Architect 50” ranking for 2009.  Frank Harmon, FAIA, founder and principal, is a frequent design awards jurist and a sought-after speaker on the subject of sustainable and regionally appropriate architecture across the nation. His work has been featured in numerous professional and shelter magazines and in international books on architecture. In 2008, a vacation home he designed in the Bahamas was included in a Wall Street Journal list of “the most influential and inspiring houses built during the past decade.” His firm has received more North Carolina design awards than any other firm in the state and recently won three national accolades: two Custom Homes Magazine’s 2009 Design Awards for residences in Raleigh, NC, and Charleston, SC; and an American Institute of Architect’s 2009 Housing Award for the Charleston home.

“For architecture to embody the American spirit, it must conserve, protect and celebrate our rich, varied landscape and culture of place,” Harmon said recently.  “Regional architecture engages climate, topography, vegetation and local materials. So we will explore contemporary regionalism’s influence on landscape and architecture, and the techniques used to satisfy social, cultural, economic and environmental needs for sustainability – arguably the most pressing issue of our time.”

Harmon, who is widely recognized as a leading practitioner of sustainable design, will be joined this year by Maryann Thompson of Maryann Thompson Architects in Cambridge, MA, and a member of the Harvard University architecture faculty; and Nader Tehrani of Office dA, Inc. in Boston. Tehrani is also an associate professor architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an adjunct professor in the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Each of the three panelists will use their own projects as case studies for the discussing regional landscape.

“What makes the work important and timely is that the greatest potential for architecture today lies in regional locations – in the sheer number of clients, the variety of landscapes, and the particular ‘sticks and stones’ with which each region has to build,” Harmon said. “This regional manifestation has significance for the world outside itself, both nationally and internationally, as the need rises for every region to rely on its own resources and draw inspiration from its own context.”

Sponsored by Architectural Record magazine, Harmon’s seminar will identify the principles of innovative regional architecture and landscape with the intention of inspiring attending architects and building industry professionals to embrace these principles in their own work.

The theme for this year’s National AIA convention is “We The People: Our Place In The World,” which the AIA website describes as “the right topic for a growing profession that has been challenged to engage the public in designing a more sustainable world.”

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

This is the message the Virginia Society of the American institute of Architects AIA/VA) conveys in a new exhibit entitled “Southern Exposure: Contemporary Regional Architecture,” which opened in the Virginia Center for Architecture in Richmond on February 7 and will run through June 8, 2008.

Southern Exposure is “a pictorial tour of some of the Sun Belt’s most respected Modern architecture,” according to Rhea George of AIA/VA. The projects included demonstrate that, in the right hands, Modern design can be as “warm and imaginative as buildings from any period in history,” she said, as they “balance beauty with sustainability.”

Award-winning Raleigh, NC-based architect Frank Harmon, FAIA, who has conducted seminars on “America’s New Regionalism” during the last three National AIA conventions, presented a lecture on his regional approach to design at the exhibition’s public opening event Thursday night.

Harmon’s contribution to the exhibit is a Low-Country residence in Mt. Pleasant, SC, that was designed to tread lightly on its tidal-marsh site. Taking his cue from traditional shutters on nearby Charleston’s historic homes, Harmon designed a series of large, metal screens to protect the house from harsh sun and hurricanes – a “21^st century solution to a 400-year-old problem,” he said.

The show also includes work by Marlon Blackwell of Fayetteville, Ark.; W. G. Clark of Charlottesville, VA; Mack Scogin of Merril Elam Architects in Atlanta, GA; Lake/Flato Architects of San Antonio, TX; and the groundbreaking work of students at Auburn University’s Rural Studio in Alabama, founded by the late Samuel Mockbee, which combines social outreach with architectural education (www.ruralstudio.com).

The Virginia Center for Architecture is located at 2501 Monument Avenue in Richmond’s historic Fan District and is open to the public Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. For more information, visit www.virginiaarchitecture.org. For more information on Frank Harmon, go to 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.

The Expo will bring together wood professionals, designers and architects from around the world to share their knowledge and expertise through education sessions focusing on specific professions and topic areas related to products, applications, and design.

Frank Harmon is well known for award-winning buildings of primarily wood construction. “Harmon’s portfolio is filled with small projects in which he has achieved a remarkable refinement with the humblest materials,” observed senior editor Sarah Hart in Architectural Record (February 2001).

According to Harmon, his seminar at thee Expo will teach participants three primary points: (1) How to observe and learn from traditional/vernacular techniques to inform a modern architectural application, (2) How to detail wood for durability in warm, humid climates, and (3) How to take advantage of wood as the ultimate “green,” common, renewable material.

“The vocabulary of construction in the South has been defined by wood for over 300 years,” Harmon said recently. “That was the only building material the settlers in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia had. Yet when we gained access to other materials, wood endured. Why?” He counts six primary reasons – all of which, he said, point to wood as the ultimate ‘green’ material.

First, he said, wood is available locally and is renewable.  “It doesn’t have to be trucked in, and it can be replenished through careful forestry practices. Besides, if we harvest wood locally, we’ll take better care of our forests.”

Secondly, wood, especially old wood from historic structures, can be reused or recycled. “In the 19^th century, the major commercial building types in North Carolina were textile mills and tobacco manufacturing facilities. They were made of virgin-growth long leaf pine. They are being torn down now, but their beams can be reused in many ways, such as flooring and trim, thanks to the advent of local sawmills that specialize in the reuse of old lumber.”

The third reason wood has endured as a building material for over 300 years, he said, is because “by using the correct species and by paying attention to construction methods, wood becomes extremely durable and permanent. Early settlers quickly learned that by building broad overhangs and raising their houses and barns up off the ground to keep them dry, they were not only making their buildings pleasant for inhabitants. They were also protecting the wood structure itself.

The fourth reason: “Wood is an economical material, compared to steel and concrete. It’s practical. And pound for pound, it is as strong as steel.”

The fifth reason: “Wood is familiar, friendly. People can connect with and relate to the look and feel of wood. We understand it. Its imperfect nature also makes it inherently interesting. And if we read those imperfections, we can use it to its best advantage.”

Finally, he pointed out that, “If it is used properly, would doesn’t need finishes, and some of our most toxic environmental substances are a byproduct of paints and stains.”

For the past 20 years, Harmon has been studying 100-year-old vernacular structures — farmhouses, barns, boats, and old textile mills — to learn how they were built and why they have remained intact all these years. “This has had a dramatic impact on the way I design and build,” he said. “I’ve been able to translate the lessons I’ve learned from these old, wooden structures into a modern architectural vocabulary.”

More information on the 2006 Wood Design & Build Expo is available on internet at www.wooddesignandbuilding.com. For more information on Frank Harmon, visit www.frankharmon.com.