Designed by award-winning architect Frank Harmon, FAIA, of Raleigh, North Carolina, the 5600-square-foot, state-of-the-art teaching facility is the Marguerite Kent Repass Ocean Conservation Center at the Duke University Marine Laboratory. It includes a teaching laboratory,  a 48-seat lecture hall with advanced teleconferencing and videoconferencing capabilities to connect to classrooms and research labs around the globe, interpretive educational displays, and spaces for social interactions overlooking Beaufort Channel.

The case study, entitled “ Beacon for Sustainability,” discusses how the building’s form directly responds to its location and allows it to maximize natural ventilation and lighting. The study also delineates the building’s other green features, including photovoltaic rooftop panels for converting sunlight into electricity, a solar hot water system and high-efficiency ground-coupled heat pumps, and the use of recycled and local materials wherever possible.

Since 1997, Environmental + Design Construction has supported progressive architects, designers, specifying engineers and building developers who enhance the sustainability of new and existing buildings. For more information, visit www.edcmag.com. To read the entire online version of the OCC study, click on “Article Rotation.”

In March of this year, the OCC received a Wood Design Award: Green Building Category from WoodWorks-Southeast, a division of the Wood Products Council of North America for non-residential construction.

Frank Harmon, FAIA, is the founder and principal of Frank Harmon Architect PA in Raleigh, NC, and a recognized national leader in modern, innovative and regionally appropriate sustainable architecture. For more information, visit www.frankharmon.com.

The project is an outgrowth of a study Harmon worked on two years ago with the NC Aquarium Division. The study looked at the feasibility of establishing three oyster hatcheries in the state that would produce billions of eyed larvae to help reestablish the state’s oyster population and to educate the public on the oyster’s value to the quality of coastal waters. The hatchery at UNC-W is the first phase of implementing that study.

As with all Harmon-designed structures, the Oyster Hatchery will embrace all the principles of sustainable architecture, from “low tech” considerations, such as careful siting for natural ventilation and lighting, to state-of-the-art technology including geothermal pumps for heating and cooling. Harmon is especially interested in rainwater collection on the hatchery site to provide the water needed for flushing out the labs.

The building is also being designed to allow fresh air ventilation during good weather to eliminate the need for HVAC during spring and fall.

The primary construction materials will be steel and brick, the latter required on the predominately brick UNC-W campus. Recycled materials will be used wherever possible.

Construction should begin in June.

Frank Harmon has extensive experience with projects that blend architecture with enhancement of and education about natural resources, including the North Carolina Botanical Garden Visitors Center at UNC-Chapel Hill; Duke University’s Ocean Science Teaching Center in Beaufort, NC; the Walter B. Jones Center for the Sounds and Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in Columbia, NC; and the NC Museum of Natural Sciences’ Prairie Ridge Eco-Station. The firm is currently working on Merchants Millpond Outdoor Educational building in Gatesville, N.C., and the Walnut Creek Urban Wetlands Educational Park in Raleigh.

“We like to think that our work has both a soul and a conscience,” Harmon said. “The ‘soul’ is in the spirit of the design and the craft of construction. The ‘conscience’ is found in the fact that our buildings embody a positive union between natural and built environments, each demonstrating a rigorous commitment to sustainable architecture, and to leaving the land a better place than we found it.”

For more information visit www.frankharmon.com.

The Wall Street Journal recently asked celebrated “green” architect Michelle Kaufman of Oakland, California, to compile a list of what she felt were the best houses built during the housing boom, which WSJ considered officially over by the end of 2008. Kaufman decided to make her own list of 10, “almost all of which are terrific examples of sustainable design.” She posted her list, which includes the Taylor House, on her blog — http://blog.michellekaufmann.com/?p=1733 — on December 30^th.

Kaufman describes Harmon’s design for the house at Abaco, Bahams, as “Eco Luxury: The entire roof of this Caribbean vacation home slopes inward like an upside down umbrella, directing rain through a central spout running through the center of the house. The roof design allows the house to harvest up to 16,000 gallons of water on the ground floor, and helps naturally cool the house via the venturi effect.”

Among the other architects and their work represented on Kaufman’s list are Pritzker Prize winner Glenn Murcutt of Sydney, Australia; Larry Scarpa of Pugh + Scarpa on Santa Monica, California; and Rick Joy of  Rick Joy Architects in Tuscon, Arizona. Not only does Harmon greatly admire these architects work, but they have joined him on the podium for his popular “Architects Discuss America’s New Regionalism” seminar that he has presented at four of the American Institute of Architects’ National Conventions.

“This is really fantastic,” Harmon said after learning his design made Kaufman’s top 10. “We’re in the company of some great architects.”

He noted his regret that his client, the house’s owner, passed away this summer before Kaufman posted her list. “She would have been delighted to hear the news,” he said.

Completed in 2000, the Taylor House has received five design awards. It has been featured in the New York Times, in a number of national magazines and books on sustainable design, and it was used for the cover of James Truelove’s 2001 book Tropical Modernism. The Taylor House was also included in a special exhibit of “green” architecture at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. and in the accompanying book The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture by Alanna Stang and Christopher Hawthorne.

“The purpose of this list is to celebrate the brilliant achievements of our talented and dedicated colleagues,” writes Kaufman, whose firm Michelle Kaufman Designs received a 2008 Leadership Award from Residential Architect magazine.

For more information on Frank Harmon and more details and photographs of the Taylor House, visit www.frankharmon.com.

Calling his presentation “Sustainable By Example: A Case Study,” Harmon will use his design for the new, “green” headquarters for AIA/North Carolina to be built in downtown Raleigh as a case study to demonstrate how architects “can – and must – take an innovative, leadership role to drastically reduce their buildings’ carbon footprints and leave the land better than they found it,” he said.

Harmon’s firm was one of many who competed in a professional design competition for the AIA/NC project last year. When Harmon’s design received First Place, the judges praised it for being “of its place,” for making good use of a difficult site, for integrating sustainable design principles rather than using them as applique, and for “embracing the community.”

According to Harmon, his firm’s design “aspires to become a role model for healthy urbanism and future development in downtown Raleigh.” The overriding objective is to demonstrate and encourage aesthetic and ecological integrity – to create a flagship for North Carolina architecture that is architecturally, environmentally, politically, socially and aesthetically inspiring,”

Frank Harmon will present his seminar on Friday, November 14, from 2:45 to 4:15 p.m. in the Greater Richmond Convention Center at 403 North 3rd Street in Richmond.

Architecture Exchange East is the Mid-Atlantic’s premier conference and expo for the design and construction industry. The 2008 event will offer more than 70 seminars and workshops as well as tours and exhibits. For more information, visit www.virginiaarchitecture.org/archex/.

For more information on Frank Harmon and the AIA/NC headquarters project, visit www.frankharmon.com

Beaver Lake is located in the Ozark Mountains of Northwest Arkansas. The project is being developed by Lost Rock Ranch, LLC, whose principal is architect Marlon Blackwell, AIA, of Marlon Blackwell Architect in Fayetteville, AR. Blackwell’s firm, along with Harmon’s and Building Studio of New Orleans, LA, are the project’s architects.

At a design/development charette, the team stated the project’s ethos, which includes “enrichment for families through connection with nature;” “responsible, sustainable architecture;” “ unique but not obtrusive;” and “lakeside living for the intellectual and for those who appreciate tactile learning experiences as well as a quiet book on the porch while the sunsets;” among others.

“Lost Rock should be distinctly of the land, emerging from an understanding of the unique qualities of the Ozark landscape,” the team wrote in its vision statement.

Harmon’s cabins range from under 1000 square feet to 1500-square-feet. “These are sustainable residences,” he explained, “so we don’t want to build more than is necessary.”

Constructed primarily of wood and stone, the cabins are designed to be “as unobtrusive as we could make them,” Harmon said. “We also wanted to make the experience for the homeowners’ as close to living outdoors as possible, so at least a third of the square footage of each cabin is devoted to a screened porch. This creates wonderful views and allows the cabins to capture prevailing breezes for natural ventilation.” The largest of the three will also feature a spacious terrace built into the hillside.

Harmon has also designed one of the community pavilions planned for the project. Perched on a hill, it features a large, covered “porch” for overlooking a meadow. Tucked behind the pavilion’s stone façade are kitchen and bathroom facilities.

According to the development plans, all of Lost Rock’s housing sites are being developed in clusters to maintain open space and natural recreation areas. The cabins will be positioned on the sites to protect trees and minimize terracing of the natural slope. Harmon and the other participating architects will design more residences as the project progresses.

Frank Harmon founded his firm in 1985 and has since received more North Carolina design awards than any other firm in the state. He has a history of working on environmentally sensitive projects that blend architecture and landscaping, and in 2005 Residential Architect magazine named Frank Harmon Architect “Top Firm of the Year.” For more information 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 examined certain elements and themes that run through regional architecture — landscape; materials and construction (the “sticks and stones” of a place); weather and climate; roof forms that shelter or collect; and clients – and demonstrated how they can and should be used to create innovative, sustainable and appropriate contemporary buildings. Harmon used his and other firms’ work to illustrate the principles, then led a Q&A session between the day’s speakers and the audience.

Frank Harmon is also an associate professor or architecture at the N.C. State University College of Design and is a frequent speaker at architectural events and conferences, including American Institute of Architects’ National Convention, which was held in Los Angeles, CA, in June. He will address the Canadian Wood Council’s “Wood Design & Building Expo,” in Anaheim, CA, in November.

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

September 4, 2005 (RALEIGH, NC) — The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture, a new book from the Princeton Architectural Press by Alanna Stang, executive editor of I.D. (Interior Design) magazine, and Christopher Hawthorne, L.A. Times architecture critic, is now in bookstores and includes a house in the Bahamas designed by Raleigh, NC-based architect Frank Harmon, FAIA.

As anyone who has not been living on Mars during the past decade is surely aware, the term “green house” no longer refers solely to places for horticultural pursuits. Today’s “green” houses are part of an emerging architecture that is “as aesthetically compelling as it is environmentally friendly,” the book explains. “Leaving behind the clunky, mud-caked constructions of the 1960s and 1970s, the more than 25 remarkable residences featured in The Green House not only tread lightly on the land but also provide exalted spaces in which to live.”

The authors searched around the globe to find “outstanding examples of sustainable design [that] represent nuanced responses to the most diverse and challenging ecological conditions.”

Frank Harmon’s Taylor Vacation House in the Bahamas fit the criteria. Designed to blur the line between indoors and outdoors in this lush, tropical setting yet “zip up” tightly to withstand extreme weather conditions, it embodies the principles of sustainability in an innovative, regionally specific manner. For example, Bahamian homeowners must provide their own drinking water (there are no freshwater wells in the coral reef islands). Therefore, Harmon designed the house as a tall cube topped by a soaring “inverted umbrella” roof that shields the wide-open interior from the hot summer sun, makes the most of prevailing breezes for natural ventilation, and captures rainwater, which is then directed to huge cisterns below. After one or two of the region’s frequent downpours, the cisterns are full and ready to provide water for drinking, bathing, cooking, etc.

The Taylor House was completed in 2000. In 2003, it was named Residential Architect magazine’s “House of the Year.”

The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architect is available at area bookstores. To read more about it, visit Amazon.com.

To see and read more about the Taylor Vacation House, visit Frank Harmon’s website (www.frankharmon.com) and click on “projects.”

DELTA is an acronym for Duke Engineering Living Technology Advancement. As the article points out, it was the brainchild of a group of Duke students who approached Harmon with the idea for “an environmentally friendly student residence that could double as a laboratory for studying and developing green building technologies.”

Using the students’ research, Harmon designed a 4200-square-foot residence featuring a host of “green” features — photovoltaic panels, geothermal heat pumps, a rainwater collection system, and vegetated roof, to name a few –  with “smart” walls that will allow the students who live there to access, adjust and monitor all electrical and mechanical systems. Other interactive features include movable skylights and windows, as well as removable sections of walls, floors and ceiling.

“The idea is that the students can create innovations for now and in a decade,” Harmon told Residential Architect’s senior editor Meghan Drueding.

The DELTA Smart House is supported by the Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering and slated for completion in January 2006. It will house 10 engineering students.

Frank Harmon is principal and founder of Frank Harmon Architect PA in Raleigh and an associate professor at North Carolina State University’s College of Design. Residential Architect is a professional journal published by Hanley Wood Magazines, Washington, D.C.

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

The University of North Carolina at Asheville has hired Harmon’s firm, Frank Harmon Architect, to design its new Crafts Campus for the school’s Wood, Ceramics, Metal, and Glass Arts majors. The state-of-the-art facility will be designed in accordance with the “green” or sustainable design practices for which Harmon has become known, and, consequently, will underscore the university’s stated commitment to sustainability.

“There couldn’t be a better discipline than craft to serve as a champion for the regional and global need to create places that respect our natural, sustainable resources,” Harmon said. “Arts and crafts could not exist without access to those same resources.”

The setting — an old Buncombe County Landfill – will also serve as a “laboratory” for ecological site planning and renewable energy evaluation and demonstration.

According to Harmon, this project is also “a canvas on which to build a structure that honors and celebrates the beauty of the North Carolina mountains in general and the UNCA campus in particular.”

North Carolina’s Division of Parks and Recreation hired Harmon recently to design a 6500-square-foot visitor’s center plus outdoor educational building at Merchants Mill Pond State Park in Gatesville, NC. Merchants Millpond is a Registered Natural Heritage Area that covers 1900 acres and includes the millpond and part of Lassiter Swamp.

Originally known as Norfleets, the millpond was formed when Bennetts Creek was impounded to serve as a grist and sawmill in 1811. It became known as Merchants Millpond in the early 1900s and was the county’s chief trading center. Mill operations stopped just before World War II. A.B. Coleman purchased it in the 1960s. The area became a state park in 1973 when Coleman donated it to the state to protect the area’s natural diversity, which includes old-growth stands of cypress-gum forests. The same year, the Nature Conservancy contributed 925 acres of woodlands to the park.