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.

Gordon invited Harmon onto his show because the award-winning architect is nationally recognized for designing innovative, environmentally sensitive structures informed by principles of sustainability that he learned by studying old, Southern farmhouses and barns, and how they addressed nature.

“Frank realized old Southern farmers – and indeed, farmers everywhere – picked up cues from the light, the landscape, and the seasons,” Gordon says, “and built structures that snugly fit the unique qualities of both the culture and the place.”

“Farmers had an instinctive way of building,” Harmon explains. “They listened to the land.” He notes that they sited their structures to capture prevailing breezes, to maximize drainage, and to leave the best of their land for their crops. They knew to face their houses south to capture the warm, low sun in the winter, he says, yet they built deep porches their to shade the interiors in the summer. They dug ponds where the wind could pass over them and be cooled before entering their houses. And because they used locally available materials, their structures were always “appropriate,” he says. “They belonged to their particular place.”

To listen to Harmon’s segment of the January 28 episode of “The Story” with Dick Gordon, go to http://thestory.org/archive/?b_start:int=5 and click on the “Listen Here” icon next to the lead story. (Harmon’s segment follows one entitled “Attachment to Oil.”)

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

“The Story” is produced by North Carolina Public Radio – WUNC and distributed nationally by American Public Media. In North Carolina, the show can be heard on WUNC-FM and WRQM-FM (90.9) in Rocky Mount Monday through Friday starting at 1 p.m.

Entitled “Let’s Be Frank,” the section is a Q&A-format discussion between writer Frances Anderton and Harmon. It addresses the architect’s decades-long work as a modern, “green” designer and how his approach to this sensibility is informed by regionalism: the vernacular specifics of site and climate.

“Harmon hews to the notion that a structure should be specific to its place in terms of materials and its relationships to geography and climate,” Anderton writes. The architect stresses, however, that “I am not interested in vernacular to be sentimental. I am interested in what it can teach us. All vernacular architecture is sustainable.”

Harmon answers questions about his influences (including the late Harwell Hamilton Harris, FAIA), professional evolution (from renowned architect Richard Meier’s New York office to his own firm, Frank Harmon Architect), and the “current green awareness,” as Anderton puts it.

Of the latter, Harmon offers: “I’ve been doing green stuff for 25 years, and over that time I’ve had to educate my clients, and that has been very difficult. Today they all come to me and want something sustainable.”

Projects featured with the “Conversation” include the Open-Air Classroom at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science’s Prairie Ridge Eco-station in Raleigh, the Strickland-Ferris house in Raleigh’s Laurel Hills subdivision, and the Taylor vacation house in the Bahamas.

The December-January edition of Dwell is available on newsstands now. For more information on the magazine, visit www.dwell.com.

For more information on Frank Harmon, 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.

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.