A4A dinners bring architects and the public together in a social atmosphere.
January 9, 2012 (Raleigh, NC) – Triangle Modernist Houses (TMH) has announced its third “Appetite4Architecture” series of dinners that give the public the chance to enjoy relaxed, informal discussions in an upscale dining environment, where diners have direct access to some of the area’s best residential architects and professionals.
TMH is an award-winning, non-profit organization dedicated to documenting, preserving and promoting Modernist residential design.
“Dreaming of a new Modernist house? Long admired the work of a local architect or designer? Thinking about architecture as a career? Appetite4Architecture offers a chance to break bread with prominent members of the Triangle’s design community in an intimate, affordable small group setting,” said TMH founder and board chair George Smart. “There are no presentations or PowerPoint slides — just great conversations with award-winning cuisine.”
The schedule and special guests for the 2012 A4A dinners:
Again this year, the “A4A” dinners will be held at 18 Seaboard in Raleigh and begin at 6:30 p.m. The dinners include three courses from a preselected menu (vegetarian options are available) plus coffee, water, tea, tax, and gratuity. Price per person is $53. Tickets are available at www.trianglemodernisthouses.com/a4a.
TMH requires a minimum of 10 participants per event (maximum 17). Otherwise the event will be cancelled with full refunds. If someone purchases a ticket but then can’t attend, substitutions are allowed. Payments are nonrefundable except for event cancellation. All proceeds benefit TMH’s ongoing documentation, preservation, and house tours programs. For more information call George Smart, 919-740-8407.
Triangle Modernist Houses was established in 2007 to document, preserve, and promote Modernist residential design. The award-winning website is now the largest educational and historical archive for Modernist residential design in America. TMH also hosts Modernist house tours several times a year. These tours raise awareness and help preserve these “livable works of art” for future generations. Visit www.trianglemodernisthouses.com. TMH also has an active community on Facebook.
To assist the non-profit with its ongoing mission.
November 30, 2011 (Raleigh, NC) – Paul Hobgood, a design associate in the award-winning architectural firm Kenneth E Hobgood Architects in Raleigh, has been selected to serve on Triangle Modernist Houses’ 2012 Advisory Council.
TMH is a 501C3 nonprofit established in 2007 to preserve and promote Modernist architecture in the Triangle. The award-winning website is now the largest educational and historical archive for Modernist residential design in America.
Selected from a cross-section of the design community, Advisory Council members support and improve TMH’s programming, including popular house tours, architecture movies, trips, presentations, and many other events.
Paul Hobgood graduated from North Carolina State University’s College of Design in 2008 with a Masters in Architecture. He was a finalist for the Kamphoefner Honor Fellowship, an annual award that recognizes the College’s outstanding Master of Architecture student. He has worked at Kenneth E. Hobgood Architects since 2004, and has served as a design architect on a number of the firm’s modern, award-winning projects since then.
“I’m excited about serving on the Advisory Council for two reasons,” Hobgood said. “One, it’s an opportunity to further enhance a resource – TMH — that spotlights the Triangle’s rich history as it pertains to modernist homes and architects, since I’ve spent most of my life in and around modernist architecture. Two, I have a genuine sense of pride when it comes to the Triangle. I’m also intrigued by the broad spectrum of interests and specialties that comprise this year’s Advisory Council. It should make for a spirited debate/process.”
The 16-member Advisory Council meets twice a year at the modern Durham home of TMH founder and board chair George Smart.
“The Advisory Council is part focus group, part brain trust,” said Smart. “The members’ experience and insights into design and preservation have helped us create so many popular events over the years that our website is now up to 40,000-plus views a month. I’m looking forward to the innovations that will no doubt come from the 2010 Advisory Council.”
For more information on Paul Hobgood and Kenneth E. Hobgood Architects, visit www.kennethhobgood.com.
About Kenneth E. Hobgood, Architects:
Kenneth Hobgood, FAIA, founded Kenneth E Hobgood, Architects in Raleigh, NC, in 1992. Since then, the firm has received 39 design awards from the American Institute of Architects North Carolina chapter and its work has been published and exhibited in the United States, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, England and Germany. In 1997, Kenneth Hobgood as awarded the Kamphoefner Prize from North Carolina State University’s College of Design for “consistent integrity and devotion to the development of modern architecture” in North Carolina. He has served as a visiting critic at Auburn University, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, and the University of Kentucky, and as an adjunct professor at North Carolina State University since 1988. For more information visit www.kennethhobgood.com.
Future residence is a secluded retreat within an established neighborhood.
Architectural model of the award-winning Jones Residence II.
September 14, 2011 (Raleigh, NC) – An as-yet-unbuilt residential “tower” designed by Kenneth E. Hobgood Architects in Raleigh has received a Merit Award from the North Carolina Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA NC).
The winning design, “Jones Residence II,” is one of two concepts the firm has proposed for the same client and site. Located on a steep, heavily wooded site just inside the beltline in Raleigh, North Carolina, this concept is an 1800-square-foot home that balances the client’s’ desire to be part of a well-established neighborhood while yet feel as if they’re in a secluded retreat.
“The client is a young cancer researcher at Duke University,” said the firm’s principal, Kenneth Hobgood, FAIA. “The house is a retreat from the rigors and pressures of a life in medical research.”
This firm is well known for modern, progressive, minimalist design, and the Jones Residence II is no exception. The design of the house “represents a simple diagram,” Hobgood explained. “A simple cube is separated into three equal segments with a shift in the central segment.”
The house becomes, then, a three-level tower that minimizes disruption to the site. In fact, it’s footprint covers only 1.25 percent of the site and would result in the loss of only two trees.
While all three levels are simple square plans, the middle level has been shifted forward, allowing dramatic views of the site and creating outdoor balconies. This level, clad completely in glass, contains the entrance, living room, dining room and office. The main entrance is reached via a bridge that spans from a parking terrace to the living/dining level.
The lowest level includes two guest bedrooms, the upper level houses the master bedroom suite, and a continuous stair connects all three levels. So the day-to-day living in the house occurs on the two upper levels.
The design team for Jones Residence II consisted of Kenneth Hobgood, Paul Hobgood, and Patrick Hobgood.
Tom Pfeiffer, FAIA, and Craig Dykers, AIA, served as chairman of the 2011 AIA NC Design Awards jury. (Pfeifer designed the new NC Museum of Art.) Other notable architects from the New York area, where the jury met, served as jurors. The awards were presented during the AIA NC Annual Conference held this past weekend in Raleigh, NC.
Kenneth Hobgood, FAIA, founded Kenneth E Hobgood, Architects in Raleigh, NC, in 1992. Since then, the firm has received 39 design awards from the American Institute of Architects North Carolina chapter and its work has been published and exhibited in the United States, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, England and Germany. In 1997, Kenneth Hobgood as awarded the Kamphoefner Prize from North Carolina State University’s College of Design for “consistent integrity and devotion to the development of modern architecture” in North Carolina. He has served as a visiting critic at Auburn University, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, and the University of Kentucky, and as an adjunct professor at North Carolina State University since 1988. For more information visit www.kennethhobgood.com.
completed the renovation phase of an exemplary, mid-century modern house in Durham and is about to begin construction on phase two: a 1200-square-foot addition that will honor, without imitating, the original house.
When new owners and Duke University professors Mimi and Mark Hansen hired the firm to renovate and enlarge the 2337-square-foot house that architect Kenneth Scott, AIA, designed for Binford and John Carr in 1958, the design team immediately recognized the challenges they faced.
“We knew it was going to be difficult because of our respect for the original house,” said project architect Bob Thomas, AIA, a principal in the firm. “This was a renovation, not a restoration, so it needed to accommodate a family of five, including three young children, and lifestyle changes from the Fifties to today. So we had to strike a balance between opening up the space yet transforming the interior respectfully.”
As for the addition: “It was challenging, and interesting, to add onto a house we
CG rendering of the addition with the cantilevered office at night.
respect so much without mimicking, or repeating, what’s there,” said Kenneth Hobgood, FAIA, principal. “We knew the idea had to come from the existing house, in terms of materials, scale and siting. We also knew we had to be very careful since the new owners hope to have the house designated as an historic property.”
According to Thomas, the renovation involved preserving the fundamentals of the mid-century house – the carport and enclosed courtyard entry, the floor plan organization, the cruciform footprint, and the planar language of the house (interior spaces are defined by brick planes) — while enlarging the kitchen and bringing the house up to current building codes.
By relocating a staircase in the middle of the house that once led to the basement, the firm made the kitchen not only larger but literally the center of the house. This also allowed them to remove walls that made the kitchen an enclosed room and visually connect to it the rest of the living spaces as is more typical of modern residential design.
“Where we did intervene, we made it more of a true modern house,” Thomas noted.
The living room, a glass-fronted space that overlooks the rebuilt deck outside under the house’s deep roof overhangs, was touched very lightly, he said. “Other than cosmetic upgrades, the living room is perfect the way it is. We couldn’t do anything to make it better.”
The original house is organized so that living spaces are on the northern side of the east-west axis/circulation hall with bedrooms on the southern, street-facing side. A hallway/gallery leading to the bedrooms features a glass wall overlooking the courtyard.
The addition will continue this organizational plan, including a glass-fronted gallery. This gallery, however, will also be a 25-foot-long bridge between the old house and the new addition, following the original east-west axis and circulation pattern.
“We talked the owners into buying a portion of the lot next door so that we could leave some distance between the original house and the addition,” Thomas said. “The bridge keeps us from having to mimic the old house because it’s separate from the original, not grafted onto it. It takes its cues in plan and materials, for the most part, from Kenneth Scott’s design. Yet it will provide visual and physical clarity between the old and new.”
Along with the bridge, the addition will include a master bedroom suite, a guest room and another basement, as well as Mark Hansen’s 36-foot-long, 8-foot, 8-inches wide office that will be cantilevered off the addition’s northern elevation.
“The office is the only true departure from the planes and materials of the original,” Thomas said. “It will be a separate object that will float above the landscape in a cantilevered box, framed in dark, anodized metal that will form ‘blinders’ on the east and west, except for one slender, floor-to-ceiling window. The northern wall will be all glass with Mark’s desk built into it. The southern wall will be covered in bookshelves to accommodate Mark’s vast collection of books.”
Thomas expects the addition to take about a year to complete.
Bayleaf Buildings of Raleigh is serving as contractor for the project. Kaydos-Daniels is the structural engineer.
Kenneth Hobgood, FAIA, founded Kenneth E Hobgood, Architects in Raleigh, NC, in 1992. Since then, the firm has received 39 design awards from the American Institute of Architects North Carolina chapter and its work has been published and exhibited in the United States, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, England and Germany. In 1997, Kenneth Hobgood as awarded the Kamphoefner Prize from North Carolina State University’s College of Design for “consistent integrity and devotion to the development of modern architecture” in North Carolina. He has served as a visiting critic at Auburn University, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, and the University of Kentucky, and as an adjunct professor at North Carolina State University since 1988. For more information, visit www.kennethhobgood.com.
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