NC Modernist Houses

Carrboro Hillside House Wins a Jury Award in 2022 Matsumoto Prize Competition

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Hillside House, designed by pod architecture + design, in neighborhood context.

(CARRBORO, NC) – “Hillside House,” the modern, metal-clad home designed by architect Doug Pierson, AIA, and designer Youn Choi of pod architecture + design for their own family of four, received a prestigious Jury Award during the 2022 George Matsumoto Prize competition recognizing excellence in modernist residential design.

 Leland Little Auctions in Hillsborough hosted this year’s awards ceremony on Thursday, July 28.

NC Modernist, a nationally acclaimed non-profit organization and website based and maintained in Durham, created the Matsumoto Prize in 2012 to honor modernist architect George Matsumoto, FAIA, one of the founding faculty members of North Carolina State University’s College of Design. The Matsumoto Prize is North Carolina’s highest honor exclusively for modernist residential architecture throughout the state.

Located on a wooded lot in an established neighborhood near downtown Carrboro, Hillside House is a long, slender, three-level home that directly responds to the natural terrain in form and plan. Its black metal exterior and a cantilevered corner as it zigzags up a steep hill decrease its impact on the landscape and natural hydrology.

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Doug Pierson, Youn Choi

According to NC Modernist’s founder and director George Smart, the jurors appreciated the symbiosis between the architecture and the land. Yet they were most impressed by Pierson’s and Choi’s design decisions that, as parents, they knew would enhance daily life for their young-adult child with autism. As they explained in their awards submission:

 “An ideal floor plan developed within the long, narrow form…[that] offers visible connectivity across the length and height of the house to facilitate communication. It also provides retreat spaces for privacy.”

 Info, Video, Images & Plans

·       Click here to view the video pod a+d created for the competition, narrated by Doug Pierson.

·       Click here for more information on pod architecture + design, and here for information, photos, drawings, and plans for Hillside House.

·       Click here to view all the modernist houses submitted for the Matsumoto Prize this year.

Vote for the CARRBORO HILLSIDE HOUSE in this year’s Matsumoto Prize awards!

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Go to ncmhcompetitions.org, scroll down a bit, and VOTE for this unique, modern, sustainable, custom-designed home in Carrboro, NC, where the land dictated the form and the family’s specific needs informed the plan. Thanks so much!

Save the Date: “Hillside House” will be open for public touring Saturday, November 13

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The rear view shows “Hillside House” climbing up the natural hill on site.

On Saturday, November 13, NCModernist.org will present a public “Trickle Tour” of Hillside House at 130 Old Pittsboro Road, Carrboro. Specific time slots and ticket information will be announced later.

NCModernist (aka NC Modernist Houses) hosts several tours of modern house each year. Executive director George Smart created the “Trickle Tour” format in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The format allows the public to visit new or newly remodeled modernist houses at a “trickle” of the normal rate for the nonprofit organization’s home tours. Timed admission assures that very few people are inside a house during each time slot.

Doug Pierson, AIA, and Youn Choi, founding partners and principal designers at pod architecture + design in Chapel Hill, created Hillside House for their own family of four on a wooded lot within walking distance of downtown Carrboro.

In April 2020, the house caught the attention of the Wall Street Journal. A few months later, Chapel Hill Magazine featured it in an article entitled “Labor of Love.” It has also been published in Builder Magazine, Architizer, and in Dwell and Architect magazines’ galleries of residential projects.

This will be the first public tour of the angular house on Old Pittsboro Road that’s wrapped in corrugated black metal and appears to be twisting and turning its way up a steep hillside.

To see more exterior and interior photos, go to the “Hillside House”  page on Pierson’s and Choi’s website: podand.com/work#/carrboro-house.

Pictured Above: Doug and Sora on the first “living” level. Above them: Oscar at the cantilevered desk in the middle “work” level. Above right: Youn on the bedroom, or “sleep” level. (Photo by Cornel Watson for Chapel Hill Magazine.

Kentucky bourbon and brisket: pod architecture + design hosts Thirst4Architecture August 16

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pod architecture + design
The pod a+d team: L-R Wendy Broome, Youn Choi, Barbara Ngaboyamahina, Dougald Fountain, and Doug Pierson Not pictured: interns from Doug’s third-year design studio at the NCSU College of Design, Dept. of Architecture — Casey Calhoun and Nailah Watts-Harper.

For the first time since moving back to North Carolina from the West Coast, Youn Choi and Doug Pierson, founders and principals of pod architecture + design (pod a+d) in Carrboro, will host Thirst4Architecture (T4A) to celebrate modern architecture and the people in the Triangle who love it on Thursday, August 16, from 6-8 p.m.

Free and open to the public, the event is one of the monthly happy hour networking social occasions established by North Carolina Modernist Houses and will be held in the firm’s studio in the historic train depot in the heart of downtown Carrboro.

T4A is an opportunity for anyone interested in and associated with modern architecture to mix, mingle, and build relationships with other modern design enthusiasts in a relaxed, casual environment. Pierson and Choi will provide the location, food, and beverages while participants get an up-close look at pod a+d’s work through models and drawings.

A Special Treat for T4A Guests

Award-winning architect Doug Pierson, AIA, recently attended the grand opening of one of his firm’s most ambitious projects to date: Rabbit Hole Distillery, a state-of-the-art, 55,000-square-foot, $15 million bourbon distillery and campus in downtown Louisville, Kentucky.

For their T4A event, Pierson and Choi are having Rabbit Hole’s award-winning bourbon shipped to Carrboro. The bar staff provided by Drew Moore, owner of CrossTies Barbeque (201-East Main Street) and several other local establishments, will serve special bourbon-based cocktails as well as “straight” and “on the rocks” options, and soft drinks for pod a+d’s August 16 event.

Moore is also providing CrossTie’s popular “Brisket Slides” for the evening’s savory selection.

 “As local as possible”

Pierson and Choi, partners in life as well as work, are relative newcomers to the Triangle architecture and design community, having recently returned from living and working on the West Coast. Their new modern house in Carrboro, which they designed together for their family of four, is under construction and will plant their roots here even deeper.

“We’re so happy to be back,” Pierson said, “that we’re doing everything we can to be as ‘local’ as possible. That’s why we chose space in the old depot for our offices. We’re active in the community, we shop at the Farmers Market and Weaver Street, and we’re working with one of the best high-performance, or ‘green,’ homebuilders for our new house: Kevin Murphy of Newphire Building in Chapel Hill. We’re also hiring all-local subcontractors and vendors, including the lumber supplier.” He smiled. “And we’re always free to talk when people walk in and tell us that our space doesn’t look like a barbeque joint.” He explained that people often mistake the firm’s front door for the entrance to Cross Ties.

pod architecture + design is located at 201-A East Main Street, Carrboro, NC (919.246.6466) For more information, visit www.podand.com. pod a + d is also available on Facebook.

“The Professor’s House” Will Be Open For Public Touring in September

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​​

Designed by Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA, this small, modern, age-in-place house is part of the Fall 2017 Modapalooza Tour.

 

July 19, 2017 (Chapel Hill, NC) — “The Professor’s House,” a small, sustainable, age-in-place house overlooking Morgan Creek in Chapel Hill, has been selected for the Fall 2017 Modapalooza Tour on Saturday, September 16, sponsored by North Carolina Modernist Houses (NCMH).

Chapel Hill architect Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA, designed the house for a retired professor of Native American Studies. A widow now, she wanted to downsize from her 3200-square-foot house and live with her dog in a modern, age-in-place house in a quiet, wooded neighborhood in Chapel Hill, NC.

She contacted Schechter because she’d heard about the Micropolis Houses®, a collection of modern “tiny house” plans Schechter designed that range from 150 to 1500 square feet and can be customized to meet specific buyers’ needs and preferences. In this case, the professor wanted to add a third bedroom/office and an extra bath to the Micropolis® plan she chose.

modern, age-n-place house Chapel Hill
A bridge from the parking area to the front door means guests won’t have to maneuver any steps.

“A small house meant she could have things like a swimming pool, a Japanese soaking tub, and choose nicer elements for her money,” Schechter noted.

The final design is nearly half the size of the professor’s previous house. Yet at only a little more than 1600 heated square feet– almost 1000 square feet less than the average American house, which is now 2500 square feet — it packs in all of the professor’s spatial needs in an open, fluid floor plan with age-in-place functionality. Schechter calls it a “Custom-opolis.”

The Professor’s House is one of seven houses designed by award-winning architects on this year’s Modapalooza Tour, including projects by Frank Harmon, Phil Szostak, Tina Govan, Jason Hart, and in situ studio. (For all the details about the tour, visit http://www.ncmodernist.org/palooza17.htm.)

The Professor’s House is also in the running for a 2017 George Matsumoto Prize, which recognizes excellence in North Carolina modernist residential design sponsored by NCMH. Winners are selected by both a professional jury and public voting. (Public voting at https://ncmhcompetitions.squarespace.com ends July 20.)

For more information on The Professor’s House and architect Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA, visit www.acsarchitect.com.

About Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA:

Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA, is a licensed, registered architect based in Chapel Hill, NC, who specializes in Modernist, energy-efficient buildings with a focus on passive houses, NET ZERO houses, and her new tiny house plans, the Micropolis Houses™. She is a lifelong environmentalist and began practicing green design long before it became mainstream. She is also a lifelong animal advocate who lives in Chapel Hill with her husband, Arnie, and an assortment of foster animals in the Modern, sustainable house she

 

NEWS & OBSERVER HOME & GARDEN: “The 2016 winners in the annual George Matsumoto Prize modernist house contest”

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123 Hillcrest
123 Hillcrest

BY ANDREA WEIGL

On Thursday, N.C. Modernist Houses announced the winners of its annual statewide modernist residential design contest.

The big winner of the 2016 George Matsumoto Prize contest is Will Alphin of Alphin Design Build. Alphin took home the first-place prize in the juried competition for a four-level house in Raleigh’s Cameron Park neighborhood. That house, 123 Hillcrest, a 6,200-square-foot house valued at about $1.6 million, also won second place in the people’s choice category. Alphin received $3,000 in prize money.

Following close behind were designers with the in situ studio in Raleigh, whose designs placed second and third in the juried competition.

N.C. Modernist Houses is a nonprofit dedicated to preserving and celebrating the state’s modernist architecture. READ MORE…

James Taylor’s Modernist Childhood Home in Chapel Hill Will Open for Second Public Tour

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1952 Taylor Home_sm

After the first tour sold out, NCMH has arranged a second opportunity for Taylor fans and Modernist design enthusiasts.

By popular demand, North Carolina Modernist Houses (NCMH) will host a second tour of singer-songwriter James Taylor’s classic mid-century Modern childhood home in Chapel Hill on Saturday, July 2, from 9 a.m. to noon.

Tickets ($7 each) for admission by specific time slots are on sale now at http://www.ncmodernist.org/jt.htm and are expected to sell out quickly.  Nine-hundred people attended the first tour on June 4.  “I can’t tell you how many phone calls and emails I’ve received from folks who didn’t secure tickets for the first tour before it was sold out,” said George Smart, Executive Director of NCMH. “James Taylor is such an iconic figure, locally and nationally. So we’re delighted to be able to offer a second opportunity.”

Modernist architects George Matsumoto and John Latimer designed the three-level house, which was built in 1952 for Dr. Isaac Taylor — then-dean of the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine — his wife Trudy and their five children: James, Livingston, Hugh, Alex, and Kate. James lived there until he graduated from high school.

In the 1960s, James and his siblings played music in the two-story guesthouse nearby, which is included on the tour. Participants will see where James carved his initials on the railing around the guesthouse deck.

The house will be auctioned on June 29.

Proceeds from ticket sales benefit North Carolina Modernist Houses, a nonprofit dedicated to archiving, preserving, and promoting Modernist residential design across the state. For more information: www.ncmodernist.org.

redchair smAbout NC Modernist Houses:

North Carolina Modernist Houses (NCMH) is an award-winning, 501C3 nonprofit organizations established in 2007 and dedicated to documenting, preserving, and promoting Modernist residential design. This year, the American Institute of Architects awarded NCMH founder and director George Smart its Collaborative Achievement Award for his work with NCMH. The website www.ncmodernist.org is now the largest open digital archive for Modernist residential design in America. NCMH also hosts popular architecture events every month and frequent home tours, giving the public access to the most exciting residential architecture, past and present. These tours and events raise awareness and help preserve these “livable works of art” for future generations. For more information: www.ncmodernist.org. Find NCMH on Facebook. Follow NCMH on Twitter and Instagram.

2016 Matsumoto Prize Online Voting Now Open

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Recognizing excellence in North Carolina Modernist residential design

Online voting for the 2016 George Matsumoto Prize: Recognizing Excellence in North Carolina Modernist Residential Design, begins today at:

https://ncmhcompetitions.squarespace.com

Matsumoto Prize 2016
Composite of the 2016 Matsomoto Prize nominees.

The 2016 Matsumoto Prize, supported by the McAdams Foundation, includes public voting to determine three “People’s Choice” winners. Anyone may vote by email (one time per email address) for his or her favorite entry starting today and running through June 29.

The Matsumoto Prize is named for George Matsumoto, FAIA, an eminent Modernist architect well-known for exceptional residential designs.

Matsumoto also serves as Honorary Chair for the Prize’s blue-ribbon jury of professional architects who select the Jury Award winners of cash prizes from a pool of $6000.

“These entries inspire people dreaming of a Modernist house to know Modernist design is affordable, efficient, sustainable, and most importantly, a house their families will love for decades,” said NCMH executive director George Smart. “We’re looking forward to record-breaking participation in this year’s online voting.”

Online voting ends at 5 p.m. EST, June 29.

For more information about the 2016 Matsumoto Prize, go to www.ncmodernist.org/prize2016.

redchair smAbout North Carolina Modernist Houses: 

North Carolina Modernist Houses (NCMH) is an award-winning, 501C3 nonprofit organizations established in 2007 and dedicated to documenting, preserving, and promoting Modernist residential design. This year, the American Institute of Architects awarded NCMH founder and director George Smart its Collaborative Achievement Award for his work with NCMH. The website www.ncmodernist.org is now the largest open digital archive for Modernist residential design in America. NCMH also hosts popular architecture events every month and frequent home tours, giving the public access to the most exciting residential architecture, past and present. These tours and events raise awareness and help preserve these “livable works of art” for future generations. For more information: www.ncmodernist.org. Find NCMH on Facebook. Follow NCMH on Twitter and Instagram.

Durham’s BuildSense To Host June’s “Thirst4Architecture”

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The BuildSense building in downtown Durham.
The BuildSense building in downtown Durham.

BuildSense, an award-winning design-build firm located in downtown Durham, will host “Thirst4Architecture,” a networking event sponsored by North Carolina Modernist Houses (NCMH) and Emilie Huin of Triangle Modern Homes Real Estate, on Thursday, June 16, from 6-8 p.m., in the firm’s offices at 502 Rigsbee Avenue.

T4A events are opportunities for architects, artists, building managers, contractors, engineers, furniture dealers, realtors, and anyone else interested in Modernist residential design to connect and create strategic alliances in a casual environment. The hosts provide refreshments and other entertainment while introducing T4A participants to their businesses.

Founded by Randall Lanou and Erik Van Mehlman in 1999, BuildSense Inc. is a full-service architecture and construction firm known for designing and building both modern and traditional sustainable, energy efficient homes and renovations. The firm frequently participates in NCMH events, including homes tours and the Matsumoto Prize for Residential Design.

Those attending the June T4A will be able to tour the firm’s ca. 1945 building that served as an auto service center for 30 years before Lanou and Mehlman retrofitted into one of the most energy-efficient buildings in downtown Durham in 2014. For more information on BuildSense, including directions to the offices, visit www.buildsense.com.

For more information on NCMH and the locations for future Thirst4Architecture events, visit www.ncmodernist.org.

redchair smAbout NC Modernist Houses:

North Carolina Modernist Houses (NCMH) is an award-winning, 501C3 nonprofit organizations established in 2007 and dedicated to documenting, preserving, and promoting Modernist residential design. This year, the American Institute of Architects awarded NCMH founder and director George Smart its Collaborative Achievement Award for his work with NCMH. The website www.ncmodernist.org is now the largest open digital archive for Modernist residential design in America. NCMH also hosts popular architecture events every month and frequent home tours, giving the public access to the most exciting residential architecture, past and present. These tours and events raise awareness and help preserve these “livable works of art” for future generations. For more information: www.ncmodernist.org. Find NCMH on Facebook. Follow NCMH on Twitter and Instagram.

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Media contact:

Kim Weiss, Blueplate PR

919.272.8615; blueplatepr@gmail.com

Image attached: BuildSense building in downtown Durham, courtesy BuildSense

2016 Matsumoto Prize Now Accepting Submissions

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The 2015 Jurors' Award, First Prize, winner: The Aiyyer Residence by CUBE Design
The 2015 Jurors’ Award, First Prize, winner: The Aiyyer Residence by CUBE Design

A unique architecture competition celebrating Modernist residential design across North Carolina.

Submissions will be accepted in the 2016 George Matsumoto Prize, Recognizing Excellence in North Carolina Modernist Residential Design starting at 8 a.m., May 1, sponsored by the award-winning non-profit organization North Carolina Modernist Houses. The deadline for submissions is 5 p.m., May 23rd.

Now in its fifth year, the Matsumoto Prize is named for George Matsumoto, FAIA, a founding member of the North Carolina State University School (now College) of Design, who is well known for the many mid-century Modernist houses he designed in North Carolina.

The Matsumoto Prize is a unique design awards program. It is the only juried architecture competition in North Carolina that focuses on Modernist houses, provides financial awards ($6000 total), involves a national jury as well as online public voting, and connects to a major architectural archive.

The competition is open to anyone with primary design responsibility for a completely built, from-the-ground-up, single-family Modernist house of at least 800 heated square feet that was completed on or after January 1, 2011. The designer does not have to be a licensed architect. The houses submitted must be in North Carolina but the designers may be from anywhere.

“The Matsumoto Prize promotes new talent and provides motivating honors and incentives for a new generation of architects,” said NCMH founder and director George Smart. “It also contributes to wider public recognition of Modernism in all its forms — architecture, art, furniture, and fashion — and recognizes the significant economic and aesthetic impact of Modernism across North Carolina.”

In addition to the jury, the public will vote on the submissions with the top winners getting “People’s Choice” recognition. Public voting will take place at www.ncmodernist.org/prize2016 from June 1-29.

Again this year, George Matsumoto will serve as the jury’s Honorary Chair. He will joined by: Ray Kappe, Kappe Architects, Los Angeles; Alison Brooks, Alison Brooks Architects, London; Joshua Prince-Ramus, REX, New York; Harry Wolf, Wolf Architecture, Los Angeles; Charles McMurray, Charles McMurray Designs, Miami; and Oscar-nominated production designer Nathan Crowley, Los Angeles.

The 2016 Matsumoto Prize awards ceremony will be held Thursday, July 1, from 6-8 p.m., at McConnell Studios, 324 Dupont Circle, Raleigh.

Competition rules, submission procedures and guidelines are available at http://www.ncmodernist.org/prize2016. To see last year’s submissions and winners: http://www.ncmodernist.org/prize2015.

About North Carolina Modernist Houses:

North Carolina Modernist Houses (NCMH) is an award-winning 501C3 nonprofit established in 2007 and dedicated to documenting, preserving, and promoting Modernist residential design. The website is now the largest open digital archive for Modernist residential design in America. NCMH also hosts popular architecture events every month, giving the public access to the most exciting residential architecture, past and present. These tours and events raise awareness and help preserve these “livable works of art” for future generations. For more information: www.ncmodernist.org.