Residential Architect Magazine Names Raleigh Firm 2013’s “Rising Star”

Vinny Petrarca and Katherine Hogan receive one of the national journal’s annual Leadership Awards.

 

October 17, 2013 (Raleigh, NC) – Last weekend, Residential Architect Magazine presented home designers Vinny Petrarca and Katherine Hogan, partners in the Raleigh-based firm Tonic Design + Tonic Construction, with its 2013 Rising Star Leadership Award. The presentation took place during a luncheon held at the Wyndham Hotel in San Francisco, CA, as part of the annual Reinvention Symposium sponsored by Residential Architect’s publisher, Hanley Wood.

Since Tonic was founded in 2003, the design-build firm has completed a steady stream of private residences, many of which have received design awards from the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) South Atlantic Region, AIA North Carolina, AIA Triangle, and other design awards programs.

In 2006, Tonic’s dramatic rehabilitation/renovation of a mid-century house in Raleigh, the Chiles Residence, made the final list for World Architecture News’ “House of the Year.”

In 2005, a kitchen design-build project received a Merit Award from Custom Homes magazine.

In 2008, the Chiles Residence received a Custom Homes Merit Award. In 2009 the same project received one of Raleigh, NC’s Sir Walter Raleigh Appearance Commission awards.

In 2010, a house Tonic designed and built for a family in Greenville, NC, received AIA North Carolina’s Gail Lindsey Award for sustainability.

And this year, the “Modern Gothic” house Tonic designed and built in Pittsboro, NC, for a local recording artist received First Prize in the George Matsumoto Prize competition sponsored by NC Modernist Houses (www.ncmodernist.org).

Tonic Design + Tonic Construction has also received high honors for non-residential work. The shelter structure the firm designed and built for the North Carolina’s Museum of Art’s Sculpture Garden, entitled “Art as Shelter,” has received five design awards, including the national AIA’s 2010 Small Project Award for “Architecture in the Public Interest.”

In the article on this year’s Rising Star Award, contributor Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson points out that “Petrarca, 41, and Hogan, 32, don’t bring a signature sensibility to their work. Each residence presents an entirely distinctive vision, which, it turns out, is the connective tissue of Tonic….What threads through every Tonic project is a reverence for material, a respect for the site and the budget, and what Hogan calls a ‘modern sensitivity.’”

Residential Architect has also published Tonic’s private residences on several occasions. And when the magazine launched a new video series that explores the importance of residential design and the value architects bring to the housing industry, the editors included an interview with Hogan and Petrarca.

Rising Star is one of three Leadership Awards the magazine presents each year along with its annual Design Awards. The Reinvention Symposium is the only high-level national conference devoted exclusively to the residential design professional. For more information on the magazine, go to www.residentialarchitect.com.

For more information on Tonic Design + Tonic Construction visit www.tonic-design.com.

 

DWELL: “A Gothic Inspired Modern Home”

By Diana Budds

Modernism’s crisp lines and ornament-free surfaces bear little resemblance to Gothic architecture’s gingerbread house–like flourishes. But in the North Carolina residence belonging to a musician and his son, Medieval structures informed the contemporary design. Michael Rank approached Raleigh-based firm Tonic to create a house that emphasized his love of tall, vertical spaces and staircases. A professional musician, Rank also requested space for a recording studio. Privacy was paramount as was room for his collection of art and muscle cars. Tonic took all the requirements and delivered a thoughtfully planned two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath house at about $200 per square foot. READ MORE…

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECT, 2013 LEADERSHIP AWARDS: “Rising Star: Tonic Design | Tonic Construction”

Vincent Petrarca and Katherine Hogan don’t have a singular style, but they do have a distinctive vision.

By Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

Katherine Hogan and Vincent Petrarca of Tonic Design | Tonic Construction, in their Raleigh, N.C., studio.
(Photo by Ian Allen)

Look through the portfolio of houses designed and built by the Raleigh, N.C.–based Tonic Design | Tonic Construction. While the architecture is decidedly modern in inspiration, zeroing in on a singular style isn’t easy. In the Rank Residence, completed last year, a dramatic, Gothic-inspired four-story home uses slender windows and a dizzying stair design to play off vertical space. The Smart-Stell Residence, by contrast, is a quieter, one-story, horizontal home with vast expanses of glass. Each residence presents an entirely distinctive vision, which, it turns out, is the connective tissue of Tonic.

“Look at two of our houses and they couldn’t be more different,” says Vincent Petrarca, Assoc. AIA, who co-founded Tonic a decade ago and now runs the firm with his wife and partner, Katherine Hogan, Assoc. AIA. “We are good at figuring out what each project is about and not making it about us.”

This doesn’t mean, of course, that Petrarca, 41, and Hogan, 32, don’t bring a signature sensibility to their work. What threads through every Tonic project is a reverence for material, a respect for the site and the budget, and what Hogan calls a “modern sensitivity.”

“We try to be really good listeners with our clients,” Hogan says, “and we try to involve them while also providing good design and remaining sensitive to the context.” READ MORE…

CHEVROLET.com – DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY: “With its sleek design and modernist appeal, the 2014 Impala is your dream car. How about a home to match?”

By Greg Barbera

You love your 2014 Impala. You love its sleek, sculpted lines and the smooth ride it offers courtesy of its eye-pleasing aerodynamic design. You love the masterful craftsmanship that has resulted in your rewarding driving experience. So what’s the problem? You really want the right place to park it—specifically, a home that matches your design sensibility and your Impala’s striking appearance and head-turning profile. Here’s a quick tour of stylish, modernist residences that might fit the bill.

This may come as a surprise to some people, but the Triangle area of North Carolina—which includes Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill—has the third largest concentration of modernist homes in the country. Only Los Angeles and Chicago have more. These are not just homesteads; like your vehicle, they’re pieces of art. Raleigh’s Tonic Design recently built a house for local musician Michael Rank that turns the heads of passersby… READ MORE…

NEWS & OBSERVER: “AIA Triangle tour of homes takes place Oct. 5”

 

Home & Garden – Living

Five Triangle-area homes displaying outstanding design features will be open to the public Saturday during the American Institute of Architects annual tour. Pictured here: the Lanning house by Tonic Design + Tonic Construction

Five Triangle-area homes displaying outstanding design features will be open to the public Saturday during the American Institute of Architects annual tour.

Four of the homes were chosen by a jury of architects based on criteria such as overall design, quality, ability to meet client needs, harmony with the site, and other factors. The fifth home is a 1957 award-winning design by James Murray Webb, formerly a member of the UNC-Chapel Hill City and Regional Planning School.

The homes will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Cost for the tour is $15 online through noon Saturday; $20 at the open home locations in Cary, Raleigh and Chapel Hill.

The self-guided tour is sponsored by the 750-member Triangle Section of the American Institute of Architects.

For details and a tour map, visit aiatriangletour.com.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/10/04/3250228/aia-triangle-tour-of-homes-takes.html#storylink=cpy