Welcome to Hargidon
Hargidon Architecture + Design, LLC is dedicated to designing and producing high quality custom solutions for the built environment.
Beyond solving the basic issues, we believe that every project is an opportunity to do great work and to produce environments that owners, users and the public will find meaningful, take delight in and remember.
Every project is unique in some important way. Somewhere in the initial parameters of a project is the hint of a strategy for devising creative solutions to the issues at hand.
Hargidon Architecture + Design, LLC is a full-service architectural firm based in Salem, in the Northshore region of Massachusetts.
The firm was started in 2010 by Michael Arvid Hardiman, AIA on the back of 27 years of architectural practice in New York City, London & Boston.
Our work has allowed us to be involved with residential, corporate and educational projects, in such diverse locations as Park Slope-Brooklyn, London-United Kingdom, New Lebanon-NY, and Beverly Farms-MA.
We are licensed & registered to practice in Massachusetts & New York State but our ability to assist in design projects has no real geographic limits.
Past work has given us much experience in offsite fabrication or ‘pre-fab’. We also have significant experience in exhibit work, urban design and signage / graphics.
Hargidon Architecture + Design, LLC is able to provide the following individual services to help you with your project. Typically, clients need a cluster of services, to cover a range of steps in the process of project realization. These clusters can be tailored to suit the individual client’s needs.
In any project, it’s important to identify the target project budget, and when the funds will be available for actual use. We will assist the client in understanding different project costs and help the owner to formulate a budget strategy. For projects where the scope & budget of the work are unknown, we can offer a Feasibility Study; see below.
The scope of work consists of 3 parts:
Cost: $500 (residential) $750 (commercial or educational)
Notes: Package is limited to 3 hours total on-site time; prices shown here are subject to change.
Design Development takes the chosen scheme and develops the various components to the extent that they can then be cost estimated with some accuracy.
In some small projects, design development may be bundled into the Schematic Design Phase.
Construction Documents are almost always an outgrowth of either the Schematic Design or Design Development drawings.
We also offer both forms of modeling as a stand-alone service to individuals, designers and other architecture firms.
photography. See our Visualizations page for examples of this kind of work.
While individual services can be combined in many ways to suit the individual needs of your project, here are some of the more common Service Packages.
• Detailed Site Investigation & Rough Measure Up
• Existing Conditions Drawings
• Building Code Analysis
• Zoning Analysis and/or Wetland Analysis
• Establishment of the Project Brief
• Schematic Design
• Outline Scope of Work
• Physical Model
At Hargidon we believe that the rewards for producing good architecture outweigh the effort it takes to get there- for the owner, for the users and for society as a whole.
What then is good architecture? Ask 10 people and you will get 10 different answers. Our answer is still evolving but here are some ideas that we like:
Education:
• Pratt Institute / School of Architecture / Bachelor of Architecture ’83
• Harvard University / Graduate School of Design / Career Discovery ’75
• Darrow School / Cum Laude Graduate ’75
Professional:
• State of New York Registered Architect / Since 1988
• Commonwealth of Massachusetts Registered Architect / Since 2010
• NCARB Certificate / Since 1993
• AIA Member / Since 2001
Service:
• AIA/United Kingdom Chapter President / 2004
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Profile:
Mike got his start in the design world in 1976 as an exhibit technician for the National Park Service at the Interpretive Design Center in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia during the summer months while attending Pratt Institute during the school year. Other early jobs include selling scale model trains in New York City, where he designed the toy train layout for Macy’s Herald Square Santa Land. Mike also worked as a salesperson for Charrette Corporation in 1978, which lead him to his first real architecture job, hand inking elevations of a 1920s skyscraper.
After graduating from Pratt Institute in 1983 and a summer leading bicycle tours, he continued his apprenticeship by working for different architecture firms located in New York City including: Delacour & Ferrara, Architects and Shelton, Mindel and Associates. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Mike became a project architect at Hirsch Danois Partnership, where he worked on school projects and helped to design a new camp for the Fresh Air Fund. He later joined Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, where he worked on the Los Angeles Central Library, the Glimmerglass Opera Theater and the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center.
In the early 1990s, Mike completed his first significant project as an independent architect: an adaptive re-use of the 1910 Tennis House in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY for the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment, a teaching and exhibit facility for environmental awareness and urban exploration.
In the late 1990s, Mike worked as a project architect at Karplus & Nussbaum Architects gaining expertise in area of corporate office design. From 1997–1999, Mike was the project architect in charge of a team of designers tasked with renovating and reinventing the old GTE headquarters in Stamford, CT into a new headquarters for the Zurich Financial Center.
In 1999, Mike moved to London, England with the intention of working for British Architecture Firms. His career took an unexpected turn when he met up with an American architect who had recently moved to England and had started an architecture firm specializing in providing offsite fabricated buildings to the British affordable housing market. Mike joined this effort, The Forge Company, as the 3rd employee and over the course of 5 years, became a part owner and a design and IT director. The Forge Company pioneered the use of pre-fab light gage steel in affordable housing, bringing together the use of LGS panels, 3-D LGS modules and hot-rolled steel elements.
During 2004, Mike served as president of the United Kingdom chapter of the American Institute of Architects. He designed and ran a series of architectural cycling tours that explored the environment of greater London.
At the beginning of 2005, upon the closing of The Forge Company, Mike returned to the USA aboard the Queen Elizabeth II and settled in Boston, Massachusetts. His daughter was also born in 2005.
Mike worked for CBT architects in Boston from 2005 to 2007 as a Project Architect, on various corporate and education projects. In late 2007 he moved to working for The Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, as the Senior Project Designer, managing enhancement projects to the new mile-long Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston.
During 2007, Mike designed a professional continuing education course called ‘Offsite Fabrication for Housing’ which has been offered at Pratt Institute in New York City every year since 2008. See the Teaching Section.
Mike left the Greenway Conservancy in 2010 and started Hargidon Architecture + Design, LLC in Beverly , Massachusetts. At the same time, he also designed and managed a major gut-rehab and green addition to his family’s home in Beverly Farms, MA. See the Projects section.
Hargidon Architecture + Design, LLC relocated to Salem, MA in 2012.
Based on his years of working for The Forge Company in London, UK on offsite fabrication projects, Mike developed a continuing education course called ‘Offsite Fabrication for Housing’. This course has been taught since 2008 at Pratt Institute / School of Continuing and Professional Studies. It is a one-day, 7 hour course designed to give an in depth overview of the world of prefabrication and it’s application to architecture.
For interest in this course,
click to view the Pratt Institute website here.
During 2009, 2010 and 2011, Mike has been a presenter of various Hargidon projects and their relationship to sustainability at the Darrow School Sustainability Symposium, which occurs in April of each year in New Lebanon, NY and is attended by members of the public.
From 2001 to 2004 Mike designed, researched and lead a series of 4 architectural cycling tours around the City of London. The tours covered on average about 20 miles and visited about 15 or more different sites of architectural significance over the course of a day.
Mike was an invited guest critic for a end of term design class project presentation for a class lead by BAC professor Cheryl Wolfe.
Each year the UK Chapter of the AIA hosts a design charrette with the aim of involving practicing professionals in the education of students. In 2003 & 2004, Mike was a team leader for about 6 student from architecture schools around the United Kingdom.
This article announces the completion of Hargidon’s renovation to the Darrow School STEM Center and rain-chain hanging ceremony.
This article chronicles Mike’s work in using form-Z (3-D Modeling software) to assist in the design of offsite fabricated building components for the affordable housing market in the United Kingdom from 1999–2004. The article first appeared in the form-Z annual magazine earlier in 2005 and subsequently in Architecture Week in August of that year.
Mike did an expert job designing an addition for our house. We started with a series of valuable discussions that helped us uncover several possibilities to address the traffic flow and layout limitations of our home. Mike impressed us with his brainstorming skills which resulted in several ideas that made us excited to move forward with the project. We enthusiastically recommend Mike to anyone seeking an architect who has mastered collaborating with clients and turning ideas into architectural solutions.
Mike excelled at listening attentively to us regarding how we live in our house and asked poignant questions leading to what a dream house scenario would be. He took time to do research and offer recommendations and insights as to how we might improve our lifestyle by altering the flow of traffic within the house compared to the way prior generations may have utilized the space. We were delighted by his insight.
My small office could not accommodate a physical separation between the ‘business’ and ‘therapeutic’ functions, so Mike helped me create a ‘psychic’ separation through the use of furniture placement and colors. He also helped me think through the process of how my patients would experience the space; how they would enter, where they would sit, what they would see….He was there every step of the way from initial concept to final installation. All of this was done on a very modest budget for design, furniture and fixtures.
Mike was a huge help as the architect of our complete kitchen overhaul. He brought the right approach that helped us really make the most out of space within our limited budget. He consistently brought creative ideas to the table that were right in line with our priorities. We couldn’t be happier with the process, how it stayed within our means, and gave us a clear path for future improvements. We definitely encourage anyone looking for creative, economical, environmentally conscious design to work with Mike.
“Thank you for the wonderful job you did in bringing new life to the Science Building. What a success! . . . The Science Building is a real Hit! I love it.”
“I really love the science building. I smile every time I walk by it.”
Hargidon Architecture + Design and the rapid execution by Mike helped me come up with a set of finished floor plans for a comprehensive renovation of 2000 sq ft retail-commercial space at 1 Warren Street in Hudson, NY. Their suggestions regarding traffic and circulation flow were a great help in locating the position of facilities and storage. Mike Hardiman always facilitates smooth solutions to thorny problems. I’d use Hargidon on my next project.
My company worked with Mike on an addition / renovation project in 2009, which converted a bland ranch style house into a contemporary with open space, and all new mechanical systems. There were several challenges given the minimal structural value of the existing building. With the use of steel columns and LVLs we suspended a second floor addition perpendicular to the original structure doubling the living area. Mike’s drawings were complete and accurate and his ability to be on-site with answers in a timely manner was invaluable to the process. Having been in the construction business for over half a century, it is always a relief to work with a skilled architect who is not an egoitect. I would recommend Hargidon to anyone without reservation. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any further inquiries.
Mike’s primary design role was to develop systems for prefabricated housing and specialist structures. He developed several prefabricated systems for BAA (the operator of UK’s primary airports e.g. Heathrow). He also developed the design of three-dimensional modules to be incorporated into major social housing projects in and around London.
He worked closely with our engineers, the Michael Barclay Partnership and his open, forthright, design procedures and creativity contributed to the success of many of of these projects. His CAD skills in the development of these projects was outstanding, some of his work product for these projects have become icons in this speciality, with design images reproduced in numerous publications. Several projects on which he was a key member have received significant awards in their field.
Michael is creative, skilled, dependable, and hard working. As a result of his contributions to the company he was appointed a Director, with a part ownership, in late 2003.
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Michael Arvid Hardiman, AIA NCARB
Hargidon Architecture + Design, LLC
12 Howard Street • Suite 2
Salem MA 01970
Telephone: 617-755-8203
Email: mike@hargidon.com
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