studio history

Scott Harmon and David Arneson began the studio on June 1, 2004.  Working at first in our respective homes, downtown Durham was our conference room.  We met frequently on the back porch at what was then Fowler’s (in the Brightleaf area) or in a bright corner at downtown’s old Blue Coffee Cafe (now Neomonde). Within a year, we were able to rent a small, two-room office in the amazing Mutual Community Savings Bank building (now The Durham Hotel).  We still didn’t have a conference room, so the meetings at Blue Coffee and Fowler’s continued. And when we had a good month, we’d treat ourselves to lunch at Rue Cler.  In 2006 we hired our first employee, Will Rhodenhiser, and moved into a historic storefront in Five Points, and continued to grow the firm.  Dawn Bland was hired in 2007, and now she and Will are both partners.  In 2012 we moved into our own building as part of the  Five Points Project, developed by our sister development company, ReVamp Durham.