An Amazing Mountain Meadow Home Site
The view west across the meadow pond. (photograph ©Arocordis Design)
The project started with an email
Recently, a client sought us out to adapt our ZigZag House2 home design for her property in Northern Vermont. For her, the 1,000 square foot 2-bedroom single-level home was a great starting point. It was not a tiny home, but rather the size of a small cottage or starter home. She wanted us to adapt it in a variety of ways to better suit her needs and thus we started the design process together.
A home-based writer, she wrote in a small specially design cabin a short walk from her existing home. It was located on the edge of a large pond with scenic views of the hills and mountains to the west. The primary two-story single-family home nearby anchored the hillside property, a former dairy farm.
Site diagram aerial - ©Arocordis Design
View from across the pond to the home site. (Note the writing cabin to the left and the existing barn to the right.) ©Arocordis Design
The Client Goals & Objectives
Our client sought to lease the main house to another family member while designing and building a new compact home for herself nearby around the same pond as the writer’s cabin. She set some inspiring goals which included:
To create a sustainable climate-positive home while also allowing her to travel for months at a time, leaving the home in easy to maintain hibernation mode while away for extended periods.
Design and refine the existing ZigZag2 House design to be even simpler, unifying some of the separate living volumes into one single volume to reduce foundation and exterior wall jogs, and possibly help with costs,
View from across the pond show the proposed home. ©Arocordis Design
Birdseye view. ©Arocordis Design
The Design Process for the Custom Home
Over six months, we worked together to develop and refine the design to better suit her goals and needs. We simplified the building form and volumes while keeping the spirit of the original ZigZag House 2. Given Vermont’s predisposition in the spring and summer months to mosquitos and black flies, our client asked we add a large canted enclosed screened in porch bookending the living area. By doing so, we eliminated the west-facing deck and door off of the living-dining area in the original design. We also removed the two-car garage in the original design but added an electric vehicle charging port near the main entry.
She asked we lower the roof pitch from 4:12 to 2:12 to create a more intimate great room space with a lower overall ceiling with easier-to-reach cleanable upper surfaces. We also tightened up the kitchen slightly, adding space-efficient storage cabinets facing the dining and living area. That eliminated an eat-in island on that side.
Upon her direction, for the insulated slab on grade, we replaced the polished or integral concrete flooring finish with more comfortable to bare feet, slightly resilient wood flooring.
Ground floor plan with immediate site surrounding. ©Arocordis Design
The Exterior Design
For the exterior design, we set back the enclosed angled porch a few feet so as to not obstruct western views from the main living area. We created a rhythmic western-facing window wall of two major window groupings off of the living area with supporting windows in the kitchen and utility room. Simplifying the roof led to extending the now 2:12 sloping roof cover over the covered entry now supported by exposed timber-framing.
To create a small sitting area within the covered entry we designed a small bench seat tied to the column. The owner had an existing 12’x2’ live-edge maple slab from the property which we suggested we use as the bench seat due to serendipitously meeting the need.
View from the driveway looking to main entry and view beyond. ©Arocordis Design
View from Southwest towards the main living area and enclosed screened-in porch with the fire-circle in the foreground. ©Arocordis Design
Detail view of entry and pond panorama beyond. Note the simple entry with repurposed live-edge bench from the property. ©Arocordis Design
Interior Design Overview
Other interior changes included slightly enlarging the utility room and entry area greater usability. We enlarged the utility room to allow for wall-mounted placement of onsite solar internal infrastructure including batteries, other electrical equipment, and then a well-pump, on-demand propane-fired hot-water heater, mechanical system equipment, and washer and dryer with a small base cabinet.
In the interior entry hall, we increased the length of the coat closet and added a built-in shelf unit by the front door for shoes and boots, bags, and so on. We included a small exterior storage cabinet on the front porch for snow-melt, shovels during the winter months, or similar use during other seasons. For building systems and the enclosure performance levels, we followed the same principles of ZigZag2.
View from within mudroom towards living area. ©Arocordis Design
A Whole House Systems Approach to Design
When designing a new house like this one optimizing energy efficiency and sustainable design requires holistic design thinking. We started with our client to consider all variables that impact energy use, durability, and comfort. We like to point out, attention to energy efficiency and green performance reap positive benefits in later resales. Besides occupant behavior, site-design factors, and climate, the things we considered in this design included:
Pretty good house, better than average Insulation, and air-sealing performance levels
High-efficiency appliances and electronics choices
Space heating and cooling strategies
Clustered home-site location with other structures to limit site-disturbance and keep costs lower
Water heating strategies
Choices in high-performance windows, doors, and skylights
Choices in materials and finishes for improved indoor air quality
View from entry hall into main living area and door to porch beyond. ©Arocordis Design
With this house project, the design includes the following:
The Enclosure & Building Systems Overview
R-40 Walls - (Insulation performance) - 2”x 8” energy and money-saving advanced wood framing wall construction with dense-pack cellulose and 2" of mineral wool rigid exterior insulation with a rainscreen drainage mat and siding.
R-60 Roofing System - The roof is built from 18" roof trusses, loose-fill cellulose, with a fully vented with the installation of engineered sheathing with integral air and moisture-resistive barrier, 30-year rubber (TPO) mechanically attached roofing system or galvanized standing seam metal roofing. An optional 1-1/2” of closed-cell spray foam can be applied to the bottom of the sheathing to create the air-barrier and slightly increase the R-value. The base ceilings are 1/2” gypsum drywall attached to the wood furring.
R-23 Floor Slab - The 4” cast-in-place concrete floor slab is insulated with 6" of recyclable Expanded Polystyrene Foam (EPS) foam with 4” slab edges. The slab is brushed concrete with a wood-flooring system in all locations except for resilient sheet flooring in the bathroom. (An optional lower-cost finish alternative is integrally colored concrete or polished concrete.)
R-5 Base windows - Double insulated Low-E argon-filled wood and fiberglass windows Low-E argon-filled with lower R-5 performance and cost, or at a higher cost but improved comfort and energy efficiency value, wood and fiberglass triple-insulated R-10 Low-E argon-filled windows.
Exterior Siding - We show a mix of cedar shingles and clapboard siding (local milled, or long-lasting cement siding) over a rain screen of wood furring and a continuous air and moisture-resistive barrier.
Air-sealing details and Advanced Framing – By using advanced framing wall construction it is easier to detail and then build tighter buildings and air sealing when combined with high-performance insulation and air barriers. All together they reduce labor and material costs and air leakage, increasing home comfort and cost-savings.
LED lighting systems - Use of low-profile insulated enclosure downlights, 1” tape lighting under upper kitchen cabinets, surface-attached decorative fixtures, track-lighting, all with dimming capabilities.
+/-10,000 KW Solar system – We estimate, with this 1,200 SF design plus a little extra-capacity, clients may need up to 10,000 kilowatts of solar equaling (ground or roof-mounted) panels. ( *Note, this is an estimate only and requires detailed integrated design by a professional engineer with a solar company or by others.)
Tesla Powerwall – A wall-mounted residential-scale battery system providing solar energy system storage to power the home throughout the day in off-grid living, and/or provide backup power during outages.
Heating systems - Electric fed Air source heat pumps. Inclusion of a small Rinnai heating unit in the central area for backup heating during long-periods of seasonal shut-down.
Hot-water system - On-demand propane-fed or all-electric tankless system, TBD.
Whisperlite fans or similar - in the bathrooms for ventilation and to help with whole-house ventilation.
Ceiling fans for natural cooling - two ceiling fans are intended to be installed in the main living-dining-kitchen area to help cool the space in conjunction with operable west-facing windows, and other operable windows in other nearby spaces.
Simple durable interior finishes - locally sourced wood trim, low or now volatile organic compound paint, or stain finishes. We would help select finishes appropriate for your lifestyle, life stage, family usage, health, and durability.
Optional sealed wood stove - a small high-efficiency wood or pellet stove in the living room, with wall venting to help with fresh air intake with heat-resistive floor and wall surfaces nearby.
View from porch door back towards entry hall with pond to the right. ©Arocordis Design
View towards dining and kitchen to pond and views beyond. ©Arocordis Design
A slightly different view showing the meadow beyond. ©Arocordis Design
Bathroom view showing soaking tub and shower. ©Arocordis Design
View of the main bedroom. ©Arocordis Design
Next steps
Unfortunately, due to the current bidding climate rampant with contractor and material scarcity, and high-costs, our client decided to put this project on hold. We hope market conditions ease in the coming year or so to make it possible for our client to realize her dream to build and live in this home.
Want to learn more?
Want to learn more and perhaps adapt this design to better suit your needs like our client did? If you are looking for general planning help and not a specific design yet, do not worry. Ask for our planning questionnaire or click on this link to fill out directly online and submit it to us.
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Arocordis Design, a custom home architect and planner, has served Vermont families since 2010. We provide licensed architectural services throughout Central Vermont, including Waterbury, Stowe, Montpelier, Calais and beyond. We also serve the Burke, St. Johnsbury, White River Junction, Tunbridge, and the Woodstock regions. We specialize in modern-inspired home design that connects to Vermont’s past while providing a creative climate positive vision for the future.
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