Mastering Residential Green Architecture: An Essential Guide

Discovering Residential Green Architecture

At Arocordis, our focus is to combine creativity and collaboration to create designs that are as thoughtful as they are functional. But what do we mean by thoughtful design and residential green architecture? Well, we mean design that takes the interests of the landscape, ecosystem, and community into account as well as the needs of our clients– because we take our responsibility to the planet and the people who live on it seriously. 

There are many different ways to describe the above principle, including climate responsive design, sustainable design, green home design, and more. Today, we’ll be calling this principle green architecture. 

Just like there are many different approaches to architecture on the whole, there are a variety of ways to approach green architecture as well. In fact, it’s a topic that’s quite complex, because the truth of the matter is that being human in western society takes quite a lot of energy– and the same is true for the homes that we live in. 

However, there are plenty of ways we can reduce the impact we have on the environment through design that’s thoughtful. 

In this article, we’ll be discussing residential green architecture, including what it is, why it’s beneficial, and how to utilize elements of it in your own life. Let’s dive in. 

What is Residential Green Architecture? 

Green architecture refers to a sustainable approach to designing and constructing buildings that focuses on minimizing environmental impact through energy efficiency, sustainable materials, and thoughtful site design. This type of architecture considers the full life cycle of a building, from design and construction to operation and eventual demolition, aiming to reduce its overall carbon footprint and resource consumption.

In Vermont, insulation is a particularly important factor in a design that’s green, as given the state's cold climate, higher insulation levels are important to maintaining energy efficiency all year round. That improves comfort when it is hot or cold, and helps save money.

We discuss more about climate-positive residential architecture in Vermont here. 

Benefits of Green Architecture

While we know that green architecture certainly benefits our climate, there are additional benefits to designs that make sustainability its focus, including: 

1. Energy Efficiency: A large portion of green building design is creating spaces that lower energy consumption through better insulation, air-sealing, solar orientation, and efficient HVAC systems.

2. Cost Savings: When a space is energy efficient, utility bills are reduced due to the design changes. Other savings are available from Efficiency Vermont incentives to homeowners, or Tax credits.

3. Health and Wellbeing: Improved indoor air quality and natural lighting contribute to better health for occupants. Also indoor and outdoor connections enhance connection to nature and have positive psychological impacts.

4. Economic Benefits: A large portion of designing a space considered “green” is where its materials are sourced from. Local sourcing supports local economies keeps money in the community. It also reduces both transportation related emissions and costs.

Components of Green Architecture

There are endless factors to consider when designing a space that’s green– each of which could be discussed at length. For the purposes of this article, we broke them into three parts, as follows: 

1. Retrofitting Existing Homes: Most of the time, the greenest architectural approach is to buy an existing home and retrofit it with sustainable features rather than starting from scratch. This reduces embodied energy, or, the total amount of energy required to produce a product or material throughout its life cycle. It also helps reduce sprawl and strengthens existing communities.

2. Upcycling Components: Utilizing building materials and components from surplus warehouses, like Mason Brothers in the Burlington Area, reduces waste and incorporates unique, reclaimed elements into new builds or renovations. Such reuse can lower the carbon footprint of a project.

3. Site Design and Planning: From the start, there are ways to design homes and major additions in a way that works well with its surrounding natural environment– including positioning the home or added square footage and new living spaces to maximize the passive heat energy it will naturally absorb from the sun. This also includes positioning the addition or new home near due south as possible. This of course depends on the internal space uses and or tie ins to the existing home. This helps maximize access to daylight. Arocordis’ principal architect, Stephen Frey, writes more about the positioning of the home in an article he wrote for Metropolis Magazine. Check it out here. 

What You Can Do to Implement Principles of Green Architecture

Implementing principles of green architecture doesn't necessarily mean starting from scratch. Here are some actionable steps anyone can take:

1. For an existing home, get a home energy audit with a blower door test. Contact and hire an Energy Auditor to examine your home’s existing insulation levels, quality of windows and doors, air-tightness and current status and efficiency of heating, cooling, and plumbing systems. This sets the baseline for weatherization upgrades to combine with other addition and renovation projects we plan together.

2. Insulation: Improve your home's insulation with environmentally friendly materials like dense pack cellulose or wood fibers.

3. Local Materials: Use locally sourced materials to reduce transportation energy and related costs. It keeps money within the community as well.

4. Upcycling: Incorporate reclaimed materials from surplus warehouses or salvage yards.

5. Energy Efficiency: Invest in energy-efficient appliances, windows, and HVAC systems.

6. Solar Orientation: Design or modify your home to maximize natural light and solar heating.

7. Community Focus: Support policies and initiatives that promote building in villages, towns, and cities to reduce sprawl and transportation costs.

Adapting to Changing Regulations

As we continue to develop new technology and learn more about our planet, the standards for what’s considered “green” is constantly changing. The best thing you can do to stay up to date is to keep yourself informed about your local land use and zoning policies, such as Act 250 in Vermont. That is a program that increasingly emphasizes building in more populated areas to limit sprawl and transportation costs to align with sustainable development goals.

The Affordability Question, a Shift in Mindset

While many sustainable choices can add expense, sustainable living doesn't have to. Simple changes or shifts in mindset on wants and needs can have a big positive impact on project costs, comfort, and long-term value.

One example of many, choose a full or queen-sized bed over a king-sized one. This can have an outsize ripple effect on energy consumption and resource use in your home and also help reduce overall square footage costs in a home, as well as provide future furniture rearranging options.

In the queen vs. king-sized bed scenario above, for example, if you opt for a queen-sized bed over a king-sized one, it leaves an extra few feet of space on either side of the bed. This means means theoretically you can design a smaller bedroom. Depending on the number of bedrooms and their uses, this might reduce square footage by 10-20% in this category. This can reduce costs and boost affordability.

Avoiding Cost Multipliers

Again, working with existing homes to renovate or add on to enhance livability often is much more affordable and sustainable for a family. It avoids the added costs to buy land, clear a site, build driveways, and bring power to a site. All of this precedes the cost of building the actual new custom home.

As architects, our role is to creatively guide clients towards making the most sustainable and affordable choices for their homes with long-term value and livability in mind. Whether it's through renovations, new builds, or everyday decisions, it’s possible for everyone to contribute to a greener future. 

Left with questions about incorporating principles of green architecture into your next project? We would love to chat. 

Modern Net-Zero Farmhaus: Sustainable Living Design

Sustainable Design & Living: Where to Start?

      Interested in sustainable living at home? Wondering how to integrate beauty, function, and concern for energy efficiency, low or next to no energy use while creating a more predictable affordable future? Wanting to downsize from your now oversized family home to something simpler, perhaps smaller in size and maybe not so complicated?  Or starting to transition at work and thinking about starting a home-based business or working from home more and more often but wanting a separation from your living spaces? 

      We too have considered these questions over the last few years and have developed and now designed a small net-zero capable modern farmhaus addressing these many questions. The home design is also inspired by the iconic Big-house, Little-house, back house, and barn. We began its design last winter but developed further into a designed home concept we present here.  And it's a relative to the Net-Zero Mountain Retreat we wrote about earlier here. 

Birdseye view of proposed building and site

View of main entry and overall form of the 1-1/2 story home design

View from south looking towards the home and live-work garage.

Bringing the Outdoors In: The Site Plan

       In our residential work we believe in bringing the outdoors in and extending the indoors out with an ample west facing terrace, garden beds with extensive room for planting around the home and its grounds. We site the home into a fairly flat setting with room for Photovoltaic solar trackers to offset home and the garage live/ work space energy use hopefully to a net-zero energy usage level.  A vegetable and wildflower garden rests to the west of the garage and below the solar tracker orchard.  Rainwater collection barrels lay near garden beds around the house to help reduce use of well-water or city or town water usage. For now the home is oriented long way north to south. Final siting would need to be adjusted to your site, solar orientation, its topography and views.

First Floor Plan

Second Floor Plan

The Floor Plan: Layout and Space-planning

      The lower level has 1,240 square feet of living, dining, kitchen, and the master bedroom suite.  Walk upstairs to find an open studio overlooking the lower level with two bathrooms and a full bath. The upper living level is 749 square feet.  The separate live-work garage has over 450 square feet of space on each level. 

Open Living: Interconnectedness 

      The floor plans show interconnections and intentional open views across the spaces from Kitchen to the living and dining spaces and from the living/dining areas up to the studio loft above and kitchen below.  Skylights overhead bring daylight into living/dining area and studio space with the stair.  Central storage and work area with washer/dryer and electrical and mechanical plant lay near the stair and across from the Kitchen. 

View fullsize

View from kitchen towards living and dining area

What's Next: Refining the Design and Getting into the Details

     Once adapted to your specific needs regarding location, site and topography, views as well as internal space planning and program we would refine the design, getting more specific about what makes this a net-zero capable home and site design.  For starters in our mind those systems might include the following:

• The building envelope considers fairly high performing insulation levels such as (R40) 12" double stud dense packed cellulose wall framing with 2" rigid out-sulation, (R60) 18" dense packed vented cathedral ceilings with TJI's, (R20) 4" min of underslab insulation and (R10) 2" foundation wall insulation.

• Possibly a small size air source heat pumps for heating, Panasonic whisp  to assist with air-sealing below on the wall and below the vented standing seam roofing.

• Low-e clear triple insulated glazing and doors with appropriate solar window coverings to mitigate heat gain on the interior.  There may be more specific tuning of the windows and doors depending on the face orientation of the home.

• There would be an optional very small high efficiency wood or pellet stove, more for the "spiritual" fire with through wall venting to assist with fresh air intake.  Or windows could be opened when the fire is lit for additional ventilation.  

• Simple durable interior finishes, hopefully locally sourced wood trim, low or now Volatile Organic Compound paint or stain finishes. Deciding on finishes appropriate for you lifestyle, lifestage, family usage are a longer conversation worth paying close attention to ease of long term care, warranties and eventual replacement and recycling or upcycling where possible.

• All of the detailing would be designed and built to low-energy home performance levels helping to potentially achieve net zero-energy usage on a yearly basis.  Another step would be running energy modeling, right-sizing the internal heating and ventilation system, optimizing the window sizes and glazing specifications.  

Depending on the homeowner and family initiative and available time, an extensive vegetable garden nourished by composting might further enrich sustainable living.  If gardening takes too much time, join a local Community Supported Agriculture farm to get your vegetables year round.

Third Party Green Building Programs: An Overview

      Of course achieving those goals depends on the client, their budget and schedule, whether or not to purse local or national high performance building certification and at what level of performance.  This might mean for example here in Vermont, enrolling in the Vermont Energy Star Home program or the High Performance Homes program run by Efficiency Vermont.  Depending on where you're located in the U.S. you may want to consult the National Energy Star website to learn more.

Enrolling and completing such programs benefits the homeowner in a number of ways. Firstly during the construction phase and operation of the home, and then on the back end, providing green certification of the quality of the home for future reselling. This backend grows increasingly relevant as more and more State wide Multiple Listing Services add Green Building related components to available listing criteria for homebuyers.  Called the Green MLS toolkit nationally this initiative has taken hold in Colorado, the Atlanta area, Chicago, Portland, Oregon and increasingly elsewhere.

Qualifying projects for Efficiency Vermont's Residential programs receive energy consultation and performance testing services helping ensure your high performing project complies with their program leading to receiving helpful financial incentives and certification of performance levels reached.  Similarly NYSERDA in New York State,  Mass Save in Massachusetts,  NHSAVES in New Hampshire, EfficiencyMaine  all provide Energy Star and in some cases High Performing home programs like Vermont.

Ask your architect and builder if they have experience with these programs or similar ones near you.  If not, you may want to look elsewhere if you seek a energy efficient high performing home, whether new construction, renovation or an addition.  Green building is mainstream now having matured over the last 20 years and in a sense is the new normal.  

Other more stringent third party verification programs exist such as Passive House, Living Building Challenge, USGBC LEED for Homes to name a few. These involve  adherence to even more stringent high performing efficiency and whole building and site design standards. They examine more closely sustainable siting, materials, low water and zero energy use, or even positive energy generation,  holistic thinking, life cycle cost analysis and more.  

We Welcome your Comments and Insight

In the meanwhile, we hope you've enjoyed this story about the design process. the overall design and some of the details of this Modern Farmhaus.  Let us know if you have any questions and comments about the design.  Happy to answer them.

If you enjoyed the links to green building programs, materials and other information and find them helpful do let us know below in the comments section.  We are always looking for helpful information. Don't hesitate to share in the comment section below.  

Follow us to stay in touch with what we share and write, or contact us if you would like us to speak at your conference or participate in a panel or better yet want to work together on a fine green home for you and your family. 

Back to our project portfolio

To see more examples of recent home design project work, go check out our project portfolio by clicking on the button below. There you will find a mix of recently completed built residential work, new builds, renovations, or home design projects now in progress. Whether in Montpelier, Hartland, Burke Hollow, Calais or East Ryegate, Grand Isle and beyond, here in this section of our site, you can also find examples of our growing collection of customizable net-zero ready prototype and spec houses. Our portfolio awaits your visit. Welcome home!