Is your home a source of stress or a sanctuary? Discover the principles of The Intuitive Home by Arocordis Design. From acoustic zoning to flicker-free lighting, this Vermont architect’s guide explores how to create a 'Sensory Friendly Home' that supports Autism, ADHD, and Aging-in-Place for a lifetime of well-being.
Harvest Time - Fall brings the gifts of the season forward. So to do we with an update on recent work here in Vermont, some in design, others under construction or now finished. We are grateful to help our clients and their families into their next stage of life with their additions, renovations or new custom designed homes.
Across Vermont, from the Champlain Valley, Central Vermont, to the Northeast Kingdom, families are rediscovering the benefits of living together, spanning generations under one roof. Whether it’s welcoming aging parents with grace, creating a supportive haven for adult children or other family members to stay, or simply choosing a more connected and sustainable way of life, multi-generational homes are an enduring part of Vermont’s values of family and community.
These aren’t just houses; they are homesteads in the making, designed to share resources, strengthen bonds, and deepen our connection to this special place we call home. But creating a home that truly serves….
When deciding between home renovation with additions or custom new construction, families in Central Vermont and beyond often face an important crossroads with no clear answers. At Arocordis Design in scenic Montpelier, we guide families through creating homes that truly reflect their needs and dreams, whether through thoughtful addition and remodeling design or new custom home design.
Homeowners frequently ask us whether they should renovate their existing space or opt for new construction. Four key considerations influence this decision:
·Low-interest rate mortgages make selling and buying new property less appealing.
Growing families need more comfortable living spaces……
In the hills of Central Vermont, a historic 1850s farmhouse once stood as a symbol of family heritage. When fire claimed this beloved home early in 2024, it threatened to erase generations of precious memories. Our Vermont architectural firm, Arocordis Design, is now helping this family create a new chapter in their story through thoughtful custom home design that connects their rich past to an exciting future….
Harvest Time - Fall brings the gifts of the season forward. So to do we with an update on recent work here in Vermont, some in design, others under construction or now finished. We are grateful to help our clients and their families into their next stage of life with their additions, renovations or new custom designed homes.
As I head towards the end of 2023 and look to welcome 2024, I have a lot to be grateful for. In the residential architecture sphere, I work in. I treasure all the great families and residential building professionals around Vermont I had the good fortune to work with this past year. Arocordis Design is all about…
We are often inspired by nature, but true architectural innovation comes from partnering with nature’s forces. This concept sketch by firm principal Stephen M. Frey, AIA, explores how an earth-sheltered, nature-near home design can solve two specific Vermont challenges: keeping warm in winter and blending into our protected hillsides.
Kismet comes in unexpected ways. Sometimes it lies in wait in plain sight. Late last winter, a couple hired us to design a modern-spirited set of renovations and additions for a home bought earlier the year before. The home was a plain 1960s era single-level ranch with great bones and potential for creative design. It lay next to his working beef farm in the hills of Vermont’s Upper Valley in a spectacular sprawling meadow.
Late last year a couple approached us to adapt our Inside-Out House, a net-zero-ready prototype home design we created a few years ago to their land in southern Vermont. We enlarged and customized it to suit their family needs and design goals. Along the way, we pushed the home design in some innovative directions that we share below. We call this home design FieldHouse.
Located on 60 mostly wooded acres in the Upper Valley area in Vermont, our clients selected a forested edge that spilled out onto….
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 but she wanted to adapt it in a variety of ways to better suit her needs. A home-based writer, she wrote in a small specially design cabin bucolically 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.
Our client sought to lease the main house to another family 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…..
Our Clients Asked for Design Inspiration
Our clients in Central Vermont who we recently helped with backyard area redesign concepts later asked us back to develop more design ideas, but this time for their lower living level bathrooms.
A five-bedroom home built in 1970, the bathrooms still had their original finishes, molded one-piece shower stalls, sinks, counters, lighting fixtures, and toilets. Still serviceable, but tired out, the clients wanted to refresh and update them for the next generation….
A family, who owns a classic Vermont farmhouse set up with a front-house, mid-house, back-house, and barn, hired us to provide architectural design and creative services. They asked us to design a solution to renovate the entry and kitchen area portion of their classic Vermont home.
We worked on some landscape design concepts recently to update the outdoor experience behind a home in Central Vermont. Built in 1970, the contemporary-styled four-bedroom Acorn Deck House still had its original decks and pool enclosure, dated lighting fixtures, and awkward circulation.
