Read about case study from an unbuilt project adapted from our Inside-Out House, a net-zero-ready prototype home design.

It 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 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…..

Celebrating over ten years of serving Vermont with inspired, sustainable architecture—wishing you happy holidays from Arocordis Design.

Commission custom watercolor house portraits by Stephen M. Frey, AIA: a unique architectural gift celebrating home, memory, and sense of place.

Thinking of renovating, putting on an addition, or building a custom-designed new home?

Continuing the planning theme from the previous post please enjoy the following short video where we explain the ins and outs of residential master planning.

In the process or just starting, If you are located in Vermont or own property here and you want to get residential work done during next year’s building season, there is no time like the present to start

Achieve success with your Vermont custom home project: the power of strategic planning, 2026 budget realities, and local permitting insights.