Our Project Portfolio: Built, in design & prototype green homes

Multi-generational modern farmhouse

In late 2021, a client hired us to plan and design a modern-inspired bedroom addition wing and major porch and kitchen renovation for the new home they recently bought. He needed a design to improve the multigenerational livability of his new home in Central Vermont.

A Montpelier gem reimagined: where history meets modern living

Nestled in the heart of Montpelier, a charming 1940s cottage, and its family was bursting at the seams. This cozy 24'x24' two-bedroom home on Terrace Street had a story to tell, but it needed a new chapter. Enter Arocordis Design, led by Stephen M. Frey architect, ready to breathe fresh life into this classic abode with inspired architectural design and planning.

Grand Isle lakehouse

A two-story custom single-family two-bedroom home designed for compact living gracing the shores of Lake Champlain in northern Vermont. We began with a carriage house design and ended up with something much more for our client a couple who recently relocated back home to Vermont from Switzerland.

Creating a Net-Zero Modern Rustic Farmhouse in Northern Vermont

Arocordis Design likes to create stunning rustic and modern custom homes for clients in Vermont. Here we share this new project in the Burke area in the Northeast Kingdom. We began the design of this rustic modern farmhouse at the start of 2023 and finished recently. The owner-builder started construction in the fall of 2023 with completion in 2025.

From Ashes to Architecture, A New Home Rises

A fire began the story

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 architectural firm, Arocordis Design, is now helping this family create a new chapter in their story through thoughtful Vermont modern farmhouse design….

Strawbale Affordable Duplex - Senior Living

In 2013, Vermont’s first straw-bale affordable senior housing project was built in Holland, in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. Becky Masure, then project manager for the affordable housing non-profit, Rural Edge, said, “The Page Holland Senior Housing project helps seniors retain their independence while they remain in Holland close to their extended local community of family and friends.”

Fieldhouse

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 newly purchased land in southern Vermont. We enlarged and customized the prototype design to suit their family needs and design goals. Along the way, we pushed the home design in new innovative directions through our collaboration together.

Upper valley additions and renovation

Kismet comes in unexpected ways. Sometimes it lies in plain site. Late last winter, a couple hired us to design a modern-spirited set of renovations and additions bought earlier the year before. The home was a plain 1960’s era single-level ranch with great bones and potential creative design. It lays next to his working beer farm in the hills of Vermont’s Upper Valley in a spectacular…

ZiG-Zag House 2 net-zero ready prototype

Periodically we develop prototype green home plans of various kinds. This one we call ZigZag House2. Its name comes from its simple floor plan with zigzagging small volumes at the entry and at a built-in seating alcove area. It's designed to be net-zero ready, simply conceived, and easy to maintain. A small home with livable spaces suited for a small family, empty…

Wing house prototype

Have land in Vermont and need custom design plans to build from? Arocordis Design developed another easy-to-adapt, dynamic small house 3-bedroom design prototype. It joins others such as Inside-Out Home, Modern Farmhaus, and others. We call it Wing House. It has classic modern lines, uplifting roof forms, and soaring interior spaces.

Mountain meadow net-zero ready

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 to better suit her needs. A home-based writer, she wrote in a small specially design cabin bucolically…

Curtis Pond house addition and renovation

A major addition and addition for a house on Curtis Pond in Calais, VT. It features a complete internal renovation, opening up of ground-level living spaces, and a new second floor with a gabled roofline. The goal was to create a larger more beautiful and flexible home to host a growing extended family while maintaining its summer camp roots.

Farmhouse renovation design

We helped a mother and her daughter design a comfortable renovation to a 1850’s era Vermont Farmhouse opening up and modernizing the ground floor living area. The homeowner also chose to do strategic energy efficiency and home-weatherization improvements to save energy costs and increase interior comfort.

Modern farmhaus live-work prototype

A net-zero ready 1-1/2 story 2-bedroom home design with a live work space above the garage and generous outdoor living areas. With a cathedral like main living area with extensive daylighting, the prototype home can serve as home for a growing family or an empty-nester couple desiring to age in place.

inside out home - net zero ready prototype

A single-story three-bedroom home design designed for open-plan living and connection to nature through every aspect of this small home. Walking up to the home you experience an open loggia entry with an overhead skyspace court leading to the front door. Inside find a tasteful sequence of private and public areas.

It started with a call for help

For many families in Calais and Central Vermont, the summer camp is a cherished gathering place. But as retirement approaches, the need to convert these seasonal structures into comfortable, year-round residences becomes a priority. For this project on Curtis Pond, we moved beyond a simple renovation. We reimagined the structure to support aging in place, creating a home that is as functional for a couple in their 70s as it is for their visiting grandchildren.

We partnered with this family to help transition their seasonal Curtis Pond retreat into a fully accessible, energy-efficient home that not only honors the history and natural beauty of its stunning pond setting but also creates an ample space for the next generation of grandchildren to enjoy and a legacy for their extended family. Here’s a glimpse into how the project began.

In the summer of 2018, we received a call from a homeowner who was in the midst of a significant renovation of their cherished summer camp on Curtis Pond a short walk from the bucolic Maple Corners general store and iconic Whammy Bar. They reached out to see if we could provide consultation and produce some detailed drawings to communicate their design intent to their general contractor. We gladly accepted the challenge and met with them a few days later while they were in town for a short, week-long visit.

Strategic Design for Multi-Generational Living

The design oppourtunity was to expand the living space without losing the 'camp vibe.' We opened the floor plan to improve flow and accessibility on the ground level—essential for long-term independent living. By adding a second story with a gabled roofline, we created a private master suite and flexible guest quarters, ensuring the home can comfortably host large family gatherings while remaining intimate and manageable for two people during the quiet winter months.

The Process

During our meeting, we toured the property, sent them our comprehensive residential design questionnaire, and listened carefully as they shared their key priorities and goals. They wanted to expand their one-level camp with a small loft into a two-level home featuring a master bedroom upstairs and a second bedroom downstairs. Along the way, they envisioned a complete redesign of the floor plan to create a more open-concept layout, including moving the main entry and kitchen, among other improvements.

Collaboratively, we developed detailed design drawings and massing images that clearly illustrated their ideas, enabling effective communication with their contractor and moving the project forward smoothly. We created architectural floor plans, elevations, building sections, and other details to aid in construction and coordination between the owner and their builder.

To help understand the three-dimensional aspects of the changes and updates the clients desired, we designed their project in our 3-D software, Autodesk Revit LT which allows sophisticated building modeling and design. Curious about how we use it on other projects, check out our project portfolio section. With this software that we now use on every project, we developed exterior and interior design rendering views to aid in decision making and final material and window locations for the family. It is very powerful and dynamic tool for architects.

With the end of the project realized, the grandparents could now enjoy nearby family and grandchildren as well as extend their legacy at the edge of Curtis Pond for generations to come. Interested in learning more about how to design for multi-generational living homes, contact us today.

Before photos

Please see the following photos of the existing interior and exterior conditions of this special camp at Curtis Pond.

The design and end result

Next steps

Our clients will next develop the exterior site design around the camp with a clearer main entry at the rear, more plantings between it and adjacent property, as well as retaining wall on the upslope side of the camp by the entry. If you would like to learn more feel free to contact us. We’re happy to answer your questions.

A farmhouse waiting to be opened up

Our client purchased her home for herself and her daughter. Unfortunately the previous owners had added onto the original part of the home adding smaller rooms connecting together over many years creating lots separate rooms and no sense of unity. To counter this boxed in result, the owner sought like many do, to take down walls and open up the downstairs into more livable space flowing between the kitchen, dining, and living areas.

To begin, we sat around the kitchen together table preparing early sketches and then developed an overall architectural design which included developing her space program, developing a three-dimensional design and drawings with floor plans, building sections, and exterior views and flat-on elevations. We created a future possible phase which included a deck extending the dining room out connecting better to the outdoors, a possible great room addition along with new more updated siding materials.

Located on the southeast corner, the addition would someday extend the living and entertaining spaces tying together the kitchen and living areas allowing for a circular flow. High shed cathedral ceilings with simple roof framing would provide an inspiring space framing views of nearby mountain ranges. The addition will eventually be built to high performing standards with high R-value dense pack cellulose walls, and roofs with an insulated frost-protected concrete slab. Exterior materials would be a mix of cement board panel with reveals together with galvanized corrugated metal siding. For further energy use reductions and additional comfort, future plans also call for installing on the exterior added rigid "outsulation", new siding over a draingage plane, with window extensions, and wood trim.

From the plans we provided, the builder extensively renovated the main level by opening up non-load bearing walls improved flow between the entry, mudroom, kitchen, dining and living areas. The design-build contractor worked one on one with the homeowner to stay within her budget, prioritize weatherization improvements, reduce energy bills, reuse farm beams and posts to provide structural support in opened up spaces.

Their work also included new custom kitchen design of cabinets and counter-tops, lighting selection, distressed wood cabinet fronts, oil-rubbed finishes all working together to unify the renovated spaces. Plaster finished walls and new paint tie together all newly renovated living area spaces. The builder and homeowner also heavily renovated a leaky basement with a natural spring stream flowing through it. Improvements there included a new insulated concrete floor slab, extensive painted foam insulation against the existing rubble stone foundations, and new lighting.

Straw-bale Senior Living Duplex: Holland, VT   

  In 2013, Vermont’s first straw-bale affordable senior housing project was built in Holland, in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. Becky Masure, then project manager for the affordable housing non-profit, Rural Edge, said, “The Page Holland Senior Housing project helps seniors retain their independence while they remain in Holland close to their extended local community of family and friends.”

      Evelyn Page, now deceased, donated land from her family’s nearby farm and funding in memory of her late husband to Rural Edge. Recently, more standardized energy-efficient construction methods have become increasingly expensive for them, often making it difficult to achieve their affordability and long-term performance goals. Here, Rural Edge on this project, tests a new approach and new-old ideas.

      Straw bale enclosures appealed to them with their fire resistance, insulation capability of the straw, savings on labor costs, availability of local talent to build this way, carbon footprint reduction, low-embodied energy, and chemical and allergy-free composition. Enduring comfort, durability, and beauty also inspired Rural Edge to try this approach. So they asked the architectural team to consider straw bale as a possibility after reviewing other choices, which soon became the direction for the project.

The design process and team

  Ward Joyce Design with Arocordis Design as primary design collaborator designed the project, with Ina Hladky providing structural engineering. Arocordis Design also acted as project manager. The team designed two single-bedroom apartments. They shared a common area with a front-entry porch, with separate unit porches facing south. The duplex sits on the top of a hillside site across the road from the former Page Farm homestead and barn. Taking architectural form cues from nearby farm buildings, the bent uplifting roof reaches south towards dramatic rolling farmland vistas. Built on a cost-reducing radiant heated frost-protected concrete slab, the builder installed empty sleeves designed into the slab for future installation of on-site solar-electric PVs. Doing so built in the potential for greater self-reliance and renewable readiness in years to come.

      The architects sited the building facing the long way south to north orientation for passive solar heating. Operable awning and casement windows naturally ventilate each unit and common area. Ceiling fans circulate air in the living spaces to distribute passively warmed air in the winter and cooler air from the windows in the summer.

      A small parking area to the north serves building residents and visitors with a winding drive leading to nearby Page Road. Eventually, as the site is finished over time, Rural Edge will install and maintain pathways around the building along with a small vegetable garden and edible landscaping to provide fresh food for residents. A possible future arbor as shown in the bird’s eye view may be built to add further exterior living delight.

      Uncontrolled moisture is the natural enemy of straw bale construction, so the architects paid close attention to strategies reducing exposure to wind-driven rain and snow. Extensive roof overhangs shed water away from the plaster and stucco walls. A two-foot-high double-stud pony wall forms a base on which the non-structural straw bales rest. The pony wall is cellulose-insulated. Site-crafted crafted straw bales extend up to the underside of an I-joist framed loose-filled cellulose insulated sloping roof clad in gray EPDM. This is a long-lasting rubberized roofing system used in low-slope situations like this.

      Lee Cooper of Back 2 Basics Builders, the general contractor, built a post and beam frame, with 18 inches of straw bale surrounding it, to support the roof. The builders installed air fins made of ½” homosote, finished with air-sealing tape fit into specially detailed slots in the wood frame helping to reduce heat loss at joints between materials. Multiple rough and finished coats of plaster encapsulate the exterior and interior faces of the straw bale wall enclosure. Natural colored lime coatings and wood finishes were used along with other easy-to-care-for materials like the polished concrete floor warmed by radiant heating. This duplex design is a great example of a simple natural building approach.

      New Frameworks Natural Building was the straw bale consultant, with Ben Graham and Deva Racusin working on the project. Ben helped the architects with the unique detailing of the straw bale enclosure system. Deva provided construction administration assistance during the straw bale installation and assisted Lee Cooper with straw bale enclosure construction and related air-sealing work. 

      Rural Edge obtained certification from Efficiency Vermont for the project as a Vermont Energy Star Home. Efficiency Vermont provided the design team and owner invaluable technical assistance during the design phase to clarify all of the compliance details required to be included in the specifications and drawings. Their service extended into construction as well with site inspections and conducting blower door testing to ensure compliant air-tightness levels were reached. Energy Balance, of Montpelier, Vermont was the energy consultant. They helped early on with developing exterior enclosure design strategies and details.

Interior and exterior design

Affordable builder-grade kitchen cabinets and counters were installed along with higher-performing Tier III energy-efficient appliances. A whisper-lite bathroom fan provided whole-unit exhaust for fresh air. Finishes were kept simple and durable. Energy-efficient lighting was also installed with compact fluorescent fixtures. The straw-bale walls window and door openings were finished with rounded bale edges, removing the need for expensive wood trim and helping to save money on interior finishing. The rounded edges also soften the feel of the interior upping the internal warmth and character of the spaces.

The design team selected an exterior and interior palette of warm harmonious colors to further emphasize the natural underpinnings of the project and its design intent. Generally, we selected darker warmer colors nearer the ground with lighter tones the higher up you go. Warm brown exterior stains, coatings, and door and window finishes all integrate with the warm yellow wall color hand-applied to finish coats of plaster.

      This innovative renewable-ready project offers a natural building way for putting “affordability” back into affordable housing. When entering the building a “Truth” window graces the entry hall revealing the internal straw bale wall system and telling the story of its construction. Time will tell what sort of impact the Page Project will have on Rural Edge’s overall affordability approach and others around the state. 

straw-bale relevance to single-family homes

While used here in a residential duplex, this system fits well with homeowners interested in using similar natural building techniques on their projects. Straw-bale construction is well suited to projects of one to two stories in height due to structural limitations. Straw bales can be assembled relatively easily with teams of labor led by builders with expertise in straw-bale techniques. They are easily combined with wood timber-frame or post and beam structures, or more traditional energy-efficient advanced framing wood wall systems.

The straw-bale wall material is readily available here in Vermont, extremely local, and relatively low cost. Their low toxicity and embodied energy construction will last generations helping to reduce your family’s long-term exposure to out-gassing chemicals from more typical building materials, improved fire-resistance, and energy cost predictability. These homes provide peace of mind altogether different from traditional construction with their shifted mindset on natural materials and healthfulness.

If you’d like to learn more about residential design and planning services or how to adapt natural building techniques like straw-bale construction to your project please let us know. We would be happy to help. Click on the learn more button below to send us a message or give us a call.

Want to see more examples of our project portfolio and recent residential work? Click on the button below to return back to that area of our website.

Modern Farmhaus | net-zero prototype

Sustainable Design & Living: Where to Start?

      Curious about sustainable living at home? Do you wonder how to integrate home design, beauty, function, and a concern for energy efficiency, while creating a more predictable affordable future? Do you want to downsize from your current oversized family home to a smaller one that is easier to maintain and afford over the long term? With your new custom home and its design, do you want to optimize the balance all these factors aligned with your project goals? What’s the blueprint?

Embracing the latest advancements in sustainable design, we prioritize energy conservation, water efficiency, and eco-friendly construction methods. From inception to completion, our sustainable building design approach seamlessly marries aesthetics with environmental responsibility, ensuring your home is not only beautiful but also a beacon of sustainability.

      We too have considered these factors over the last few years and have developed, and now have designed a modern farmhaus prototype that addresses them holistically. This home and site design is also inspired by the iconic front-house, mid-house, back-house, and barn New England vernacular and traditions of the working landscape of Vermont. We can tailor it to your needs and vision.

The Site Plan: Bringing the Outdoors In

       In this Modern Farmhaus prototype design, we bring the outdoors in and extend the indoors outward with a west-facing terrace, and garden beds beyond 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 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 the use of well water or city or town water usage. For now, the home is oriented the long way from north to south. Depending on your site, we would work with you to adjust this prototype home design for solar orientation, topography, significant natural features, views, and other factors unique to it.

At our core, we specialize in sustainable home design services that seamlessly integrate energy-efficient technologies, renewable materials, and forward-thinking architectural principles. Our team of dedicated professionals strives to exceed expectations, offering bespoke solutions that cater to your unique vision while minimizing environmental impact.

The Floor Plan:

      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. There is no basement, but that could be added if required providing more living and storage space.

Open Plan Living: Interconnectedness 

      The floor plans show interconnections, flowing spaces, 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. Overhead skylights bring daylight into living and dining area below, and lightens the studio space by the stair above. Near the stair and across from the kitchen lay a central storage and work area with washer / dryer and electrical and mechanical plant.  

What is next? Refining the Design and Getting into the Details.

      As a starting point consider the following aspects in the design of your Modern Farmhaus before you contact us:

• Important spaces: Assemble your list of key must-haves, like-to-haves, and maybe someday future interior and exterior spaces. Add a little description in each section with short summaries of what is important and why. Identify question areas for us to discuss. Do not forget about your storage requirements, especially if you are downsizing.

• Project timeline and budget: Can you do some of the work in phases over the course of five to ten years? Or must it be done all at once to meet some kind of reason? What is your budget for purchasing property, adding needed infrastructure, building the home, driveway, porches and decks, interior furnishings and fittings? For more on that see this article we wrote.

• Timeframe in the home: How long do you anticipate living in this home? Will you pass it on to others in your family?

• Guests and or AirBnB: Do you need guest living spaces or will you your whole home or part of it for short-term rentals with a separate living areas? What is allowed in your town or community?

• Building Enclosure: 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.

• Heating and Cooling: Possibly a small size air source heat pumps for heating, whisperlite fans or similar in the bathrooms for ventilation on each level.

• Siding: Cedar shake siding with a rain-screen gap likely using Huber or similar Zip-sheathing to assist with air-sealing below on the wall and below the vented standing seam roofing. Other alternatives include board and batten, clapboard siding, corrugated metal panels and metal trim and more.

• Doors and Windows: 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. Garage door sizes and features like windows and insulation.

• Fireplace or Stove: 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 added ventilation.  

• Interior finishes and fittings: Simple durable interior finishes, hopefully locally sourced wood trim, low or no volatile organic compound paint or stain finishes. Deciding on finishes appropriate for your lifestyle, life stage, and 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.

• Kitchen and Bath Design: Preliminary thoughts on size and performance requirements of both types of space, number and types of fixtures, how space is needed, storage and other needs.

      All the detailing could be designed and built to low-energy home performance levels all contributing to net-zero-energy usage on a yearly basis.  Another step during design could be energy modeling, doing that will help in right-sizing the internal heating and ventilation system, and optimizing the window sizes and glazing specifications.  Depending on the homeowner available time and focus, consider planning for a vegetable garden to further enrich sustainable living. If gardening takes too much time, join a local Community Supported Agriculture farm to get your vegetables year round.

our cutting-edge sustainable design architecture firm, where we redefine the future of living through innovative sustainable building design. Our commitment to environmental consciousness drives our passion for creating eco-friendly spaces that harmonize with nature.

Third-Party Green Building Programs: An Overview

      Of course, achieving those goals depends on the client, their budget and schedule, whether or not to pursue 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 Statewide 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, and EfficiencyMaine all provide Energy Star and in some cases High Performing home programs like Vermont.

Other more stringent third-party verification programs exist such as Passive House, Living Building Challenge, and 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 are happy to work with you to assess what program is right for you and your project.

We welcome your comments and questions:

Meanwhile, we hope you enjoyed learning more about our Modern Farmhaus prototype design, our design process, and important details. Let us know if you have any questions or comments by clicking on the learn more button below.

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.  

Want to return to see more of our project portfolio of inspired prototype homes, projects in progress, and completed work? Click on the button below to see a variety of constantly changing examples of our work. As always, feel free to give us a call or send us an email. You can also follow us on Instagram @arocordis_design.

#Vermont, #architecture, #homedesign, #residentialarchitecture, #houseplans, #netzero, #sustainabledesign #energyefficiency #climatepositive #naturenear #greenliving #modernfarmhouse #moderndesign #modernhomes #rusticmodern