FOREVER HOME. “Forever homes” are becoming increasingly popular. A forever home is a custom home that caters to the changing needs of the homeowners and allows them to age in place. In this video, we see a house under construction in rural Connecticut which exactly fits the needs of the owners. Additionally, the home is made with a very tight envelope, natural materials and solar technology which will allow them to achieve net-zero in utility costs.
The materials we choose for the homes we design are good for the planet, and for you. In this brief video, Trillium Architects founder Elizabeth DiSalvo talks about our design philosophy and why we design only houses that are healthy AND sustainable—using all-natural, non-toxic materials.
A BREATH OF FRESH AIR. Trillium Architects founder, Elizabeth DiSalvo, talks about the importance of air quality in a sustainable home or any home for that matter. Trillium assures healthy air quality through insulation, air circulation and temperature and humidity control. Importantly, better air quality keeps allergens, mold and mildew out of the home.
In this video, Elizabeth DiSalvo, founder of Trillium Architects, discusses the critically important role of HVAC in the design and construction of a sustainable house. It begins with proper insulation which keeps the heat and cool air in as desired by the homeowner. The ERV (Energy Recovery Ventilation) equipment allows fresh air to be heated or cooled before it enters the house, avoiding extreme shifts in temperature and giving the owner optimal control of heat and moisture levels. Electrical equipment is desirable as it allows for the use of renewable energy sources and a net-zero home if desired.
One of the most important concepts in designing and building a green, sustainable home is the envelope of the house which includes the roof, the walls and the basement. It is critically important that the house's envelope assures that the home is air-tight so as to optimally control air and moisture. In this short video, Elizabeth DiSalvo, Trillium's founder, discusses the type of materials used to construct an envelope that results in a house which allows for a more comfortable, healthy environment.
We often hear terms like “Green,” “Sustainable” and “Net Zero.” But many of us don’t know the difference. It’s important in these days of climate concern to understand these basic terms.
In this informative video, Elizabeth DiSalvo, founder of Trillium Architects, tackles one of them, explaining exactly what it means for a home to be Net-Zero. She goes through all the details and the benefits to the homeowners.
Join us for a house tour of one of our most interesting projects. The homeowners had very specific details in mind when they shared their vision for this home: a modern “treehouse” in the woods with a water feature, curved curtain walls, an indoor lap pool and, of course, they desired it be passive/net-zero.
Elizabeth DiSalvo, Trillium’s founder, along with the project manager and contractor for the construction will walk you around the work site of this interesting home and explain the care and intricacy which goes into the construction of a green eco-friendly home.
Passive House Tour
This week Trillium Architects celebrated its 20th Earth Day.
Each of those years, our goal has been to cherish and nurture our planet. We believe a home should be a natural extension of the earth itself — enhancing its beauty, preserving its resources and sustaining its wonderment.
When we began 20 years ago, there were hardly any firms in the Northeast focused on building sustainable housing. We stood our ground (literally), learning more each and every year, designing homes that fulfilled our clients’ visions while honoring the earth.
We are proud to be an advocate for Planet Earth, shepherding clients through the process of designing and building a NetZero, LEED or Passive Home.
When it comes to sustainable homes, we’re all in.
Sometimes renovating an existing space can pose more of a challenge than starting from scratch. In our latest video, we walk you through a kitchen renovation that took the room from dim and cramped to cozy and comfortable.
Our first challenge was to open up the space. Trillium began with raising the ceiling to let in more light and create a feeling of spaciousness and freedom. Then the overall layout was revamped to open up even more space, including a “hidden” coffee bar and pantry which can be concealed and revealed on demand.
Of course, the devil is in the details. Trillium delivered high quality throughout, including Porcelanosa cabinets from Spain, XTONE counters and HAWA hardware. The Miele appliances and custom millwork added an elegant finishing touch.
Have a project of your own? Let Trillium Architects apply their skills and talents, and you’ll never go wrong.
Last time Elizabeth DiSalvo, Trillium Architects founder, discussed the costs of constructing your new house—all of the materials and labor that need to come together to actually build a sustainable home. It involves an intricate process which encompasses a design that reflects the clients’ vision, an understanding of how to optimally place the structure on a given site and a contractor who understands the challenges of the concept and puts together an efficient plan to get it done.
This week, in Part Four as Elizabeth breaks down the additional fees and costs you can anticipate in achieving your green dream home.
In terms of the actual property, Elizabeth debates the pros and cons of building on bare land versus building on an existing lot with a structure already in place. Elizabeth also describes fees related to designers, engineers and subcontractors that may be encountered. She covers the responsibilities, contributions, fees of the architects, structural and civil engineers, surveyors, and subcontractors, as well as whether or not each specialty may be needed.
While building your green dream home can come with challenges, Elizabeth makes it clear what’s in store for you and how an experienced green architect can be your advocate and guide throughout the process,
Some people may think a green or sustainable home is much more expensive than a “traditional” home.
Guess what? It’s not.
The minimal increase in expense is more than covered by the cost savings you’ll experience in utility charges. In fact, you can possibly get your utility expenses down to zero!
If you’re interested in a net zero home, this video from Trillium Architects is a must-view. In it, Elizabeth DiSalvo, the Founder of Trillium Architects, gives you a common-sense explanation of the minimal difference in costs between a new net-zero home and a new traditional home.
And besides the long term savings advantage, you will be living in a house that’s peaceful, comfortable and happy.
Take a look.
Building a sustainable or “green” house, or building any house for that matter, is a complex process. It involves an intricate process which encompasses a design that reflects the clients’ vision, an understanding of how to optimally place the structure on a given site and a contractor who understands the challenges of the concept and puts together an efficient plan to get it done.
In this video Elizabeth DiSalvo, founder of Trillium Architects, talks about the elements included in the construction of a sustainable home. She addresses material, labor and the markups of both the contractor and the architect. The video will give you an excellent idea of what to expect if you are contemplating building a new home.
Significantly, Elizabeth explains what is and what is not included in the construction cost of a home. She uses what she calls the “upside down test,” where anything that would fall out if you held the house upside down is not included in the construction cost. In terms of markups, she explains that both the contractor and architect usually charge around 15% plus/minus to cover their planning, design, supervision and logistics management of the entire job.
Attention to detail and fulfilling the homebuyer’s/owner’s vision is the most important aspect of designing and building a new sustainable home. As DiSalvo puts it, the end product is always a home that is “happy, healthy, warm and dry.”
Trillium Architects Co-operative (L-R) Megan Loucas, Darrell Soho, Elizbeth DiSalvo, Dave Reilly, Jackson Wehrli
At Trillium Architects, we’re entering our twentieth year in business.
And to celebrate, we’re doing something significant, quite significant.
Trillium Architects LLC is now becoming Trillium Architects Cooperative.
This is a big deal for us. Because it reflects our values, the values of a new emerging economy where employees have a major stake in their own success and the success of the organization. We are all invested in each other and invested in our work, both individually and collectively.
So what does it mean for our clients? Nothing really changes except for the fact that now our key employees have an even deeper commitment to the success of each and every one of our projects. Our founder, Elizabeth DiSalvo, will retain leadership now being joined by the new ownership team.
We believe that the characteristics of a co-op dovetail perfectly with our mission at Trillium to make ‘Better Buildings for People and Planet’ while also creating stable, meaningful jobs with competitive living wages and a strong feeling of intentionality.
Through the co-operative structure, all of our employees will be empowered to take ownership (both literally and figuratively) of their own futures as well as that of the environment around us through the work we do together.
This new structure will give us even greater freedom to implement meaningful changes as we evolve, including our abilities to:.
Improve our services, our communication and the overall client experience.
Open doors to new and broader endeavors (such as other forms of housing besides single family).
Cultivate an attitude of ownership - not only of our own company but of all of the work we do.
Foster an even healthier, more meaningful workplace.
More consistently maintain our mission of helping the world be a more sustainable place through built design.
Inspire all of those within our reach - be they clients or craftspeople, or those we live near or work with - to take similar steps towards Better Buildings for People and Planet.
We’re excited about this refreshing change: for ourselves, but mostly for you.
Our ownership group looks forward to working with you in the years ahead,
The Trillium Architects Cooperative
Owners
Elizabeth DiSalvo, AIA, CVO - Chief Visionary Officer
Dave Reilly, AIA, Senior Architect and Director of Production
Megan Loucas, AIA, Director of Design
Darrell Soho, Director of Client Relations and Head of Materials
Jackson Wehrli, Director of Branding and Architectural Designer
Celebrating 20 Years
Our clients for a new house in Ridgefield wanted a beautiful home that was not only energy efficient, but also used materials that have the least impact on the environment. We all decided as a team to stick to the most stringent standards available. They also realized a home has a much bigger impact on your health than many realize, so they wanted to ensure that the new home would have no chemicals or off-gassing. The result is a house that achieves LEED Platinum and Passive House certifications, as well as qualifies as Net Zero. The Bottom line: its healthy, great for the environment and costs about $18 in total utility bills per month.
The greatest advantage for our clients, however, is peace of mind. The clients know every single material that went into building their home, sensors remind them how clean their air quality is, and they can monitor and control the energy use of all of their appliances and devices. The estimated cost of building this way is between 2-5% greater than traditional building, which generally results in an ROI of under 5 years.
The biggest questions people ask about he houses we design : ‘Isn’t it too expensive to build green?’, ‘Is it really worth it?’ and ‘Isn’t making your home energy efficient really hard to do?’ Building this way is not hard but it does take thoughtful design, good planning and an experienced team. It isn’t too expensive and it is definitely worth it. Houses built to Passive House Standards use approximately 90% less energy to heat and cool. For the lifetime of the house. Imagine spending about $220 per year to heat, cool and fully electrify your house and EVs for the next 30 years!
Click here for full article
We are thrilled to announce that our Greenwich Passive House Deep Energy Retrofit has won the 2022 AIA CT Sustainable Architecture Award of Merit in the Renovations, Adaptive Re-Use, or Retro-Fit Category.
Our clients asked us to take an existing 1930’s house in Greenwich, CT and transform it into a modern oasis. We turned a leaky, old home into an energy-efficient sustainable one, with a design that let us ‘break open’ the existing structure to reveal spaces that are light- filled and playful.
To find out more about this award winning project, click here:
"We made the list! The ""world's most beautiful sustainable builds"" list. Trillium is recognized by the international Homes & Gardens magazine for ""proving that eco-friendly does not mean you have to sacrifice beauty and sophistication."" Give it a read!
https://www.homesandgardens.com/news/eco-houses
To read an expanded version of our priorities in thinking differently and building differently, download our free PDF here.
During Earth Month, all of us think of going ‘green,’ but when building green it also means thinking differently and designing differently.
When we think about green building, we think first about innovation. Being innovative requires setting our priorities differently than when we used to do ‘normal’ construction. Since every home we design is now ‘green,’ our thinking is always focused on a few different and key priorities:
1. We look at the entire project holistically. I like to think of a building like a body. The systems in your body all work together. None of them can function individually, and the health of one will greatly affect the condition of the other. If your lungs are in poor health, for example, the rest of the body will be stressed and have to work harder. The same is true of a house. All of the systems work together, and you can’t sacrifice one without injuring the other.
The framing of the house is like the skeleton.
The envelope of the house (the insulation, siding and roof) is like the skin.
The electrical system is like your brain and nervous system.
The HVAC system is like your lungs.
The plumbing is like your alimentary tract, with a seamless supply of healthy water in, and effortless systems to get waste out.
The heart? The circulatory system? I think it’s the people who live in the house.
2. We look at the impact a building will have on the earth and the community. I have a vision of some day every single house on this beautiful planet being its own off the grid biosphere. It wouldn’t have a dome or anything, but it would be self-sufficient. Image your own home on its own plot of land needing nothing from its neighbors or from the town, city or state to operate. If the national grid goes down – you don’t even notice. If it does not rain for a while, you have full water collection tanks. You have zero dependence on fossil fuels. All waste is taken care of on site and you might even grow your own food.
3. We Innovate constantly to find the best ways to solve the same old problems. Trillium Architects is a firm solely dedicated to sustainable design and building. After 18 years we have honed our craft and have never stopped honing it. Our firm has dedicated itself to finding new ways to advance building science. Every house we do involves a new advancement that we are excited to try out.
Some of our recent innovations include:
An innovation on the ‘slab-less slab’
No foam houses.
Super creative details to tackle the problems of air sealing the thermal envelope
Phasing out all spray foams, reducing our use by approximately 90% in the last 8 years.
We outlawed Vinyl use in our house designs 15 years ago. ‘
4. We require sustainability.
We do not have to build things the way everyone else does. We determine the goal, see what materials are locally available and also sustainable, and then we ‘Get Creative’ and make something out of that. That’s what our ancestors did before we had global shipping and modern technology. And guess what? It was super sustainable!
Walking backwards into the future, is a Māori proverb and one of my favorites. It means looking back to the way things used to be done to inform the future.
We look at the idea of building with materials that are local and natural.
We build to suit the local climate.
Modern technologies integrated with the building wisdom of the past help us achieve the perfect solution.
We love our job and we love designing cutting edge houses for people that allow them to live in worry free comfort, health and beauty while saving thousands of dollars a year in operations and maintenance.
Listen in while Elizabeth discusses SEED homes and sustainable houses in this new podcast from #KeepCraftAlive!
“Of course, I want to continue building amazing, beautiful houses,” Elizabeth tells the host. “But at the same time, I want those houses to be responsible.”
In the podcast, Elizabeth shares the motivation behind her move to SEED homes to balance some of the larger, material-heavy custom houses the firm designs. She also talks about how she got into sustainable architecture, started working with open-minded contractors, and began providing more affordable net-zero options using prefab homes.
#KeepCraftAlive is an initiative powered by Fine Homebuilding magazine to bring awareness to the skills gap in the building industry and the rich professional opportunities that exist in the trades. The hashtag offers the opportunity for professionals to share their passion for the cause and to showcase inspirational work. And, it celebrates those who have chosen to pursue careers in design, building, and remodeling.
We learned in our recent survey that there are still some misconceptions about green building and living in efficient and sustainable houses. Because of your interest in green architecture, I wanted to share these with you, along with our thoughts on some of those misconceptions and the general market appeal of these amazing homes.
Some of these might be surprising, so read on to see if any of them sound familiar!
Misconception: ‘Green homes look different’ Perhaps surprisingly, most of our homes look indistinguishable as Green Homes! Aesthetics are not tied to energy efficiency construction methods. We could make a classic colonial into a Passive House. And we have! (Have a look at our portfolio. Each house on our website is a true green home.)
Misconception: ‘I’ll have trouble with resale’ People love our houses so much that it’s a rare event that someone builds one and then sells it. In the last 200 houses we have designed, for example, this has only happened three times. In each case there was a bidding war and the house sold within weeks for above asking price. People are thrilled at the idea of living in a healthy environment with almost zero monthly operational and upkeep costs. What’s not to love?
Misconception: ‘I’m not sure everything will work.’ We build what we like to call the Teslas of houses. We may use the newest technologies, but all of the technologies we use have actually been in testing and use for years, if not decades. We create houses that are extremely well built, and like an electric vehicle, there is generally nothing to do to keep the house humming along. Just sit back and enjoy!
Misconception: ‘I’m afraid of the unknown.’ Even though green homes are not as common as traditionally built, the concepts are the same: Provide shelter, design for user friendliness and beauty, insulate, heat and cool. Sometimes the unknown turns out to be a truly welcome change. We start with beautiful houses that work, and consciously integrate healthy sustainable materials, extra insulation and higher efficiency heating and cooling systems to bring you a healthy, quiet, uncommonly comfortable and more long lasting product.
Misconception: ‘A ‘green’ house may end up being more expensive.’ This is a classic myth. They may cost up to 10% more to build, but- oftentimes -they cost the same or only 1% or 2% more than a traditionally built house. Yes, we spend more in windows and insulation, but we spend less in HVAC. In the end most clients find the cost difference negligible, especially given that they will spend almost nothing in operations over the life of the house.
We’d welcome the opportunity to continue this discussion -- and to share our extensive knowledge and architectural design experience with you.
We are the experts in bringing you healthy, sustainable, green homes, and we specialize in LEED, Net Zero and Passive Houses. Please read through our website to find out more!
