Two Modern, Net Zero Houses by Architect Arielle Schechter Will Grace the Fall Modernist Home Tour September 17th
August 26, 2022 § Leave a comment
“…the perfect balance of budget, sustainability, livability, and delight,” wrote Residential Design editor Claire Conroy in her assessment of the Baboolal Residence. “At every turn, [Arielle Schechter] prioritized the qualities of light, views, and building performance over superficial, budget-busting bling.”
Inhabitat.com’s KC Morgan concluded her observations with, “Seamless design and net-zero strategies combine to make the Baboolal home both beautiful and energy-efficient.”
This modern, ultra-green, single-family home is one of two residential projects designed by Chapel Hill architect Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA, that will grace the roster of the Fall Modernist Homes Tour on September 17, presented by NCModernist.
The Serdars’ Net Zero/Net Positive Micropolis® House in Hillsborough is the other Schechter project on the tour. While fulfilling the owners’ request for a “very modern, extremely green, and almost industrial” house, the architecture ultimately delivered her most energy-efficient residence to date, which includes the best HERS rating the independent rating company has ever seen. (Click here for the explanation.) And most of the time, the house produces more energy than it consumes — hence Net Positive.
Energy issues aside, the Serdar House also contains a luxurious, age-in-place, spa-like main bathroom that previous home tour attendees have described as “luscious,” “incredible,” and “sybaritic.”
Eleven modernist houses will comprise the Fall Modernist Homes Tour. (Click here to see all 11.) Tickets are sold out, but George Smart is compiling a waiting list in case current ticketholders must drop out between now and September 17. Anyone interested in getting on the waiting list should contact him: george@usmodernist.org.
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About the architect: Visit Arielle Condoret Schechter’s website for more information on these and the many other modern, net zero houses she has designed and others currently under design development or construction: acsarchitect.com.
About NCModernist: Founded and directed by George Smart of Durham, NCModernist is a nationally renowned, award-winning non-profit organization dedicated to documenting, preserving, and promoting modernist residential design throughout North Carolina. Along with maintaining the depth and facets of its website, NCModernist.org, the organization sponsors a host of special events, programs, and tours throughout the year, including fall and spring tours of modernist homes, via luxury bus, located within the Triangle region.
Under construction: Net Zero in Ganesh Place, designed by Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA
May 30, 2022 § Leave a comment
As the owners requested, the Lerner-Campbell House in Ganesh Place, Durham, is well underway to becoming a modern, net zero home full of internal drama — high ceilings, lots of glass — and constant connections to outdoor spaces, including a deck, a screen porch, and a lower hot tub deck. Another special feature: the main bath, which will feel like a spa retreat from the stresses of the world. To see the renderings, click here.
DesignNews, April 2022
April 24, 2022 § Leave a comment
The modern, net-zero “Wolf-Huang House” on Lake Orange designed by Arielle Condoret Schechter [ M.Arch. ‘87] was featured in an eight-page spread in Chapel Hill Magazine’s January/February edition. Another Schechter project, her award-winning net-zero “Haw River House,” is featured in Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation, a new book by renowned environmentalist and NYT bestselling author Paul Hawken.
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On The Boards: Arielle Condoret Schechter Designs Modern Cliff-Hanger in Western North Carolina
April 20, 2022 § Leave a comment
Calling the site for this project “one of the tightest little corners I’ve ever had to make something fit,” Chapel Hill architect Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA, has designed a modern, sustainable home on a mountainside in Swannanoa, NC, a tiny township between Asheville and Black Mountain, NC.
Designed for P.J. Miller, a musician, and artist Katie McWeeney, the two-story, modern, thoroughly “green” house will hug the flat part of the couple’s cliff-side property and include three bedrooms, two baths, an open kitchen/dining/living core, two studios/workspaces, two carports, and abundant decking for outdoor living and connectivity between the indoors and outdoors.
Chief among Schechter’s inspirations for this design was the couple’s lament over never having enough kitchen, workspace, or studio space in previous homes. “We’re trying to remedy that in this house,” she said, accepting the challenge despite the restrictive size of the property’s buildable area.
Actually, the site’s verticality helped her solve the studio/workspace problem. She’s tucked two studios beneath the living spaces, along with carports/loading zones on each end. The loading zones will create sightlines and open-air spaces within the entire volume, she pointed out, “and create the sort of positive-negative composition I like.”
Along with art and music, Miller and McSweeney enjoy cooking, baking, and hosting cooking classes. To enhance their passion, the Schechter-designed kitchen will provide a profusion of natural lighting along with an open, professionally planned interior.
Will the Miller-McWeeney home contribute to Schechter’s ever-expanding portfolio of net-zero residential designs?
“Yes, of course,” she said emphatically. “Our goal for all our houses is to be net-zero, net-positive or, at the very least, net-zero-ready.” The latter means that the completed house will be wired and plumbed for solar panels to be installed in the future. “That, plus rooftop water collection for gardening should make this a very sustainable house for this great couple to enjoy.”
For more information on the architect and her work, visit acsarchitect.com.
CHAPEL HILL MAGAZINE: “Lake Living”
January 18, 2022 § Leave a comment
by Morgan Cartier Weston | Photos by John Michael Simpson
TO READ THE ARTICLE IN THE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022 EDITON, CLICK BELOW AND GO TO PAGE 57
New book by best-selling author/environmentalist Paul Hawken uses Haw River House to illustrate key element of his visionary treatise
October 30, 2021 § Leave a comment
The modern net-zero Paradis-Zimmerman “Haw River House,” designed by Chapel Hill, NC architect Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA, is featured in Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation, a new book by Paul Hawken. The renowned environmentalist chose Arielle’s award-winning house for his chapter on energy.
“The Haw River House is a 2800-square-foot home in North Carolina,” the caption to the photo states. “Its rooftop solar array provides all of its electricity. Insulation, passive house design, energy-recovery ventilators, and solar reflective shades improve energy efficiency and help maintain a constant temperature. A geothermal heat pump handles the rest of the heating and cooling needs. It is also water independent; a small well supports a rainwater collection and purification system that, when full, can provide water for 230 days.”
Unfortunately, the author misunderstood this water collection system. As Arielle explains, a massive, custom-designed gutter leads to downspouts on each end of the house. There, the butterfly roof funnels 100 percent of the rainwater that falls on the roof into two 5000-gallon above-ground cisterns. When full, the cisterns can provide the house with water for 230 days without rainfall.
Despite the misrepresentation of her rooftop water collection system, Arielle says she is deeply honored to have one of her residential projects featured in Hawken’s newest title.
The Haw River House, located in Chatham County, NC, is part of Arielle’s consistently growing portfolio of modern net-zero residences. Green Building & Design showcased this house and other examples of Arielle’s work in its May 2020 edition online and in print. (To learn more about the Haw River House and see more photos, click here,)
About the book: According to the book’s publicity, Regeneration is “a radically new understanding of and practical approach to climate change... [It] offers a visionary new approach to climate change, one that weaves justice, climate, biodiversity, equity, and human dignity into a seamless tapestry of action, policy, and transformation that can end the climate crisis in one generation. It is the first book to describe and define the burgeoning regeneration movement spreading rapidly throughout the world… Regeneration is the inspiring and necessary guide to inform the rapidly spreading climate movement.”
About the author: Paul Hawken has written eight books published in over 50 countries in 32 languages. Five of his books have been national and New York Times bestsellers, including Drawdown, which focuses on global warming. He has been a guest on nearly every major news talk show in the U.S. and his writings have appeared in a host of national publications, including the Harvard Business Review. (For Paul Hawken’s more extensive biography, visit www.paulhawken.com.)
Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation (Penguin Books, publisher) is available on Amazon.
ARCHINECT: “Wolf-Huang Lake House”
October 27, 2021 § Leave a comment
Across the east fork of the Eno River in Orange County, six miles north of downtown Hillsborough, Lake Orange has attracted well-heeled homeowners to its shores for years, many of whom have built their very large, very traditional dream homes there. Many hardwoods and evergreen trees have disappeared in their wake.
Now another new home has appeared along the lake’s shore, nestled among the lofty trees, that is the antithesis of those houses. Designed by Chapel Hill architect Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA, the Wolf-Huang house has introduced modern, sensibly sized, and environmentally sustainable living to the Lake Orange neighborhood. Inside, it is the essence of minimal, reductive design — simple and serene. READ MORE
Architect Arielle Schechter and Her Clients Introduce Modern, Minimal, Sustainable Design to Lake Orange Community.
June 14, 2021 § Leave a comment
Press Release: June 14, 2021 (Chapel Hill, NC) — Across the east fork of the Eno River in Orange County, six miles north of downtown Hillsborough, Lake Orange has attracted well-heeled homeowners to its shores for years, many of whom have built their very large, very traditional dream homes there. Many hardwoods and evergreen trees have disappeared in their wake.
Now another new home has appeared along the lake’s shore, nestled among the lofty trees, that is the antithesis of those houses. Designed by Chapel Hill architect Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA, the Wolf-Huang house (above) has introduced modern, sensibly sized, and environmentally sustainable living to the Lake Orange neighborhood. Inside (below), it is the essence of minimal, reductive design — simple and serene.
Most of Schechter’s residential clients value light, livability, energy conservation, and spaces tailor-made for their lifestyles over ostentation and grandiose square footage. These homeowners are no different. In fact, the lake itself was fundamental to the conception of the 2677-square-foot Wolf-Huang house — views of the lake and sunsets over the lake, as well as the breezes that glide across the water.
To that end, she oriented the house on the site to face the lake and used large sliding-glass doors and windows to provide views and welcome the breezes in spring and fall. Windows on the street-facing elevation along with the house’s slim footprint facilitate cross ventilation. Clerestories in a roof segment above the main roofline — where a solar array is located — contribute more natural light to the crisp, all-white interior. Deep roof overhangs shade glass doors and windows from the high summer sun.
For the Wolf-Huang’s exterior, Schechter says she was Inspired by her love of Amsterdam’s colorful houseboats moored along canal banks — simultaneously luxurious and cozy. She’s made several architectural trips to Amsterdam to visit them. As a result:
“I think the Wolf-Huang Lake House feels as if it could be launched right into the Lake to float along the banks,” she says, smiling. “We hope our clients feel as if they’re on vacation all the time, except without crowded flights and long lines!”
BuildSense custom home builders in Durham served as general contractor for this project.
PHOTOS BY TZU CHEN
June 9, 2021 § Leave a comment
AMAZING ARCHITECTURE.com: “Baboolal Residence in Chapel Hill, United States, designed by Arielle Condoret Schechter, Architect, PLLC, AIA”
by Naser Nader Ibrahim
The Baboolal residence is a net zero house is for a multicultural family of four. The husband is Indian originally from South Africa and the wife is American. They are both in high stress professions: he is a pediatric anesthesiologist and she is a pediatric nurse. They have two small children and pets.
The impetus for building this house was their previous frustration with living in a cookie cutter developer house with a lot of wasted space and illogical planning.
They decided to build a custom house that would give them openness for family time, while also creating privacy and quiet areas for the parents to rest between shifts and for the kids to have their own spaces. Also, an immediate connection between indoor and outdoor space was part of the brief. READ MORE…
INHABITAT: “No waste, no carbon, no wonder this net-zero home breaks the mold”
April 19, 2021 § Leave a comment
By K.C. Morgan
When the Baboolals looked around their North Carolina community, they saw what many people see in their local areas: cookie-cutter houses that consume excess energy. A desire to break free from this mold is how their journey to create a net-zero house began. Working with architect Arielle Condoret Schechter, the Baboolals outlined a few essentials for the home...READ MORE
ACS Press 