In Balance With the Environment: Green Homes

In practicing architectural balance in Vail Valley and in Western North Carolina, a big consideration is always striking the perfect balance of fully incorporating the natural beauty of the landscape and exterior spaces with the design of the interior. Balancing nature with our homes can also extend beyond design as more and more people are embracing green homes. Choosing to go green with your home can mean many things, but let’s look at a few trends that we’ve been seeing.

Smart Homes for Energy Efficiency

Smart homes have become all the rage. They give us the opportunity to manage and monitor our homes like never before. Interestingly, the advantages aren’t just based on the convenience of being able to control our homes with an app on our phone. By being able to better regulate thermostats and lights, it’s much easier to maximize energy efficiency. There are many opportunities to introduce smart appliances into your home at any time, but while building it is worth considering linking the HVAC or heating systems to Wi-Fi.

Solar Panels

Solar panels don’t just provide an alternative to carbon-based fuel for our heating and electricity, they can give a homeowner energy independence from the grid! Many people imagine solar panels to be a compromise to a home’s design; clunky panels that are plunked down regardless of what the chosen architectural style. Now that’s no longer the case, and solar panels can be carefully incorporated into the design, adding to the architecture balance.

Window Walls

In the past, sustainable building meant using small windows. Now those who want to live in green homes can enjoy entire walls of windows with improvements to glazing and insulation.

If you’d like to learn more about incorporating green features into your home, then get in touch with us! We love sharing our expertise on all aspects of architecture in Vail Valley, Avon, Edwards, Beaver Creek, and in Western North Carolina!

Later this summer, the building owner is supposed to be renovating the exterior of the building to a design we did for him.

Corten panels above reclaimed siding with heavy timber beam and king posts gables on new stone and timber columns at each entry.  This should be quite the improvement over the green metal mansard and brick veneer existing exterior.

Inside we mixed up the interiors with an ultra-modern reception area and a rustic conference room.  We added a Jim Harrison giclée of one of his famous Coca Cola barns.  Jim was a favorite South Carolina painter from Denmark, South Carolina about 3 hours south of us.

In the work area, we used what we know works and copied the Edwards office for the desks.  We put in a similar Kitchenette, but stayed with the theme in the office and had the cabinets painted a custom color; purple of course.

Now we are marketing to land a few projects.  Then we will start to hire some local talent and train them in the TAB ways.  We started off by joining the Asheville Home Builders Association.  We have recently joined the Land of the Sky Association of Realtors (Asheville’s Board) and the Hendersonville Board of Realtors.  Getting emails out to all of the members announcing the opening of this office was a challenge, but was successful.  Currently we are licensed in Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina and Montana.  We are nationally certified and can be licensed in any state.  If you have any need of an Architect, please contact TAB Associates, Inc.