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On October 25, 2025, we made our annual trip to beautiful Kent, Connecticut to participate in SPARK Kent- an event created by TradesUP - where trades and artisanal crafts professionals share their expertise and enthusiasm with hundreds of young people. Throughout the day, dozens of trades experts use safe and tested approaches to teach kids how to create, make, and problem solve with their hands. At our tent, we had the kids make fairy houses and villages! They were very creative and had a great time!

Elizabeth explains why one of the most important concepts in designing and building a green, sustainable home is the envelope of the house.

Trillium's founder, Elizabeth DiSalvo, explains the term Net Zero.

Elizabeth DiSalvo, founder of Trillium Architects, discusses the critically important role of highly-efficient HVAC equipment and energy recovery ventilators in the design of a sustainable house.

Elizabeth DiSalvo explains six important components of a green home: The envelope, the highly efficient HVAC system, the indoor air quality, the materials, low maintenance, and being Net Zero ready.

Trillium Architects' founder, Elizabeth DiSalvo, talks about how Trillium assures healthy air quality through insulation, circulation and temperature and humidity control - which keeps allergens, mold and mildew out of the home.

Trillium Architects' founder, Elizabeth DiSalvo, explains why we only use natural, non-toxic materials.

Since every home we design is 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 20 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’ 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 which allows them to live in worry-free comfort, health and beauty while saving thousands of dollars a year in operations and maintenance.

Learn about the 'slab-less slab" in this Green Building Advisor  article. The 'slabless slab" can be a key solution.

Climate Change for Builders: The Biggest Opportunity (Click here) Faced with consequences equivalent to a giant asteroid set to hit the earth in 10 to 50 years, we designers and builders owe it to the future to do our part—and we need to start right now.

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.

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!