Architects, Architecture Firms, & Building Designers Near Durham

We worked with Trinity Design/Build to restore our 1920 cottage in Lakewood. They were incredibly patient with us as we navigated our first construction project, and we would recommend them for your historic preservation and renovation needs. They designed a reconfiguration of our floor plan that changed the house from a 3/2 to a 3/2.5 while adding on a primary suite. They fixed foundation issues, updated plumbing, updated electrical, performed efficiency upgrades, and readied our home for its next 100 years. Most importantly, they effectively blended the new portions of the home with the historic portions by matching trim, siding, and windows. They were great stewards of our budget and kept an accurate timeline. Their communication was outstanding. They used technology to make it easy to coordinate our selections and to keep us informed of our schedule. They minimized waste and repurposed materials to keep our environmental impact low. Thank you Trinity for our new (old) home!

I sincerely recommend Sophie to everyone. She helped update our 30+ year old house by modernizing kitchen, bathrooms, front door, stairs.. etc. Our house feels so bright and airy now. It is so much easier to clean and maintain the house. The builder (Actual Size Builders) and their team worked through the supply shortage during COVID. Everybody was honest and pleasure to work with. Before the renovation, we were at a loss where to even start with. Sophie and her team measured everything, created the design and revised it patiently. She even went shopping with us and kept all the house info organized for us. It was a little scary to hire an architect. I am glad we did. It was so worth it. Now kids started cooking and cleaning dishes. Husband is running roomba and doing laundry without me asking.

Our home was delivered early and within our budget. We made an adjustment at the end of our project to our landscaping budget, as we had a specific idea in mind. Our project manager, Vince DeFreitas, met with us to discuss our needs, requirements, and mutual expectations. We had already chosen a specific one story house and floor plan. Wisely making adjustments to the plans with a qualified professional, Vince quickly worked up a project cost proposal and schedule that met our needs. I believe using his recommended suppliers with whom he has established working relationships was critical to scheduling, quality and cost. We used local suppliers on the project. We did our part by meeting with vendors early in the project execution phase to make our selections, staying within our cost allowances. The sales representatives were knowledgeable and helped us create a beautiful, mid-century modern style home. After breaking ground, Vince was able to shorten the schedule, and completed our home within nine months. Vince continuously informed us about the progress of the project, and discussed any issues with us promptly during the course of the project. He is excellent at managing expectations. Vince DeFreitas’ expertise in steering us through the home-building process was truly outstanding. My husband and I highly recommend Vince and Silver Developers for building custom homes.

After buying a wonderful undeveloped property, I felt completely unprepared to build. Working with Eric S. Perry made the whole process, from design to finish, manageable and satisfying. I am fortunate to have worked with him. Eric demonstrated a rare combination of strengths: Communication – Eric speaks well and gets to the point without wasting time. He quickly told me what would be practical and what would be more expensive but achievable. Never once did I have any trouble getting responses to my many questions and concerns. He was never evasive or untrustworthy. Design sense – We began with a short list of my design goals and my rough layout of the two floors. Eric offered strong design guidance, pointing out shortcomings and suggesting many features that my wife and I would have otherwise overlooked. He has solid artistic sense, but does not try to fight for his own artistic vision to prevail over his client’s. He will build what you want after carefully informing you of the pros and cons. Together we arrived at a plan for a stunning house that suits our needs amazingly well. Project management – This is essential. Once we froze the design, Eric produced a detailed budget that predicted our final costs accurately. We went a bit over that initial budget only because we requested some added features during construction, and he was able to tell us the cost of those add-ons before we approved them. I saw that he had excellent relations with his subcontractors, most of whom he has used for years. He kept us well informed and well documented as we paid over time for design and construction. Honesty – We developed a very trusting relationship with Eric over the year and a half of our design and build. He always delivered what he promised and did what he said. I never felt that he tried to hide anything – quite the opposite. Moreover, he was a pleasure to work with.

They quickly caught our vision and desires, and made many improvements by blending in their own expertise and experience

My husband and I spent some time earlier this summer researching built-ins for the living room in the home we bought last year. John is our neighbor and we reached out to him with questions about the work he does. He was very knowledgeable and explained every step of the project to us and answered all our questions about the materials he would use in the project (he uses high quality, durable wood and good quality paint). He was quick to respond to our questions and extremely professional and very easy to talk to. Not to mention, you could tell he was excited about doing this project (it's always nice to find someone who truly loves their job). After answering all our questions, we moved on to design choices. John came over to our place and showed us several different designs on what we could do with our space. Our project involved cabinets and a floating shelving unit installed in two recesses on either side of our chimney, along with replacing our dated mantle with something more modern, redoing the trim around the fireplace, and mounting our TV on the wall and hiding all the electrical wires. He was open to what we wanted and not pushy at all on which choice we made. I thought it was really cool that he even tailored the design to what we wanted to use the shelves for (books and some of my model horses) when he created his designs. It added a really personal touch. We have a very large board game collection we wanted to be stored in the cabinets and John even made sure to get measurements on the largest box we have to be sure that it would fit in the final product. Overall timeline was about two months from contract signing to completed project and the quality is absolutely superb. His touch-up painting blends perfectly with the original paint of the room and when it was discovered that part of the marble was loose on our fireplace, he fixed that for us too. We were flexible with dates that things were done, but I'm sure he would work with you on deadlines whatever they may be. Half of the payment was due upfront and then half was due after we were happy with the project. I appreciated being able to use a credit card; some businesses aren't as accommodating, but Aerie was. The price was close to what our friends have paid for work like this and it wasn't a drop in the bucket, but it didn't break the bank either. I balked at first for a minute, but after all the work was done, I knew every single penny was well spent. From top to bottom, our units are incredibly professional and people always compliment them first thing when they come into our home now. They're far beyond any store brand type unit and they really brought the room not only into modern times, but they also made it fully functional. I love sitting in our living room now and having it feel more like a home. We both would highly, highly recommend Aerie for any sort of built-in/remodeling project you may have. We will certainly use this company again in the future for our home.

J Hoffman Studio did a home renovation for us that included kitchen, laundry area and guest room/bath. It was great to work with someone who listened carefully to our wishes and was highly responsive to any questions or concerns. Jenny Hoffman's communication with us was always very clear and she worked hard to meet all deadlines and budgets. I would highly recommend this studio to anyone looking for a design/build company or general contractor.

This was our first experience working with an architect, and it truly couldn’t have been more positive. From our very first conversations, Jonathan took the time to really listen and understand what we were hoping to create. He brought thoughtful, creative ideas to the table while always keeping our vision front and center, and he was genuinely open to feedback and collaboration. Jonathan guided us patiently through every step of the process, helping us feel informed and confident in our decisions. He was consistently responsive, available, and supportive, which made what could have felt overwhelming feel manageable and even enjoyable. On top of all of that, he was simply fun to work with—warm, approachable, and easy to communicate with. We couldn’t be happier with both the experience and the final result, and we would wholeheartedly recommend him to anyone looking for an architect who is both talented and a true partner in the process.

Georgia Bizios and her colleague, Brian Grant, designed a substantial renovation of the 1962 Chapel Hill home we purchased in 2017. Their focus was on opening up the dark kitchen to the dining & family rooms, and combining two bedrooms to create a new master suite. Although we liked their initial plan for the suite, we asked to see another option. Georgia promptly drew sketches for five options and emailed them to me! They were involved in other areas of the house, as well, and had wonderful ideas to improve the flow in the home and for additional windows to brighten the interior. They drew a full set of plans of the entire house for the contractor’s use during demolition and construction. When a few questions came up during the renovation, Brian was quick to come by, assess the situation, offer ideas, and provide any needed drawings. On the exterior of the home, they made suggestions for the replacement deck in the back and for a new stone patio near the front door. When we decided to add a carport, we learned that Georgia had designed the one in our neighborhood that we had admired; she tweaked the design to fit our site and our needs. Georgia and Brian were a pleasure to work with—friendly, accessible, prompt to respond to questions or concerns, patient, and talented. Highly recommended.

Every day I realize how lucky I am to have found Arielle. I chose her because I recognized the light and beauty in her work, and she definitely brought that magic to my house. What may be even more impressive is that she was able to translate my eclectic musings about things I'd always envisioned having in a house into spaces and characteristics that fully realized my dreams and fit into the broader aesthetic. Despite my inexperience at building and design, Arielle listened to me and made it all work as she guided me through the process. She also helped me choose lighting, countertops, plumbing fixtures, and tile, and she entertained my crazy design questions. Working with Arielle was a fun and easy experience from beginning to end, and living in the house reminds me every day what a genius she is.

When contemplating our kitchen remodeling, we looked at online reviews of contractors, asked a number of neighbors about their experiences, and ultimately interviewed a number of candidate organizations. CQC Home emerged as the organization of choice. Their careful and collaborative approach to design, planning, and (later) execution of our project has been nothing short of outstanding. All of the personnel (whether CQC or subcontractors) have been highly skilled, personable and dependable. The front office and project management personnel have been meticulously organized and responsive to our needs. We specifically want to mention Justin Koch, Mac Junker, and Lawrence Aucoin, who were with us every step of the way through the renovation process. They have never failed to respond promptly and thoughtfully to all questions and concerns that we have raised. We do not hesitate to recommend CQC to anyone contemplating a home renovation project.

I have to be honest, I was a bit apprehensive to work with a designer who wasn't local, but my experience to date working with Laura has been the best design experience I've ever had! She is super quick to respond, pays great attention to detail & has been a total delight to work with! I highly recommend Dowds Design!

Steven Joseph did a wonderful job designing our remodeled attic, deck with screened in porch and our elevator. Steven was very easy to work with, was very thorough and delivered very detailed plans. He perfectly placed the elevator and it has been a wonderful enhancement to our home. I highly recommend Steven Joseph!!

Studio TRACE LLC built me a beautiful bathroom, and I look forward to having them build me a new kitchen.