Arielle C. Schechter, AIA

After retirement, we decided to move to Chapel Hill, NC with the intention of building a contemporary “net zero” home. Even before we bought land, we studied Arielle Schechter’s work and decided to request her to be our architect. We were lucky to find land very close to university. Arielle visited the site and agreed that it would be suitable for our project. Arielle proposed a few layouts for the house and guided us in finalizing the layout plan. We as we lived at that time in another city, we had several zoom meetings to finalize the layout. Arielle was very patient and explained the pros and cons of each layout. Arielle laid out the house to maximize electricity generation from our solar panels. Also, the roof over the master bedroom and bathroom was oriented and tilted to collect the rainwater for our vegetable garden. The house has abundant natural light and high ceilings in the living/dining room and kitchen areas. The views from the living room, kitchen and master bedroom are outstanding. Arielle selected energy efficient doors and windows, flooring and tiling material, kitchen and bathroom plumbing fixtures and light fixtures. She also designed kitchen cabinets to accommodate the appliances that we owned. The design of our pantry is elegant, and we can now spot anything we need with easy. She also helped us select modern furniture for house. Arielle specified fiber cement and cedar panel cladding for the front face of the house that made it look both welcoming and attractive. It was an educational experience for us to select materials for a modern energy efficient house. Arielle was very responsive to the builder’s questions and suggestions. Her periodic visits to site were very helpful for the successful completion of the project. Arielle has mastered the art of blending her customers and builder’s requirements with her architectural vision. We are very pleased with Arielle’s work, and happy that we chose her for our project. We wholeheartedly recommend her to anyone who wants to build a unique, energy efficient and strikingly beautiful home.

Designing our home had been a life long dream for me. As such our choice of the architect meant everything to us in fulfilling our aspirations and dreams. We clipped pictures from magazines like Dwell and saved pictures from a plethora of sites like houzz. And yet we couldn't crisply articulate what we wanted. With my wife and I having both similar and different design and feature perspectives. Arielle worked with us and designed a home we both equally LOVE living in. Fulfilling our dreams. Arielle's use of digital, 3D technology in the design process makes the translation of what we couldn't exactly articulate into a design process that resulted in the perfect house for us both. Arielle is patient and worked with us to iterate the design. We appreciated the way she brought her experience, ideas and style to it while completely listening to us. Her inverted truss design literally gets "this is a cool house" from all that arrive. What we are most thankful for is how Arielle intrinsically understands this is personal - to design one's own house. Inasmuch, how she invested in us, wanting us to be happy, fulfilled with the design. An architect that's about you, able to bring your exterior and interior dreams to reality. Where no detail is too small.

Arielle designed our lake house. It was a great experience working with her. She successfully incorporated everything we wanted despite the many site restrictions. We would definitely hire her again.

It was a pleasure to work with Arielle. I couldn’t have imagined a more dedicated, patient, client-focused architect to work with. I appreciated not only her obvious talent and creativity as an architect but also her continued involvement through construction and well beyond to ensure we were happy with the project. A true gem.

Arielle was the perfect architect for our Haw River House project. We wanted something custom from top to bottom and net neutral or even net positive, if possible. Arielle spent a considerable amount of time at the property, letting it "tell" her how to design our home. She gave us several options from which to choose. Once we decided on a design, Arielle listened to our concerns and desires so she could tweak the design until we had what we wanted. After construction began, Arielle was always available to come on site to review the construction and to point out areas that needed attention or alteration. After construction was complete (537 days after breaking ground), Arielle has been on site several times to help with "green" issues. She was and is professional, personable and affordable. Our home sits on a bluff overlooking the Haw River, has zero utility bills because of the solar array on the roof, a geothermal heating and air conditioning system, and a roof designed as a rainwater catchment system dispersing rainwater into two 5000 gallon cisterns which filtrate the water in accordance with standards adopted outside the state (North Carolina has yet to regulate this renewable resource). We couldn't be more happy!

We hired Arielle to build our modern house in the woods. We worked remotely, with only a few in-person meetings as we were from out of state. She listens, excels at brainstorming and troubleshooting, and has the technology to both make changes on the fly and present interactive 3-d renderings. She absorbed and executed the minutia such as having enough wall space for our art, yet keeping enough window space to let the forest in. She recommended the builder we used, was proactive in siting the house on the perfect spot on the land, and all in all assured it was a great experience. We had never built a house before and Arielle helped with myriad decisions -- providing invaluable guidance in not just the architectural aspects but also the design details. We interviewed two other architects besides Arielle and are so happy that we selected her. We love our home. We value Arielle as an artist and as a human being.

Arielle was absolutely amazing to work with. She’s incredibly talented when it comes to incorporating functionality and modern design. From the start of the design process through completion of our new construction, Arielle was always available to offer suggestions, advocate for us, and listen to our concerns. She was simply a joy to work with, and made our building experience smooth and seamless. We cannot say enough good things about our experience with Arielle!

My husband and I met Arielle in the Spring of 2017 during the green home tour. We quickly fell in love with Arielle's modern green design projects. She is passionate about her work, cares deeply about her clients and makes sure the design is customized to the clients’ needs and goals. She works well as a team with excellent contractor partners that build her projects as specified. Arielle was by our sides the entire way, skillfully walking us through the challenging parts of the construction process - the thousands of decisions, navigating inevitable differences of opinions that couples have, and the constant moving parts (structural engineering, cost estimates, the bank loan process, etc.) Arielle works closely with the entire team to make sure every last detail is right, and comes to the job site to review work that had been completed. The cost of hiring an architect like Arielle is a great investment and will ensure you get a home that will truly be customized for your family.

We sought out Arielle to help with designing and planning our outdoor space. After having a terrible past experience with our builder, it was such a breath of fresh air to work with someone as thoughtful, detail oriented, and professional as Arielle. She was able to direct us while still making all of our thoughts, preferences, and questions feel valid and important. She also did a wonderful job of contractor recommendations and helped with this selection and coordination. Even after the project was completed (and it is amazing in its finished state!), Arielle has served as a resource for other questions and ideas. Overall, I have zero hesitations in recommending her and really just think she does amazing work and is an amazing person.

We took a chance with Arielle after reviewing her work and vision from her webpage. Upon the first meeting, we knew we found the right person to design out entry space and courtyard. Arielle was effortless to work with, had so many wonderful ideas to bring the space to life, and really spent time listening to what we wanted. Her design fit our aesthetic and blended with the existing home and terrain perfectly. When we can afford the next phase of our project, we will most definitely ask Arielle if she would take on the work. We would enthusiastically recommend Arielle to others!

Finding a modern home designer is not easy! We lucked out upon meeting Arielle. My husband and I have been living in our new modern, “green” net-zero home designed by Arielle Schechter since May. I am every bit as delighted with it and even more so now that we are living in it than from when Arielle first designed it. Arielle designed a home that is uniquely ours by listening to both what we wanted and needed in our home. She not only listened to our wants and needs but also gave suggestions on things that I hadn’t even thought about. She is very detailed and designed around my furniture that I wanted to keep. I love shoes so she gave me a shoe closet for the shoes I had and space for more! She also incorporated into the design little things that were important to me right down to a place to keep the kitty food bowls and their litter box. Arielle met with us several times showing us different ideas using her CAD expertise so that we could actually see our vision come to life. Arielle is a delight and was a pleasure to work with. Her knowledge, skills and expertise makes her a top-notch modern home designer. Through Arielle our “dream home” has become a reality. We couldn’t be happier! I highly recommend Arielle to make your “dream home” a reality.

We deliberated for over a year as to whether or not we wanted to undertake building our 4th home. We wanted to build modern and met with several local architects to discuss the project. Then we met with Arielle Schechter and our search for an architect ended. Arielle takes a team approach to designing a house and she really listens to his client's needs. Arielle designed a house for us to age-in-place that accommodated my mobility issues. She is a seasoned professional with an eye for detail second no to none. She never left our side throughout the building process and was always quick to provide alternative suggestions along the way. She was highly respectful of our budget and found creative ways to add value to our home. We are moving from 4,000 to 2,000 sq ft. Arielle designed our house with an interior that feels open and spacious. We wanted to build green and retained Newphire Builders who work hand in hand with Arielle on her green energy projects. To say that this build has been a joy is an understatement. Newphire Builders are the premier green, high performance builders in the area and boy do they perform. We ended up with the home of our dreams and then some thanks to Arielle's brilliant design and Newphire's flawless execution.