As I enter the final stretch of my last semester, I’ve been reflecting on the transformative experience I had this fall at Yestermorrow Design/Build School.

In sixteen weeks, our cohort of eight students and three instructors designed and built a 400-square-foot, single-occupancy home for the campus facilities manager. The project, lovingly named “Casa Virga,” is grounded in Yestermorrow’s design/build philosophy with sustainability-focused design, materials, and construction practices.

The first six weeks were dedicated to pre-design through design development, prioritizing green design and feasibility. We conducted site analysis and land surveying, produced architectural hand drawings, built iterative massing models, and refined the design through collaborative critiques, most often ideating on our one giant whiteboard. We toured homes throughout Vermont’s Mad River Valley, taking inspiration from the deep, and often unconventional, practices of the local design/build movement.

Our technical workshops and guest lectures included building science, mechanical systems, electrical, blower door testing, Japanese joinery, and local fire and accessibility codes. I found myself especially interested in building science and WRBs from a sustainability perspective, and the regulatory and systems-based complexities in even small-scale projects. Throughout the process, we collaborated closely with the client and applied project management principles through the use of a Gantt chart.

Beyond the house, we designed a snow stake for Sugarbush Resort and harvested and milled an ash tree from campus. We traveled to Montreal to study the architectural legacy of Expo 67, visiting the CCA, Canadian Centre for Architecture and exploring the Jardin Botanique de Montréal. Touring Habitat 67 expanded our thinking about form, community, and constructibility.

Then, we broke ground! Starting on a gravel pad, we framed the floor deck by hand before progressing to pneumatic nailers and a variety of power tools. Working into Vermont’s early winter, we raised wall assemblies, installed windows and doors, completed sheathing and weather-resistant barriers, sided, insulated with TimberHP, planned plumbing, and ran rough electrical. By the end of the semester, we absolutely surpassed our goals.

True to the ethos of design/build, the process demanded adaptability, collaboration, and problem-solving. I cannot possibly fit all I learned into one post, or thank my instructors, peers, and the Yestermorrow staff enough. I have so much gratitude for britton rogers, Chrissy Bellmyer, Christopher Weslosky
Caleb Richardson, and my peers, Isabella Canavan, Hazel Johnstone, Anoushka Pschorr, OlatutuKrystal Erinosho, Manuela, Becca, and Jake.

If I take just one lesson forward, it’s Yestermorrow’s motto: Think with your hands.

-Sophia Slesar, 2025 Design/Build Semester student