who we are

ARCove serves clients who seek a more resilient, useful, and lasting environment. Bringing enduring solutions and high-performance technologies together with artistry and workmanship, our designs ensure utility and delight for functional and cherished spaces. ARCove is a specialty, expertise-focused architecture firm committed to the design of buildings that enhance opportunities for people and communities to thrive. Based out of Portsmouth, New Hampshire we offer high-performance sustainability and historic preservation, designing residential and commercial spaces.

Our designs for both new construction and adaptive reuse forge connections anchoring occupants to what lies beyond – the community, the environment, the environs, past events, and future opportunities. These connections link ideas, people, and places together to create a tangible market demand for our spaces, where occupants identify on a personal or cultural level. Our highly skilled team brings exceptional value to clients by creating buildings and spaces that are durable, useful, efficient, and beautiful. Through such purposeful design, we create impactful, cost effective and enduring buildings.

sustainability

ARCove provides design solutions that enhance energy performance, conserve natural resources, and create healthy indoor environments. Durable, efficient spaces require holistic planning that responds to surrounding environmental conditions. Our focus on environmentally sensitive, commercially viable design creates lasting and cost-effective spaces that are in balance with the environment. Ecologically balanced structures provide more than mere shelter, they enhance and sustain the lives within and the places beyond. Arcove’s design approach targets innovative and economical technologies with proven performance. We optimize energy efficiency and human comfort while reducing operating costs by using conceptual energy modeling early in the process to evaluate design options.

Our parametric energy modelling software provides dynamic cost comparisons for options of material first costs and life-cycle operational costs. In this way, the entire design team and building owners can make more informed project decisions. We also evaluate opportunities to decarbonize buildings at all stages of the construction lifecycle, from embodied carbon materials, to operationally efficient building envelopes and mechanical systems, through to end-of-life carbon with materials that can be recycled or reused. We look at using healthy material, that are non-toxic, with spaces that provide ample fresh air, natural daylight, and community connections. This holistic approach enables the realization of high-performance, cost-effective buildings that are gentle on the earth while promoting usefulness, comfort and well-being.

Sustainability services include: Net Zero Strategies • Deep Energy Retrofits • Low Carbon systems • Healthy Buildings • Life Cycle analysis • Resource conservation • LEED & PHIUS certifications

historic assessments

Historic Structure Reports and Building Condition Assessments Preservation Planning and Feasibility Studies Documentation and Restoration Planning of Historic Properties • Mont Vernon Town Hall, Mont Vernon NH • Austin Pickering House, Portsmouth NH • Black Heritage Trail, Portsmouth NH ARCove focuses on the restoration, preservation, and adaptive reuse of architecturally, historically, and culturally significant resources. Historic preservation for adaptive reuse requires the sensitive accommodation of applicable building codes and life safety standards, programmatic space needs, handicapped accessibility, stabilization of existing structure, while preservation and rehabilitating historically significant features.

Our Historic Assessment Reports demonstrate required compliance with the Secretary of Interior’s Standards and are instrumental in pursuing a variety of funding sources requiring approval by the SHPO, preservation easement holders such as the NH Preservation Alliance or Historic New England, and the National Park Service. Information provided includes thorough existing conditions documentation, historic research, conditions analysis, recommended treatments, and feasibility planning. The results of the reports provide owners with the tools necessary for a successful path forward, allowing their historic structures to continue with utility and integrity for generations to come.

Historic Preservation services include: Restoration, Rehabilitation & Reconstruction • Additions to Historic Properties • Historic Structures Reports (HSR) • Building Condition Assessments • Existing Facilities Survey and Documentation • Repair, Rehabilitation, and Cyclical Maintenance Priorities and Cost Analysis • Sustainable Preservation Strategies