If you are planning to build a custom home in the South Carolina Lowcountry, choosing the right lot is the single most consequential decision you will make. The landscape here is unlike anywhere else: tidal creeks winding through ancient marsh grass, live oaks draped in Spanish moss, and water views that shift with the light and the tide. For many buyers, finding the right piece of land feels like the beginning of something they have been planning for years.

I write often about building science because our industry repeats myths that sound reassuring but do not hold up in practice. One of the most persistent is this: if a house meets code, it must be good enough.

It is not.

Building codes establish the legal minimum, not the level required for comfort, durability, or resilience. This gap is especially risky in hot, humid, storm-prone regions like the Southeast.

Advances in building science now offer a clear path to stronger coastal homes through the FORTIFIED™ Home program developed by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety. In hurricane-prone regions, FORTIFIED certification is quickly becoming the gold standard.

For homeowners, it delivers confidence and peace of mind. For architects, it provides a proven roadmap for creating homes that are not only beautiful but also durable enough to withstand the realities of coastal living.

If you’ve been on TikTok or Instagram lately, you’ve probably seen the latest home wellness trend: “house burping.” The advice is simple. Open your windows for five minutes several times a day to “air out” your house and improve indoor air quality.

It sounds harmless. Even sensible. The idea has gained so much traction that NPR and The New York Times have covered it.

As an architect who designs houses for hot, humid climates, I’ll say this plainly:

For most homes, in most climates, this is bad advice.

Southern vernacular architecture is rooted in pragmatism: its forms, materials, and spatial logic evolve from climate, landscape, and way of life. In our coastal Lowcountry, traditions like raised piers, deep porches, narrow floorplates, and cross‑ventilation were not aesthetic afterthoughts; they were essential strategies for comfort and resilience.

Southern vernacular architecture is rooted in pragmatism: its forms, materials, and spatial logic evolve from climate, landscape, and way of life. In our coastal Lowcountry, traditions like raised piers, deep porches, narrow floorplates, and cross‑ventilation were not aesthetic afterthoughts; they were essential strategies for comfort and resilience.

Living and building near the coast means confronting storms mightily. The goal isn’t merely survival, but resilience: limiting damage, reducing downtime, and enabling faster recovery.

Designing for hot, humid climates is a holistic process. It combines the laws of physics with client-centered design, tradition with innovation, and beauty with durability. The result is a home that feels right in every sense. It is cool, comfortable, resilient, and undeniably Lowcountry.

According to the National Institute of Building Sciences, hazard mitigation is one of the highest-return investments a community can make. Their widely cited 2017 report found that federally funded mitigation grants save the nation an average of $6 in future disaster costs for every $1 spent. Similarly, designing buildings to exceed select code requirements yields a $4 return for every $1 invested. More recent analyses suggest that depending on the type of resilience measure, the benefit-cost ratio can be even greater—ranging from $4 up to $11 for every $1 spent—underscoring the long-term value of proactive hazard mitigation.

Beaufort, like many coastal cities, has been experiencing high levels of development in recent years. There are less deep water, beachfront, or marsh view lots available now than there were when we started our firm. As a result, there are many lots that realtors and neighbors have given the bad reputation as being “unbuildable.” Here are a few case studies demonstrating how we’ve put in some extra effort to change that.

In our book, Contemporary Southern Vernacular: Creating Sustainable Design for Hot, Humid Climates, we cover the importance of site design both from a sustainability viewpoint and connecting you to nature. The concept was a new one for many of our readers. One reader wrote, “Building a house to incorporate the surrounding landscape makes so much sense. I look out my window, and I am saddened that the builder did not position our house to catch a glimpse of the Pike’s Peak Mountain range, which is literally a few miles away. All I see out my window are houses. Some of the original landscapes would have been lovely to admire from my gigantic windows. Preserving Mother Nature and keeping it alive in our community would be a soothing and relaxing sight to awaken to every day.”

The South Carolina Energy Freedom Act was enacted in 2019 to allow the expansion of the solar market, both large scale and residential installations, lifting previous caps on net metering and solar leasing. According to the SC State Energy Office, solar installations have increased 99% in Beaufort county since 2019.

As we enter into hurricane season, many people ask, “How can I build to mitigate hurricane damage?” Historically, we have worried more about hurricanes with high winds but Hurricane Florence proved that category 1 storms can be just as disastrous. Eight people in South Carolina died, property damage was over $607 million, and more than 2,000 homes were lost to flooding.

When building a new house there are three critical concerns in the design and construction in hurricane prone areas that address the simultaneous impacts of wind, rain, and flooding.

Considering that 90% of waste is from demolition, it is imperative that we renovate and reuse buildings as opposed to tearing them down and starting from scratch. If a building must be taken down it should be deconstructed—meaning carefully dismantled to salvage materials for reuse and recycling.

As we work to make our buildings more sustainable, selecting environmentally responsible building products and materials is critical to reducing the carbon footprint and building healthy buildings.  To select materials wisely, we have to understand what is in them, how they were made, and if they can be recycled at the end of their usefulness.

Simply put, the building enclosure is the barrier between interior and exterior environments. Also referred to as the building envelope, it includes the walls, windows, doors, roof, and foundation. Comfort, natural lighting, ventilation, and energy use are all determined by the makeup of the building enclosure. It shouldn’t be a surprise that climate affects the optimal components, but a nuanced approach to building science was not adopted in our hot and humid south until the 21st Century! In a region where cooling is the primary concern over heating (though not exclusively), where significant rainfall events occur frequently, and where the humidity levels hover around steam room levels—specific building science must be applied.

Tom Rhodes becomes certified as a Fortified Home Professional, adding to the firms expertise in designing for resilience. The IBHS FORTIFIED Home™ identifies the roof as the most important component in protecting your house. The first of three levels of certification is the FORTIFIED Roof. 

Also known as "two pens and a passage," the dogtrot is an early southern home design that meets today’s need for resiliency in hot and humid climates.

“Home and business owners needn’t take their chances with lightning,” explains Bud VanSickle, executive director of the Lightning Protection Institute (LPI). “A professionally installed lightning protection system which meets U.S. Safety Standards … will prevent lightning damage by providing a safe electrical path into the earth for lightning’s destructive energy.”