Building the neighborhoods Cincinnati deserves.
Trilobite Design doesn’t just design buildings for clients. We develop them.
We identify sites, assemble financing, design high-performance buildings, and bring them to life — from vacant lots and forgotten corners to homes, mixed-use projects, and neighborhood-scale communities. Every project we develop is built to Passive House standards, because a building that costs almost nothing to heat and cool isn’t a luxury. It’s how every building should work.
Cincinnati has no shortage of ambitious plans. What it needs are people willing to take the risk and do the building. That’s what we’re here for.
Why We Develop
The hardest part of urban development is imagination.
Architecture is traditionally a service profession. A client hires you, you draw, they build. That model works, and we still do it, but it leaves the most important decisions to someone else: what gets built, where, and for whom.
Development lets us answer those questions ourselves. It means we can build in the neighborhoods that need investment most, design to standards that exceed what the market typically demands, and prove that sustainable, high-performance buildings belong everywhere in this city — not just in the zip codes that can already afford them.
We started by building Cincinnati’s first certified Passive House on a vacant Landbank lot in Mt. Airy. That project proved the concept: a home that outperforms everything around it, on a site that had been empty for years. Now we’re scaling that approach: from single homes to clusters, from infill lots to eco-villages.
Northside EcoVillage
A multi-home sustainable development in the heart of Northside, Cincinnati. The EcoVillage will bring Passive House-standard homes to one of the city’s most vibrant and walkable neighborhoods: dense, energy-efficient, and designed around community. Groundbreaking began in 2025, with homes available in 2026.
[Learn more at nsev.org →]
Infill Opportunities
We actively scout, evaluate, and conceptualize development on urban infill sites across Cincinnati. When a vacant lot or underused parcel has potential, we do the architectural heavy lifting up front zoning review, schematic design, sustainability specs. Developers, buyers, and neighbors can see what’s possible, not just what’s missing.
Recent concepts include a high-performance row house on Langland Street in Northside and a hillside site in Springfield Township.
How We Work
Design-Build Development
We don’t hand off a drawing and walk away. Trilobite Design partners with experienced builders to deliver projects from concept through construction. Our design-build approach means one team, one vision, and accountability from the first sketch to the final walkthrough.
Every project we develop is designed in-house, built to Passive House standards, and managed with the same attention we give our private residential clients. The difference is that we’re also at the table as the developer: carrying the risk, making the calls, and standing behind the result.
What We Bring to a Deal
Design expertise. Every building we develop is designed by a licensed architect with deep experience in sustainable, high-performance construction. That means better buildings, fewer surprises in construction, and lower lifetime costs.
Building science. Passive House certification, energy modeling, acoustic engineering, and advanced envelope design are standard in our work. We don’t bolt sustainability onto a conventional plan. We design it in from the start.
Neighborhood knowledge. We live here, we serve on boards here, and we’ve built here. Our relationships with the City of Cincinnati, the Hamilton County Landbank, the Port Authority, and neighborhood CDCs give us access to sites, incentives, and support that outside developers don’t have.
Entrepreneurial track record. This isn’t our first venture. The Trilobite team has founded and operated businesses in Cincinnati, including co-founding Urban Artifact, and understands what it takes to manage risk, build partnerships, and deliver results.
For Partners and Investors
We are actively seeking partners for current and future development projects. If you’re a lender, equity partner, CDFI, community organization, or builder interested in sustainable infill development in the Cincinnati region, we’d like to hear from you.
We bring the design, the sites, the building science, and the civic relationships.
We’re looking for partners who share our belief that Cincinnati’s best neighborhoods are still being built.
Every empty lot is a question. We’re here to build the answer.