Vermont Architect Joan Heaton brings 18 years of professional architectural experience to the practice. Communicative and personable, Joan is dedicated to her work, family and community. When Joan is not designing for clients she is often working on projects with her husband Andrew, a builder, or playing Lego’s with her son Matthew. Joan lives at the end of a dirt road with her family in Lincoln, Vermont in a home that she designed and built.

In her most recent community project, Joan donated her time to design a handicap accessible entry addition to her son’s preschool, the Lincoln Co-Operative Pre-School. Joan also collaborated on the design and construction of a playground for another pre-school in Seattle, Washington. This project was featured in Fine Homebuilding magazine in November 1996.

A love of nature and the outdoors lead Joan to participate in both environmental education and architectural projects that employ sustainable design practices. For several summer seasons, Joan worked as an instructor for the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School in Maine. In the summer of 1995, Joan was on the faculty of "Alaska Outward Build" an educational experiment combining wilderness living, community service, environmental design, and building construction. Motivated by her appreciation for nature, Joan often makes design decisions and material selections based on environmental considerations.

Joan appreciates Vermont's natural beauty and enjoys hiking, skiing, cycling and sculling. She rowed at Phillips Andover and Cornell and now sculls on nearby Lake Dunmore.