Kathy Velikov, Geoffrey Thün and their partners at RVTR are, at least, non-conformists, if not iconoclasts. By their own declaration, they are out to “challenge the conventions of contemporary professional practice.”

Although the firm is stoutly committed to sustainability, it “believes that current best practices for sustainability are insufficient and require continual reconsideration and reframing in order to advance leading edge approaches to sustainable design and ways of living.”

The firm demurs prescriptive answers to sustainability questions. Velikov and her colleagues readily credit agencies such as the U.S. and Canadian Green Building Councils and for raising awareness of environmental impacts of constructing buildings. At the same time, however, they are wary of building performance systems such as LEED, Green Globes, BREEAM and PassivHaus, despite their positive contributions to a design culture that fosters buildings with smaller global footprints.

“We resist the notion that pure objective measurements of the complex issues that affect man’s impact on his environment should dictate our decisions,” Velikov says. “These systems can often lead to oversimplification. We would rather pursue a holistic position, constantly being re-informed by new information and attitudes, in search of a way towards sustainable futures.”

Kathy Velikov (right), with partner Paul Raff

“We resist the notion that pure objective measurements of the complex issues that affect man’s impact on his environment should dictate our decisions,” Velikov says."These systems can often lead to oversimplification. We would rather pursue a holistic position, constantly being re-informed by new information and attitudes, in search of a way towards sustainable futures.”

For example, the directive to buy local may not yield optimal results. What if local materials are inadequate for a particular application, or lack appropriate durability? Consider the trade-off of non-local sourcing if buying from more distant suppliers actually abets establishment of a local industry that provides sustainable jobs.

“We seek to remain open to the conundrums of these possibilities, rather than subscribing to a particular stance,” Velikov says. “We enjoy the moral, ethical and practical struggles that this approach entails because it helps us shift our thinking laterally in search of new answers and proposals.”

In support of advancing architecture’s philosophical underpinnings, RVTR puts its ideas into practice through a “research-based” model, rather than the more conventional fee-for-service standard. The RVTR approach entails evolving to “problem seeking” from “problem solving.” Thün says one way to accomplish this is to seek new relationships in which architects’ skill sets and disciplinary capacities are unique and powerful.

“Fundamental to this endeavour is mobilizing academic-practice partnerships to foster engagement and collaboration with other disciplines, create a crucible for design innovation, and leverage research funding opportunities,” he emphasizes.

RVTR is already at the centre of such work. Firm partners are tapping academic-industry-government-professional agent collaborations as part of the “North House” project, an entry in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon 2009 – a collaboration between the University of Waterloo, Ryerson University, and Simon Fraser University, for which Velikov is the Architect of Record and Thün is the lead Faculty Advisor. One example in the prototype is a home automation system that will debut when North House goes on display in Washington D.C. in October. Team members collaborated with architectural teams, graphic designers, controller programmers, systems automation experts, lighting designers and behavioral scientists to develop the unique product replete with web monitoring applications, and a unique ambient feedback system that informs users as to their home’s performance. Architecture is a bit late to the game of such collaborations, long common in technology, engineering and medical fields, among others.

“The North American building industry invests embarrassingly little in research,” Thün observes. “With current mandates for low-energy, sustainable buildings, there is great opportunity to leverage building and urban design practice with new technologies, construction materials and methodologies. Potentials for researcher-practitioners in architecture are only beginning to emerge.”