Re:Vision’s roots are with nonprofits! Our practice grew out of community engagement and facilitation for neighborhood groups. Along the way we started to do real architecture for those who commit their careers and organizations to helping others. People in the world doing good make us want to come to work every day.
We understand the nuance of operating nonprofits, where priority is historically placed on programs and those served, and not on facilities and those who do the hard work day in and day out. We challenge that status quo knowing that good facilities help people to keep going and do the important and challenging work that benefit our communities. This trickle down effect takes foresight to make happen – but it’s a game changer.
As life long learners, we embrace education in the broadest sense of the term as it relates to the built environment. Yes, we design schools and higher education buildings, but we also deeply value learning in the field – whether a literal field, or a soils laboratory, or a training center.
What good learning and educating spaces have in common is that they balance the mechanics of specific kind of education with inspiration – that special quality that makes learners and educators want to make that extra effort to be present and motivated to do their best.
The home is one of the most elemental building blocks of architecture and is a project type near and dear to our hearts. Every home project is, at its core, a story of people and place. Large or small, urban or rural, each home is a unique response to the needs and dreams of a client, the natural assets and constraints of a specific site, and the craft and hand of the builders.
Making a home sustainable is also a personal and context driven set of design decisions and responses. Whether common sense green or Passive House (or even Passive-ish, as we often lovingly say) sustainable solutions are scaled to the resources and priorities of every project.
TBD
We hear it all the time, that we have a housing crisis due to not having enough places for people to live. We also know that one of the keys to sustainable development is density in our urban areas (and suburban too). Mixed-Use + Multifamily projects are key to solving these challenges.
The bigger challenge, though, is how to make these projects good places to live when the market tends to drive a race to the bottom in an unending quest for maximizing profit first. Pro-formas are not going away, but neither is quality of life. So we need to do both. Easy, right? The path to achieving this is starting with clear goals and constraints and working with, not against the market. Optimized solutions for cost management, space quality, and sustainability are not mutually exclusive – working collaboratively between the owner, design, and construction teams can yield the unlocking of stacked benefits for project stakeholders.
What makes a good place to work? That all depends on what you do.
When it comes to workplace projects we understand that there is not a one-size-fits all answer. Open office or private offices? Assigned desks or hotelling? Meeting rooms or open meeting areas? As we rack our brains with these questions what holds true universally is that to be effective, the workplace needs to be aligned with the work. So let’s focus on getting that part right at the same time as crunching area per workstation.
We also need to not lose sight that successful workplaces are just that – “places.” Just as neighborhoods are made good by the accessible mix of housing, retail, foodservice, offices, and parks, so too are workplaces made good by the mix of individual work spaces, collaboration spaces, recharge spaces, play spaces, and eating spaces.
Not only do we love to eat, but we also know that food and agriculture are critical components of sustainability – a match made in heaven for Re:Vision! Whether a stall in Reading Terminal Market, a coffee shop or restaurant on Main Street in Manayunk, or a regenerative farm, we love to support all aspects of our food system.
We always say that a good project starts with a good plan! Re:Vision has supported many different kinds of planning and feasibility studies. This has included campus and building master plans, feasibility assessments to evaluate design options, industry specific research papers, community engagement workshops, as well as existing property evaluations and assessments. Across the board, we know that the keys to success in planning are listening first, having open communication with project stakeholders, and documenting vision and intent.
Living Building Challenge is the philosophical foundation of our architecture practice at Re:Vision. Whether or not we are pursuing the challenge of certification we apply, in varying levels of intensity, the holistic and deep sustainability thinking of LBC to all of our projects. Channeling the vision of LBC, we ask of every project, large or small, “what does good look like?”
Within the broader picture of sustainability, we know that to have net-positive impact on climate change we must move towards a net-zero energy and carbon model for the built environment. Our first net-zero energy project was a simple home over 20 years ago and we have continued to challenge ourselves ever since to find smarter and more cost effective way to make buildings that function as cleanly and elegant as a tree in a forest. Our approach to net-zero energy is to work toward optimization of passive design, active systems, and renewable energy. This is a dynamic and iterative process of design, evaluation, and cost analysis.
Passive House is both a green building rating system for deep energy efficiency and a philosophy of how to build good buildings. Even when we are not pursuing Passive House certification we embed the principles in our design work. These include optimized continuous insulation, air sealed construction, high-performance windows and doors, detailing for minimal thermal bridging, and balanced energy recovery ventilation paired with high efficiency heating and cooling systems. The results of this integrated approach are ultra-low energy use, high indoor air quality, thermal comfort, acoustic comfort, and increased thermal resilience.
AIA, LEED Fellow, LFA, CPHC, BECxP
AIA, LFA, LEED AP BD+C
LEED AP O+M/BD+C, CPHC, WELL AP, LFA
RA, LFA, LEED AP BD+C, CPHC, BECxP
LEED AP BD+C/O+M, NCARB, BECxP, CxA+BE
RA, LEED AP BD+C/ID+C, TRUE Advisor, LFA
Associate AIA, LEED Green Associate
RA, NCARB, LEED Green Associate
LEED AP BD+C
RA, LEED AP BD+C, LFA, CPHC, BECxP, CxA+BE
RA, LEED AP BD+C, CPHC
LEED Green Associate
RA, CPHC, LFA, BECxP, CxA+BE
Want to start a new project? Or just say hello? We'd love to hear what you're envisioning!
