Together, Dugan and Andreina make a powerful team, with a combined 30 years of experience practicing architecture - they've done everything from kitchen renovations and furniture design, all the way up to neighborhood designs and $100 million Department of State compounds, and everything in between.

"We have strong opinions about the direction we want to take ACVN. Quite simply we want the focus of our practice to be on energy efficiency: Deep energy retrofits, net-zero, ‘Net Zero Ready’, Passivhaus and the like.

Applying building science to our analyses to develop thermally comfortable, cost-effective buildings that are thoughtfully sited and use less energy. Going to the ultimate conclusion of that, we see a lot of crossovers in the ‘architectural’ desires of survivalists and environmentalists. With that said, we recognize that every client is going to land in a unique point on the spectrum from those who don’t know or don’t care about the benefits of energy and thermal efficiency to those who want off-grid, total self-sufficiency. We just aim to push that scale to the right where we can.

We’re not radical, unique or zealots: The construction industry has actually been aiming this way for 50 years and seems like it’s now beginning to build momentum. The state of the art of building science today is fifty years beyond those texts and is exemplified in the works of the Building Science Corporation (if you want to do some nerdy Building Science reading, Joseph Lstiburek is surprisingly funny)."