Sustainability + Specifications

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How do you recommend selecting a builder?

The Kaplan Thompson team has longstanding relationships with many excellent builders, and we enjoy working with new builders eager to learn about our energy-efficient homes. We’d be happy to help you choose a builder, or to work with a team you like and trust. We prefer to work with your builder early in the Schematic Design Phase so we’re able to collaborate effectively and efficiently throughout the stages of your project.

You may ask us to help you interview builders and make recommendations as various cost estimates come in for your project. You’ll always make the final decisions, but many clients appreciate our feedback and experience at this stage.

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Do you assist with site selection?

Every great building responds to its place on the planet, and it impacts the space it inhabits. That’s why we consider the site you choose one of the most important elements of the architecture we design. Choosing the right site can be a challenge, which is why our process for helping you select the best location for your building is especially careful and deliberate.

Whether you’re located close to our office in Maine or not, there are several ways we can help you find the right land for your building. As you’re thinking about working with us, here are some things to consider while you evaluate different sites:

• What are the unique opportunities and challenges inherent to your proposed site, whether it’s based near a city or country, forest or mountains, ocean or lakeside?
• What is the sun’s path in summer and in winter?
• Is there vegetation that would provide protection, affect shade, or limit solar panel exposure?
• What are the prevailing wind patterns?
• What are the natural drainage patterns?
• Where are the primary, secondary, and tertiary views?
• What is the shape of the existing grade, and how would a building sit on it?
• How will site factors like required blasting, utilities, access, staging for materials, vehicle access, etc., affect site development costs?
• What is the soil type, and how does that affect septic and foundation considerations?
• Are there privacy and noise issues?

You don’t have to know the answers to all of these questions before getting started with us—that’s why we’re here. We’ll visit your site in person or using digital tools and help you make the best decision possible.

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How real is your commitment to sustainability?

Since 2004, we have designed hundreds of high-performance, low-impact buildings and retrofits at every scale. This is all we do, and with every year we are learning new ways to do it better.

We design spaces that consider the environment into which they are built as much as the environment they are creating. Using Net-Zero, Passive House, and Living Building principles - including airtight construction, high-performance envelopes, renewable energy systems, and non-toxic materials - we strive for our work to model how beautiful buildings may be constructed to combat climate change and improve user wellbeing. Our completed projects are built proof of this commitment to sustainability and progress towards our goal of a restorative architectural presence.

We are advocates of setting project goals at the outset - whether or not a project is seeking a formal sustainability certification - to harmonize aesthetic, performance, and budget. Energy conservation, materials conservation, waste reduction, and decreased impact on the planet are part of our standard approach to every project, big and small, from initial design to final construction.

Our firm has been a signatory in the American Institute of Architects’ 2030 Commitment Program since 2015, a voluntary initiative in which members pledge to annually reduce the Predicted Energy Use Intensity of their projects and progress towards producing carbon-neutral buildings by the year 2030. We were among just 19 firms in the country to meet the goal of 80% pEUI reduction across our entire portfolio of submitted work in 2023, our sixth consecutive year of successfully hitting this target. In 2018 and 2019, we were also named on the ARCHITECT50 sustainability list, the only architecture firm in Maine to be awarded this honor.

As a JUST organization, we are also committed to improving social equity in the firm and the community, and enhancing employee engagement around these values.

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What’s ahead for Kaplan Thompson Architects?

We’re passionate about creating buildings that can lead us all toward a new way of living in harmony with the rest of the earth, and we’re constantly researching and learning about our practice. We’re avid readers, teachers, lecturers, bloggers, and podcasters about this subject, and we’re always eager to discover more.

Our mandate is to unlock the puzzle of how to create buildings that actually improve the air and water around us. Until we’re there, our priority is to do no harm by building smaller and smarter, reducing landfill waste, conserving water and energy, and making our buildings attainable to owners who will value them for generations.