The Ecology School at River Bend Farm in Saco, Maine, represents what you might call anti-architecture. Comprising nearly 15,300 square feet of living, eating, and educational-support spaces, the project is, from an energy standpoint, virtually invisible—its embodied and operational carbon are offset by the energy it creates. Three Portland firms interviewed for the job—Kaplan Thompson Architects, Simons Architects, and Briburn—and all three got it, owing to the client’s wish to make the project stronger through a diversity of design approaches.

➜ The Ecology School, by Kaplan Thompson Architects, Briburn, Simons Architects, published by Architect Magazine, 2023