Manifesto: On Atonement, Territory, and the West Coast Imagination
At KAGVRV , we do not see architecture as static form-making. We see it as a verb—a process of cultural memory, political responsibility, and land-based inquiry. Our work is rooted in the conviction that architecture in British Columbia is not just a discipline, but a mode of listening.
We practice in a place where history is layered and unfinished. The land we build on is not neutral; it is storied, contested, and alive. We believe that architecture on the West Coast—more than in any other region of North America—carries the potential for cultural atonement. Here, the built environment is not merely a projection of capital or identity, but a gesture of humility. The proximity to enduring Indigenous sovereignties invites a different tempo, a different kind of authorship. It urges us to dwell less as designers and more as stewards.
Our studio aligns itself with the ethos Kenneth Frampton describes in Critical Regionalism, but with the added urgency of decolonial practice. We do not seek to romanticize the regional, but to mine it for responsibility. The climate, the forest, the cedar post, the rain shadow—these are not backdrops, but co-authors. Our work aims to make space for stories that predate the tools we draw with.
Unlike the more literal or commercially driven architecture, our West Coast clientele often act as patrons in the classical sense: individuals, communities, and institutions who fund projects not for prestige, but for meaning. This is particularly visible in collaborations with First Nations communities in BC’s interior, where the design process is as much about ceremony and remembrance as it is about program.
We design spaces that embrace incompletion, celebrate material honesty, and elevate the communal over the iconic. Our interest lies not in signature buildings, but in signatures of care—rooflines that respond to mountain profiles, walls that shadow tree lines, and interiors that hold silence with integrity.
KAGVRV exists not to dominate the landscape, but to conspire with it. We understand atonement as an architectural act: a willingness to build with reverence, to accept limits, and to embed architecture in a longer continuum of cultural regeneration. In this, the West Coast is not just our context—it is our curriculum.
Colin Berg Mbugua Bachelor of Science in Architecture : Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Master of Architecture : University of British Columbia, Canada
Contact : colin@kagvrv.com
Manifesto: On Atonement, Territory, and the West Coast Imagination
At KAGVRV , we do not see architecture as static form-making. We see it as a verb—a process of cultural memory, political responsibility, and land-based inquiry. Our work is rooted in the conviction that architecture in British Columbia is not just a discipline, but a mode of listening.
We practice in a place where history is layered and unfinished. The land we build on is not neutral; it is storied, contested, and alive. We believe that architecture on the West Coast—more than in any other region of North America—carries the potential for cultural atonement. Here, the built environment is not merely a projection of capital or identity, but a gesture of humility. The proximity to enduring Indigenous sovereignties invites a different tempo, a different kind of authorship. It urges us to dwell less as designers and more as stewards.
Our studio aligns itself with the ethos Kenneth Frampton describes in Critical Regionalism, but with the added urgency of decolonial practice. We do not seek to romanticize the regional, but to mine it for responsibility. The climate, the forest, the cedar post, the rain shadow—these are not backdrops, but co-authors. Our work aims to make space for stories that predate the tools we draw with.
Unlike the more literal or commercially driven architecture, our West Coast clientele often act as patrons in the classical sense: individuals, communities, and institutions who fund projects not for prestige, but for meaning. This is particularly visible in collaborations with First Nations communities in BC’s interior, where the design process is as much about ceremony and remembrance as it is about program.
We design spaces that embrace incompletion, celebrate material honesty, and elevate the communal over the iconic. Our interest lies not in signature buildings, but in signatures of care—rooflines that respond to mountain profiles, walls that shadow tree lines, and interiors that hold silence with integrity.
KAGVRV exists not to dominate the landscape, but to conspire with it. We understand atonement as an architectural act: a willingness to build with reverence, to accept limits, and to embed architecture in a longer continuum of cultural regeneration. In this, the West Coast is not just our context—it is our curriculum.
Colin Berg MbuguaBachelor of Science in Architecture : Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Master of Architecture : University of British Columbia, Canada
Contact : colin@kagvrv.com
Multi - Generational family house 01
Location : Steveston, British Columbia
Status : In - progress
Location : Steveston, British Columbia
Status : In - progress
Concept sketch - Southern facade as a composition of a series of rooms from the entrance to the kitchen, dinning area, the private courtyard and the bedrooms havesting the southern light with use of clerestory windows.
Concept sketch - Eastern facade as a identinty from the drive way. This moment mediates between the young couples entrance and the in-laws entrance to the left.
Concept sketch - Northern facade. The in-laws covered entrace area pulled into the center of the building through the landscape using a gentle ramp to navigate the topography. Buffering the entrance area from the living area is a cut out courtyard on the groundfloor which creates a seamless connection between the Japanese style garben and the interior living space. The inteded green roof slows down run-off in the commonly wet Vancouver climate and redirects it into its green spaces for absorbtion. The bedrooms from the young couples 4 bedroom unit cantilever over the entrance ramp.
