This milestone is the culmination of years of investigation, exploration, and design:
Planting the Seeds
The work grew out of Mohamed Imam’s doctoral research at the University of Calgary, Resource Generative Architecture, which asked how buildings could produce—instead of only consume—resources.
Watering the Plot
In 2023, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Agricultural Clean Technology Program awarded Perkins&Will $429,000 to study building-integrated agriculture. Additional matching funds were later granted by The BC Centre for Agritech Innovation through partnerships with Simon Fraser University (SFU).
That same year, in response to the City of Vancouver’s mandate that food assets be integrated into large developments, our Vancouver studio ran a series of workshops across our design teams to explore how this could work in practice. Our designers were clear about what they needed: real yield, energy and social data, and modular examples that could fit tight sites.
Enriching the Soil
The research answered with evidence. In 2025, we published a peer-reviewed framework in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems for measuring a farm’s carbon, energy, and water in the same terms we use for buildings. We also released Resource Circularity: Reimagining Cities as Regenerative Ecosystems, a report that features 150 projects worldwide and more than 80 contributors from 17 organizations.
In 2026, the report received the RAIC Research and Innovation in Architecture Award.
Tools came next. With SFU’s Computational Design Lab, we developed a design-tool prototype to support decision making around building integrated agriculture during the design process. A beta web version, the Resource Circularity Engine, is now available to the public for testing.
