About MRVN
MRVN is an award-winning architecture and sustainability firm that specializes in the design and construction of healthy buildings.
​
But what does that mean?
​
It means that we believe in the power of good building design to transform the lives of our clients and their communities for the better. It means that we focus on understanding the problems our clients are facing in their buildings so that we can give them the best advice on how to solve them. It means that we are always looking for ways to do better and touch the earth in a lighter way.
Value Based Design
Here's what we believe in:
1 / Be Authentic.
We are in the business of making our client’s dreams and visions a reality. Dream making is a deeply personal activity, and we will always strive to honestly understand our client’s thoughts, feelings, fears, and motivations while we do our work. Likewise, we will do our best to make our thoughts, recommendations, advice, and feelings known to our clients. Most of all, we will always be honest and truthful with them, because we’re asking them to be honest and truthful with us. Our work is deeply thoughtful, but we don't use over-complicated, faux-intellectual archi-speak. Real, authentic understanding, honesty, and truth: these are the foundations for good relationships that make great projects.
2 / Do Better.
We are passionate people. We strive to put 100% into every project that we work on. We support our team and our community by teaching them, by learning from them, and by working together do a little better every time. We work hard, we go home, live life, recharge, and come back and do it a little better each day.
3 / Harm Less.
Architecture and construction, by their very nature, are disruptive. This is the reality of our business, but we must strive to limit the disruption that our work causes to the absolute minimum possible. We look for opportunities for our design and construction work to touch the earth more lightly. We look for opportunities to make buildings that use less energy, emit less carbon, use cleaner materials, and contribute to the health and happiness of those inside. Our designs support local biodiversity and community well-being. We consider the whole life-span of our work and design buildings that can be maintained easily for the long term. We will design our buildings so that at the end of their lives we ensure they can be responsibly deconstructed, recycled, and biodegraded. This “whole-life” design is what sets us apart and allows us to not only do less harm, but more good to our shared earth and humanity as a whole.
4 / Innovate.
We aren’t afraid to try something new just because we’ve never done it before. Some of the most transformative events in history started as someone having a new idea and trying something different. Experiment. If it doesn’t work, try something new. Innovation and iteration are the keys to success.
5 / Go Boldly.
Strike out into the world confidently. Share your ideas with the people you meet and learn from them. Don’t be afraid to be different and have different ideas - that’s how we transform the world.
Michael J. Marvin, Jr., RA, AIA, LEED AP
Founding Principal
Michael is the Founding Principal and design leader at MRVN. Drawing on more than 20 years of experience in the architectural industry, Michael formed MRVN in 2017 with the goal of creating healthier, more sustainable buildings at every scale. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from NJIT and a Master of Engineering in Product Architecture from the Stevens Institute of Technology. Michael is a Registered Architect in New Jersey and New York, holds an NCARB Certificate, and has been a LEED Accredited Professional since 2008. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and two daughters.