Directors of the architecture firm RVTR are (left to right) Kathy Velikov, Paul Raff, Geoffrey Thun and Colin Ripley. (Gabriel Li/RVTR)

A Toronto architecture firm that wants to do design research on sustainable housing for a northern climate has won the Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture.

RVTR, formed in 2007, was named winner of the award Monday by the Canada Council for the Arts.

The Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture, valued at $50,000, is awarded to a young architect or firm to allow winners to travel the world to develop their creative practice.

The principals of the firm are Paul Raff, who also has an independent practice, Paul Raff Studios, Colin Ripley, a professor at Ryerson, Kathy Velikov, and Geoffrey Thun, who taught this past year at University of Waterloo and will be teaching at the University of Michigan beginning in September.

In 2009, RVTR's directors plan to study the methods used by mass-customized prefabrication industries in Japan.

"There's not much of a modular industry in North America," Thun told CBC News. "When compared to other industrial technologies, home building is really not very advanced."

He pointed to redundancies in the manufacturing sector, especially in the auto sector, and said creating environmentally friendly pre-fab technologies could fill that void.

"There are significant opportunities for these kinds of technologies to move here," Thun said, adding that modular building does have the potential to create more affordable housing of greater quality than site-specific building.

In 2010, the design team plans to look at how other northern countries create housing, including Iceland, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.

Thun said the team will be making contact with designers and architects in these countries who are researching modular building and studying how such housing could adapt to different cultural conditions.

"The Scandinavian countries have developed communities based on sustainable housing beyond what we do in Canada," he said.

The firm has already participated in designing sustainable housing, including a flexible off-grid vacation home called S.W.A.M.P. House. It is also involved in a research project with the University of Waterloo, Ryerson University, Simon Fraser University and U.S. researchers to develop an entirely solar powered prototype home.

A prototype of that home will be shown for the first time in Washington this October.The Prix de Rome prize will enable RVTR to study prefabricated housing elsewhere around the world. Shown is an earlier modular housing system for a cold climate designed by the firm. (RVTR)