My girlfriend introduced me to a contractor who seems almost tailor made for my project, having worked on a shipping container project in town and having strong green building credentials.  We share the excitment for this kind of thing and I think it'll turn out to be a good partnership.  He's going to put me in touch with some designers that could provide the design work, with the more expensive path available to us, and get me closer to a realistic working budget.  We'll work from there to narrow it down and get a design ready for permit application.

One architects we didn't talk about that looks interesting is Paul McKean.  I think I'll give him a call.  He's worked on the 14parcels project here in town, which I want to keep an eye on as well.  I don't think I'll go prefab, but modern container construction is closely related.