A Home Rebuilt for Barcelona
How do you sell the benefits of Passive House in a climate that is pretty lovely most of the year? Micheel Wassouf, principal of EnergieHaus, which is based in Barcelona, Spain, has been answering this question for more than a decade. During this period his 10-person firm has been increasingly busy with Passive House designing and consulting throughout Spain, and they recently certified their 200th building. But, in his hometown of Barcelona, which borders the Mediterranean Sea and can boast of a temperate climate in winter and summer days meant for swimming, Passive House has been a harder sell. Building efficiency just isn’t a front-burner issue for many, says Wassouf. Indeed, he still had not certified a Passive House project in Barcelona proper until ShowPass, his family’s retrofitted townhouse that was certified by PHI in 2021 as a step-by-step EnerPHit project.
The ShowPass project is aptly named, for Wassouf opens the home one day each month to show off his home’s Passive House features. His intended audience includes investors and developers, who typically seek out the lowest cost ways to earn eco credentials, but are under increasing European Union regulatory pressures to achieve more substantive environmental targets. A recent Saturday attracted 400 curious onlookers, mostly nonprofessionals participating in a citywide open house event. Wassouf, who had not anticipated this level of interest, ended up explaining Passive House principles 16 times that day.