Our summer of 2022 Passive House Accelerator magazine issue explores the theme of Outrage + Optimism, a phrase coined by Christiana Figueres, the former UN Climate Chief who ushered the Paris Agreement to completion and who urges us to harness both outrage and optimism to energize and sustain our climate action.
In this issue, we dive into how Passive House design will play a vital role in the future built environment, particularly by focusing on case studies from a wide range of building typologies in North America and beyond. These include a new mass timber multifamily in Boston, a mixed-use supportive housing building in Seattle, and an expansive residential project in Cartagena, Colombia—among several others. Gracing the magazine cover is Winthrop Center, currently under construction in Boston, which will contain the largest amount of Passive House certified office space of any building in the world when completed within the next year.
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Articles in this Issue
5/20/22
Plotting Retrofit Paths
Six design and engineering teams. Six existing social housing developments. Ten workshops to plot out the deep energy- and carbon-saving retrofits of these typical three- to four-story buildings.
4/8/22
Ice Box Challenge Sydney: A Lesson in Marketing Passive House
The Ice Box Challenge came to Sydney's central business district in summer 2022 thanks to the Australian Passive House Association.
3/17/22
A Delicate Balance: Weighing Embodied vs. Operational Carbon, Part Two
An optimized minimum of a project’s total carbon emissions can only be met by concurrently evaluating EC’s and OC’s relative contributions and the strategies to reduce them. It's not one or the other.
3/25/22
Mass Timber Supports Mid-Rise Housing
How Monte French, principal of Monte French Design Studio (MFDS), and Alex Yoon, project manager, came upon the idea to use mass timber for a multifamily building in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston
5/6/22
Hobson Place—A Vital Housing Resource
Hobson Place is a mixed-use supportive housing building designed to meet the complex needs of people living with disabilities who have experienced extended periods of homelessness.
6/10/22
Standout Passive Office Takes Shape in Boston
Developer MP Boston anticipates that Winthrop Center will be recognized not only as a new peak along the city’s skyline, but as a beacon of building excellence and environmental sustainability.
4/22/22
A CLT and Passive House Case Study
Placetailor’s 201 Hampden is a zero-carbon, full CLT, Passive House building that will be bringing 14 units of affordable and market-rate housing to Boston’s Dudley Square, with construction set to begin later in 2022.
5/27/22
To Live and Certify in Somerville
Vlad Pezel describes the process of designing, building and certifying Park Passivhaus in Somerville, MA. Construction on the two-story house began in 2012 and ended in 2013. Certification followed seven years later.
6/3/22
OPAL Architecture’s New School Approach
OPAL Architecture created a new, Passive House certified school building for the Waring School in Beverly, Massachusetts. Tim Lock of OPAL discusses the strategies they employed to make it a reality.
4/15/22
Puerto Madero in Cartagena, Colombia
Cartagena, Colombia suffers from a severe shortage of housing. This deficit prompted a group of investors and developers to acquire a 40-acre parcel, with the purpose of developing an integrated urban community.
5/13/22
Bethany Terraces Takes Modular to New Levels
Bethany Terraces is a blue-ribbon award-winner from the second round of the Buildings of Excellence competition that will bring 58 units of affordable housing for seniors to Brooklyn.
4/29/22
Kiss House Housing System Launches
New housing in the United Kingdom (UK) has earned an arguably well-deserved reputation for being of poor quality and unimaginative design.