Reimagine Buildings Summer Lab Reports: Sharing the Wealth (of Knowledge)

By Jay Fox

Over the last several months a handful of practitioners from the Reimagine Buildings Collective have come together to puzzle over some of the biggest challenges facing the high-performance building community today. Known as the Reimagine Buildings Summer Labs, the working groups will present to the larger Accelerator community this Wednesday, October 28 at 12:00 PM Eastern / 9:00 AM Pacific. Presentations will be followed by a live Q&A session.

Topics range from the technical to the theoretical, but in every case the working groups will provide practical and actionable advice to other practitioners. In all, there are five groups who will speak.

The Retrofit Cookbook

Team members: Mark Attard, Ed May, Eric Zeise, Marcy Conrad Nutt, Mateus Souki Cordeiro, Patrick Osborne, Paul Herron, Peter Holtzman, and Rayan Ghazal

No two retrofits are exactly the same, but they tend to follow similar recipes. Because individual details can easily be replicated, this work group will discuss how we create a repository of Passive House knowledge to help practitioners build on one another’s work.

Wall Assembly Mock-Up Kit

Team members: Leo Cheng, Nathan Trick, Mark Attard, Eric Zeise, Rayan Ghazal, Stephan Stuart, Megan Ring, John Lipman, Mateus Souki Cordeiro, and Paris Remillard

This work group will talk about the challenges of translating 2D architectural details into 3D structures. Specifically, they’ll talk about how creating project-specific, job-site mock-ups can help teams strategize sequencing, identify problematic transitions, and better visualize even the thorniest of details.   

Passive House as Code Compliance Pathway

Team members: Leo Cheng, Megan Ring

Leo and Megan will delve into policy, as they discuss the challenges of incorporating Passive House into code, or using it as an alternative compliance pathway, in California.

Office-to-Residential Conversions

Team members: James Turner, Julie Torres Moskovitz, Matt Soltys, Michael Dudek, Mike Wong, Nandini Magella, Shaun St-Amour, and Megan Ring

Converting an office to a residential building is no easy task. This work group, which consists of real estate investors, architects, engineers, and builders, will walk through several case studies and share insights about how to successfully change a building from one designed for service to one designed for shelter.

Selling Passive House

Team members: James Turner, Paul Herron, Debra Little, Mateus Souki Cordeiro, Michael Hall, Nadia Javed, Scott Muellner, Marine Sanchez, Anthony Harrington, Bo Green, and Megan Ring

Preaching to the choir is easy, but talking about Passive House to those who are unfamiliar with the passive principles can be tough. This group will talk about the challenges of selling Passive House and strategies for getting the client on board with living in a healthier, more efficient, and more durable home.

The event is free and open to anyone who wants to attend. Whether you're an architect, engineer, builder, developer, policymaker, educator, student, or simply passionate about better buildings, you'll leave with new insights and inspiration. Also, the more people who come together to challenge assumptions and ask questions, the more we can refine our potential solutions.