Fire hardening is essential—but it’s only the beginning.
As wildfire threats intensify across many regions, residential design teams are being asked to think beyond basic risk mitigation and create homes that can protect occupants during smoke events, power outages, and extreme weather while delivering better everyday performance.
In this Project of the Month session, Graham Irwin will explore how wildfire-resilient design strategies can do more than help homes survive disasters. Drawing from years of experience designing high-performance buildings in California, he’ll share how approaches like airtight construction, high-performance enclosures, filtration strategies, and thoughtful material choices can also improve indoor air quality, comfort, durability, acoustics, and energy performance year-round.
Rather than treating resilience as a constraint, this session reframes it as an opportunity to create healthier, safer, and better-performing homes.
Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of wildfire-hardened construction strategies, the overlapping benefits of Passive House principles, and how to communicate the long-term value of holistic resilience-focused design to clients and project teams.
What you’ll learn:
Key strategies for wildfire-hardened residential construction
How high-performance building techniques can improve resilience beyond fire protection
Ways to design for cleaner indoor air during smoke events and disruptions
How to communicate the stacked benefits of resilience-focused design
Presenter:
Graham Irwin is Principal of Essential Habitat Architecture, a Northern California design firm focused on healthy, resilient, high-performance buildings that meet or exceed Passive House standards. Since 2008, his firm has designed numerous residential, multifamily, and commercial projects across California and the U.S., including the first certified Passive House in California, the first certified Passive House retrofit in the U.S., and the first certified multifamily Passive House project in the country. Graham is both a licensed architect and general contractor in California, bringing a practical, field-informed perspective to resilient design.
This free presentation will take place on Wednesday, May 13th at 9am PT / 12pm ET and will be followed by a lively Q+A session. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from an industry leader and engage with the PHA community. More details to come!