Our fall 2022 Passive House Accelerator magazine issue is out—in both a digital and a print edition! This issue celebrates the themes of resiliency, restoration, and rebuilding with a host of case studies ranging from single-family homes designed for environments susceptible to wildfires to retrofits of large multifamily student residences, and much more.
Puzzled by how to incorporate overhead doors into a cold-weather project? Confounded by the challenges of adapting Passive House to hot and humid climates? Head to our Building Science section for expert advice.
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Articles in this Issue
7/29/22
United to Fight the Climate Emergency
Pembina Institute’s Reframed Initiative is a British Columbia-based program aimed at developing replicable deep retrofit solutions and scaling their implementation. Reframed teamed up with BC Housing and Metro Vancouver Housing Corporation to commission deep retrofit designs for six multi-unit residential buildings and invited multi-disciplinary teams to participate in a six-month Reframed Lab to design solutions for these buildings. What follows is an account by one of the Lab participants, Ruffy Ruan, a mechanical engineer and Passive House consultant with Impact Engineering.
9/2/22
Scotland’s Renfrewshire Council Commits to Major Retrofits
Inside ECD Architect's work to design and supervise deep retrofits of 3,500 homes from Scotland’s Renfrewshire Council.
7/15/22
Quebec’s Mass Retrofits Initiative
Michael Jemtrud of McGill University's Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture talks about ReCONstruct and how he hopes to quickly scale a massive retrofit program in Quebec.
8/5/22
Growing ReCover Retrofits
In a case study involving the townhouse portfolio of the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, ReCover, a nonprofit based in Nova Scotia, describes the significant role that retrofits play in helping jurisdictions meet climate goals.
10/7/22
Harvest Thermal: Delivering on the Promise of Decarbonization
Harvest Thermal's Harvest Pod transforms an ordinary hot water tank into a thermal battery to reduce emissions and improve resilience and comfort.
10/24/22
Solving the Passive House Materials Marketplace
Announcing the launch of Source 2050, a marketplace for the products and materials needed for Passive House and high-performance construction projects.
9/30/22
NYU to Retrofit Historic Rubin Hall
The team behind the retrofit of the 1920s dorm will follow the component path to achieve EnerPHit certification.
8/19/22
The Sugar Cube House: How Prefab and Passive House Can Accelerate Infill Housing
Sarah King and Graeme Verhulst of Waymark Architecture describe how prefabrication has the potential to scale up adoption of the Passive House standard.
7/8/22
Putting Passive House in The Loop
The team behind The Loop at Mattapan Station discuss how they took a project initially designed to meet code and gave it a Passive House boost.
10/14/22
Comprehensive Passive Strategy in a Brooklyn Brownstone
Michael Ingui of Baxt Ingui Architects discusses the challenges and lessons learned while retrofitting a Carroll Gardens townhouse originally built in 1899 and how the team managed to preserve many of the home's original features.
9/16/22
Farmhouse Forms Yield Passive House Comforts
Located just outside of Fort Collins, Colorado, Millhaus combines familiar and historic forms with industrial chic aesthetics.
9/9/22
Building Forward in the Face of Fires
Andrew Michler discusses how Passive House building methodologies can improve fire resilience for individual homes and communities, even compared to standard best fire-aware practices.
10/31/22
Cidery Celebrates Holistic Agriculture and Architecture
Completed in 2020, Seminary Hill Cidery in Callicoon, NY, overlooks a 62-acre orchard and celebrates the rich history of the Catskills region with its use of local materials and traditional form.
8/12/22
Passive Building, Thermal Resilience, and Retrofits
Graham Wright and Al Mitchell of Phius discuss the thermal resilience capabilities of passive buildings and thermal resilience's place within the context of Phius' REVIVE Pilot retrofit program.
8/26/22
Performance Consulting—Guided by Building Science
Kate Bren and M. Walker offer up a few case studies to show how Positive Energy provided support to three projects at different scales of building size, program, and scope.
9/23/22
Rolling Up: Modeling Overhead and Fine-Tuning Doors
Exploring the building science and challenges of installing overhead doors on Passive House garages.