Passive House Prefab Summit II - A Deeper Dive

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The Accelerator’s second Prefab Summit on 12/14/20 showcased another series of prefab all-stars with materials and methods intended for buildings small and large. The lineup for this second summit included:

  • lka Cassidy from Holzraum System,

  • Alan Gibson from GO Logic,

  • Tomaz Stich from Stich Consulting & Design,

  • Travis Toole from Build with Nature,

  • Paul Grahovac from Build SMART,

  • Edie Dillman from B.PUBLIC,

  • David Arnott from TAG Panels, and

  • Graham Finch from RDH Building Science.

Each speaker brought a depth of experience to the event and a sense of the excitement and growth currently being experienced by so many in the prefab industry. Jumping right in, Ilka Cassidy of Holzraum Systems illustrated the prefab process by showing a video of the modeling she and her partners do to bridge the communication and design gap between an architectural firm and a prefab manufacturing facility—in this case Blueprint Robotics. That video also gives a sneak-peak tour of the Blueprint factory at work. In her subsequent discussion she mentioned that prefab can be a huge opportunity to level the construction playing field for women—an alluring comment that attracted audience exploration in the second hour.

Next up was Alan Gibson of GO Logic guiding the audience through a tour of the company’s predesigned offerings and prefabricated manufacturing. Expansion plans are in the works for GO Logic, which is the case for many of the other businesses as well. Gibson also touched on his approach to a Maine retrofit project that is in the early stages. On the west coast David Arnott of TAG Panels echoed some of Gibson’s themes, discussing the increasing demand there and his possible excursion into retrofit solutions.

The outstanding presentations continued on, and there are too many great moments to highlight them all. Watch the video to do justice to the full event. But, speaking of videos, the short Build SMART video introduced by Paul Grahovac gave a great sense of that company’s extensive experience constructing prefabricated assemblies for multifamily buildings.

And, you shouldn’t miss Tomaz Stich of Stich Consulting, who highlighted the CLT panels and other prefab components his company imports from Europe. He flashed several photos of the wood fiber board product that he imports being used in a retrofit of First Nation housing. Also imported from Europe are the low-carbon straw panels from Build With Nature that Travis Toole presented.

Edie Dillman of B.PUBLIC was fantastic at explaining that company’s approach to bringing Passive House design and construction within reach to a wider audience thanks to prefabrication.

Finally, RDH’s Graham Finch closed out the presentations with some exciting slides on prefab enclosures in high rises. Hundreds of audience members followed up with astute questions and discussions, all of which are captured on the video. Many thanks go to VaproShield and RDH Building Science for co-sponsoring the summit.