Passive House Beyond Single Family Residential was a HUGE success!

Yesterday wrapped up a 2 day event where we began delving into the world of larger Passive House construction.  We had a wonderful lineup of speakers, headed by Gunter Lang, our keynote speaker who came from Austria to share his knowledge of Passive House with us.  His visit was extended to the California, Portland, and New York audiences too so in a way our conference was also Passive House beyond PHNW!    We were fortunate to have Adam Cohen of Structures DB speak on the philosophy of PH commercial construction.  Andre Desjarlais came to talk about WUFI and brought along his wonderful colleague Achilles Karagiozis who also spoke on moisture migration in constructions and how WUFI could identify problems in the design phase.  Adam, Andre, and Achilles all spoke the day before in our Advanced classes and gave us all such an incredible amount of information, both from Adams perspective of having actually built commercial PH projects, and Andre & Achilles being directly involved with the development of the WUFI software through testing of materials and building conditions.  Andre and Achilles are also interested in bringing the WUFI skills specifically to the Passive House level and will be talking to PHIUS regarding a way to do so.  This is very exciting for the Passive House community and from having taken the WUFI training with both of these instructors, I know they will be an excellent resource to have working with Passive House to promote sound moisture migration building practices.

During the conference we were also excited to hear Mike Hatten of Solarc discuss ways to bring a larger construction into the PH realm through planning of heating & cooling design as well as energy use through lighting and plug loads.   His talk was exactly what was needed to begin looking at the electrical design of these larger constructions and how their needs can be met within the PH framework.  As this discussion moves forward it is great to know that he is in the region and can be available for the Passive House consultants who are moving into that realm.  Peter Reppe, also of Solarc spoke of his trip to Europe and showed features of actual large scale PH projects that were built there.  It was good to see the details, see the accomplishments, and know that we too can head down that path.

Rob Harrison of Harrison Architects and Dan Whitmore of Blackbird Construction were on hand to deliver information of basic Passive House principles to those folks who wanted to know more about PH from the beginning.  Both of these certified Passive House Consultants are fabulous presenters and extremely well versed in the PH principles.  Their participation was so important as we grow so that we continue to advance the knowledge of Passive House to people at all levels of understanding.

We had two local projects showcased, Central City Concern is doing a feasibility study on a multi-family retrofit in Portland.  Ben Gates of CCC, Mike Steffan of Walsh Construction, Margo Rettig of Sera Architects, Ruwan Jayaweera of PAE Associates, and Dylan Lamar of Green Hammer all detailed their involvement in the project from existing conditions through to three final scenarios of which PH was one.  The discussion of the difficulties faced such as a huge amount of glazing on the North side, with very little glazing on the South, as well as the building being occupied was able to put large scale PH retrofits into a real world scenario that they are still wrestling with to bring to Passive House.  I am very excited about this project as I feel our existing resources are an incredible wealth of possibility for PH if we can figure out the ways and means to do it economically.  It has been done in Europe, now we need to translate that into our climate zones and building styles.

Finally we had a great presentation from Dylan Lamar and Gene Wixson of Green Hammer on their Capaces project in Portland that they are hoping to receive the first PH Office certification for.  They have a very exciting project that will include space that must be sized for use for groups ranging from 20 to 100 people as well as working with a volunteer workforce that is learning what PH building involves.  The lessons they are learning and sharing with the community are invaluable and we were so happy to have them come and share those with us.

The next PHNW conference is set for March 2012 in Portland, Or.  We will be looking for suggestions for a focus and topics.  If you were at any of our conferences and would like us to expand on an area or bring a fresh one to the table, please let us know.  These conferences are for you and the community.  We want to continue to bring you quality PH information and to make it a continuing learning opportunity for everyone involved.