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The Big Wall of Windows
While the concept is taking off in Europe, where over 10,000 passive houses have been built, there are still very few in the States. I have posted before about Nabih Taleb's passive house remodel in Berkeley, and I've heard about a few more which I'll be posting soon. But this month the Taunton Press's is featuring an article on America's first "passive house."
Chris Cheatham
Chris Cheatham, a DC-based construction attorney and LEED AP, and author of the , has put his presentation "" online. He had two main goals in the presentation.
(1) Explain the green building provisions in the stimulus package.
(2) Convey how parties can prepare themselves now to take advantage of resulting green building opportunities.
For more on Chris' insights into the stimulus package and its impact on green building, check out these two posts from the GBLU blog:
Silicon Valley From Space
Over the weekend I put up what I hope will be an important resource in the goal of achieving 100% zero-net energy homes in California by 2018 - a new website for the .
From the site:
SVPH is helping local municipalities to set challenging but practical goals for maximizing energy efficiency and carbon emission reduction in the local communities of the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California.
A commercial real estate development (image by MK Media Productions, CC 2.0 licensed)
The , also known as the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, "showing" that building green is not a winner in terms of payback. Apparently timed to coincide with a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on improving building energy code standards, the report found, according to , that:
A 50 percent energy improvement beyond federal standards is technically impossible. A 30 percent target is achievable, but only by adding a million-dollar solar system that could take up to 100 years to pay for itself
One of the Middle Class Task Force panels at the Philly meeting
If you're not reading the new whitehouse.gov blog, you're missing out.
This meeting in Philly last week from whitehouse.gov was great. Speakers included John Podesta, former Clinton staffer and now with the Center for American Progress; Van Jones from Green for All (based in the Bay Area), Fred Krupp from the Environmental Defense Fund, a bunch of cabinet and administration appointees, and representatives from labor like Leo Gerard of the United Steelworkers of America.
Some highlights:
Cohen house
On the blog, guest poster Robert Prewett from architecture firm writes about the ongoing with "extreme sustainability" as the primary goal. The renovation is making use of many concepts from the "passive house" approach, including using the official passive house modeling software for validation:
A mechanical system with a high efficiency heat recovery unit will ensure that almost all of the energy contained within the air will be transferred into the fresh air being fed to each room. Together, these measures add up to an 80% reduction in energy required to heat the house. Initial calculations using the SAP software were encouraging and these have been lent further authority by modelling the house using the ‘Passivhaus’ software developed in Germany.
Menlo Park Train Station
Just about two weeks ago, my friend Matt Harris, an architect with a green building practice, sent me an email:
The City of Menlo Park has this and they are looking for community input. Would you be interested in formulating some kind of response that would of course include our plug for passive house initiatives. Maybe we can get them to include some passive home or even passive building information or plans or guidelines in the Climate action plan. They have already cited "commercial buildings" as a target energy hog in the city for action in the action plan.
Berkeley - site of this week's Passive House California meeting (image by basykes, CC 2.0 licensed)
, who spoke two weeks ago at a event on the passive house concept, just told me about . They are "a group of building professionals from the San Francisco Bay Area working together to increase public and media awareness of Passive House."
You can check their website for more information, including their meeting this coming Sunday in Berkeley:
Date: Sunday, February 22
Time: 3:00PM (new participants) | 3:30PM (returning members)
Place: Babette Gee's office:
Bamboo - Fast Growing CO2 Sequestration (Image by Joi, CC 2.0 licensed)
I read for the latest innovations and breakthroughs in fuel cell technology, transparent solar cells, exotic new batteries and things like that. But there are tons of much lower tech innovations happening all the time. I happened to meet a guy the other night who's working on a new startup related to building construction.
