January 2018 Monthly Meeting

The number of passive houses and buildings meeting the stringent PHIUS+2015 Passive Building Standards has increased exponentially over the past two years: first single family residential projects were built, then multifamily projects and now the trend is moving towards commercial structures. Many municipalities such as NYC have already incentives in place for residential passive buildings or are evaluating to implement incentives as a solution to meeting their climate action plans. This presentation takes a look at three completed case studies of low and midrise multifamily projects across the country that were constructed at 0-5% additional cost over an EnergyStar baseline. Successful construction techniques and lessons learned will be discussed.

Katrin Klingenberg is Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Passive House Institute US (PHIUS). In 2003, Ms. Klingenberg designed and completed the first home to meet passive house standards in the United States. She has designed and consulted on numerous successful passive house and building projects across North America’s varied climate zones since. In addition to her executive role at PHIUS she is the lead instructor for PHIUS Certified Passive House Consultant (CPHC®) training. In that role she directs curriculum development. She also directs the technical and research programs of PHIUS, and is a licensed architect in Germany. She frequently presents on the passive building topic nationally and internationally.