Tuesday / April 21, 2015 / 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM
Multifamily Passive Building Principles
AIA Chicago, 35 East Wacker Drive, #250
Passive building comprises a set of design principles used to attain a quantifiable and rigorous level of energy efficiency within a specific quantifiable comfort level. “Maximize your gains, minimize your losses” summarize the approach. Passive building principles can be applied to all building typologies, from single-family homes to apartment building to offices and skyscrapers. A passive building is designed and built in accordance with these six building-science principles:
-- It employs continuous insulation through its entire envelope without any thermal bridging;
-- The building envelope is extremely airtight, preventing infiltration of outside air and loss of conditioned air;
-- It employs high-performance windows (typically triple-paned) and doors;
-- It uses some form of balanced heat- and moisture-recovery ventilation and uses a minimal space conditioning system;
-- Solar gain is managed to exploit the sun's energy for heating purposes and to minimize it in cooling seasons.
Katrin Klingenberg, co-founder and executive director of Passive House Institute US (PHIUS), will discuss example cases of multifamily passive buildings, affordable as well as market rate, that have been completed in varying US climates at less than 5% additional cost and highlight the successful building science principles underlying such passive building designs for multifamily projects.
She will also provide a brief overview of the metrics defining the new climate specific passive building standard PHIUS+2015. Meeting PHIUS+2015 energy efficiency targets results in a median reduction (all US climates) of heating by 86%, cooling by 46% compared to IECC 2009.
Speaker: In 2003, Katrin Klingenberg, co-founder and executive director of PHIUS, designed and built her home in Urbana, IL, the very first home in the US to meet the European Passive House standard. Her experience led to her founding e-cological Construction Laboratory (e-colab) to further investigate applying passive building principles in the US. Working partnership with the City of Urbana, e-colab became a Community Home Development Organization (CHDO) and built single-family passive house projects as affordable housing units. As interest in passive building grew, Klingenberg oversaw the expansion of e-colab into the Passive House Institute US (PHIUS), a national organization that promotes passive building through training, research, and outreach efforts. PHIUS is based in Chicago.
Katrin has designed and consulted on numerous passive house projects since across North America’s varied climate zones. In addition to her executive role she is the lead instructor for PHIUS Certified Passive House Consultant training. In that role, she directs curriculum development and the technical and research programs of PHIUS. Katrin earned the German equivalent of a BS in architecture at the Technische Universität in Berlin, Germany, and an MS in architecture at Ball State University.
PHIUS and its related organization, the Passive House Alliance US, will host the annual North American Passive House conference on September 9 to 13, 2015, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.
