NYPH announces the reappointment of Sara Bayer at Magnusson Architecture and Planning, George Kontaroudis at kw/h Architecture, and Jane Sanders at Henson Architecture to our board of directors! Their leadership and industry knowledge have been invaluable. This ensures continuity, stability, and the chance to build upon our progress to be leaders in the industry.
We also welcome our newly appointed board members Crystal Ng at Curtis + Ginsberg Architects LLP and Sebastian Moreno-Vacca at A2M+M2A. With Crystal and Sebastian’s fresh perspectives, we are confident their expertise will drive the future growth of New York Passive House. With our dedicated board’s collaboration, NYPH will succeed in 2024 to expand the demand for passive house construction.
Join us in congratulating our board members on their appointments. We are confident that the goals for 2024 will be reached
Sara A. Bayer is an Associate Principal and Director of Sustainability at Magnusson Architecture and Planning (MAP), where she manages many of the firm’s most energy efficient multifamily housing projects. She also leads studio-wide efforts to design for passive house, implement broader carbon reduction methods, and incorporate healthy building systems and materials. This work includes nine NYSERDA Buildings of Excellence Competition winners and two NYSERDA Buildings of Excellence Early Design Phase studies. Sara was certified CPHC in 2016, serves on the board of New York Passive House and is a frequent contributor in forums such as Urban Green, AIANY, ASHRAE, NESEA, BEEX, and PHA; striving to make sustainable, healthy, and uplifting design achievable for all.
George Kontaroudis is a Registered Architect, LEED Accredited Professional and a Certified Passivehouse Designer. He is currently the Principal Architect with newly founded kw/h architecture, a practice that focuses on Passivehouse and socially equitable design. George serves as the Vice-Chair of New York Passivehouse, where he also co-chairs the Policy Committee. In 2020, he became a Climate Reality Leader in Al Gore’s organization, the Climate Reality Project. He teaches design at the New School, Sustainability courses at Pratt Institute and the University of Oklahoma, and is an instructor with the Building Energy Exchange, where he teaches courses on Passivehouse and the Climate Mobilization Act. George regularly writes and talks in public about Passivehouse and the benefits of high-performance building. He holds a degree in Architecture from The Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London.
Jane Sanders is the Director of Sustainability at Henson Architecture. She has been a certified Passive House Designer since 2011 and a Registered Architect since 1995. Her work focuses on Passive House retrofits of historic buildings and phased building upgrades to comply with Local Law 97. She recently completed a Passive House retrofit of a pre-war apartment as a repeatable unitized strategy. Before Joining Henson, she had her own urban residential practice for over fifteen years where she completed 3 EnerPHit Certified Passive House rowhouse retrofits. Prior to that, she specialized in historic preservation and adaptive reuse for 12 years at Jan Hird Pokorny Associates. Jane was selected by the Department of Buildings to serve as a member of the 2019 NYCECC Residential Advisory Committee. She is a member of the AIA NY Committee on the Environment, the AIA NY Historic Buildings Committee, the Association for Preservation Technology, and the Zero Net Carbon Collaboration for Existing & Historic Buildings. Jane was a co-organizer of AIA and APT panel discussions exploring case studies in carbon reduction for modern heritage buildings. Jane lives in an EnerPHit certified Passive House in Brooklyn and frequently gives tours of her house to students, potential clients, and the general public to promote Passive House.
Sebastian Moreno-Vacca is architect and the founding member of www.A2M.be. His firm designs regenerative architecture for people and for the planet operating at the crossroads of science, art, and technology, demonstrating for years that we can not only limit our impact on the environment but go beyond, to the point of regenerating it Since starting A2M in 2000, Sebastian has led it to international recognition through his knowledge-building in sustainable practices and his long tenure as president of the Board of the Belgian Passive House Association. Since 2006, he has also been teaching architecture at ULB university in Brussels. In 2009, he co-founded and edited the quarterly magazine ‘be.passive’. In 2015 he helped Brussels to become the first region in world to adopt Passivehouse as the norm for all new build and retrofit. For over 18 years, he has been a regular lecturer for several professional networks (architects, engineers, builders and developers), offering an extensive set of presentations, conferences and training all over the world. A2M is headquartered in Brussels and has offices in Luxembourg and in New York through its sister company, M2A.
Crystal Ng, passionate about the capacity of low-carbon design to help build a more equitable society, Crystal Ng is Director of Sustainability at Curtis+Ginsberg Architects. She leads many of the firm’s Passive House and LEED projects and directs C+GA’s commitment to meeting the AIA 2030 Challenge. She was recognized as one of Crain’s 2023 Notable Leaders in Sustainability. Her work to advance high performance design directly contributed to C+GA’s 2021 Ivory Prize for Innovation in Affordable Housing. Crystal has degrees in architecture and urban design from Columbia University and the University of Southern California and currently teaches in the Building Energy Exchange’s Passive House Primer Program.
