New Book: The Greenest Home: Superinsulated and Passive House Design

Posted by NYPH , November 14, 2013 - General Interest - Science & Lifestyle, News

The Greenest Home: Superinsulated and Passive House Design (Princeton Architectural Press) Last week Amazon Editors' announced the Best Architecture Books for 2013 and The Greenest Home made # 6! Author Julie Torres Moskovitz is a member of New York Passive House. The book highlights 18 Passive House case studies primarily in North America and a project range of new construction and retrofit projects. The book features photographs and drawings of…

Talking Transition: join NYPH and Urban Green Council to help make the Mayoral transition count

Posted by NYPH , November 11, 2013 - Events, General Interest - Science & Lifestyle, News, Passive House Institute

How do you think Mayor De Blasio should promote sustainable, healthy and resilient buildings? For the first time in 12 years, New Yorkers will have a new mayor. It’s time to start Talking Transition. Talking Transition is an open conversation about the future of New York City to help shape the next mayor’s goals and strategies. Whether you’re a lifelong New Yorker or you’ve just arrived, everyone has a unique vision…

Passive House Living

Posted by NYPH , November 7, 2013 - General Interest - Science & Lifestyle, News

I have now been living in our brand new passive house for 3 weeks and wish to report my first impressions: Peace, bliss, silence, fresh air, no draft, no headache: WOW, it actually does what it says on the box! What was a bit destabilizing in the beginning is that you do not hear anything at all: no furnace igniting like a truck has started moving in your crawl space,…

What is Passive House?

Posted by NYPH , November 3, 2013 - General Interest - Science & Lifestyle, Passive House Institute, Real Estate, Technical

Passive House is a building standard.  It is a voluntary international building standard developed by the Passive House Institute (PHI), located in Darmstadt, Germany – referred to also as The Passive House Standard.   The Passive House Standard is composed of several strict performance requirements for new building construction.  For the renovation of existing buildings PHI developed a similar if slightly more lenient performance standard.   The resulting performance represents a roughly…

RESILIENT AND SUSTAINABLE: PASSIVE HOUSE GROWS AT GREENBUILD 2013

Posted by NYPH , November 1, 2013 - Events, General Interest - Science & Lifestyle, News

Greenbuild, the world's largest conference and expo dedicated to green building, takes place November 18-23 in Philadelphia. This year's huge Passive House presence is a reflection of the growth of the Passive House standard in the US. GREENBUILD 2013 is to feature six presentations that focus on Passive House building, three building tours, and on the GREENBUILD EXPO floor there will be a PASSIVE HOUSE ZONE organized by the North American…

Passive House Tours at Greenbuild

Posted by NYPH , October 30, 2013 - Events, News

The 2013 Greenbuild International Conference and Expo will feature tours of Passive House projects in Philadelphia on Monday, November 18 and Friday, November 22. Monday Afternoon Half-Day Tours: 2:00-6:00 pm TM06: Reimagining the Rowhome: New Housing Design in a Historic City Row homes comprise the majority of the building stock in Philadelphia, and innovative designers and builders are rethinking how they look and operate. This tour visits several sites, including…

BuildForward Capital LLC Launches Operations

Posted by NYPH , October 30, 2013 - Financial Incentives, News

New York Passive House member Melissa Ruttner shared the following with us: BuildForward Capital LLC Launches Operations, Financing Deeply Energy Efficient Construction Projects in New York City and Environs BuildForward has created a unique, crowdfunded lending platform that allows individuals and institutions to lend directly to borrowers who seek to make radical improvement to the energy footprint of their buildings. Melissa Ruttner, President of BuildForward, said, "At BuildForward, our mission is to…

Philadelphia Passive House Primer 2013

Posted by NYPH , October 22, 2013 - Events

The day before Greenbuild, the huge green building expo in Philly, learn the basics of Passive House. Full-Day Passive House Primer Course Architecture Department, Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia Architecture Building, Room # 104, 2001 North 13th Street, Philadelphia PA 19122 9am Tuesday November 19th 2013 Target Participants: This course is aimed at anyone interested in high performance buildings, including architects, designers, engineers and consultants as well as contractors,…

Passive House Office Towers

Posted by NYPH , October 9, 2013 - General Interest - Science & Lifestyle, News

Currently the tallest Passive House skyscraper in the world is the 20-story Raiffeisen office building (RHW.2) in Austria. It maxes out Vienna's height restrictions at 78 meters. The building features high-performance glazing, heat recovery from the data servers, a ground-source heat pump, and 240 square meters of solar PV. According to Der Standard the construction budget was 84 million euros (about $380 per square foot). See the Passive House Database for…

Building Efficiency and Blower Doors: Essential Responses to Sandy

Posted by NYPH , August 2, 2013 - HVAC, News, Technical

By Ken Levenson, A.I.A. Superstorm Sandy has produced a torrent of meetings, plans, reports, announcements and actions by city, state, federal and non-governmental organizations. Today, before their terms expire, the New York City Council and Mayor are racing to pass important legislation based on these past months of herculean effort. While the action may be understandably focused on measures directly related to storm survival of our built environment from wind…

International award for energy efficient buildings and regions

Posted by Andreas Benzing , June 9, 2013 - News, Passive House Institute

Announcing the 2014 Passive House Award - submission deadline 30th September 2013 Darmstadt. Those at the forefront of energy efficient construction globally can now submit innovative projects for the 2014 Passive House Award. Competition entries may include single buildings as well as entire districts or regions. An independent jury will evaluate the architectural design and urban planning aspects of the submitted projects with special attention given to the use of…

NY13 Passive House Symposium, Saturday June 8th

Posted by Andreas Benzing , May 12, 2013 - Events

Passive House: Toward Net Zero Energy To slash energy use and carbon emissions while developing our built environment, Passive House is the proven essential first step – increasing comfort and health while reducing heating and cooling demand by up to 90%. The NY13 Passive House Symposium (NY13) will explore the effectiveness of Passive House as a cornerstone of our low-energy, low-emissions future - highlighting important questions regarding policy, finance and performance…