Model’s plans for massive build-to-rent Passive House developments in Melbourne was what set the 2025 Thrive conference in Australia buzzing but there were other presentations that really galvanised my attention. Kieran Leong and Ben Caine are Australian Passive House designers and architects working in quite different contexts but both their presentations offered some fantastic insights into how design professionals can …
PHINZ hui 2025: a summary and ideas for next year
What did you enjoy most? Well, talking to mates about Passive House is always my favourite. The Pecha kucha thing though! My expectations were low, I’m not familiar with the format, but it was very well done and really interesting. It whizzed through all of New Zealand’s different climate zones, with examples of projects from one end of the country …
Energy performance certificates for NZ homes
Talk of mandatory energy performance certificates (EPC) for New Zealand homes is always guaranteed to spark a lively debate. I admit to still being a bit on the fence on this issue. But the study I discuss below does recommend most of what I’d like to see included, should such a programme be introduced to Aotearoa. Two things are controversial: …
Ara collab spreads Passive House influence
Ara Institute of Canterbury, a leading provider of construction training in the region, was the location for Sustainable Engineering’s last in-person certified Passive House tradesperson course. It was a great venue and we were very happy to have two Ara tutors in the course. Ara’s people liked what they saw, valuing the blend of practical and theoretical education offered by …
That’s not Passivhaus, that’s just expensive
Years ago I warned of what I dubbed cargo-cult architecture, where architects throw in a few high-performance components like expensive windows and lots of insulation and expect a high-performance building to magically result. It’s a recipe for disaster and particularly risks creating houses that are unbearably hot in summer. This approach is based on guesswork and magical thinking, not building science. …
Winthrop Center: world’s largest Passive House office space
I visited a bunch of big American Passive House projects while in the US last year to visit family. Among these was the Winthrop Center in Boston, MA. It’s currently the world’s largest Passive House office space, with 70,000m2 on offer. The building is about twice that size, as it also includes retail and residential space. Usually certification is on …
What I saw at Thrive: a model Model
Everybody was talking about Model and with good reason. Conference organisers gave this property developer and its consultants a lot of time to talk about its concept and the work currently in early design stage. Model describes itself as an “Australian purpose-first build-to-rent group” which is a bit of a mouthful, but its intentions are ambitious: “Our projects – designed …
As-built tests for thermal performance of building envelopes
Of course I’m going to love a presentation that included differential equations! Fellow engineers Cameron Munro (Passive Analytics) and Harley Truong (Logikhaus) put their heads together shortly before the conference to envisage what form a new as-built measure for the performance of a building’s thermal envelope might take—the equivalent of a blower door test for testing airtightness. This is a …
Energy-efficient homes sell for (a lot) more
UPDATE [11 July 2024] This post, first published on 13 June, has been edited. See the addition under the Methodology heading below. We’re not putting too much weight on its claims now we have looked at the methodology involved. For years, I’ve been worried that professional valuers in New Zealand might not properly account for the superior performance of a …