CCA Events
PassivHaus with Dr. Wolfgang Feist
Presented by CCA's eLAB (Architecture Program)
Tuesday, November 2, 2010, 7–9 pm
Timken Lecture Hall, San Francisco campus
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1111 Eighth Street
Contact info: architecture@cca.edu, or 415 703 9562
Free and open to the public
Dr. Wolfgang Feist, University of Innsbruck, and founder of the Passivhaus Institut Germany, first developed the term PassivHaus in the 1980s to refer to a voluntary, ultra low–energy construction standard for residences intended to dramatically reduce the requirement for space heating and cooling. Over the past 20 years, PassivHaus design has become mainstream and has seen widespread adoption in Europe. To date over 20,000 single and multifamily dwellings, offices, schools, churches, etc., have been constructed in accordance with PassivHaus principles, with several projects now nearing completion and certification in the United States.
The concept, that one can design buildings so well-balanced with their environments that conventional heating and cooling systems aren't needed, has fundamentally altered the relationship between buildings and the environment and buildings and their inhabitants. Eschewing complex and equipment-heavy approaches to sustainability, Passivhaus instead employs careful computer modeling, superior insulation, high-performance windows and doors, optimized shading, and heat-recovery ventilation—it is a high-tech approach to a low-tech solution.
But perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Passivhaus may be the questions it raises: Is it possible the Passivhaus system of energy manipulation allows for more interesting architecture than its competitors? Can degrees of design freedom be a rational measure of a green technologies success? What do we want our construction standards to provide us vis-a-vis our relationship with the "environment"?
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