Just wrapped up a very eventful Day 1 at the 20th International Passive House Conference. Still buzzing with excitement after the experience. It is now possible to see Passive House in the context of COP21 as a vital part of the arsenal that will be used to combat climate change.
Over 1,000 delegates here with 200 from China…………..can you believe that. It demonstrates how China is changing the way it thinks in an effort to combat their environmental problems as well as their commitment to COP21. This is all very heady stuff.
The speech of the day for myself and alot of other delegates what that given by Claude Turmes at the plenary session in the morning. Decarbonise energy with renewables and energy efficiency and……poof………..imperial wars for resources are no longer needed. Oh, and we get to avoid the worst consequences of climate change as well. And Claude knows what he’s talking about. He is the guy responsible for getting the EU to adopt the Near Zero Energy Buildings performance standard that all of Europe will have to comply with by 2020.
It was entertaining to see Brigitte Holz (President of Chamber of Architects & Planners, Hessen) pique the Passive House Institute for creating a standard that increases construction costs and then to see Wolfgang Feist come back out on stage with his blood most definitely up. His rebuttal was that architects had a responsibility to develop solutions to achieve Passive House with cost effective designs. Well said.
Near passive trailer park homes in Vermot – check out Peter Scheinder, great guy. Passive House upgrades to Manhattan townhouses (but they don’t tell the clients that its passive, only the benefits and its a winner every time). Passive Schools in the UK by Architype. Really inspiring stuff from all contributors.
I got to get up on my hind legs as well with a short presentation on foundation solutions for Passive House. Thanks to everyone who was there and for the warm words of encouragement.