AIA Seattle’s Corporate Allied Partners (CAPs) enliven the AIA Seattle community and value involvement with AIA Members.
This year, Medgar Marceau, Building Science Engineer, will present Passive House and Commercial Construction at AIA Seattle’s Sustainable Design Series. The series is a full-day workshop with 7 sustainable-design presentations.
Medgar’s presentation will begin at 10:40 a.m. and is eligible for one AIA LU|HSW credit.
Presentation Overview:
The accelerating growth of Passive House across the US and Canada is leading a change in the building envelope industry across the Pacific Northwest. With Vancouver’s new mandate to meet the Passive House standard for all city-owned commercial buildings, and Seattle’s progressively stricter energy codes, it’s only natural that our industry will have new challenges to meet on the pathway of sustainability. There is a large knowledge base of how to build durable residential buildings that meet the Passive House standard. However there are few examples of commercial buildings meeting Passive House. This presentation will help bridge the knowledge gap between residential and commercial construction. Basic principles of Passive House are high levels of insulation, no thermal bridging, an airtight building, very high-performance windows and doors, heat and moisture recovery ventilation, and optimizing solar heat gains. All of this while ensuring occupant comfort and durability are paramount. Achieving these objectives in Passive Commercial will require the same.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the challenges in translating Passive House to Passive Commercial
- Examine solutions for: A) minimizing thermal bridging in commercial construction; B) providing an air-tight interior vapor retarder
- Discuss thermally efficient at-grade and below-grade transitions
- Utilize 2-D and 3-D simulation tools to evaluate hygrothermal performance