Passive Houses Get Aggressive

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(December 15, 2019) Five months ago, a couple of renowned Chicago area architects joined Peggy and me in studio. That they appeared together on the program was a bit of a fortuitous accident. Well, actually, I arranged it. But, as they talked about passive homes, net zero architecture and sustainability, their chemistry was terrific. So we said, “Let’s do it again.” So we are.

Today, we welcome back Evanston-based Nathan Kipnis, FAIA, principal at Kipnis Architecture + Planning, and Tom Bassett-Dilley of Tom Bassett-Dilley Architects, Ltd. in Oak Park, Illinois. Since buildings account for 40% of global CO2 emissions, architects must play a huge role in lowering that number. And they need to do it quickly.

Just this week, the United Nations meeting known as COP25 was held in Madrid, with the future of the 2015 Paris climate agreement in the balance. Vox reports, however, that there are some roadblocks, including the United States. It’s not bad enough that the Trump Administration is leaving the accord. But the stable genius in the White House, along with a couple of other enlightened nations, wants to douse it with gasoline and set it on fire as he walks out the door.

One big hurdle is the set of rules around creating an international carbon market under Article 6 of the Paris agreement. Most countries agreed on the guidelines, and negotiators have been reluctant to name the holdouts. But on Friday, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, Costa Rica’s minister for energy and environment, called out the United States, Brazil, and Australia as the parties thwarting closure on the issue.

Forbes agrees that things aren’t going well at COP25.

The reporting from Madrid about real progress on global carbon pricing is bleak. Instead of moving to build a sensible global tax system, as recommended by economist Martin Weitzman, the Madrid delegates are building an emissions trading system featuring accounting tricks and loopholes that will not limit emissions, but will instead increase both smokescreens and smoke. The provisions being considered include proposals for double counting emission reductions and using unrealistic definitions of forests.

Nonetheless, architects like Kipnis and Bassett-Dilley push forward. Kipnis is the national co-chair of the national AIA (The American Institute of Architects) 2030 Commitment working group, where he assists architects in their efforts to design full Net Zero buildings by 2030. He was instrumental in passing the Lake Michigan Wind Energy Act and helped craft the Evanston Climate Action Plan. He is co-founder and core member of NextHaus Alliance, a collaborative team of experts that builds beautiful and inspiring environments for visionary clientele.

On the NextHaus Alliance site, you will find blog posts like this one about Designing for Both Beauty and Resilience. Read it to see a stunning home that Kipnis’ firm designed in Chicago. Kipnis wrote this piece about Why an All-Electric Home is the Most Sustainable Home. When you think about it, it makes sense. I just hadn’t thought about. And you can read about a renovation that Kipnis did for a Green Prairie Four Square in Chicago.

The most dramatic architectural feature is the thermal chimney located in the center of the house that reaches upward to the underside of the roof. Two perpendicular bridges cross the 2 ½ story vertical shaft, allowing natural airflow to rise up to a bank of ten remotely controlled windows that let hot air flow out of the house, pulling in cooler air from lower floor windows.

Key elements of the project include coordinated deconstruction of the existing home, resulting in a 80% salvage rate of materials. Reclaimed oak floorboards were saved from the previous house, restored and refinished. Existing stained glass were reused in the living room, while others were integrated into the built-in bookshelf situated between the kitchen and family room.

That takes us to Tom Bassett-Dilley, who notes that the Passive House Conference was just held in Washington DC, At that event, a project that his firm did in Downers Grove won best Source Zero and Best SIngle Family in the 2019 PHIUS Passive House Projects Competition. Bassett-Dilley says that architects now speak of embodied carbon (what’s contained in materials, and the energy to build) and global decarbonization. In fact, the keynote speaker, Jeremy Rifkin, spoke of the Third Industrial Revolution and a decentralized, renewable-powered infrastructure.

Speaking of passive houses, he just wrote a blog post called How TBDA Uses Passive House To Design Better Buildings. In it he states,

The “business-as-usual” approach to design is to focus on program and appearance, then have an engineer or contractor size mechanical systems to condition the building; more sensitive designers may take into account sun angles and daylighting, but for many designers these are afterthoughts as well. That approach usually leads to needless energy consumption, glare, overheating, and thermal bridging. Our approach is to use the powerful Passive House modeling tool to tune the building to the climate as an integral part of the design process.

We begin design with an analysis of climate (temperatures, humidity, sun, rain/snow, wind), vistas and sense of prospect or “belonging” on the site, topography, and neighborhood or natural setting, all to allow the building to speak the language of the site. I think of it as imagining a living thing that evolved to live in that place—its feet or roots in the ground, its back to shelter, its face to the sun, with the right brows, whiskers, or foliage, as the metaphor may be!

In a phone conversation the other day, I mentioned that not everybody can afford a new passive house. A retrofit is often their only option. You saw above a retrofit that Kipnis did in Chicago. Bassett-Dilley’s firm also does that kind of work. He writes.

On retrofits, so much to say–the necessity of them, the building science you need to know, incentives out there like you’re using, Mike, etc. Here’s a high-design energy retrofit we did in Wheaton, and here’s a Chicago two-flat retrofit. 

By the way, when he writes about incentives and mentions my name, that’s a long story. The short version is that Kathleen and I just qualified for a City of Chicago grant to have work done on our home. We’re insulating our balloon-frame home, installing more efficient windows, and tuck pointing. Our lives are in chaos right now, but it will be worth it. Literally.

Oh, yes, I will bring that up today. Get ready for another great conversation.