Passive House Pulse – Past Events

Hosted by Passive House Canada’s Luiz Bezerra, we will be welcoming our guest speaker, Monte Paulsen, a Passive House Specialist at RDH Building Science, who will discussing the statistical impact of climate change and how to retrofit buildings in a climate emergency. Topics will include the Stepwise EnerPHit approach, which is a tool designed to help building owners plan for adaptation and mitigation. Take this opportunity to connect with local industry professionals!

Monte is among Canada’s most experienced Passive House professionals. He leads a multi-city Passive House team that has consulted on or certified more than 70 projects — totaling 4 million square feet—including homes, offices, affordable mid-rise buildings, and luxury high-rise buildings. Monte is also a veteran Passive House Trainer who has helped more than 100 professionals earn their Certified Passive House Designer (CPHD) credential. His courses range from a one-day Passive House 101 overview to the multi-day workshop A Pattern Language for Passive House. Monte was a founding board member and volunteer at the not-for-profit organization Passive House Canada, and previously managed his own Passive House consulting firm, which merged with RDH Building Science in 2016.

We are pleased to announce that we will be hosting our very first Passive House Pulse social event in Nova Scotia! This session will be led by Lorrie Rand, a Certified Passive House Designer, and instructor for Passive House Canada. Join us for an evening of casual conversation with like-minded colleagues to engage on a number of interesting topics!

 

Lorrie is also the co-owner of Habit Studio, a successful architectural design practice specializing in sustainable whole home renovations and custom Passive Houses. She brings a valuable range of expertise to the home design industry.

 

We are excited to have guest speaker, Chris Higgins, a Senior Green Building Planner at the City of Vancouver, who will be discussing how to transform the built environment by addressing what Vancouver has done over the past 10-15 years to transform new construction to achieve zero emissions outcomes. Chris’s work focuses on low rise residential (70% of the square footage Vancouver builds on an annual basis) but he will touch on other built forms within the Vancouver context. The session will both cover civic policy with resulting projects (Fire halls, daycares, administration buildings, etc.), affordable housing policy and projects, as well as policy and building code affecting private projects. Vancouver leverages the International Passive House standard to help transform the built environment to deliver on our Paris commitments to address climate change.

 

1.5 Core LUs will be rewarded for attending this session.

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Chris is an accomplished project manager who has developed a number of successful programs that overcome market barriers and result in lower energy buildings that address the climate Emergency. He possesses a well-developed knowledge of energy use in residential buildings and has the experience to know the policy triggers to encourage action.

As a Senior Green Building Planner at the City of Vancouver, Chris develops and implements building bylaw, policy, and programs to achieve new buildings that run without fossil fuel, while at the same time helping to reduce greenhouses gases from existing homes. He works to remove barriers for Passive House projects, and possesses an understanding of regulatory and incentive options a city has at its disposal. Chris is a spokesperson at national conferences and to various media outlets.

Chris worked for the Canada Green Building Council from 2008-2014, developed the LEED Canada for Homes program for single along with multifamily homes and supported its delivery in all provinces and two territories. Chris has served on the board of directors for Passive House Canada. Prior to that Chris fond his love of better buildings while working as Mountain Equipment Cooperatives store planner. Chris is a Newfoundlander but has made British Columbia his home for the last two decades.

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This session will be led by Lorrie Rand, a Certified Passive House Designer, and instructor for Passive House Canada. We will be welcoming our guest speaker Kelly Fisher, who comes from a background in construction and architectural design, holds her CPHC designation since 2018 and PHPP Expert Seal since 2019. With 15 years of experience in the construction industry in various roles, this experience has allowed her to gain knowledge in many aspects of construction to understand the realities and processes of the construction industry. As a Certified Passive House Consultant, Kelly works alongside Architects, Engineers, and Builders on Passive House projects of all sizes. Learn More

 

For this session, we will be welcoming our guest speaker, Jamie Harte, an Associate at Public: Architecture + Communication. He is also an Architect AIBC and Certified Passive House Designer. Jamie will be presenting on the Skeena Residence: Lessons from Canada’s first certified Passive House student residence.

 

The Skeena  student residence at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan Campus is Canada’s first certified Passive House student residence, delivered to a tight deadline in 2020. Public: Architecture + Communication will share some key lessons learned through design and construction.

This session is approved for 1.5 Core LUs.

Jamie is a graduate of the Edinburgh College of Art and the University of Edinburgh, with professional experience in Ireland before moving to BC in 2011. Demonstrating an early interest in residential building, he focused his thesis work on multi-unit housing and inventive social spaces. Since graduating, Jamie has been involved in all aspects of residential architecture including close client engagement, programming, detailed design, and consultation with local municipalities. Highly invested in energy efficiency and low-carbon materials, he is a Certified Passive House Designer with Passive House Institute in Germany. Thorough, methodical, and detail oriented, Jamie leads with a particular gift for untangling complex problems.

Jamie worked on the first Passive House standard multi-unit project in Squamish and was the Project Architect for Skeena Residence at UBC Okanagan, the first Passive House residence on a Canadian campus. He is currently Project Architect for Vienna House, a project that takes on a number of complex issues – the climate crisis, the housing crisis, creating economic opportunities – in one project.

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Joining us for this session is guest speaker, Josh Vanwyck, a Certified Passive House Designer and Tradesperson from JMV Consulting. This session will focus on the lessons learned by the CPHD through the tendering, construction and early commissioning of the Ken Soble Tower, the largest Certified MURB EnerPHit in the world. The goal of the session is to answer questions and highlight some areas that designers and consultants should can be thinking of early in design to avoid changes down the line.

1.5 Core LUs will be rewarded for attending this session.

Register Now!

Josh has over 15 years of experience working in sustainable building design. Having worked on projects around the world including Canada, Germany, France, Tanzania, China and the Middle East, he brings his background in modeling, systems thinking, building science, and master planning to drive innovative sustainability projects forward. Joshua has worked on a mix of sustainable new and retrofit buildings as well as large master plan projects all with a focus on simple solutions.

He was the Passive House Designer for the Ken Soble Tower EnerPHit, and is involved in multiple multi family Passive House, institutional projects and a few Part 9 PH Projects.

Josh also teaches part time at BCIT’s school of construction on high performance buildings and how builders can reach the upper levels of the BC Energy Step Code and Passive House levels of insulation and air tightness.

We are thrilled to have guest speaker, Kim Walton, Principal, Certified Passive House Designer and Builder at Bow Crow Design, who will be discussing Passive House specifications.

Kim Walton has spent the last 40 years designing energy efficient homes and small buildings from the Alberta Foothills. Using her skills in Energy modelling and employing excellence in building science, Kim designs and manages Passive House and Net Zero projects across Canada.

1.5 Core LUs will be rewarded for attending this session.

Joining us for this session was our board member, Chris Hill. Chris is the President of B Collective Homes, a Vancouver based residential construction company, he is a Certified Professional Accountant, (CPA, CMA), Master Resident Builder (CHBA), and Passive House Tradesperson.

For this session, Chris presented a workshop centered on BOSS (Building Offsite Sustainable Systems); “A paradigm shift towards carbon neutrality has started globally. How we design, build and live in buildings is changing.” Learn more here.

 

 

Our first ever in-person Nova Scotia Passive House Pulse will be hosted by Lorrie Rand, a Certified Passive House Designer and Instructor for Passive House Canada. This event will be held at 5522 Falkland Street, Halifax. on the site of an 1850s era Halifax House that is being retrofitted as the future of Habit Studio headquarters. We will tour the work in progress and talk about the solutions and products chosen to go from a heating demand of 450Wh/m²a and 24 ACH to Enerphit performance.

Please note there is no working plumbing. Attendees should wear suitable footwear.  Click here to learn more about this session.

1.5 Core LUs will be awarded for attending this session.

The Toronto Green Standard Version 4, and the Synergies with Passive House

Momentum around net-zero ready buildings is building up in Toronto, with the acceleration of the Toronto Green Standard implementation timeline. Zac Zandona and Austin Barton, from the Environment & Energy Division team from the City of Toronto, will present on the requirements of the Toronto Green Standard version 4 – in application since May 1, 2022 – and the role Passive House plays in meeting these high-performance objectives set by the City. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A with the presenters, so come with your questions in hands!

1.5 Core LUs will be awarded for attending this session.

Click here to learn more about this session.

Join us at our Pulse Vancouver event this coming Thursday from 5:30 – 7:30 pm at 8th and Pine (1745 West 8th – entrance at Porte Cochere). Joining us for the evening’s discussion is the President of Delta Land Development Ltd., Bruce Langereis. Bruce will discuss projects including SoLo in the Soo Valley, an extremely high-performance prefabricated demonstration home, offering insights from a developer’s perspective and lessons learned along the way.

To learn more about Bruce and Delta Land Development Ltd., click here.

 

SoLo Exterior. Photo credit: Andrew Latreille/ Courtesy: Perkins&Will

 

The next Nova Scotia Passive House Pulse will be held at the future ‘Habit Studio Headquarters’ at 5522 Falkland Street, Halifax – an 1850s Halifax House that is being retrofitted as an office for Lorrie Rand; a Certified Passive House Designer and Instructor for Passive House Canada.

Myles Ekman, Project Manager at Vetta Building Technologies Inc.,  a leading Canadian owned supplier of custom, aluminum-clad, wood windows, doors, and HRV/ERV ventilation solutions will be joining us to answer all questions related to window performance specifications to optimizing windows to installing them! Click here to learn more about the speaker.

Please note there is no working plumbing at the location. Attendees should wear suitable footwear.

Come with your questions in hand. We hope to see you there!

We’re switching things up in August, with an in-person Passive House tour! The University of Toronto Scarborough Passive House Student Residence is leading the way on complex institutional buildings in Canada.

The building will house 750 student beds, above the level 1 podium with a large commercial kitchen and dining and mixed-use spaces for workshop-style learning. Pomerleau is leading the project delivery for the University, with its Design-Build team: IBI Group, EXP, MCW Consultant and RDH Building Science. The project is currently under construction with most of the enclosure work complete, aiming for completion in fall 2023.

Join Irvin San Juan, Project Manager, for a tour and discussion of this impressive capital project and earn 2 Core LUs!

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Please note that this is a construction site. Attendees are required to bring  their own PPE, including a hard hat, safety glasses, safety vest, safety boots (CSA 6” high). Anyone who is not dressed appropriately, will NOT be allowed to join the tour.

To ensure the safety of all guests, we ask that you please fill out and sign this ACCIDENT WAIVER AND RELEASE OF LIABILITY FORM and bring it with you to the tour. ANYONE WHO DOES NOT COMPLETE THE WAIVER FORM WILL NOT BE ALLOWED ON THE TOUR.

Please show up at the site at 1:30 pm to fill out your COVID survey. Meet the H&S Advisor – Steve Moss at Gate 1 upon arrival. Click here to view the map of the site.

 

Attend the highly anticipated tour of the recently completed Passive House and LEED Gold certified Gastown Childcare Centre, located at 150 Water Street and 151 West Cordova, situated in downtown Vancouver, in a historical neighbourhood that is a mix of commercial and residential buildings.

This project is an innovative response to an intriguing concept proposed by the City of Vancouver. The two 400m2 single-story buildings, located on the roofs of two underused parkades, provide 74 much-needed childcare spaces, accommodating 24 infants/toddlers and 50 preschool-age children.

Adam James was technical lead for the Gastown Child Care project while with Acton Ostry Architects. He will lead the tour and discuss the design and construction of the building. Learn more about the speaker here. 

Accessing the Building

The building is accessible from the public elevator located at 150 Water Street. Please meet outside elevator at top floor level.

 

Bring your PH questions in hand, and discuss your latest projects with our host, Lorrie Rand, a Certified Passive House Designer and Instructor for Passive House Canada at our next Pulse Nova Scotia event!

 

 

 

Attend our next Pulse Toronto event, hosted at Hariri Pontarini Architects office building at 235 Carlaw Avenue, Suite 301, Toronto.

Thomas Moore, Senior Building Systems Consultant at Steven  Winter Associates, Inc., will provide insight into specific Passive House designs on a large scale: residential, institutional, commercial, and retrofits, including projects such as The House at Cornell Tech and Pirelli Building Retrofit.

Join to learn more about the latest developments in sustainable design, the technical challenges, and required solutions, for delivering a high-rise passive house design.

This session will feature a presentation by Emma-Sofie Hestbech. She is a Master’s student in Engineering Psychology, a field concerned with designing user friendly and human-centered design. She has worked with 8 different research projects ranging from designing wayfinding robots to redesigns of apps and websites with different industry partners both in tech and architecture.

Through theory of environmental psychology and human-centered design, you will learn how to identify user-experience in a design. “The user” is an umbrella term for every different kind of stakeholder and user in a design project. Emma-Sofie will present methods to identify what aspects of the user experience is essential to your project in order to make requirements based on human use and preference. Additionally, she will show methods for psychological assessments of spaces to evaluate human well-being in a space. The end of the session will focus on how to incorporate this knowledge in a human-centered design approach. You will know more about how we cannot design a user experience, but we can design for a user experience.

Learning objectives:

• Identifying the relation between the user experience and architecture
• Systematic methods to measure the user experience of a design
• Apply results of user evaluations in the design process

 

This event will focus on ERVs – energy recovery ventilation – the components and how ERVs function, followed by PHI ERV testing certification requirements. The presentation will cover why energy recovery systems are needed, sensible vs. latent recovery, and frost control strategies.  A review of all common technologies, principles of operations, advantages / disadvantages, and side by side comparison of frost control needs with high and low Levels of relative humidity will be presented.  It will include Passive House ERV technology commonly used,  and model how different defrosting points will contribute to the energy cost of a building.

Conan the presenter for this event has spent 14 years as a manufacturer’s sales representative in the plumbing industry representing 45 manufacturers for the province of Nova Scotia.  He has worked on projects as small as a 1400 sq’ home to as large as the Saint Mary’s University district heating plant and the Pictou prison.

Learning Objectives:

1. What is an HRV / ERV?
2. Why do we need recovery energy from exhaust air?
3. What type of heat recovery technology meets my needs?

This session will be featuring Andrew Peel, Peel Passive House Consulting Ltd and Marine Sanchez, RDH Building Science Inc.

Andrew Peel | Principal, Peel Passive House Consulting

Andrew’s primary areas of expertise is in low carbon buildings and renewable energy. His professional and academic experience ranges from consultancy, program management, authoring technical and non-technical articles, course and lecture delivery, and technical research. Andrew provides Passive House and sustainability consultancy, certification, and training services to the building sector. He is one of only a handful of Canadian-based Passive House certifiers accredited by the German Passivhaus Institut.

Marine Sanchez | Passive House Service Lead, RDH Building Science

Being part of Canada’s highly experienced Passive House professionals circle, Marine leads RDH’s Passive House consulting services. She focuses on the design of large-scale institutional, residential, and mixed-use projects, channeling her passion and expertise to drive meaningful change in the industry to address the climate emergency. Her role includes developing Passive House designs on leading-edge projects such as the UTSC Student Residence, while also guiding site teams new to Passive House towards successful delivery. Marine also supports various levels of government in implementing policies, including the City of Toronto and their 2040 Net Zero Strategy, acting as advisor on the City’s Climate Advisory Group.

Learning Objectives:

1. What is the process to certify a building? Become familiar with the different roles and the process associated with Passive House building certification.
2. How does the construction process change with Passive House buildings? Identify the need for enhanced quality control/quality assurance to maintain performance throughout construction.
3. Understand the roadblocks and priorities when preparing a certification submission.

This event will be an Open Q&A with Passive House Certifiers. Bring your questions about Passive House to ask our experts, Andrew and Marine.

In this session, we will take you on a EuroLine Windows factory tour that will include a window Installation demonstration, window smashing, and time for Q&A.

We will start the session with the EuroLine Windows production floor tour led by Wilbert Giesbrecht, VP of Operations at EuroLine Windows . During the factory tour, you will learn about different window and door production processes, detail, and machinery.

The tour will be followed by EuroLine Windows demonstrating standard and passive house windows installation detail. Afterward, you will learn about how improving the U-value of a window in an insulated wall will improve the wall’s performance more than just adding more insulation from Alfred Jury, EuroLine Windows Passive House Consultant.

To wrap up the evening, we will be breaking windows with a hammer to demonstrate the strength of regular vs. laminated glass.

Wilbert Giesbrecht | Vice President of Operations, EuroLine Windows

Wilbert Giesbrecht is the Vice President of Operations at EuroLine Windows. He has been with the company for over 25 years and has vast knowledge and expertise in window and door design, production, installation, and operation. Wilbert is a leader in driving the day-to-day production of high-performance products at EuroLine Windows and is known for his lifelong passion for innovative and efficient building design and construction.

Alfred Jury | Certified Passive House Consultant, EuroLine Windows

Alfred Jury is a Certified Passive House consultant at EuroLine Windows with over 30 years of experience in the construction industry. He specializes in providing fenestration solutions to achieve high energy efficiency targets, focusing on long-term value, performance, and design.

Learning Objectives:

1. Window installation detail
2. Window and door production process
3. Window logistics to the site
4. compare the effects of higher window U-value vs. better wall insulation

Passive House focuses on thoughtful design, attention to detail, and early-stage energy modeling. But even the best-designed project is only as good as its execution, and certification is fully based on the building delivered. For this quarter’s Passive House Pulse event in Toronto, we will discuss project delivery and on-site execution, including the planning and construction processes required to complete medium and large-scale building projects to Passive House standards.

Please join our all-female panel who will present insights from real world projects applicable to builders, developers, and designers alike. We will discuss scaling up high-performance buildings, deeper quality control measures, upfront planning of quality processes, cost-optimized performance, alternative procedures and products, integrated project delivery and site evidence collection to achieve certification.

 

Josie Costantini | Project Manager at Schilthuis Construction Inc.

Josie is a project manager with Schilthuis Construction Inc. She is a certified Passive House consultant with a BA in Architectural Science and a Master’s in Building Science. Working with Schilthuis Construction for the past 7 years, Josie has been closely involved in the pre-construction and construction phases of multiple Passive House MURBs in Hamilton, Ontario.

 

Sheena Sharp | Principal at Coolearth Architecture Inc.

Sheena has over 35 years of experience as an architect. She spent 16 years in a large firm working predominantly on residential projects and led the team that designed the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College, an early energy efficient building. Sheena left in 2003 to establish a new firm, re-branding under the name of Coolearth Architecture in 2008 to focus on sustainable architecture.

 

Lori O’Malley | Building Envelope Specialist at PCL Construction Inc.  

Lori is a P.Eng., M.A.Sc., with over 25 years of building envelope industry experience.  She was an Associate responsible for Façade Consulting Services department at a large structural and building envelope consulting engineering firm in Toronto for 11 years.  Currently at PCL, she provides technical building envelope expertise during all phases of projects, while protecting design integrity and vision, and technical assistance on high-performance building envelope projects throughout North America.

 

Learning objectives:

1. Identify the need for enhanced quality control/quality assurance to maintain performance throughout construction.
2. How to set up design package documents to help the construction phase to go smoothly.
3. What to be aware of as a General Contractor to have a successful project – the requirements, the tools and knowing what questions to ask.

Thank you Swegon for providing food and beverage for this Toronto Pulse event

Will and Mark present their insights and experience with a 27-unit, multi-residential development that brings the values of New Urbanism to Pictou, Nova Scotia. They will demonstrate how this project fosters community and resiliency to climate change through careful, intentional design.

Mark Bernhardt | President of Bernhardt Contracting LTD

Mark is the President of Bernhardt Contracting Ltd. and CEO of Energy Code Solutions. For the last decade he and his team have spent their time developing, building, retrofitting, and consulting on some of Canada’s highest performance homes. Mark is also a Registered Energy Advisor and Passive House Consultant, and over the past few years has spent much of his time helping other builders gear up for Step Code and higher performance buildings. He serves on several provincial code committees and chairs the CHBA BC technical committee.

Will King | Principal, Waymark Architecture

Will is a licensed architect with over 15 years of experience in the field. He and his family live, work and play on the sunny shores of Victoria, BC on Vancouver Island. Aside from his work with Waymark Architecture, he also volunteers as a member of the Advisory Design Panel for the District of Oak Bay and City of Victoria.

Learning objectives:

1. Gain an in-depth understanding of the process of passive house design
2. Learn about the obstacles and solutions for innovative construction
3. Explore the possibilities for small communities and high-performance buildings
4. Understand how affordable housing and high-performance can fit together

In this session, we will take you on a BOSS Site Tour.

BOSS (Building Offsite Sustainable Systems) is a complete system for building homes that are affordable and carbon neutral.  It is an approach that is collaborative, open- source, and benefits the entire building industry.  Explore this recently erected prefabricated Passive House still under construction.

Personal Protective Equipment required –  Steel toe footwear, safety vest,  and hard hat recommended.

Chris Hill, CPA, CMA | President of BCollective Homes Inc

Chris Hill brings 15+ years of practical building experience and is an active member of the high-performance building community in BC. His professional accomplishments include: Master Residential Builder – CHBA; Bachelor of Arts, Economics – UVIC; Certified Professional Accountant, Passive House Canada Board Member; Safer Homes BC Board Member; and Developer of BOSS.

Learning objectives:

• What is BOSS?
• The process behind prefabrication
• The application of Passive House in offsite construction
• Identifying the gaps of prefab pre-construction projects
• Impacts of design and sustainability

Summerside Business Commons, known by some as Eco-Park, is the newest and most advanced business location for companies seeking a balance between sustainability and efficiency. This 14-acre infrastructure will soon have its first building which will be a 16,000 square foot light manufacturing facility, the first of its kind in Atlantic Canada. Designed by Charlottetown’s Open Practice Inc. – Collaborative Architecture, with Peel Passive House as the Passive House Consultant, the building will feature several innovations intended to significantly reduce its carbon footprint.

Join us for our first Pulse PEI to learn about this project’s focus on enhanced high performance, design and sustainability for industrial buildings and the application of Passive House for industrial projects.

Aaron Stavert | Founding Principal, Open Practice Inc.

As the founding principal of Open Practice Inc., Aaron brings twenty-five years of professional practice experience from a diverse range of projects exploring such areas as: embodied energy in building materials, methods of prefabrication in the off-shore oil industry, information technologies and their impacts on rural communities, adaptive re-use and revitalization of historic buildings, the ability of architecture to impact business and employee performance, sustainable materials and construction methods in residential architecture, and the “craft” of detail in furniture design.

Aaron obtained a Bachelor of Environmental Design Studies from the Technical University of Nova Scotia in 1995. He later earned a Master of Architecture degree from the Dalhousie School of Architecture in 1997, where he graduated with distinction.

Aaron is a member of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and is a registered architect in the province of Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.

Learning objectives:

• Identify the need for enhanced building performance to align with owner requirements
• The application of Passive House in industrial projects
• Impacts of design and sustainability for industrial buildings
• Designing for industrial use with Passive House

In-Person Tour of Ontario’s first EnerPHit-certified detached house
An in-person tour of  51 Sammon Ave, Toronto, Ontario, M4J 1Y7 (near Pape subway station).

Sammon is the first EnerPHit-certified detached family home in Ontario. The event will include a tour as well as a presentation on the process of delivering the project. We will have the privilege of having the owners of the house present for the event, who will discuss why they decided to build a house to the Passive House standard as they share their experience of living in one for the past two years.

Germán Vaisman | Director of Architectural Sustainability, Hariri Pontarini Architects

Germán believes in a world with low carbon emission and focused his architectural career on Passive House after he heard about it in a conference 10 years ago. He has worked for firms in Argentina, Israel, and Canada where he specialized in high performance building enclosures and sustainability. He is also a trainer for Passive House Canada and a strong advocate of the Passive House concept. He joined the Steering Committee of Toronto’s Carbon Leadership Forum and currently works as the Director of Architectural Sustainability at Hariri Pontarini Architects.

Learning objectives:

• Review key components of Passive House in single detached houses
• Understand the client goals regarding performance and indoor air quality
• Review the successes and setbacks of the design and construction process of the project

Designer: Coolearth Architecture

Passive House Certification: Peel Passive House

Please note: This event will be recorded, and may be shared  over Passive House Canada’s channels. Questions or concerns may be sent to: [email protected].

Passive House Canada is grateful for the support of our event sponsor, Vetta Windows.