Building Envelope

Our window to avoid catastrophic climate change is closing. Existing buildings are one of the largest sources of emissions and among the hardest to decarbonize. At BuildingEnergy Boston 2023, Rachel advocated for “moderate” retrofits as a scalable strategy. Michael responded that deep energy retrofits must be pursued wherever possible. Despite the disagreement, Rachel and Michael share a common goal and are struggling with the same question.

An existing house represents an enormous amount of “up front” carbon that has already been committed. The more we can re-use it, the less carbon we are releasing per unit of housing. But when is enough enough? This session is about finding the sweet spot between existing and desired, and how to balance expense vs savings.

As part of a whole-building design approach, building enclosure is a key lever in reducing operational carbon emissions. With early phase detailing, precise thermal modeling can be performed to set achievable envelope performance criteria and define critical design components. This leads to more rigorous conversations with construction partners and more certain cost outcomes. We will explore recent thermal studies of panelized enclosure solutions for large scale high rise buildings that meet Passive House performance criteria.

This session will present a case study of the 544,000 sf Harvard Science and Engineering Complex, one of the most sustainable and resilient buildings ever constructed. The project employed a highly integrated design process to satisfy the aggressive performance goals set by Harvard. These included resiliency measures to address climate change, in particular sea level rise, and the highest possible energy efficiency, while providing a healthy environment for occupants, extensive water use reduction, and recycling.

This session will present RMI’s new freely available economic modeling software for different home decarbonization technologies (e.g., rooftop solar, battery storage, weatherization, air-source heat pumps, heat pump water heaters), demonstrate how different types of energy professionals can leverage it (e.g., estimating bill impacts of whole home versus hybrid air-source heat pumps), and visualize results for different retrofit types across the northeast (e.g., percent of homes that can cost-effectively electrify).

What does it take to meet the Passive House standard in countries with extreme climates? Can Passive House be adapted to specific cultural demands that seem at odds with Passive House principles? What can we learn from vernacular architecture? The session takes a deeper dive into the investigation of how the Passive House approach can be deployed globally, its opportunities and challenges.

This session will showcase the implementation of a high-performance façade assembly on an existing high rise concrete multi-family housing building complex, and the resulting measured data of operational energy and water consumption. In addition to addressing climate resilience, we will discuss how the project addresses community resilience by allowing the tenants to remain in their homes through construction and improving the quality of their spaces through design.

MassCEC’s Decarbonization Pathways pilot has tested and refined a protocol for a home decarbonization assessment with a goal of eliminating the use of fossil fuels in small residential buildings. The pilot also tested approaches to providing targeted support at the time customers are ready to act. This panel will cover the outcomes from the first cohort, discuss the ongoing second cohort, and describe further refinements for the upcoming third cohort.

When used early in the design process, energy modeling is a powerful tool for decision making, not only for sizing equipment but also for shaping buildings and selecting materials. Iterative energy modeling results in reductions in construction costs, embodied carbon, and energy use. With current climate and energy goals, energy modeling must be a tool available to all design and building professionals. Learn to create energy models of your own today!

As the energy and carbon landscape evolves, the design and construction of hospitals must change to meet new challenges. New techniques, perspectives and methodologies must be applied to drive innovation and achieve outstanding results. From the dual perspective of a CPHC and experienced HVAC design engineer, we will provide an overview of Passive House principles in the context of hospital design and construction. We will review three case studies: one occupied, one in construction, and one in design.

Dense packing cellulose in roof slopes has been a common insulation retrofit strategy in New England for a long time, however technically it has not been allowed by code without the inclusion of venting or foam insulation at the roof sheathing for condensation control. Previous BuildingEnergy presentations have suggested that further research should be done to evaluate whether vented attic space above unvented dense-packed slopes could manage moisture more effectively than insulating all the way up to the ridge.

Retrofitting buildings to reduce operating emissions is a key climate strategy. Viable, affordable, and scalable strategies must be implemented. However, we must avoid a surge of embodied carbon emissions from the manufacturing of building materials. This presentation showcases research and case studies evaluating the embodied carbon investment of varying retrofit assembly strategies and construction methodologies in cold climates with the expected operational carbon savings. We will hold an introductory how-to workshop on low embodied carbon approaches that exist today.

This session offers a case study of a curtainwall building in which the project team collaborated on an iterative energy modeling and design process to achieve aggressive energy reduction goals. Our panel will share insight on the process that led to significant energy and carbon reductions, predictive versus post occupancy usage data, and how this building will adapt to BERDO 2.0 and future energy and resilience considerations – a challenge facing recently constructed buildings that will need to decarbonize in the near future in Boston.

With rising determination to fight the climate crisis worldwide, practitioners are finding the Passive House standard a potent solution for the building sector. As passive and other sustainable building standards are proliferating worldwide, those standards meet a host of different location-specific challenges. This diverse panel of women architects and certified Passive House consultants are seeking to understand the adaptation of the Passive House standard globally.

Typical university dormitory projects are capital intensive and take several years to complete. This project turned this practice on its head. Using modular construction, on-site precast foundations, an integrated design-build team and low-embodied-carbon materials in a holistic approach, Colby College housed students as quickly as possible while ensuring the highest standards of beauty, accessibility, energy consumption, and healthy materials. Design started in September 2021, and students moved in in August 2022.

Windows are a key part of the building enclosure, but they are also the costliest, most fragile, and worst thermally performing component. We will present on windows from our viewpoint as building enclosure consultants and forensic failure specialists. We will explore energy and comfort impacts of glazing and glazing ratios, and then move on to water control detailing and the window-to-wall interface. Covered topics will include sill pan and rough opening flashings, “innie” vs.

The Massachusetts Maritime Academy consists of 16 buildings comprising approximately 600,000 sf, with heating for the buildings is provided by gas fired hot water boilers in each. They have undertaken a planning effort and initial design for a distributed campus-wide ground source heat pump system, combined with extensive energy retrofits. The plan consists of a neutral temperature Energy Transfer Loop that will tie various geo-exchange systems together to feed heat pump plants in each building.

Curtis + Ginsberg Architects has completed 6 multifamily Passive House buildings, with two more in construction and six more in design. Steven Winter Associates has completed over 20 Passive House buildings, with 15 more in construction and 30+ more in design. We have collaborated on many of these projects. By reviewing variations in the systems, we can draw conclusions about what works best for structure, envelope, ventilation strategy, heating and cooling systems, and on-site generation.

Have you heard about the building standard that's not a standard? Learn how to create energy efficient, healthy, sustainable homes with an emphasis on making the concepts and technical details accessible to builders and designers of all levels of development. Two of the four co-authors of the Pretty Good House Book will go through the essential elements of what makes a Pretty Good House and share how it can help make low-carbon energy efficiency more accessible to contractors, designers, and clients.

Electrifying the manufacturing process of building materials is a critical step towards decarbonizing the built environment. Going where no companies have gone before, two leading edge companies share their journey to reduce the carbon impact of their product. Each will tell their story on their path to decarbonizing their manufacturing process. This is the prologue, and the episode continues as they stretch their goals.

Bruce Becker is the architect, developer, owner, and operator of Hotel Marcel. He will discuss the conversion of the formerly vacant Pirelli Building in New Haven into Hotel Marcel, a 165-room LEED Platinum all-electric boutique hotel and conference center which is the first Passive House certified hotel in the United States. The discussion will include electrification (no fossil fuels including 100% of HVAC, hot water, kitchen, and laundry), power over Ethernet (POE) for all Lighting and Shades, and micro-grid creation for resilience with 1 megawatt-hour of battery storage.

The vast majority of construction defect litigation is over failures of water management. As we construct lower and lower energy buildings, we’re reducing their physical ability to withstand a little “whoopsy” with your water barriers. We’ll go through the fundamentals and the physics in presentation format, then share hands-on demonstrations of old and new methods that really work. You’re guaranteed to learn something that can be applied to your projects immediately.