Pathway to building better with Architectural Design

I know there are many people out there wanting to do better with their choices in building and renovating their new homes. But with a misconception of the increased costs of building better, it often gets dismissed early on.

I enjoy conversations generated from parties outside my everyday operational sphere and a recent conversation with Malcolm McCracken, a senior analyst in Infrastructure with a background in Planning, is the inspiration for this blog. Malcolm, like me, has a passion for making our built environments better suited for both people and planet.

This famous quote by Le Corbusier was made when he developed his housing design philosophy in the 1920s. Fast forward 100 years, and it seems while we still quote this, we don’t action it to the degree we need to.

As we experience warmer summers and cold winters, we turn to regulate the temperature of the air by installing an air conditioning unit or a heat pump that can both heat and cool. While this is great for thermal comfort, this is a separate issue to ventilation.

There are 5 passive house principles which form the base for Passive House Design. They are Airtightness, Quality insulation, Quality Windows, No Thermal Bridging and Heat Recovery Ventilation.

I am excited to be starting the first phase of the Passive Haus Course. It's been a busy start to what is hopefully a good year.

There are many opinions about what Passive House, but some confuse it with passive solar design. Here is the explanation.