Affordable housing is key to bringing equity to disadvantaged communities. In Boston, the Department of Neighborhood Development (DND) design guidelines are pushing affordable housing with strict requirements that are equal to Passive House performance standards.

We will look at two similarly sized multi-family affordable housing projects that took different approaches to systems selections, and the architectural opportunities and constraints that drove those decisions. Going beyond the enclosure, we will discuss the roadmap of decision making that forms the project scope. We will examine the tools, policy changes, and processes that have made achieving Passive House easier, as well as touch on the funding mechanisms that made the development viable.