Elizabeth Hauver
Username
Elizabeth Hauver
Proposer First Name
Elizabeth
Proposer Email
hauver@west-work.com
Proposer Last Name
Hauver
Proposer Company/Organization
West Work, LLC
Proposer Job Title
Energy Design Lead
Boston 2023 Areas of Focus
Proposer Additional Info
Certified Passive House Consultant
Proposed Session Description
Different schools of thought teach varying priorities when designing architecture. Today’s climate crisis requires us to expand our definition of what constitutes good design. Please join us for a workshop centered around efficient form finding strategies. We will review the importance of early form efficiency calculations in a project’s development. Attendees will be equipped with a toolkit providing recommended steps and key calculations needed along the way to inform energy performance.
Diversity and Inclusiveness
The speakers represent a diversity of gender, age, and experience. The content of the workshop aims to equip attendees with knowledge to assist them in our collective efforts of decarbonizing the built environment. Our goal is to share tips and tools to help designers, of all experience levels, achieve higher performing designs without having to conduct simulated energy modeling. Additionally, by identify efficient building forms early on in the project, the building will not have to relay on high quantities of insulation or top of line MEP systems to function efficiently. Thus cutting down on up-font construction costs helping to make sustainable housing more affordable.
Learning Objectives
Attendees will be able to calculate a buildings surface to volume ratio, heat loss form factor, and window to wall ratios.
Attendees will be able to identify ratio ranges that yield a better chance of obtaining Passive House certification.
Attendees will be able to discuss the basic principles of passive house & typical insulation R-value targets based on the size and use of a building.
Attendees will be equipped with a timeline for when certain steps must be implemented to best set up a project for successful Passive House certification. This includes when to engage with PHIUS and when & what energy modeling software's should be used.
Has this session been presented before?
No
Target Audiences Level of Expertise
Level 1 - No prior knowledge needed.
Session Format
Workshop or skill-building session
Session Format Details
20-minute presentation followed by 25-minute design exercise and concluded with 15 minutes of review and Q&A.
Recommended Length
60-minute session
Strongest Content Connection - Boston 2023
Comments about your speaker roster
Liz Hauver has presented on the topic of passive house at several events; Facades+, Passive House Accelerator, BuildBoston, and Woodworks.
Mike is a practing architect with decades of experience in affordable housing and more recent experience in passive house design. He is also a CPHC.
Both Mike and Liz were finalists at this years BE+ Green Building Showcase for the Green Building of the Year award. Liz was able to speak about their submitting project, 31 Tufts Street, which is 16-units of affordable housing that achieved Passive House certification. Liz is the submitting CPHC for the certification and Mike is the architect on the project.
Anything else you'd like to tell us about your session proposal?
We will present WUFI Passive energy modeling results for 3 - 5 different shaped multifamily buildings (all with the same # of units, envelope and MEP system) to show attendees how energy performance changes based on shape alone. We'll provide handouts that include a few sample buildings for participants to calculate out the window to wall ratios, SVR, and HLFF and their associated targeted envelope insulation values.
Reviewer 1
Nielson, Christopher
Reviewer 2
Nielson, Christopher
Proposal #
184
Committee Decision
Being Considered
Presenters
Full Description
As a practicing CPHC, many times I'm asked to join a project after the building footprint and shape have largely been solidified. In some cases, this is too late and these buildings simply aren't shaped appropriately for Passive House certifiability. Structures with poor window-to-wall (WWR), surface-to-volume (SVR) and heat loss form factor (HLFF) ratios require higher quantities of insulation, better performing MEP systems, and additional renewable energy to achieve Passive House energy performance targets. I'd like to inform other designers the importance of running quick pencil and paper calculations alongside their iterative design process to ensure the building forms they're proposing are also going to perform efficiently. This will help secure a higher level of success when the project is ready to contract with a certification passive house consultant and begin energy modeling. In light of the new Specialized Stretch Energy code, this is imperative to successfully permit multifamily buildings.