Designing high performance commercial buildings will cost 10% - 25% more to build than conventional buildings – right? Adam Cohen of Structures Design/Build, LLC has been designing and building Passive House Commercial Buildings at costs comparable to typical new construction and is achieving Passive House level results. This workshop will explain the basics of Passive House design principles specific to Commercial Buildings. It will then go into the details of how buildings like medical clinics and college dormitories can be built at market rate while achieving Passive House standards.

The closing forum will feature 6 Pecha Kucha 20x20 presentations (20 slides, each for 20 seconds) followed by a discussion moderated by Matt Root. Participants will include three sages—John Abrams, Chuck Silver and Terry Brennan and three rising stars - Declan Keefe, Ace McArleton and Stephanie Horowitz. In 90 minutes, this session will teach you more about building, design, business, and life than you could learn in 10 years on your own.

Fairfax Gardens was a 150 unit dilapidated public housing development in Taunton, MA. The THA selected Trinity Financial to be the developer, owner and operator of a 160 unit replacement program on two sites. The Hope VI Program requires a very competitive funding application that includes strong sustainability incentives measured using Leed and/or Enterprise Green community checklist criteria. The Fairfax Gardens funding application was successful in part because it committed to very aggressive energy conservation measures.

Historic New England’s approach to weatherization emphasizes preservation over intervention. But as shown by the energy retrofit that achieved an over 60% reduction in energy usage at the Lyman House, a National Historic Landmark, energy performance and preservation can co-exist. This session will discuss HNE’s preservation philosophy and how it guides the organization’s energy conservation projects. We will share an energy usage analysis of all 36 HNE properties and discuss how that information is used to prioritize actions.

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge invites today’s practitioners to answer his call "to make the world work for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.” What would Bucky do? Buckminster Fuller’s legacy is alive.

Significantly reducing energy use in commercial buildings is a challenge. Doing so in cold climates even more so. Getting to Net Zero Energy use in these climates, now that’s what we call a tough. But with good design and engaged tenants, the near impossible becomes entirely possible, practical, and fun. This panel will describe key strategies for greatly reducing energy consumption in commercial buildings in cold climates with a focus on smart choices for building design, high performance mechanical systems and the tenant’s role.

Low-load homes struggle with summertime humidity more than conventional homes, and the Northeast isn’t getting any less tropical.  Let’s get ready.  We will consider how latent and sensible loads differ for low-load homes, how to calculate required equipment performance, and what our equipment options are.  After reviewing the basics of the psychrometric chart, we’ll use it as our playbook, loading it with zippy-looking graphics galore.  We will also present monitoring from recently built low-load homes.