This session will discuss the advantages and challenges of using CO2 Heat Pumps for decarbonizing and efficiently electrifying commercial Domestic Hot Water systems. The session will outline and discuss the Mitsubishi Electric Heat2O DHW solution along with other CO2 DHW systems and their applications. The functionality, operation, scalability, and relevant design challenges related to these types of solutions will be explained. This session will discuss the use and benefit of CO2 as a refrigerant and its impact on environmentally sustainable buildings.

To achieve mass adoption of offsite construction, the building process as we know it has to be reevaluated from multiple perspectives. This is especially true when combined with the goals of scaling up low-carbon and high-performance objectives. The session will explore how the three primarily residential companies have built their businesses around offsite manufacturing principles and have developed strategies to “unsilo” the industry.

With the coming updates to building energy codes, there is an anticipation of growth in the volume of Passive House buildings. It is important to have a fully scalable approach to successfully guide teams from scope development through certification. This session will give a “behind the scenes” look into the process and demonstrate how to best handle the expansion of Passive House projects with a look at the perspective of the project manager, the energy modeler and the PHIUS verifier.

Methods for electrification of DHW in multifamily buildings all pose challenges. This session will provide an overview of existing technologies and a brief history of how we arrived at central air-source heat pump technology as the least problematic solution today. We will use recent design-phase case studies to illustrate cost, estimated energy use, mechanical space requirements, system and equipment peculiarities, metering strategies, maintenance requirements, what we’d like to learn from systems as they’re installed, and why the alternatives for electrification of DHW are even worse!

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.

Think you know effective heat pump sizing and design? Significant market growth of cold-climate air-source heat pumps has resulted in new insights and lessons learned. Come explore new tools and best practices to enable improved design, sizing, and selection of ASHPs in this session with NEEP and Abode, and stay on the leading edge!

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.

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.