An 812,000-square-foot area for offices at the Winthrop Center, a mixed-use commercial and residential building in Boston, has gotten Passive House certification, apparently the first in the U.S. Comparable buildings in Boston consume 150% more energy than Winthrop Center’s office space, according to the developer Millennium Partners.
To achieve Passive House performance, the design utilizes high-performing insulation, triple-pane windows and other construction techniques that improve airtightness and minimize thermal-energy losses. The nonprofit research organization Passive House Institute in Germany verified the building’s performance.
Canary Media story is here.
Buildings are, as you know, big energy wasters. Making them more efficient is part of the many-pronged approach needed to keep the economy going without boiling the planet.
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Amazing! But the office space is PH and the living space is LEED Gold, hopefully. The units start at 7.5 million and are marketed to the 1%. Something about that does not feel sustainable, to me.
https://wcresidences.com/
Great so see efforts to use passive solar on bigger buildings. We built a passive solar house almost 30 years ago. Our heating is about 60-70% less than would be expected, and electricity use is lower due to sunlight. We were fortunate to have a good location with orientation to south. It only added a few percent to the cost of building our home. The article says passive solar in the skyscraper in Boston only added 2 to 3% to the cost of construction, and will reduce energy use by 60% or more.