Passive House Accelerator global community.

The Passive House Accelerator online community, was set up in 2019 by New York based architect Michael Ingui. Inugi identified the need to promote the Passivhaus standard and its benefits to make it shine, so he established the community to bring people from across the globe together.

Passive House Accelerator acts as a place for those constructing Passive House and zero carbon buildings to come together to share the lessons they’ve learnt, to think creatively and to experiment. The collaborative platform is a place for practitioners, institutions, manufacturers, and anyone who is concerned with or interested in buildings and climate change, to explore how to create better buildings.

The community is driven to deliver health and happiness for all through buildings and believes that harnessing Passivhaus can do just that.

The Passive House Accelerator’s first promotional projects began shortly after set up when Passive House Buildings Magazine merged with the Passive House Accelerator. Helpfully you can access all copies of the magazine here. The organisation has become a major player in promoting Passivhaus, even despite the global pandemic.

When lockdowns began in early 2020 the Passive House Accelerator team was approached by Passivhaus experts, Monte Paulsen and Shaun St-Armour to collaborate to produce a virtual Passivhaus social event, “The Global Passive House Happy Hour.”

This experience provided a place for all, whatever their level of experience or expertise and wherever they lived in the world, to come together to learn and take part in lively discussion about the Passivhaus standard. The sessions ran every Wednesday (more information here about their plans for the projects future!).

Passive House Accelerator also run a podcast where hosts Matthew Cutler-Welsh and Zack Semke interview leaders, practitioners, and change-makers in the global Passivhaus movement. You can listen to podcast episodes here or on Spotify or Apple Music.

Via our colleagues at Partel, we were delighted to be asked to co-host the latest Passive House Accelerator online event series — the “Building Performance Interactive” series.

The BPI series is co-hosted by Hugh Whiriskey of  Partel and Ben Adam-Smith of House Planning Help alongside our very own Kiss House co-founder Mike Jacob. 

Each week the three hosts are joined by an expert guest who shares the lessons they have learnt from working in the best practice, Passivhaus building sector. The 8-part virtual series is run monthly and is free to attend. The guests share information on their area of special interest through specially created content. Each episode lasts an hour and includes five live learning sessions, informative videos and technical presentations, case studies, roundtable discussions and Q&A’s so questions are invited from the live audience.

To date six of the eight episodes have taken place on topics including Passivhaus design principles, n-ZEB (nearly zero energy building) techniques, and air-tight high-performance building methods. All episodes are recorded and are available after the event, so if you’ve not managed to attend one yet never fear.

You can register to attend here.

We hope you can join us on May 19 2022 to hear about the world and work of Kiss House.

In the eighth and final BPI event in the series our team will be sharing some video and lots of news about various exciting projects we’ve been working on. “There’s a lot happening behind the scenes and we can’t wait to share it,” says Mike Jacob of Kiss House.

The Kiss House team has been pulling together a series of info books — one for each episode of the BPI series. The e-books will be freely available to all and there will be one to accompany each episode of the series. They will provide a link to the video recording plus some brilliant bonus features and content, for example:

• A run through of the key points covered
• Info and contact details for all participants
• Extra info from the special guests on the questions they would have covered with more time
• Extra info from Mike Jacob on his insights from the episode
• Additional resources
• A glossary of terms

We will be issuing the BPI series e-books over the coming weeks so do please look out for links on our social media channels. To be certain of getting them sign-up to our news and we’ll send you info direct to your inbox.

Sign-up for our news here.

Videos of episodes to date

1. Train-to-nZEB: Hugh, Mike and Ben were joined by Passivhaus luminary Tómas O’Leary, MD of MosArt. Tomas provided a tour of the Centres of Excellence for High-performance Buildings and reflected on his experience as an educator. Watch the video here .

2. MMC – Offsite TF construction from start to finish: Lawrence Taylor and John Keenan, Ktf Timber Frame took the hosts on a virtual tour of the Ktf — Keenan factory. They focused on how modern methods can  maximise building performance and reduce carbon in buildings. Watch the video here.

3. Waterproof breathable fabrics in low carbon EnerPHits at scale: Andrew Simmonds, CEO at AECB and Partner at Simmonds Mills Architects; and Tim Hulse, Passivhaus Champion at EcoVert Solutions joined our co-hosts to explore how to improve energy efficiency in retrofit projects. Watch the video here.

4. Super insulated airtight PH homes, TF construction: Lee Broomhall, Sales Manager at MBC Timber Frame talked to the hosts about MBC’s work and approach to Passivhaus projects — especially Passivhaus foundations and timber frame. Watch the video here.

5. PHribbon calculates the embodied carbon in a new masonry building: Tim Martel, Chartered Architectural Technologist & PHribbon Developer provides insights into why the PHribbon is such a valuable tool, demonstrates its versatility in use and focuses on key materials and related services including heating systems. Watch the video here.

6. Achieving Thermal Performance in Modular CLT Developments: Morten Kudahl, Product Manager of Kliima takes the team on a tour of the Agorahaverne project in Denmark, the housing concept designed with the smallest possible CO2 footprint and the largest possible reusability.

7. Adopting innovative manufacturing techniques – Offsite LGS Structures: Paddy Mahon of Framespace, Head of Design and Engineering. 

8: Kiss House Construction System for Residential Developments: Kieran Coe and Richard Green, Directors of Easi-space.

Coming up

Episode 7:  April 21st 2022, “Adopting innovative manufacturing techniques – Offsite LGS Structures” with Paddy Mahon of Framespace, Head of Design and Engineering. 

All dates for future episodes are listed below.

Guests and topics will be revealed soon — look out for info on our social media channels

Episode 7: April 21 2022
Episode 8: May 19 2022

We hope you can join us!

For more on Passive House Accelerator look at these

Their website is full of fabulous resources.

You can see their community calendar here.

Watch videos of their round table discussions here.

You can see examples of Passivhaus builds here.

Never miss an event with their event announcer .

You can also follow Passive House Accelerator on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Other resources

Kiss House news sign-up — get news on BPI series e-books

BPI video teaser 

Series event LinkedIn page 

Partel news