The first project to use the modular wall system is getting to break ground in June. The Balance Project is located in City of Santa Fe’s Baca Rail Yard District and will contain a residence and offices. We have had a tremendously difficult time financing the project due to the fact that it is the first of its kind in this area. Which we take as a badge of honor but Fanny Mae seems to think differently. The PH+ Wall System as we are currently calling it uses a material called THG manufactured by Agepan of Germany, THG is basically a wooden fiber board that has structural capacities, great thermal characteristics, and is vapor open. All materials used in the wall system contain no formaldehyde and are FSC certified. We will keep posting as construction begins. THe construction is expected to be complete in January of 2011.
Concept renderings that we produced for the Oshara Village Project
Santa Fe County had completed three generations of a RFP process directed at area organizations. The applicants were requested to submit projects that unitized the county’s money that they had set aside for affordable house production. There were four projects that were asked to provide final proposals. The two that stood out the most were from the Santa Fe Green Builders Guild who proposed development of a subdivision in Tierra Contenta, and from Danny Buck for development of town houses in Oshara Village. As a disclaimer I must say that we assisted in both of these projects and did what we could to have them move forward. However, in the final hours of decision the County decided to not move forward on any of them and instead to focus on the Galisteo Street Property that they already owned. I must say that i agree with that, though they might have saved quite a bit of resources by making that decision 12 months ago. Their Galisteo Street Property is the old Santa Fe County Public Works site, located inside of the Santa Fe City Limits and right next to one of our new rail-runner stops. It has every possible thing going for it in regards to sustainable locations, and potential except for a clear path of excavation. We hope that they do move forward.
This is an example of one of the products that we found during our research in Germany in February. It is a bracket made by Simpson Tie, that allows beams to be structurally bearing without penetrating the interior airtight barrier or interrupting the thermal envelope. We are currently talking to Simpson Tie to try and bring the brackets in to the US market.
Click on this link to see the video: Thermal-bridge free beam hanger
We attended the 14th Annual Passive House Conference in Dresden Germany last week. The Passive House Institute launched the International Passive House Association which promises to be a wonderful to for many of the Passive House organizations working outside of western Europe. The web site in now live, www.passivehouse-international.org
The conference was well attended by over 1,000 people representing over 52 countries. Much socializing and a general air of collaboration. The photo attached is of Katrin Klingenberg and Mike Kernagis of the Passive House institute US, Stephan Tanner of Peak Building products, and Klaus Muller with Optiwin Windows.
PHI conference
We are just back from the ACI conference in Austin. Many good discussions regarding PHIUS and the strong push that we are seeing towards, not just energy efficiency, but net-zero project. One of the products that we are seeing entering the market at reasonable prices are the Domestic Hot Water heaters using very efficient Heat Pumps. Some of these have COPs of 3.7, such as the Stiebal Eltron ( the highest efficiency model that we are seeing), also GE and Rheem are making them. One thing to remember regarding these units is that they are removing heat from whatever enclosure they are in. So placing one of these within the thermal envelope of your house will be great during the cooling season, but increase the demand of the heating system during the winter. We are looking at ways to capitalize on this characteristic by perhaps routing excess heat from the dryer to the heat pump location or by designing high airflow solar preheaters. We will see.
NEEDBASED Inc. is a Santa Fe architecture firm focused on Sustainable Design, Affordable Housing, Green Building and Planning.
This fall we found that we have several projects that targeted Passive House Certification and perhaps had the opportunity to develop a prefabricated modular wall system. We have spent the last several months developing this concept further to determine the feasibility. It is looking good; our trip to Germany to visit Agepan, Optiwin, and several prefabrication facilities in the Germany was enlightening. The current prefab wall system will be used in the Santa Fe Rail Yard Project and in the Apartment complex in Flagstaff.
We are currently obsessed with vapor-open wall assemblies. In late January 2010 we traveled to Germany to visit the Agepan manufacturing facility and to meet with Hans-Robert Holzer (Marketing Manager) and Susanne Renz (Technical product Manager) to begin the process of using their products on our projects. Agepan manufactures several vapor-open sheathing materials, as well as OSB, and insulation. All are Formaldehyde-free and FSC certified. We also met Klaus Muller of Muller Schreinerei GmbH, who manufactures Optiwin Windows. We find them to be the highest performance window for the money.
This fall Passive House Institute US (PHIUS) was formally changed to a registered 501(c3) non-profit and a board was selected. The current board of directors is Allison Kwok, Gray Swicegood, Mike Knezovich, Laura Briggs, and my self, Jonah Stanford as board president. I will write more on the committees and our current work in future blogs. Another huge step for Passive House Institute US was the formation of the Passive House Alliance, which took place last month (January 2010). Already four strong Passive House Chapters are in place. Contact NEEDBASED or PHIUS for more information.
Due to the way that the Affordable Housing Ordinance was written for the City of Santa Fe, and Santa Fe County, there are no new affordable housing units hitting the market. Santa Fe County is working on getting some units on the ground by using some 5 million that they are under pressure to spend. We are seeing more interest in Passive Houses as Affordable Housing Non-profits, municipalities, and developers look for an edge regarding sales. We are currently working with several of these entities to this end as well as developing an affordable Passive House Model that could be used as needed by non-profits.
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