The largest Passive House project in Canada is under construction in Vancouver, featuring 85 units of housing.

The largest Passive House project in Canada is under construction in the East Hastings corridor of Vancouver Heights. The project is named The Heights and is a six-story mixed-use building that will feature retail space on the first level and 85 units of rental housing above.

“A Passive House is special because it is a more comfortable building to live in than a typical building. It doesn’t have drafts, it has fresh air, it isn’t cold near the windows, and it uses 10% of the heating energy for a typical building,” says Scott Kennedy, principal of Read More

With the ultra-green Madrona Passive Home, what goes around comes around—-again and again.

This nearly 3,700-square-foot, single-family custom home in Seattle’s Madrona neighborhood takes energy efficiency to a new high by keeping power needs low. Designed by Shed Architecture & Design and constructed by Hammer & Hand, the PHIUS+ Certified passive house is virtually net zero, according to H&H project supervisor Alex Daisley. Add in the home’s electric charging station, and you have a residence where more energy is generated than needed in a typical year.

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For this Chicago-area Passive House, energy performance, durability and health are interdependent.

When architect Tom Bassett-Dilley and Evolutionary Home Builders teamed up to replace an aging home in historic Oak Park, Ill., they wanted to pay homage to the region’s early 20th-century architecture. They also wanted to design and build a high-performance Passive House. Oak Park, a large suburb west of Chicago, includes homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and E.E. Roberts.

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This unique home’s smart and solar bells and whistles reduce its ecological footprint even more.

Building a home up to standards required to be deemed “passive” might make some builders cringe. But when the Valle Group received such a request, it was almost par for the course. The Cape Cod, Mass.-based builder specializes in carefully planned, energy-efficient homes.

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Lubberland’s Edge home showcases smart air management.

When Norbert and Robin Wesely designed their retirement dream home in southeastern New Hampshire, they were inspired by the concept of dynamic energy efficiency: living in a net-zero home that generates as much energy as it consumes. This would make planning for rising energy costs on a fixed income much simpler.

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