Event – The North American Passive House Network annual conference (NAPHN18)

NAPHN18 Conference and Expo will take place on October 17-21, 2018, David L. Lawrence Convention Center, located at 1000 Fort Duquesne Blvd, Pittsburgh, PA. (The largest LEED® Gold Certified convention center in the world when it was built in 2003).
Over 1,000 attendees are expected. There will be a “Learning Lounge” and Vendor Floor Open to the Public.  There will also be workshops for deep dives into particular subjects and/or training. Passive house is a rigorous, voluntary standard for energy efficiency in a building, which reduces the building’s ecological footprint. It results in ultra-low energy buildings that require little energy for space heating or cooling.


PASSIVE (HOUSE) FIRST
IT’S ABOUT RESILIENCE – NOT JUST RATING SYSTEMS

Join North America’s Passive House community as it convenes in a hotspot of Passive House design and construction: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Thanks to a strong professional base, innovative governmental policy supporting Passive House, and a community of forward-thinking developers and housing agencies, Pennsylvania is home to one of the largest concentrations of major Passive House and other deep green development on the continent. Don’t miss the NAPHN18 Passive House Conference + Expo.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Meet Hubert Rhomberg, CEO of Austria-based modular tall wood construction firm, Cree. An industry icon and TED Talk speaker, Rhomberg has flipped the script on the traditionally carbon-intensive construction industry. Be sure to watch him “disrupting the construction industry”! Find out more about him and all of our speakers by checking out the link below.

HUBERT RHOMBERG

We are pleased to announce Hubert Rhomberg, CEO of Austria-based modular tall wood construction firm, Cree. Mr. Rhomberg is an industry icon and TED Talk speaker who has flipped the script on the traditionally carbon-intensive construction industry. Noting that one square meter of concrete causes the emission of two-and-a-half metric tons of carbon dioxide, while one square meter of wood draws down one metric ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, Rhomberg is recasting construction as a new ‘carbon storage technology’.

According to Mr. Rhomberg, “The best method in the world for carbon storage is photosynthesis,” he says. “You take carbon dioxide and sunlight and you make wood and oxygen. Then you take the wood and make buildings. You’re taking carbon dioxide out of the air and storing it for 100 years.”

Rhomberg and Cree have taken this concept and built a platform of digital design and high precision prefabrication to make tall wood Passive House buildings both economical and scalable. Cree’s Life Cycle Tower in Austria, a Passive House tower made of hybrid wood construction, was assembled onsite by just 5 workers: 8 storeys in 8 days. Cree’s portfolio has since grown exponentially in size and number, and now includes the world’s biggest wood building, located in Berlin.

Come to Rhomberg’s keynote address at NAPHN18 to learn how Cree’s prefab approach works, be inspired by the deep decarbonization that buildings can achieve, and get new ideas about your own Passive House projects.

SCOTT FOSTER

Scott Foster the the Director of the Sustainable Energy Division for the United Nations Economic Commission of Europe (which includes the US and Canada). You may have witnessed Foster’s powerful keynote last year at NAPHN17 in Oakland. He has lots of news to share in 2018, with three UN actions that have direct impact on Passive House growth in North America.

The first of these actions include adoption of the UNECE Framework Guidelines on Energy Efficiency Standards in Buildings, calling for an envelope-first approach to reducing thermal energy demand. He will also discuss the summer launch of the International Centres of Excellence on High Performance Buildings, with NYC’s BEEx (Building Energy Exchange) and Vancouver, BC’s ZEBx (Zero Emissions Building Centre). Lastly, Mr. Foster will share the establishment of the Global Building Network, focused on academia and the advancement in research into envelope-first design and the reduction of active mechanical systems. All three actions will speed development of Passive House in North America, perhaps with immediate on-the-ground implications for your town or region.

Click here for the program
Click here to register