Tower Tour: Passive House scaled up

In light of my recent transition back into the field of Architecture, I am resurrecting my 'Tower Tour' series that I started when I lived and worked in Dubai.

While I did not work on these projects, I have become more and more interested in energy efficiency, sustainability and building practices which lead me to click on this CBC article:

Passive House Highrises

Passive House Canada

During my time as a building inspector, the latest Alberta Building Code came into effect with some new energy efficiency requirements. As an inspector, I didn't really have the time nor the tools to fully explore this and I relied heavily on consultants.  I am embarrassingly uninformed about the Passive House but I had heard of it a number of years ago and I believe that, while not directly 'Code-related', the end goal of both are probably similar.

On a personal note, I am almost out of propane at the acreage and the last time I had it filled, it was unexpectedly expensive! Ridiculously so. The price of propane had more than doubled since the fill before and I spent several months chipping away at that invoice and groveling on the phone every month when the propane company called about my overdue balance.  I hate overdue balances and I hate groveling.

I have been casting around for a new project, something to get excited about, something that is "bucket list worthy."  Here's where the world's largest scrap-book of unrealized dreams comes in: Pinterest.  I've gotten into a bad habit of mindless binge surfing, however, in one of these totally unproductive Pinterest episodes, I stumbled across a cute little house design that checks off quite a few of the acreage dream-house boxes (more on that in a future post ... and more on the pointless binge surfing.)

So circling back to the Passive House: I started casually working on plans for an energy efficient, affordable acreage dream house.  Casually.  Very casually.  An energy-efficient one that does not require propane.