Tag: integrity

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Volkswagen has been caught out cheating emissions tests. There is a gap between the performance promised by the car manufacturer and how Volkswagen cars perform in reality. There has been strong reaction to this in many countries and in the media.

Does the same problem exist with our buildings? There is plenty of talk about the “performance gap” in the construction industry, but no major outcries like there has been with Volkswagen.

The building performance gap encompasses energy consumption, CO2 emissions and occupant comfort.

So, is building performance more complex than car performance? Or do we just accept that buildings don’t perform as predicted?

There is a whole host of reasons for the building performance gap. None of them are insurmountable, though.

How can I say this with confidence? Because there is ample evidence that the building performance gap can be eliminated.

The international Passivhaus Standard eliminates the building performance gap.

039 Mind the building performance gap
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Perhaps you’ve heard the oft-cited African proverb: “It takes a village to raise a child.” Passivhaus is similar; it takes a whole team to successfully deliver a passivhaus project. The Passivhaus Standard requires an integrated approach to design so everyone on the team needs to be involved and to play their part.

Structural engineers need to design structure integrated with, not compromising, the thermal envelope. Building services engineers need to design the building as a whole system not as discrete items of equipment added to a building. Architects need to be aware of building services and structure and how they integrate as elements of the architecture. The passivhaus designer needs to be aware of the building shape, form, structure, services, physics and more. And the list goes on; the team of professionals working closely together on an individual passivhaus project can be quite extensive.

And looking beyond individual projects, passivhaus professionals share many common interests and goals. They want to deliver buildings that live up to their promises. They want to help tackle climate change. And more often than not, they want to work together and help each other succeed. Whether it is on specific projects, at conferences, or on social media, passivhaus professionals are very active in honestly sharing mistakes, lessons learnt, best practice and latest developments. There is a very strong global passivhaus community.

Community is a reason to Love Passivhaus!

021 Love Passivhaus Community
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integrity
/ɪnˈtɛɡrɪti/
noun
1. the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.
2.the state of being whole and undivided.

Breaking promises damages your integrity. Do you make promises about the performance of buildings you design or construct? And do your buildings keep those promises?

Let me share a short story with you.

On a commission where I was the project architect, we reassured our clients that their new building would be super energy efficient, among other things. And yet, once the building had been handed over, I found myself in an embarrassing situation.

In a meeting with the clients, they put me on the spot and asked me why the energy bills were so high. No matter how many times I explained that the new building was much larger than their old building and had a lot more energy consuming equipment in it, there was no way out: in the clients’ mind we had not delivered on the promise of a super energy efficient building.

In fact, the new building was very energy efficient. However, we had never quantified what we meant by a “super energy efficient” new building. Therefore, the clients’ interpretation of this was lower energy bills and all they had to compare were the energy bills from their old building.

Needless to say, this project wasn’t a certified passivhaus building. Had it been, we could have given the clients an accurate prediction of what the (radically low) energy consumption would be. They would have had a good estimate of the expected energy bills. And the building would have performed as predicted. Our promise would have been kept.

Integrity is a reason to Love Passivhaus!

018 Love Passivhaus Integrity
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