This presentation illustrates the opportunity to integrate biogenic building products, non-mainstream construction techniques, and Passive House building science as a means to enhance occupants health as well as building resilience and durability.

The mainstream American construction industry fails to deliver high quality buildings, due to swings in political will, snail-paced building code improvements, as well as concerning voids in the regulations of many aspects of health, comfort, and durability in buildings.

As a result, even buildings that are brand new can expose occupants to harmful chemicals, mold and condensation issues, and uninhabitable living conditions. 

As an example, the obsolete building science at the basis of building code favors spray foam and vapor-close building assemblies. Consequently, buildings result less resilient in regard to moisture dynamics, which undermines their overall durability. Along the same lines, the lack of progress around building envelope performance leaves new buildings to still heavily depend on active heating and cooling to stay comfortable. For this reason, when significant power outages occur, this lack of thermal resilience leads these buildings to quickly become uninhabitable.

The combination of biogenic construction materials and building products, and the building science of Passive House, provide a powerful alternative that can overcome the issues faced by mainstream construction. While these currents of the green building world often run parallel to, and independent from, one another, they don’t exclude each other. On the contrary, they can be successfully combined, with the result being exceptionally healthy and resilient buildings.

The cross-over between Passive House building science and biogenic materials provides unprecedented opportunities for innovative yet surprisingly simple, durable buildings for the twenty-first century.

Learning Objectives

• Review aspects of building code and mainstream construction that are of particular concern with regard to health and durability in buildings.

• Evaluate the metrics used to quantify and qualify different aspects of resilience, comfort, and indoor environmental quality in buildings

• Analyze the building science tools that Passive House provides to improve on these metrics, with its climate-specific, performance-based methodology

•  Assess how to integrate the Passive House methodology using non-mainstream construction techniques and biogenic materials

This course has been Approved by the AIA for 1 hr. CE credit.

Daria Cawthorn is a local Bozeman carpenter and a certified passive house tradesperson. She and her partner operate a small construction company, Larch Creek Builders, which specializes in remodel and new construction. Daria also works as an assistant workshop trainer for Emu Passive, a leading provider of hands-on Passive House training for builders. Training workshops take place online and in-person around the country. 

Daria is a passionate student of life and the building industry. She is interested in both high performance and natural building, the intersections of the two and how to bring these high quality homes to more people! In her free time you can find her moving in the mountains, on skis or on foot!