Dattner Architects’ Sustainable Practice Group (SPG) is a volunteer committee that facilitates a positive environmental impact and improves occupant health, equity, and the resilience of the projects we touch through research on energy use, renewable energy, indoor environment and human health, sustainable materials, site ecology, and urban infrastructure. Our research is shared through a series of white papers called Sustainable Practices. Our second paper is on Passive House & Affordable Housing, in which we share our findings and lessons learned supporting the integration of Passive House and large, urban, multifamily affordable housing projects.
Dattner Architects has pioneered the integration of Passive House principles with the design of multifamily, affordable housing projects located in dense urban environments. Our success is attributed to a collaborative process — we work closely with clients and contractors to implement innovative solutions to meet strict energy efficiency criteria for the building’s envelope, water heating, and space heating and cooling needs. Our expertise was developed through active research and collaboration involving owners, engineers and willing contractors.
We have completed numerous Passive House buildings — the 1,200+ units created have been occupied for several annual heating & cooling cycles, which has provided valuable insights into operations, occupancy, and usage topics. This document is meant to serve as a primer to support designers, contractors and developers who are considering adopting Passive House principles to create a high-performance building within an affordable housing framework. It also documents lessons learned and how our process has refined as we continue to design and construct large-scale Passive House projects across the city.
We are currently facing a dual crisis – lack of access to truly affordable housing, and the impact of the built environment on the climate. There are those who say that these are often at odds with one another, especially in regards to budget. We believe that these two have a natural synergy that allow for easier integration. Our body of work proves that multi-family housing, cutting-edge sustainability and aesthetics can be combined in an affordable housing budget, and that Passive House projects can lead the industry in reduction of energy use, integration of renewable technologies, and designing for indoor health, regardless of location and typology.
