My North American Passivhaus Conference Presentation

It was a great get-together in Urbana with exceptional people  and real privilege to get an ovation for my presentation at the 2nd Annual North American Passivhaus Conference – especially since I only had to show my first slide to raise the roof. The title of my  presentation is "Incrementalism is Death." It's a phrase I modified from Nicholas Negroponte's concept that "incrementalism is innovation's worst enemy." In my view, when it comes to taking the leaps needed to solve the climate crisis in our built environment, incremental thinking isn't just an enemy, it's death.

The technology, building materials and construction talent is all available today. What we're a little short on, however, is the courage to leap toward real, integrated, sustainable solutions instead of continuing to take baby steps that just won't get us where we need to be.

So help me spread the word. I just put my complete presentation on SlideShare where you can view it, download it, share it and help me shake things up with it.

Comments

[Jason Fisher]

I am interested in learning more about PassivHaus and how they achieve the energy efficiency they can achieve. I am having trouble finding out what they use to heat and cool their structures. Do you have any information on how the are accomplishing these goals? Is PassivHaus a viable option in Oklahoma and Texas where we have both cold and hot days?

[Joe Bowman]

Stephan,

This is great to see that you were able to present at the 2nd passive house conference. We need to work together to get the word out about this, as it is sad that I missed last year's conference here in MN, and this past one in Urbana.

Let's look at ways for getting this out to the public and professionals.

Our case study is wrapping up on the Biohaus project for the Minnesota Renewable Energy Society and Center for Sustainable Building Research and will be accessible soon.
I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,
Joe