Louisville Passive House

This project will be a Certified Passive House (Passive House Classic). It is a new house for a family who lost their home in the Marshall Fire, a devastating fire that burned more than a thousand homes in Boulder County, Colorado, on December 30, 2021. Sustainability and resilience are fundamental drivers of the design. The house will be constructed with pre-fabricated structurally insulated panels from B.Public Prefab. The 14" thick, heavily insulated panels will provide R-values of R-52 at the walls and R-59 at the roofs. The design of the house celebrates the thick walls with massing and material choices that give the nod to southwestern-style adobe houses, a typology that the owners particularly like. Clerestory windows and large glazed openings juxtapose the heaviness of the thick walls, flooding the house with light and opening it to mountain views. The house will be an all-electric, net-zero, Certified Passive House. It will use heat pump technology for heating and cooling (albeit low loads, given the insulation and air-tightness of the envelope), water heating, and an ERV system for natural ventilation. It will include PV panels and electric car charging, prioritizing environmentally responsible companies and material selections. The project is currently under construction.