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Boston’s new Winthrop Center is now officially the largest Passive House office building in the world

2023-10-06T17:58:00-04:00

The new Winthrop Center in Boston by Handel Architects has just been certified by the Passive House Institute (PHI) as the largest Passive House office design in the world, according to an announcement made Friday by its developer Millennium Partners.

Inaugurated in the spring after a six-year concept and construction phase, the 691-foot mixed-use tower includes 812,000 square feet of Class A office space and another 510,000-square-foot segment with 317 luxury residences within its 52-story design.

The office component of the Center, which earned the PHI designation, incorporates between 30 and 35% more fresh air than a typical commercial design. Millennium Partners shares: "A typical Class A building in Boston’s existing stock uses 150% more energy and existing LEED Platinum buildings in Boston use 60% more energy than Winthrop Center’s office space."

Image courtesy of Millennium Partners.

“With Winthrop Center, we wanted to think beyond the status quo, and we were ready to employ ...

Passive House towers are good

2019-07-30T13:17:00-04:00

Over the last 10 years, the passive house, a form of green design that originated in Germany, has surged in popularity. By creating an airtight building envelope with thick, insulated walls and triple-paned windows, passive houses can eliminate the need for heating and cooling systems in temperate climates and greatly minimize it in a place like New York. But applying those design principles to the construction of a 26-story high-rise is more complicated than it is in a single-family home.

The New York Times profiles Fernando Gómez-Baquero, a visiting doctoral researcher at the new Cornell Tech campus on New York's Roosevelt Island who lives in a 28-story, Handel Architects-designed Passive House residential tower. The tower is the world's tallest and largest Passive House building, according to the architects.

Photo of Cornell's Roosevelt Island complex. Image courtesy of Handel Architects.

Life in the tower, where thermostats are kept between 68 and 75 degrees and a floor-by-floor energy usage is tallied in the lobby, is good, according to Gómez-Baquero. He told The New York Times, “I geek-out on this building. I was really fascinated by how you make a building this tall consume 60 to 70 percent less energy.”

Gómez-Baquero is the founder of ipHaus, an off-the-grid affordable housing development company.

Viennese student dorms may Passively House refugees

2015-10-21T17:19:00-04:00

Sustainable, fast, and cheap housing: just what you need when you're escaping oppressive regimes, natural disasters, and other refugee-creating events. Christoph Chorherr, Vienna's Green Party planning spokesperson, has blogged that the mobile Passive House dormitories designed by Günter Lang for students in Vienna's Seestadt Aspern district could easily be adapted to comfortably house refugees.

With a construction cost of 1.140 Euro per square meter, the dorms not only can be erected in a few days, but also meet the "Passive House Standard," meaning that they reduce traditional building energy consumption by up to 90%. Passive House Standard dwellings aren't limited to Vienna: from Canada to Germany to South Korea, the form is proving popular with energy-conscious designers.