Page 36 - Green Builder May-June 2017 Issue

A tall order. At six stories, 60,000
square feet and 85 residential
HOUSING THE MANY dwellings, The Heights will be
Canada’s largest passive house.

CREDIT: CORNERSTONE ARCHITECTURE

Reaching New Heights

Canada’s largest Passive be a certified Passive House development that easily meets the
designation’s rigorous standards. Its green traits include:
House building takes on thick double R-40 walls with a 2-by-6 external insulated wall, a two-
■ Heavy insulation. The building uses 35-centimeter- (14-inch)
■
greenhouse gas emissions. inch layer of polystyrene insulation, an inside insulated 2-by-4 wall
for plumbing and wiring, and an R-60-rated roof.
■ Passive House-certified windows. Super-insulated frames help
BY SARAH LOZANOVA AND GREEN BUILDER STAFF ■
keep the home air-sealed to promote energy efficiency.
S THE CITY OF VANCOUVER, British Columbia, moves ■ ■ Exterior weather protection. The building features a mass layer
toward a goal of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions of polystyrene insulation and has very few locations where exterior
from new buildings by 2030, it’s taking a bigger-is-better and interior wood and cement make contact.
approach with a forthcoming passive house. ■ ■ Heat recovery ventilators. All fresh air comes through a
A Under construction in the East Hastings corridor of Zehnder Passive House-certified ComfoAir 550 heat recovery system.
Vancouver Heights, The Heights will be the largest Passive House ■ ■ Easy interior heating. According to Kennedy, many of the suites
project in Canada upon its completion in summer. The 60,000-square- require a mere 300 watts for heating, a total that can be reached with
foot structure is a six-story mixed-use building that will feature retail a simple electric baseboard heater.
space on the first level and 85 units of rental housing above.
“A passive house is special because it is a more comfortable building GREENHOUSE GASES A NO-GO IN VANCOUVER
to live in than a typical building,” says Scott Kennedy, principal of A 2016 study by the Pembina Institute in Calgary, Alberta, notes that
Vancouver-based Cornerstone Architecture. “It doesn’t have drafts, the number of Passive House units in North America quadrupled
it has fresh air, it isn’t cold near the windows, and it uses 10 percent from 2015 to 2016. More than a quarter were in Vancouver, and the
of the heating energy for a typical building.” trend is expected to continue.
This ultra-high-efficiency project—an estimated 90 percent Buildings are the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in
more energy friendly than a traditional multi-use structure—will Vancouver, accounting for 56 percent of the city’s emissions in 2014.

34 GREEN BUILDER May/June 2017 www.greenbuildermedia.com

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