There is no longer any doubt that\u00a0energy efficient buildings are making an impact on the construction industry,\u00a0now that the Canadian Home Builders Association (CHBA) have the Net Zero Energy\u00a0Housing Council, whose spring meeting in Ottawa was densely populated by\u00a0industry stakeholders. \u00a0I have not\u00a0attended many professional events in our industry without mention of net zero\u00a0or passive housing, and the Canadian Manufactured Housing Institute (CMHI)\u00a0Design and Technology Forum was not the exception. \u00a0The morning was filled with three speakers\u00a0who are leading the way in energy efficient building design: Richard\u00a0Briginshaw, Professor and Coordinator of the Architecture Graduate Program at\u00a0Algonquin College, spoke of his students\u2019 projects (one of which is highlighted\u00a0below); Hunter Zhaoyu Chen, an architect at Y.C. Lee Architecture Ltd. Co. and\u00a0former student of Briginshaw\u2019s, presented the design of a highly efficient seniors\u2019\u00a0home; and Milfred Hammerbacher, CEO of s2e Technologies Inc., talked about the\u00a0development of London\u2019s Smart Community, an entire net zero energy\u00a0community.<\/p>\n
In his lectures, Briginshaw encourages students to consider passive methods first to achieve net zero in their building designs. \u00a0As part of the Race to Zero competition, his students designed the NoMAD (Northern Moveable Adaptable Design) House, a prefabricated construction that achieves at least an R35 wall, an R55 roof, and an R40 floor (all values are in R effective). \u00a0They were asked to consider achieving net zero, and to decide on materials, such as superinsulation, early on. They scored highly in all categories: energy efficiency, healthy indoor environment, affordability, environmental responsibility, and resource efficiency. \u00a0The House was so efficient, that the pilot light was enough to heat up the whole interior space!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is no longer any doubt that\u00a0energy efficient buildings are making an impact on the construction industry,\u00a0now that the Canadian Home Builders Association (CHBA) have the Net Zero Energy\u00a0Housing Council, whose spring meeting in Ottawa was densely populated by\u00a0industry stakeholders. \u00a0I have not\u00a0attended many professional events in our industry without mention of net zero\u00a0or passive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,11],"tags":[25,27,26,91,41,149,148,151,13,14,18,150],"class_list":["post-928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-building-professional","category-membership","tag-building-codes","tag-energy-codes","tag-energy-efficiency-codes","tag-energy-efficient-buildings","tag-national-building-code","tag-national-energy-codes-for-buildings","tag-necb","tag-net-zero-designs","tag-net-zero-energy","tag-net-zero-energy-homes","tag-net-zero-energy-ready","tag-net-zero-housing"],"yoast_head":"\n