Marketing Passivhaus

Jennifer Karkar Ritchie is the owner and principal of Revolution Public Relations, a sustainable lifestyle public relations and marketing firm in the Pacific Northwest. She's also the owner and occupant of Washington State's first passive home, built at a time when far fewer people knew about passive building standards, and materials were much harder to come by. In this episode, we talk about Jenn...

Aaron Waldt is the Product Consultant for Eastern Canada at 475 High Performance Building Supply. In the five years he's been in the role, Aaron has seen a rising tide of awareness that has moved his starting point for conversations about passive house and passive building techniques. In this episode, we talk about the effect of regional vernacular architecture on retrofit efforts, the critical ro...

John Loercher is the owner and primary consultant at Northeast Projects, a professor of architecture and the director of the Building Science Program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), and a trainer at Phius. In this episode, we talk about the commonalities (and differences) between training practicing professionals and students, the new building considerations John's had to get his head a...

Kristof Irwin is the Director of Building Science at Positive Energy, a specialty MEP engineering firm for custom residential architecture projects, and the Host of the Building Science Podcast, making this a fun "interview the host"-style chat.  In this episode, we talk about the growth Kristof has seen in the Passivhaus space since its early days in the US, the power of Systems Thinking, the rol...

Beth Campbell is the Education Program Director at Passive House Massachusetts, a Certified Passive House Tradesperson, a PHIUS-Certified Passive House Builder Trainer, and the Chair of the Board at Passive House Rhode Island. She brings a wealth of knowledge from multiple perspectives within the industry, spanning the US from the Pacific Northwest to New England. In this episode, we track Beth's...

Steve Hessler is a Certified Passive House Consultant, building systems specialist at New Energy Works, and visiting educator at McGill University through Holzraum System. He started out in communications before being drawn into carpentry via a growing obsession with all things wood, and ultimately into building and enclosure design. In this episode, we talk about the marketing potential of graphi...

Mark Attard is the founder and director of Point 6 Building Science Consultants, as well as being both a certified passive house consultant and tradesperson. From energy modelling to heating and cooling design, verification work in the field to pre-build sequencing, Point 6 is on a mission to support architects, builders, developers, and municipalities in building verifiably better buildings. In t...

Josh Salinger is the founder and CEO of Birdsmouth Design-Build, building custom new residential homes and ADUs, as well as some retrofits and remodels. They focus their new construction on passive buildings and have been doing that — and certifying them through Phius — since 2012 or so, operating out of Portland, Oregon, in the US Pacific Northwest.  In this episode, we talk about best practices...

Lorrie Rand is a Sustainability Specialist at Habit Studio, a Senior Advisor at the ReCover Initiative, a Board Member at Retrofit Canada, and an instructor at Passive House Canada. Her first practice, Habit Studio, is an award-winning, women-led architectural and residential design firm based in Halifax, NS, focused on Passive House and deep retrofits. In this episode, we talk about Lorrie's semi...

Elrond Burrell is an architect and owner of VIA Architecture, as well as the program director for Building Science and a senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington's Faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation. In this episode, we talk about Elrond's blog, Passivhaus in Plain English, including how it has helped open doors to new work and opportunities, the unexpected move to teaching,...

Adam White is the CEO and Founder of Intelligent Membranes, makers of the popular, passive house-certified Passive Purple, a liquid-applied airtight and vapour control membrane. Adam puts the product's birth down to his innate stubbornness, coupled with his willingness to say yes to things and then go figure out how to make them true. In this episode, we discuss Adam's unconventional journey from...

Alexis Jarvis is the President of SideCar Public Relations, a communications firm that specializes in real estate development, economic development, and placemaking. For 15+ years, SideCar PR has worked with everyone from investors and developers to architects, designers, lighting designers, and builders — anyone who touches the built environment. In this episode, we dig into the various audiences...

Rachel Rennard and Mike Bratina commissioned, own, and live in Clay Brook Passive House, the first final certified single-family Passive House in New Hampshire. In addition, their house was given a HERS (Home Energy Rating System) score of 18 (since updated to 17!) — the lowest in the entire US (without renewable energy components). In this episode, Rachel and Mike share their journey from learnin...

Katrina Belle is the President and CEO of Maine Passive House. Her journey into building and passive house has its roots in a thesis she wrote on corporate social responsibility while studying human rights at College, coupled with the fact that most humans spend most of their lives inside buildings. In this episode, we discuss the power of building science to improve people's baseline life experie...

Hans Breaux is an architect and the founder of Project CO+OP, a worker cooperative based out of Portland, Maine. Following Graduate School, Hans set off from his hometown in southern Louisiana to walk the Appalachian Way. He had no idea he would end up staying in Maine and founding his practice. In this episode, we talk about the importance of talking to people, whenever and wherever, when it come...

Alexander Gard-Murray is the Executive Director of Passive House Massachusetts, a nonprofit that educates advocates and supports passive house building in the Commonwealth. With a background in political science and climate policy, Alexander was pulled into building decarbonization via a Twitter thread. In this episode, we talk about how Massachusetts has become a shining example of adopting passi...

Naomi Beal is the Executive Director and a founding member of passivhausMaine, which opened an ambitious new public-facing workshop, showcase, training, and office space in downtown Freeport in 2025. In this episode, we talk about the decisions behind the new space, the importance of outreach at the local, community, and school level, and an interesting community-based project they hosted to help...

Valentine Gomez is the founder of Gomex Engineering and the first certified passive house designer on PEI (Prince Edward Island, Canada's island province). He thinks of Passivhaus as a kind of gateway rabbit hole, which has since led him down further, deeper rabbit holes, focused on healthy building materials, and including his achieving a Living Future accreditation. In this episode, we talk abou...

Lindsey Love came to Passivhaus via bio-based materials, marrying the two and comfortably working with both. With her new venture, Regenerative Building Solutions, Lindsey steps further into the role of teacher, advisor, and consultant, helping people incorporate more natural materials into their own high-performance projects. In this episode, we talk about the gap between builders and architects...

Dr. Wolfgang Feist is a professor and mathematical physicist who began his career in quantum mechanics and astronomy before becoming interested in energy efficiency in buildings and moving into engineering, which led him to the late Bo Adamson, a Swedish building scientist and professor at Lund University. Together, they co-originated and developed the Passivhaus standard in the late 1980s, with D...

Tessa Bradley is the principal architect and CEO of the Artisans Group Architecture and Planning Company, a woman-owned, woman-led firm based in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Tessa was in the second round of PHIUS training, and Artisans Group completed the second certified Passive House in Washington State, so they've been in this space for almost as long as anyone in the US. In this...

Trey Farmer is a Principal and Partner, as well as the Chief Sustainability Officer, at Forge Craft Architecture and Design, based in Austin, Texas. His Passive House journey began in Grad School, where he got his CPHC as part of the program. He is one of the team of friends who bring the Humid Climate Conference to life, looking forward to the sixth installment this coming Spring (2026). In this...

Michael Quast is the CEO of Passive House Canada. With a career that spans marketing, PR, executive management, and communications, including being executive producer for the successful HGTV renovation show, Holmes on Homes, and then later CEO for The Holmes Group, Michael feels that his role at Passive House Canada is something of a unicorn job, perfectly blending his personal passion with his pr...

Jeremy Clarke is the founder and CEO of Simple Life Homes and Simple Life Building Systems, based out of Bowmanville, Ontario. They combine the principles of passive house design with off-site (prefabricated) and carbon-conscious construction to produce sustainable, healthy home packages.  In this episode, we talk about Passive Houses, Pretty Good Houses, the challenges of being a "building enclos...

Jacob Deva Racusin is the lead researcher at Builders for Climate Action and the co-founder of New Frameworks. Jacob comfortably bridges the gap between seemingly (though not, in fact) disparate worlds, valuing both the intuitive comfort of building with the natural materials our ancestors have used for millennia and the cutting edge of building and climate science.  In this episode, we discuss co...