Passive House Podcast

In 2014, Luc Plowman’s consulting practice had just 2 Passive House projects on the books. Now, just over 6 years later, he has 40 underway. He’s witnessed Australia’s Passive House growth firsthand. Luc is the founder and director of Detail Green in Beechworth, Australia, and one of a small cadre of Passive House certifiers in the country. Before his work at Detail Green, Luc worked as a senior s...

Julie Torres Moskovitz , principal at Fete Nature Architecture, joins Passive House Podcast intern/producer Sydney Fishman and co-host Zack Semke on this week’s episod. Bringing refreshing perspectives to the table, Julie talks with the co-hosts about thermal imaging as a guide to practice, resilience and social justice, blower door testing during construction, and more.   Julies portfolio is expa...

In the run-up to this week’s Passive House Canada Summit (Dec 8-10), Passive House Podcast co-host Zack Semke interviews Vancouver-based Cillian Collins about his path to Passive House, the groundbreaking Passive House projects Cillian has in the works, and the Passive House educational programming on tap at the Summit. ( Registration for the Summit is open until 12pm Pacific/3pm Eastern today, Mo...

In this week's episode of the Passive House Podcast, host Matthew Cutler Welsh interviews Andy Marlow . Andy is passionate about design, sustainability and affordability. He trained as an architect at the University of New South Wales in Australia and throughout his professional career, he’s been working to incorporate ideas about sustainability into his work. As a Director at Envirotecture, Andy...

This week host of the Passive House Podcast Zack Semke interviews Tessa Bradley (previously Smith), a pioneer of Passive House in the Pacific Northwest. In her 20s Tessa became co-owner of the Artisans Group, at the time a design-build firm, now a design-only firm. Artisans Group quickly became a leading designer and builder of beautiful, modernist, yet financially accessible Passive House homes i...

In this episode, Passive House Podcast host Matthew Cutler-Welsh interviews Peter Bielski , owner of Ethos Homes in New Zealand, about his experience building single family Passive House projects in a construction industry landscape of bare minimum building energy code requirements. Peter cut his teeth in construction in Germany, where he built homes with a major prefabricated homes operation that...

In this episode, Passive House Podcast co-host Zack Semke interviews Dr. Diana Ürge-Vorsatz of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They dive into the findings of  Ürge-Vorsatz's recent paper, "Advances Toward a Net-Zero Global Building Sector", including implications for both new construction and deep energy retrofits as parts of the transition to zero emissions in buildings. Visit the...

In this episode, Passive House Podcast host Matthew Cutler-Welsh interviews Ken Levenson, Co-Founder of 475 High Performance Building Supply and Executive Director of the North American Passive House Network (NAPHN) . The conversation explores Ken’s early architecture practice in New York in the 80s and 90s, his climate awakening after watching “An Inconvenient Truth,” and his later discovery of P...

In this episode, Passive House Podcast co-host Zack Semke interviews Kimberly Llewellyn of Mitsubishi Electric Trane HVAC US , a founding sponsor of Passive House Accelerator.  An engineer by training, Kimberly spent 5 years with Positive Energy, a highly regarded engineering and consulting firm that specializes in Passive House work as part of a broad portfolio. Zack and Kimberly discuss her jour...

In this episode, Passive House Podcast host Matthew Cutler-Welsh interviews Harley Weston of Solaire Properties . Harley spent twelve years drilling and exploring for minerals beneath the earth, mostly around the North Eastern part of Australia. When he wasn’t operating a drill himself, he was managing people who did. Mineral exploration is big business in Australia. It’s made a lot of people very...

In this episode, Passive House Podcast host Matthew Cutler-Welsh interviews Bronwyn Barry , board chair of North American Passive House Network (NAPHN) and the “International Keynote” speaker for the upcoming South Pacific Passive House Conference. Bronwyn recounts how she first discovered Passive House, her stint (post-Great Recession) selling European high performance windows to architects by ed...

In this episode, Passive House Podcast host Matthew Cutler-Welsh interviews Giorgia Tzar from the International Passive House Association (iPHA). Giorgia and Matthew catch up on the world-class content at the (ongoing) 24th International Passive House Conference and virtual “matchmaking” networking opportunities. Giorgia reflects on recent conferences in China and Germany, and talks about the ups...

In this episode, Passive House Podcast host Matthew Cutler-Welsh interviews Simone Schenkel , director and Certified Passive House Designer at Grün Eco Design in Victoria, Australia. Schenkel is the Victorian Chapter lead of Australia Passive House Association and an advocate for moving the building industry toward energy efficient, high performance buildings. Matthew and Simone touch on the impor...

Passive House Podcast's Matthew Cutler-Welsh interviews Andrew Peel, Passive House innovator, educator, certifier, consultant, and owner of Peel Passive House Consulting in Toronto. Check out: Video of Andrew's Global Passive House Happy Hour presentation about his work on the world's first Passive House certified car dealership.  Our Q&A interview with Andrew in February 2020. Matthew and co-...

Passive House Podcast's Sydney Fishman and Zack Semke interview Chris Benedict and Henry Gifford , the pioneering pair of practitioners behind some of New York City's most exciting high performance buildings, Passive House projects, and deep energy retrofits. Check out: Henry's book, Buildings Don't Lie. Chris' "Singing Into Darkness" article . Video Chris and Henry's play, "The Perfect Energy Cod...

In this episode, Passive House Podcast host Matthew Cutler-Welsh interviews Graeme Verhulst , principal of Waymark Architecture . Graeme was one of the earliest adopters of Passive House design in Canada. In his conversation with Matthew, Graeme shares the story of striking out on his own, early in his architectural career, to build a Passive House practice when larger firms were still slow to emb...

Passive House Podcast host Matthew Cutler-Welsh interviews John Beurle , board member of Australian Passive House Association and principal of Passive House Services , about his unique PHI Low Energy Building home made of a straw panel system. Also, view John's video tour of his home at https://youtu.be/WAQ0uyakJH8 . In the interview, John mentions Stuart Lee of Craftsmen Quality Builders and Andr...

Passive House Podcast host Matthew Cutler-Welsh interviews James Goodlet of Altereco Design about his mission-driven architectural practice and the role of Passive House design in delivering on that mission. After the interview, Matthew and co-host Zack Semke reflect on the interview and share upcoming Passive House events and trainings: NAPHN Lunchtime Special: an Introduction to Passive House Ke...

Join hosts Matthew Cutler-Welsh and Zack Semke, as well as Passive House Accelerator founder Michael Ingui, for a conversation about the Passive House community, the Passive House Accelerator, and this new podcast exploring high performance, low carbon building design and construction. Questions or interview ideas? Email podcast@passivehouseaccelerator.com. Thank you for listening to the Passive H...