Joe Haskett, RA, LEED AP has become the first Certified Passive House Consultant (CPHC) to be registered in the State of Rhode Island by the Passive House Institute U.S. According to the Passive House Institute's website certification database, there are currently 360 CPHCs registered with the Passive House Institute in 37 states (plus others certified outside of the U.S.).
When a building is designed, or retrofitted, to the Passive House standard, it requires roughly 90% less energy to heat and cool when compared to a typical proposed or existing building, according to the Passive House Institute U.S. A strict set of performance-based metrics and calculations are used to evaluate the systems that function within a passive house including the building's insulation (aka the "shell"), air ventilation, heating and cooling, heat loss and solar gain from windows, to name a few examples. The goal is to drastically reduce energy consumption, improve indoor air quality and increase occupant comfort. Passive House techniques can be applied to a variety of building types including individual homes, mutlifamily residential, mixed-use, commercial and civic buildings.
It can also be applied on a broader scale to the design of whole communities, as being envisaged by some European cities.
Haskett says "Passive House training allows an architect, a builder or any design professional to take what they know, in terms of building science and sustainability, and take it to the next level. Often, as architects, we struggle to find a tool that allows us to quickly assess options at the beginning of a project as they relate to energy usage and occupant comfort. With the PHPP (Passive House Planning Package) you have a model that is simultaneously robust and expeditious in offering results."
Haskett joined Union Studio in July as a senior associate after serving as the founding principal of Providence-based distill studio. His addition to Union's senior staff represents growth in the area of advanced sustainable building science. In May, the company announced a new venture into the solar home industry with Redberry, LLC, a partnership with eco-entrepreneur Bob Chew focused on bringing the next generation of prototype solar homes to the New England market.
"I am very excited to apply this Passive House knowledge wherever and whenever I can" said Haskett. "Believe it or not, it's the building science aspect of architecture that gets me out of bed in the morning."
Haskett has over 16 years of architectural experience which includes the adaptive re-use of historic buildings, market-rate and affordable multifamily housing, pre-fabricated building design, commercial buildings and private residences. He is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Interior Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design and an active member of the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA), US Green Building Council (USGBC) and the National Passive House Alliance (PHAUS).