[ sustainability ] BY JOHN GREGORY
SOCIAL HOUSING FACILITY RAISES DESIGN BAR
Vancouver has always been the Passive House epicentre of Canada, but more cities across the country are taking the plunge. Last year, York Region in Southern Ontario, which encompasses municipalities like Markham, Vaughan and Richmond Hill, began piloting the international standard with a social housing facility for men facing homelessness. Why now?
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new men’s emergency and transitional housing facility, set to rise in Aurora, Ontario, has opened the door to pilot-testing Passive House “as one of the most efficient uses of public funds for housing,” according to Melissa McEnroe, manager of affordable housing for York Region.
“It has been our aspirational goal for the past five years,” says McEnroe. “But only recently have we had the local capacity to design and build it.” Passive House is a voluntary standard for achieving extremely energy-efficient buildings. Known as a “factor-10 house,” it uses one-tenth of the energy of an average building, which comes from the residents’ body heat or solar heat. This is the result of an envelope of
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insulation with an R-factor almost 100 per cent greater than a standard build. The entire building is sealed airtight, and the triple-glazed windows are warm to the touch. A Passive House keeps the heat in. “The space heating demand is equivalent to heating your home with the light of one candle,” says Deborah Byrne, COO and director of Passive House Design at Kearns Mancini Architects (KMAI)—the firm designing the project. Passive House buildings are also praised for their higher level of comfort. “This is healthy housing; the building provides constant fresh air,” says Byrne. “It is comfortable housing with wellness built in; there is little or no active
