Hey, we won an award!

Today we were surprised (and very pleased!) to learn that we won TreeHugger’s Best of Green Readers’ Choice Award in the category “Best Young Architect.” Thank you, TreeHugger — for appreciating our work, and for including us in such esteemed company as the other two firms nominated, and most especially for being staunch advocates of [...]

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Interior shots of 174 Grand St

We just got some interior photos of the freshly cleaned interior all bright and sunny… Q: So why are there these exposed ducts everywhere? A: We like them, but they also serve a purpose… read on!

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NEW: 228 Washington Ave on the way to Passiv Haus (but in style)

Three photos from our new Passiv Haus retrofit project in Fort Greene: on the left, 1940 with no cars; in the middle, 1980 with gigantic cars; and, on the right, 2011 with no cornice. Our two main goals are restoring the beauty of this landmarked building by bringing back the cornice and bay windows, and [...]

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Say hello to Haus!

We started working on a new ground-up project in one of our favorite neighborhoods, Greenpoint Brooklyn. It will be a 7-unit Passive House apartment building called Haus, and will be built on a typical Brooklyn-sized 25′x100′ lot. Each of the floor-through spaces is ~700sqf; the 1st floor unit has a private rear garden and all [...]

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Update: 21 Greenpoint Ave

We are finally getting ready to start construction so we finalized the details for the building envelope, window installation and the mechanical system…

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174 Grand St: the mechanical system in pictures

No Passive House in the Northeast is really warm enough to exist without at least a small heat source, and humans need fresh air to breathe in an airtight structure, too, so we tried to combine these 2 elements into 1 system… thank you PowerAir for all your work and patience and ZehnderAmerica for the [...]

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NEW DATE: Open Passive House at 174 Grand St

If you are wondering why our project at 174 Grand St does not have orange glowing windows like it’s neighbors please stop by February 1st at 6pm for an Open Passive House. email me updates

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One more Passive House Window…

… from Austria is available here in the US. Cembra, located upstate NY started to import Rieder Windows from Tyrol. They make a variety of tilt_and _turn wood windows with different glazing options and also a full blown Passive House certified window. The frame is aluminum clad on the exterior for low maintenance and  has a [...]

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Sketchup to PHPP

One of the requirements of the PassiveHouse Planning Package is to calculate the Treated Floor Area and all the areas of the building envelope. While this can be done by overlaying regular CAD floor plans, elevations and sections, it’s easier to work with a 3D model so as not to forget any building elements. We use [...]

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21 Greenpoint: Passive House Window Installation Mock-Up

Today we did a mockup experiment for the window installation at our Passive House Retrofit project 21 Greenpoint Ave in order to determine how best to install the windows to guarantee continuous insulation and no thermal bridge. The plan is to install a free-floating wood box to hold the window, with the key being for [...]

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