The Massachusetts Affordable Housing Building Challenge: Passive House New Construction and Retrofits at Scale

ABSTRACT:

Affordable Housing has often been a leading sector in green building in Massachusetts. That has certainly been true in multifamily Passive House construction. After first movers in the low income tax credit space built to the passive house standard, we now see market rate projects adopting the Passive House standard, with over 86 buildings enrolled in the Mass Save Passive House incentive program. But 80% of existing buildings will still be with us in 2050, so how is the state going to retrofit these buildings and get to zero emissions over time? Hear about two of MassCEC’s innovative programs, one for affordable housing passive house in new construction, one focused on the iconic new England triple decker, that are working to learn and scale up these efficient building strategies.

BIO:

Beverly Craig, LEED AP BD+C, manages the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center’s Low and Moderate Income programs including the Passive House Design Challenge for affordable housing and the Triple Decker Design Challenge. Ms. Craig comes from a background of energy efficiency retrofits in affordable housing.  Ms. Craig holds a BA from the University of Southern California and an MPP from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.