Passive house design: a benchmark for thermal mass fabric integration

Abstract: We live in a time when energy is becoming more precious. Worldwide energy resources are finite and they seem to be running out faster than expected. At this time when energy consumption is rising dramatically in the emerging markets, the opposition to nuclear energy, which in fact cannot be any solution to dwindling energy resources while open security issues are not resolved, is growing. On 30 June 2011, the federal government of Germany decided by law Germany’s final exit from nuclear energy no later than 31 December 2022. There is also the problem of climate change. We will have to reduce CO 2 emissions into the atmosphere dramatically if we want to preserve tolerable conditions of life on planet earth ‘for which there are no spare parts’ (Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of Potsdam Climate Institute). The biggest challenge of our time is to minimise worldwide energy consumption. The ‘Passive House Standard’ is the worldwide acknowledged leading standard in energy-saving building. Building to the Passive House Standard is one answer to the most important questions of our time. The chapter supplies answers to the questions: ‘Why build to the Passive House Standard?’, ‘What is a Passive House?’ and ‘How do Passive Houses work?’, and outlines planning approaches.