Passive house – the birth of a technology

Passive building engineering is quickly becoming a very popular topic. Most often people discuss the concept, building materials used or the most common mistakes than can be made on these projects. However, not a lot is known about the beginnings of passive building. Here are a few facts that will give you an idea on how it all started.

Passive building is gaining a lot of popularity throughout the whole of Europe. You can learn a lot about passive houses on the internet, albeit not much information is available about the pioneers of this concept. This article’s aim is to provide you with this knowledge.

The first passive house was built in 1990 in Darmstadt, Germany, however passive building engineering has a history longer than that. The completion of Darmstadt building took twelve years of hard work from a team of visionaries, thanks to whom, what was at first just a scientific experiment, turned into a viable new technique of building houses. It all began with a conversation between a Swedish professor Bo Adamson and Wolfgang Feist, on a conference in Dusseldorf in May, 1988. That was when the initial guidelines concerning energy usage that all passive houses must fulfill were first established.

However, even the best idea is simply not enough. To be able to put the concept into practice, a group of specialists had to be assembled and the funding had to be raised to secure the project financially. The money was guaranteed by MWT (Ministerium fur Wirtschaft und Technik) in Hessia, however completing the team that was to be responsible for building the first passive house proved to be a more difficult task and as a result it took a long time.

The passive house in Darmstadt was designed by three architects: Bott, Ridder and Westermeyer. The building was divided into four flats, each 156 square meters big. It took ten years of experimenting with different building materials and architectural solutions before the required standards were met. Numerous scientific researches were carried out to thoroughly evaluate all features of a passive house – e.g. its location, means of heating or the ventilation and the effects it could have on the habitants. The trial and error method could never work on such a project – solid, scientifically proven solutions were needed.

The passive house in Darmstadt was inhabited a few months after its completion. Although it fulfilled all requirements, the future of passive building was still unclear, due to a high cost of the project. In 1993 another house of this kind was built in Stuttgart, but it wasn’t until  1995, when with support from an American energy saving pioneer Amory Lovins work on passive building economics began. In 1996 Passivhaus-Institut was created in Darmstadt, aiming to promote and maintain the standards of passive houses. At the same time a special group responsible for researching and production of passive building materials (such as windows and ventilation systems) was established. With passing time the passive houses became cheaper and their popularity rose after the CEPHEUS project further promoting passive constructions was initiated.