Passive House Podcast

This episode of the Passive House Podcast was recorded during the Passive House Network conference in New Haven, Connecticut, hosted at the first certified Passive House hotel in the U.S. Hotel Marcel. Ilka Cassidy chatted with Ken Levenson about the theme “Profit by Experience” and Architect of Hotel Marcel Bruce Becker. Ilka also talked to other attendees like Timothy Lock, Beth Campbell, Karen Ramsey, and Cheryl Sald...

Passive House design and construction is a team sport. It requires effective strategies and cooperation, but also precision in the field and the ability to tweak and recalibrate systems once the building is complete. A robust envelope may be the superpower of Passive House construction, allowing for downsized mechanical systems, electrification, and reduced stress on the energy grid, but these benefits are only achieved if everythi...

In this episode of the Passive House Podcast, Mary James and Ilka Cassidy speak with Joel Callow, building physicist and founding director of UK consultancy Beyond Carbon, about scaling certified Passive House delivery in London. Callow explains the firm’s focus on whole life carbon, compact building forms, overheating avoidance, and early-stage design input, and notes the team has grown to 12 people with recruitment challeng...

In this episode of the Passive House Accelerator Podcast, Ilka Cassidy chats with Marty Josten and Ashley Wisse of New Ecology. Marty and Ashley describe the nonprofit’s 26-year mission to preserve and improve affordable housing through sustainability, building performance, health, and resiliency, using a hybrid fee-for-service and grant-funded model. They discuss evolving embodied-carbon requirements, regional market differe...

In this episode of the Passive House Accelerator podcast, Ilka Cassidy interviews Nathan Kipnis, founder of Kipnis Architecture and Planning in Chicago and Boulder, about his path from early solar architecture influences during the 1973 oil embargo to today’s fact-based, certifiable Passive House practice. Kipnis explains how early rule-of-thumb passive solar design often led to overheating, and how building science and clima...

In this episode of the Passive House Podcast, Michael Ingui and Ilka Cassidy to share their interview with Dr. Wolfgang Feist from the 35th International Passive House Conference in Essen and discuss where Passive House is headed. Dr. Wolfgang Feist emphasizes focusing on documented, evaluated projects, the importance of integrated component systems. Looking back, he credits early collaboration with Swedish researchers and the push...

In this episode of the Passive House Podcast Ilka Cassidy and Michael Ingui, are at the International Passive House Conference in Essen and share rapid-fire interviews focused on scaling Passive House. With questions based on Michael's presentation at the conference focusing on moving Passive House from niche to necessary by reframing it as risk mitigation and engaging adjacent sectors like insurance, real estate, finance, and poli...

In this episode of The Passive House Podcast, Matthew Cutler - Welsh interviews Elizabeth and Everett Norris from their newly completed Christchurch home. They describe their Port Hills site on Huntsbury Hill, bought after the 2011 Canterbury earthquakes, and discuss the area’s microclimate and west–northwest-oriented design. They share challenges including long build times, working largely solo, living on site after a ...

In this episode of the Passive House Podcast Jay Fox interviews Vermont filmmaker Allie Rood about her documentary Prickly Mountain and My Design Build Life, which traces the design-build architecture movement that began in Warren, Vermont around 1963 and influenced design-build programs nationwide. Rood explains her personal connection through her father’s work in the community, the movement’s roots among Yale architec...

In this episode of The Passive House Podcast, Mary James chats with Nidhi Shah, a certified Passive House designer and member of the Reimagine Buildings Collective. Shah traces her path from early sustainability interests in India to Passive House training in the UK. They dive into her retrofit-focused work with Retrofit Action for Tomorrow (RAFT), emphasizing whole-building approaches over piecemeal measures like external wall ins...

In this episode of The Passive House Podcast, Matthew Cutler-Welsh speaks with Andreas Goetzabout building the Wunderbar Passive House in Orewa, about 40 minutes north of Auckland. Originally from Germany and motivated by comfort and health, Goetz pursued Passive House despite local challenges, choosing a simple rectangular ICF design with imported European triple-glazed windows and integrated exterior shutters to manage overheatin...

In this episode of The Passive House Podcast, Ilka Cassidy and Jacob Racusin are at the BuildingEnergy Boston 2026 Conference (Sponsored by New Energy Works).

Ilka and Jacob recap day 2 of the conference including a keynote by Melissa O’Mara and Kevin Stack, “Unstoppable Inner Resilience and Generational Leadership,” which guided attendees through a meditation connecting to ancestors and future generations, highlig...

In this episode of The Passive House Podcast, Ilka Cassidy and Jacob Racusin are at the BuildingEnergy Boston 2026 Conference (Sponsored by New Energy Works).

Ilka and Jacob speak with:

• Gregory Smith, Architect at Moody Nolan
• Clay Tilton, Existing Buildings Program ManagerBuilt Environment Plus (BE+)
• Arlen Li, Fitwel Ambassador, Planning PrincipalHGA
• Anthony Michetti, Director of Sustainability, Cell Signaling Technology
• Julie Newman...

Building science is at the core of high-performance construction, but it takes more than an understanding of psi-values and hygrothermal dynamics to actually get these buildings built. As we see in this episode, having a real-world understanding of materials science, finance, and how people actually work together is yet another component to this line of work. Granted, there’s still a lot of building science involved, as empha...

In this episode of The Passive House Podcast, Zack Semke chats with Nick Nigro of Leggat McCall about the Bunker Hill Housing Redevelopment in Charlestown, Boston, a phased replacement of 42 aging WWII-era public housing buildings into 2,699 mixed-income units. Nick explains how the team committed to Passive House from day one and is using a repeatable “kit of parts”—precast lateral-load-bearing cores, prefabricat...

In this episode of The Passive House Podcast, Mary James chats with Kia Weatherspoon, founder of Determined by Design. Weatherspoon describes how experiences visiting her brother in prison and creating privacy during Air Force deployments shaped her belief that spaces must be felt, not just seen. She explains her mission-driven focus on affordable housing and a design process rooted in ancestry, legacy, and identity, translating co...

In this episode of The Passive House Podcast, host Matthew Cutler interviews New Zealand building scientist and sustainability specialist Tavis Creswell-Wells of Ecolution about overheating risk, building performance, and lessons from working in the UK. Tavis describes his path from architecture to building science, early research with BRANZ on the Building Energy End Use Study, and later experience in London with large energy mode...

In this episode of The Passive House Podcast, Jay Fox speaks with Tony Daniels and Caitlin Matusewicz of Cycle Architecture + Planning about their backgrounds in high-performance design and the firm’s focus on scalable multifamily deep energy retrofits, resilience, and Passive House. The conversation covers why retrofits are harder than new construction and how Cycle aims to scale by starting with repeatable retrofit solution...

In this episode of The Passive House Podcast Jay Fox interviews Edie Dillman (co-founder and CEO of B.Public Prefab) and Karen Ramsey (founder and sustainability strategist at Building Wellness) about Fort Collins, Colorado’s Design to 2030 pilot program. They describe B.Public’s panelized, Passive House–standard prefab shell system launched in 2019 and Ramsey’s consulting work supporting Passive House proje...