Reflecting on Thrive 2025: My 3 Key Passivhaus Takeaways
I’ve given a lot of thought to how I’d write this article, and instead of simply giving you the regurgitation of my sporadic notes page, I wanted to share 3 key themes that I’ve come away understanding much better and feel that I need to communicate with you.
These 3 themes are:
The Capital / Human Coin
Matching Outputs with the Inputs
Matching Our Communication Strategy with the Core Values and Drivers of Our Clients
Within these 3 themes are what I see being key drivers in our quest to build better homes.
As our health, mental and physical, is largely influenced by our environment, I believe strongly that if we build better homes, we ultimately influence the betterment of society as well.
The Capital / Human Coin
Picture our homes and at large, our society, as a coin. On one side, we have humans. On the other side, we have capital. Capital is the lifeblood of human society, without it, we don’t progress, we can’t trade with each other, etc.
Without capital, humans meander.
But without humans, capital doesn’t serve much purpose. If we’re being honest, capital cannot exist without humans. Humans are what invented capital, yet sometimes, it might feel like to us, capital doesn’t appreciate or respect our humanity.
We cannot move forward towards a more sustainable future without bringing capital along the journey. Capital requires a return on investment, asset protection, resilience, confidence, and certainty. Capital also requires efficient utilisation of resources, and it was shown time and again throughout the conference that the cost of building the Passivhaus version of the project cost no more than 5% of the overall project costs, and in some cases, even cost less to deliver than conventional methods.
Whether or not you believe that coin is necessarily Passivhaus is up to you. But whether that coin represents something positive or negative is extremely important. Whether that coin has an upward trajectory for society is also extremely important.
I quite loved MODEL’s approach to this. It was clear their number #1 customer is their institutional investors. By leveraging Passivhaus certification, they provide maximum confidence and certainty to their investors, providing them with above market returns over a long period of time, while the apartments provide maximum occupancy rates in their investment and property portfolio.
By leveraging Passivhaus as a means of delivering quality construction projects, with its clear certification process where the outputs are matched with the inputs, they achieve the stated goals of capital, all whilst providing humans with an incredibly healthy, comfortable, and resilient place to live.
Question to reflect on: How can we better articulate the dual benefits of the design decisions to both investors and end-users?
Matching Outputs with the Inputs
If we do something over and over again, expecting different results, are we insane?
I’ve been a NatHERS assessor for 5 years. In those 5 years, I’ve never really known whether what has been assessed is at all what has been built in reality.
To me, that feels insane.
The performance gap is real, and we have no real way of quantifying it.
Well atleast, there is no WILL in quantifying it. Because we do have a way of understanding the performance gap, or lack of, a performance gap. It’s called on-site testing and verification. Verifying that what has been built is not just in accordance with architectural and engineering plans, but also the energy efficiency requirements.
The gold-standard of this on-site verification is what is required for Passivhaus certification.
Recently the Australian Passivhaus Association released a guideline on what we can or cannot call a Passivhaus. In short, if it is not Passivhaus Certified, it’s either a minimum code compliance home, or a high-performance home. We can no longer refer to a home or building being based on “Passivhaus Principles” — a term somtimes used to describe the underlying philosophy of high-performance design — because in reality, “Pasivhaus Principles” don’t actually existing as a verifiable standard.
Do you think high levels of insulation, thermal bridge free details, high performance windows, and ventilation systems are solely associated with Passivhaus? Or are these aspects just simply well thought out architecture, good design, and / or based have importance based in reality due to their intrinsic connection with physics and the universe around us?
I initially felt like this made Passivhaus a walled garden which would limit its growth in Australia. But I have changed my mind on this. It’s a short term pain, long term gain strategy. It’s a way of ensuring homeowners, investors, and institutions actually get what they want and paid for. It’s a way of guarranteeing quality and delivery of truly healthy, comfortable, and resilient homes.
Remember, architecture is applied physics. We design in paper space but we build in reality, and in reality, we must contend with the physical environment in and around the building.
Question to reflect on: What steps can you take in your practice to push for more verifiable performance in your projects?
Matching Our Communication Strategy with the Core Values and Drivers of Our Clients
This particular theme permeated the conference. I could feel this one in the air and in the conversations I was having with people. Not only does Passivhaus have a communication problem, but at large, holistic sustainability has a communication problem.
The immense strength of communication was so clearly highlighted by the pairing of the keynote presentation of MODEL’s Build to Rent projects and Ben Caine’s Leanhaus Steiner School project in Western Australia.
We were firstly shown the communication strategy of working with institutional capital to build better outcomes.
We were then shown the communication strategy of aligning the intangible benefits of Passivhaus — health, comfort, better learning, better air quality, better rates of attendance and engagement — within a school to build better outcomes.
This juxtaposition was incredible to witness and it comes back to the Capital / Human coin I mentioned earlier. Without either, we go nowhere. And without effective and strategic communication, we fight an uphill battle on every project we contribute towards.
There were 3 quotes that bring this home:
“Sell the dream, not the nightmare” — Alexx Stuart
“Sell the ride, not the battery” — Graham Irwin
“Your why’s don’t matter to your clients” — Kieran Leong
Question to reflect on: Are we truly understanding our clients’ core values and framing our proposals accordingly?
Concluding Thoughts
Like I said, my notes page was sporadic, my mind was racing, and the conversations I was having were exploratory yet incredibly constructive.
What I always come back to is at large, building better buildings drives a better society. I want to see society prosper, grow, and succeed. This conference came at the right time for me. Sometimes, it feels like we’re not really going anywhere and it’s in these conferences and networking events that we’re able to reconnect with where we are, and where we’re going.