Positive Energy
Design Around People. A Good Building Follows.

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Read more about a range of building science, engineering, and architecture topics on our company blog.

Posts by Positive Energy
Introducing The Spring Street Passive House: A Healthy Home Project By Kristof & Diane Irwin
Introducing The Spring Street Passive House: A Healthy Home Project By Kristof & Diane Irwin

For two decades, our work at Positive Energy has been driven by a single, powerful question: why aren’t buildings created to better support the people inside them? We’ve dedicated our careers to answering that question, moving from hands-on custom home building to the forefront of building science and MEP engineering. Now, we’re bringing that journey full circle by taking on our most personal project yet: our own family home, the Spring Street Passive House.

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Architectural Design, Building Enclosure, Building Science, Dehumidification, Electrification, Embodied Carbon, Environmental Design, Filtration, Healthy Home, Heat Pumps, High Performance Homes, HVAC, Indoor Air Quality, Mechanical Design, Natural Building Material, Passive House, Phius, Plumbing, Solar, Ventilation, WildfirePositive EnergySpring Street Passive House, Resilient Design, Human-Centered Design, Columbia River Gorge, Positive Energy, MEP Engineering, Building Science, Diane Irwin, Kristof Irwin, Blue Heron Builders, Diagnostic Performance Testing, Forensic Building Science, Human and Planetary Thriving, The Building Science Podcast, Passive House Standard, Passivhaus, Fabric-First Approach, Phius Standard, Phius CORE, Phius ZERO, Thermal Control, Continuous Insulation, Thermal Bridge Elimination, Air Control, Airtight Construction, Blower Door Test, Balanced Ventilation, Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV), Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV), Radiation Control, High-Performance Windows, Triple-Glazed Windows, Optimized Solar Gain, Shading, WUFI Passive Software, Moisture Control, Occupant Health, Building Durability, Extreme Winds, Temperature Extremes, Wildfire, Air Quality, Geological Conditions, Soil Conditions, Foam-Free Enclosure, Embodied Carbon, All-Electric Design, Radiant Heating, Radiant Cooling, Air-to-Water Heat Pumps, Net-Zero Energy Building, Rooftop Solar Array, Thermal Comfort, Indoor Air Quality, MERV Filters, Acoustic Comfort, Psychological Security, Environmental Pollutants, Sustainable Housing, Building Decarbonization.
The Invisible Force Holding Our Buildings Back

Why aren't we building as well as we could be? The answer does not lie in a lack of technical knowledge, but in our deeply held beliefs about our place in the world. As the brilliant systems thinker from the MIT Systems Dynamics group, Donella Meadows, teaches us, our "paradigms" or worldviews are our most powerful levers for change.

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Architectural Design, Building Enclosure, Building Science, Code, Electrification, Embodied Carbon, Environmental Design, Healthy Home, High Performance Homes, Off-grid, Solar, WildfirePositive EnergyBuilding science, indoor environments, human well-being, paradigms, worldviews, humanity vs. nature, anthropocentrism, control of nature, commodification of nature, capitalism, consumerism, materialism, environmental consequences, architectural design, engineering decisions, temperature, humidity, indoor air quality, sound, vibration, lighting, visual connection to nature, human microbiome, microbial life, synthetic materials, physical separation from nature, philosophical schism, know-do gap in AEC, systems thinking, healthy living and working environments.