Taking place on the last Friday of every month, the ZEBx Decarb Lunch brings together industry silos to discuss emerging solutions and barriers related to zero emission buildings.

Happening this Month

801 and 825 Pacific is an upcoming development that includes both a LEED Gold Residential Tower and a seven-storey Passive House infill commercial building in downtown Vancouver. The unique seven-storey Passive House building will house an arts and culture centre for the local community, including studio and gallery space. It is the first Passive House project to reach the construction phase in the downtown core and one of the first in BC to use an all concrete and steel framed structure.

Both the tower and commercial buildings considered a range of unique envelope solutions to meet their aggressive energy targets. Many of the solutions assessed during design are currently being implemented while some were not pursued due to cost and constructibility challenges. Prudence Ferreira, from the project’s Passive House and Envelope Consultant team at Morrison Hershfield, and Morgan McDonald with the project general contractor, Ledcor, will discuss the lessons learned on envelope design from these projects so far, from design to procurement. This includes:

• Compare the envelope approaches between the tower (LEED Gold) and the commercial building (Passive House).
• The cladding design, select details considered and the construction challenges with a concrete and steel structure for the Passive House commercial building
• The role of the contractor in early envelope design, and their coordination to help ensure the project targets are being met through the procurement process and construction

As the 825 Pacific project enters into construction, these stories from the envelope design process can provide much needed insight on how we can scale up to larger Passive House and Step Code buildings that are beyond wood frame.