Tech Talk: The Distillery in South Boston Passive House December 1st

By USGBC MA

Come learn about one of the largest Passive structures in the Boston area. Prior to the tour, we are having an educational session on the building with an opportunity to dig deep into the design this project. This session is scheduled immediately prior to the tour of the building and will provide architects, engineers and others with the professional insights. 

Thursday, December 1st
4:30pm – 5:30 pm

Register here!

Learning Objectives: 

1. Passive House: What is this concept? We'll go into a deep dive with the basic knowledge of how one can achieve this standard of construction. 
2. Section on cost: Are these comparable in cost to non-PH buildings? The answer is they are! It has to do with sourcing and methods which is very expensive if you don’t know where to build or buy. Big knowledge base here to get it right. 
3. Air quality: PH addresses big problems regarding micro-particle air pollution (MPP.) It’s the small stuff that is damaging to our health. Lots of studies come out from universities and colleges on this type of pollutant and how it touches on every disease you can imagine. We'll talk through the terrible health effects even tiring it to autism. PH construction has a sealed envelope with only one opening, you can keep MPP out, no other building type can do it. 
4. Cultural Sustainability: There's a big environmental theme incorporating art and community into the design and landscape. Big efforts into the integration of food growing on site. A lot architecture encouraging exercise. There's also a transportation component, working with EV, DC power micro grids and more. 

About the site:

There's a city block in South Boston which has on it an old rum distillery which has about 150 working artists. The new building is the first of two, and will be completed around Thanksgiving. It will be certified as a Passive House. The challenge of the project was how to make PH construction– which would meet certification, with 90 – 95% reduction in thermal energy requirements– easy and economical to build. This is a problem in design, sourcing, construction methods and sequencing, education of the General Contractor and subs, and strict oversight. 

We're also doing lots of stuff around PV, electric vehicles, food production, indoor air quality, architecture which promotes exercise, the integration of the environmental aims with the arts community, and other things. 

This is a 60,000 s.f. building, to be followed a second 90,000 which will push the technologies and concepts another step. In the end, there will be about 300 people on the site.

Building Tour: 

If you are interested in taking the tour with us. Please register for the separate tour here.