PASSIVE HOUSE Entrepreneur develops first Canadian prefabricated wood panelized system achieving European PH standards Canadian Design and Construction Report special feature BC Passive House Plant has been recognized with the Environmental Performance Award in Wood WORKS! B.C.’s 2015 Wood Design Awards. BC Passive House is Canada’s first prefabricating plant to produce a wood panelized system that meets European Passive House (PH) standards. These standards define the total annual amount of energy that can be used for heating and cooling and for primary energy usage. The award re- lease notes “the project won for demonstrating how wood products can play a significant role in improving the envi- ronmental performance of a structure.” The plant results from a partnership between Matheo Durfeld and his wife Heather, owners of Durfeld Construc- tors, and Eric Karsh and Robert Malczyk, two highly-re- spected engineers in innovative timber construction. Durfeld says the partnership provided both the financial re- sources to create the plant and the ability to be innovative in responding to a changing market. Despite the recognition the award confirms and the at- tention he has been getting in recent years, Durfeld is a humble man who credits fate as much as anything for his current success. “There are two kinds of people; those who plan and chart a deliberate course and then there are people like me who find life happens and one thing leads to another.” 16 – July-August 2015 — The Canadian Design and Construction Report Here Durfeld refers to his introduction to Passive House construction, which came somewhat by chance when a group of Austrians approached the company to construct the Austrian Olympic Passivhaus. The project, a collabora- tion between five private Austrian companies, forming the Austrian Passive House Group, intended to use the first “Green Olympics” to showcase their building products and demonstrate the Passive House standard to the world. Durfeld says the group was attracted by his reputation as a custom log home builder, a natural fit since much of Austria’s passive house construction is wood-based. Though Canadian-born, Durfeld himself is of Austrian her- itage; another fated connection. He says he and his wife travelled to Europe to visit fa- cilities creating PH to understand the process and then acted as general contractor for the project, putting to- gether the prefabricated structure crafted in Austria and delivered here. The Austria Haus became Canada's first registered Passive House. “Though I understood the concept and believed in what was possible, my own ‘aha’ moment came on a cold day, just after the house was closed in when I walked inside and felt the warmth and comfort generated throughout the building by a small, 1,500 watt heater.” That moment of intellectual buy-in and the next several months of touring people through, explaining the concept and process, made him something of an expert.