Father of Passive House Visited Landsea Brooke Project

 

On April 15, Dr. Wolfgang Feist, founder of German Passive House Institute, was invited to the Taihu Lake area in Changxing County of Zhejiang Province to visit the Brooke Passive House project, which was just completed by Landsea R&D Base. This was the first time for Dr. Feist to visit Asia.

Accompanied by Mr. XieYuanjian, CTO of Landsea Green Building, Dr. Feist carefully studied the details of the project including its façade, structure, thermal insulation, sunshade, air tightness, noise and ventilation. After making comprehensive “inspections”, Dr. Feist praised highly the Brooke project. He believed it is more difficult to develop passive house in Changxing than in Germany. “In Germany, we don’t have to consider cooling and dehumidification. However, it is hot and humid in the Yangtze River Delta and standards must be remade specifically for the Yangtze River Delta.” The successful completion of Brooke project shows its professional elements, size and leading technologies are the best in China. On April 11, Brooke project received the most important final test of air tightness, which would determine whether or not it could become the passive house. The project passed the one-time test with 0.34 positive pressure ventilation and 0.37negative pressure ventilation under 50Pa, which was far better than the 0.6 criteria for passive houses. Such result shows the Chinese architecture level can reach the advanced international level. “Brooke is a very successful passive house project. Technicians in Landsea have shown their very strong professional capacity. They not only know the phenomenon, but also the deeply-rooted causes. Because, they are very passionate and energetic”, commented Dr. Feist.

 

After the visit was over, Dr. Feist talked with the project team about the simulation, design and construction. He felt Landsea does very well in understanding, application and innovation of passive buildings. And he fully agreed with Landsea philosophy about promoting harmony between buildings and nature and giving priority to humans. He also hoped the demonstration project and Landsea R&D Base can push forward commercial application and expansion of passive houses, thus making contributions to building energy efficiency and environmental protection.

“Through this demonstration project, Landsea hopes to stimulate the development of building energy efficiency business in China and make attempts in commercial application of passive houses.” said Mr. XieYuanjian, Vice President of Landsea Group, “As the pacesetter of green buildings in China, Landsea will launch passive houses into the market as the next-generation product very soon.”

Dr. Wolfgang Feist is a famous German physicist and structural engineer. He is known as the founder of passive house energy standards. In 1911, Dr. Feist built the world’s first passive house in Darmstadt of Germany. The average heat consumption in the passive house was only 10 kwh/m2.a. Today, passive house industry is flourishing in Germany and even in Europe. According to the New York Times, the world now has about 15,000 passive houses, most of which are in German-speaking countries and Scandinavian Peninsula. For China, which is experiencing rapid growth and seeing largest number of new buildings, the completion of the first passive house is of significant meaning. And this is why Dr. Feist, in his first trip to China, visited the Brooke project in Landsea R&D Base in Changxing. “If the newly-built buildings in China in hundreds of millions of square meters could be built by following the passive house standards, they would make mammoth contributions to energy efficiency and environmental protection.”