Clayton Community Centre Passive House Energy Performance Evaluation

As engineers, we continually talk about how to maximize results for each new project. One of the best methods is to revisit completed buildings and measure their lived performance against the fine detail of our original designs — in other words, to close the performance gap. Visiting completed projects to carry out a post-completion energy evaluation is a vital and yet frequently omitted opportunity.

Following its first full year of operation since COVID-19, Introba revisited Clayton Community Centre, Canada’s onetime largest Passive House building, to check whether its performance lived up to its design credentials. We were delighted that the study’s results were overwhelmingly positive, showing Passive House really does deliver on its promises of minimal energy for large, commercial buildings – a valuable insight for future projects.

One of the most significant failings of the construction industry is the lack of transparency in sharing knowledge about what has and hasn’t worked in practice.

Imagine how much faster building design could evolve and improve if everyone published the lessons learned.

It could provide invaluable hard data about what’s missing in the gap between design and reality. So why isn’t such collaboration common practice? Sadly, even if our clients permit us to share data, the major stumbling block is competitiveness between different companies, which inhibits us from sharing performance outcomes that would benefit everyone. On top of this, most companies lack the time and funding to revisit past projects. I know this is because I, too, am guilty of failing to share useful knowledge from unexpected building outcomes. While I’ve spent the past few years extolling the virtues and innovations of Clayton Community Centre at conferences and webinars, for example, I’ve only recently found time to revisit the occupied building for a post-completion energy evaluation. I’d have liked to return sooner to examine and interrogate the practical working of the systems we designed – and, ideally, to share any findings with colleagues and competitors to benefit our future collective clients.

This time, I’m sharing what we learned from the project with two clear questions: is the actual energy consumption in line with our design calculations? and was Passive House a good fit for a large, non-domestic building? Let’s find out.

Thomas Bamber

MEng, CEng, MCIBSE Associate Passive Design