Conference Passive Houses 2012

The main block of this year's conference focuses on the relationship between architecture and sustainable development. A comprehensive view of the design, implementation, and use of buildings forms the foundation of modern architecture, and passive houses are one of the applications of this unity of form and function.
Alongside the conference, there will be a fair for materials, products, and services for passive houses, where participants and the general public will have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the current market offerings.

You can register for the conference here.

This year's conference will focus on topics that further deepen the information about the basic principles of passive houses:

• sustainable architecture
• renovation according to passive house principles
• heating systems, hot water preparation, and new components
• quality control of construction in passive standards
• economics and financing of passive construction

You can find the detailed program of the conference here.

In the introductory block of the conference, prominent Czech and foreign architects will present, demonstrating that modern architecture goes hand in hand with energy savings and sustainable construction.
The first speaker will be Helmut Dietrich from the Austrian office Dietrich | Untertrifaller Architekten. His workshop is the source of the first passive kindergarten and many other civic buildings adhering to passive standards. Among the other speakers will be Jan Tywoniak from the Faculty of Civil Engineering at CTU Prague, whose topic will be various approaches to defining zero-energy buildings and their connections. Also speaking will be Josef Panna, President of the Czech Chamber of Architects.
Contemporary Czech architecture will be represented by Radim Václavík, who will present the Question Mark, the first passive administrative building in the Czech Republic. Miloš Lain will focus on the issues related to schools and administrative buildings and discuss passive cooling using the example of the new CTU building in Prague.
You will also be able to find concrete examples in other presentations. Jiří Čech will share experience from the ongoing construction of the MŠ Slivenec, and Pavel Šmelhaus will reveal the contributions of passive houses in the context of real energy consumption in buildings in the Czech Republic.
There will also be examples from abroad. The topic of renovating a school to passive standards using vacuum panels will be presented by Steffen Knoll, and Kateřina Mertenová will speak about how they transformed a residential building in Wels, Austria, into an energy self-sufficient building.
Newly emerging passive projects will also have their place at the conference. Dieter Herz will present a report on the project of passive hotels, and Josef Smola will lecture on the specifics of a luxury apartment building project in Prague's Bubenč.

The schedule of individual presentations and their complete list can be found here.
The Passive Houses Conference 2012 will be a unique gathering place for architects, designers, builders, teachers, students, government employees, investors, and developers. Therefore, each day's program will include discussion circles on selected topics.

“For each conference, we organize quality domestic and foreign speakers, and our goal is to engage the audience in discussion. We don't want to present passive and low-energy houses as the only correct solution, but to develop a lively debate on this topic. For this reason, we highly value our collaboration with the Czech Chamber of Architects in preparing this year's edition,” adds Jan Bárta, director of the Passive House Centre.

Another objective is to bring information about energy savings and sustainable construction as close to students as possible. Thus, one of this year’s topics will be the readiness of Czech universities for EPBD II and their collaboration with practice. The Passive House Centre, in cooperation with Czech universities, launched in August the Tread the Path to Experience project, aimed at strengthening relationships between tertiary education institutions and entities in the private and non-profit sectors in the field of energy-efficient construction.
More about the project.
In preparing the eighth edition of the PASSIVE HOUSES 2012 conference, collaboration between the Institute for Energy Passive Houses and the Passive House Centre continues.

The event is under the patronage of the Czech Chamber of Architects, the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Petr Nečas, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and the Czech Chamber of Authorized Engineers and Technicians.The conference is an accredited educational event in the CPV ČKA program (5 points), and you can sign up for it here.