Jenny Peysin of Jenny Peysin Architecture | Wilderness Drive in East Jewett | Finding Refuge in Vacation Homes
Transcript
Announcer 00:02
Welcome to American Building, a weekly recorded show whose mission is to share an alternative perspective of what we build in America, and why. Together we discover how the work of the real estate industry connects to every American. In season two, we focused on how buildings changed as a result of the pandemic. In this season, we're revisiting conversations from previous seasons, to see where Americans put their heads down at night. Together, we will discover the many definitions of home across the New York City metropolitan area, which includes over 23 million Americans. Each week, we'll visit a new building and explore complex and confusing issues related to housing access to see what they can teach us about ourselves, and our country will meet those who work to develop in thoughtful and impactful ways, who build neighborhoods to be more sustainable, affordable, accessible, or inclusive, who labor to create thriving communities, and transform the lives of generations to come. Through their stories, we will humanize often polarizing topics. Profound, surprising, and hilarious. This show is for developers and builders with boots on the ground for innovators trying to find ways to improve our industry, for the policymakers and public employees. And for any person who has walked by a building and wondered why. And now your host award winning architect turned developer and startup founder Atif Qadir, AIA.
Atif Qadir 01:53
This is American Building. And I'm your host, Atif Qadir. I'm the founder of Commonplace. Join me as it take a drive by the skylines and strip malls, crosswalks, and rail crossings, balconies, buildings and boroughs to discover a new generation of housing. Let's build common ground.
Atif Qadir 02:26
In this episode, you will learn about the history of vacation homes in the greater New York City area, the role they played in the pandemic and new businesses growing to serve this market. You'll join me in learning about wilderness drive, a passive house designed as a vacation home in East Jewett, a town located in the Catskills region of upstate New York. vacation homes go by monikers like summer home, weekend home, cottage, second home and beach house. Together they represent places for an escape. There are four vacation home markets in the greater New York City region. To the east of New York City is eastern Long Island including Fire Island, the North Fork and the Hamptons. To the south is the Jersey Shore to Atlantic City and Cape May, to the north or the Hudson Valley and the Catskills mountains including Putnam, Orange, Dutchess, Ulster, Columbia, Greene and Sullivan counties. To the east is Litchfield County, Connecticut and the Berkshire Mountains.
Atif Qadir 03:40
The concept of vacation homes came into the psyche of Americans in 1869 with the book adventures in the wilderness. It was written by preacher William Murray and described his vacation into rural upstate New York. At a time when most Americans I mean, excluding Native Americans saw areas beyond cities and farms as places of danger, ie from the white colonial perspective. The year the book was published the cultural phenomenon of the summer vacation began. Writer Tony Parrothead writes about this history in an article for Smithsonian Magazine called Where was the birthplace of the American vacation? Check the show notes for the link to the article. During the pandemic, there was a rush for homes outside of New York City, and particularly larger homes than before. That was because of the ubiquity of work from home. With the increased demand home prices went up. For example, there was a 56% increase in home prices over just two years in Ulster County. Original year round residents including those in essential services like public safety and Construction, those in the foodservice industry and those in the agricultural industry often found it harder to stay put.
Atif Qadir 05:09
In a fascinating article called Hudson Valley towns have a New York City problem for online magazine the city. Writer Sophia riddle lays out the case for why New York City residents are ruining one of the four major vacation regions I mentioned earlier, but they may as well be saving it with 45% of the new jobs created in Ulster County last year being in the tourism and hospitality sector. The link to this article is also in the show notes. The popularity of vacation homes and their rising prices have led to a cottage industry pun intended, of venture backed companies operating to fill a perceived unmet need. Pacaso is a marketplace that provides fractional ownership of high end vacation homes, also known as timeshares. Den Outdoors is a vertically integrated manufacturer of small scale vacation homes. AvantStay is a real estate investment vehicle that is buying, selling and operating vacation homes as short term rentals through a branded marketplace. Its founder, Sean Brunner was my classmate at Columbia Business School.
Atif Qadir 06:29
In this episode of American building, I am sharing an edited version of the conversation I had in October 2021. With architect and certified passive house designer Jenny Payson, Jenny is the founder and principal of Jenny pace and architecture, a full service architectural and interior design firm, based in Brooklyn, New York. Previously, she worked at Blaze McQuoid architecture, and u plus Biblio. Architects. She is a graduate of Cornell University. Enjoy the conversation.
Atif Qadir 07:06
Thank you so much for being here with us, Jenny.
Jenny Peysin 07:09
Thanks for having me.
Atif Qadir 07:10
When did you know that you are ready to start your own business? And how did you go about doing that?
Jenny Peysin 07:17
Yeah, so I worked with Blaze for about three years and was kind of ran a few projects there. Actually, I had a few we had a project in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a few projects out on the east end, that, you know, the company plays was always very generous and like teaching us how the project works. From start to finish. We were always very active with talking to clients and really taking it from start to finish, which was a great experience. And I learned a lot. And so when my husband finished his residency, and we knew we're ready to move back to Brooklyn, which was always our goal. I was like, okay, like, should I just try to do this on my own, like, I feel like I kind of understand how this works at this point. And we were also talking about starting a family.
Jenny Peysin 07:57
And you know, that kind of autonomy just felt like the right step at that point. And, you know, we were lucky that we knew six months ahead of time that we were going to move. And so I basically spoke to Blaise, and he was very supportive. And I had that six months to put together kind of a business plan and, you know, plan for that kind of going out on my own, which was great.
Atif Qadir 08:17
And what were some of the things that you were focused on doing in those six months to get you ready to hit the ground running.
Jenny Peysin 08:25
I mean, it was some of the kind of the boilerplate stuff coming up with you know, getting a website together, getting a portfolio together, talking to clients, talking to consultants, thinking about you know, how, I don't know bookkeeping is kind of like all that stuff that you don't like necessarily think about also just like getting a company like registered.
Atif Qadir 08:44
And all this stuff that you don't learn about when you're an architect.
Jenny Peysin 08:47
Oh, yeah, not even close. So that's a while, you know, that was all kind of a learning experience as well. But it definitely helped to have that buffer period and kind of hit the ground running once I, I left.
Atif Qadir 08:59
And once you did start up, there were a number of projects that you started working on, both in New York and Connecticut, and the one that we will be focusing on today is the wilderness drive project in Greene County, in the Catskills. Could you tell us the particulars about the area and then the project site itself?
Jenny Peysin 09:21
Yeah, so the town was called East Jewett, and it's actually not far from Hunter mountain. So there's some really lovely forested areas there are skiing for hiking, all that and we found a really just beautiful five acre wooded lot gentle Hill, like nice little stream on it just really lovely lot. The way that all started was another architect friend of mine, who was also interested in passive house, which we'll touch on later. We were kind of just trying to find any way to work on a passive house, basically, and it's kind of up and coming. So there's not a lot of opportunities.
Jenny Peysin 09:55
So we were like, Okay, why don't we just create our own opportunity? And so we bought this piece of land you And the first idea was to basically design a modern Passive House and sell it kind of like a development, sell it to anybody who want and it was a tiny, you know, it was like right in the middle of COVID people were looking to come out of the city, it seemed like a really good market for it. You know, as you know, I guess it's just like you did development. So you know, but this it was like a whole, it just like a lot of difficulty to figure out how to get the right loans, how to get the right investors, all of that. So ultimately, after finding the site, and we had looked at a lot of sites,
Atif Qadir 10:30
We should have mentioned, which is, which is also stuff that you don't learn in architecture school now.
Jenny Peysin 10:36
We got the design part down, I have to say, this other stuff is definitely a challenge. But you know, we found the site, we kind of fell in love with it. And we're like, you know, what, why don't we pivot a little bit, and actually build this house for ourselves, between the two couples, we would share it and rent it out when we're not using it, but also, you know, use it and have been able to bring our kids up there during the weekends and whatnot. So at the same time, kind of using ourselves as the guinea pigs. So for whatever mistakes we end up making on this first Passive House project, at least that'll be for us. And that for clients.
Atif Qadir 11:09
That's a really good, methodical, step by step approach. So the site itself is five acres, and is it a flat or sloped? Is it forested? A lot of sun, what did it feel like when you were there?
Jenny Peysin 11:23
Yeah, it's very, it feels very idyllic. It's like a very rolling like, gentle Hill, the whole thing is totally forested, some beautiful old trees on there, like old pines, and clusters, and just the rest of it is forest to too little stream at the bottom of the hill. So part of that would be kind of figuring out how to carefully clear the site without over clearing, obviously, we don't want to do that. But then, you know, you want to make sure that the house is oriented in such a way that you have enough solar gain, enough shading, there's a lot of like thought that goes into that process, which were kind of in the very early stages of putting together the house itself, we're thinking would just be a single storey kind of modern bungalow style, probably with two wings for two separate families. And then like a shared center area for the center, kitchen, central living room, play room, probably a bunk room for the kids. So that's that's the kind of topology that we're thinking of.
Atif Qadir 12:17
And given that you originally thought of this as a development activity, do you think that with the two wings that that could also potentially say, if one of you, is there, and one isn't the ability to rent or the other half of the house out? Is that Is there an ability? Or would you Is that something you guys are considering as well?
Jenny Peysin 12:34
Yeah, I mean, we haven't thought about it. In that way. I just think because of the shared kitchen and shared living spaces, I think would be a little strange to me, but it does seem like it's something that, you know, people may want, at least for, like a short term rental, for the hiking, for the skiing. And, you know, we are planning to build a ton of sleeping space for, you know, bunk beds, and all of that are for kids and for larger families. So we're hoping that there's a market for that. And that seemed like that, based on some of the research we did.
Atif Qadir 13:03
So in total, it should be around 3400 square feet, five bedrooms, three baths, and you're keeping it to one story or two stories.
Jenny Peysin 13:11
Yeah, we're gonna keep it to one story. And yet, that's where what you said is correct. So basically, each wing would have its own bathroom, its own full bath, and then there'll be one shared full bath, for the bunk room. And you know, there's kind of outdoor water activities, or whatever it is, you come straight into that bath, and that have to go all the way to the bedroom weightings
Atif Qadir 13:30
and the overall budget. What are you estimating?
Jenny Peysin 13:33
So the budget came through talking to a lot of contractors, local contractors, trying to understand what they would estimate based on a square foot number for Passive House. And we came in at around between a million on 1.3. I think realistically what it's going to be, so it's a lot, but we're hoping that between the two of us we can find some some sources of funds.
Atif Qadir 13:58
So that's the fun of being both the designer and the developer. So with this as the model for a larger plan that you would have to potentially developed properties for sale or for rent. Do you see this as something that you'd be able to scale within this portion of New York or you see this the Passive House weekend house opportunity, something that can be actually larger across more parts of this area?
Jenny Peysin 14:25
Yeah, I mean, I think it's very applicable to this climate in general, but also, you know, it really is adaptable. Because the way you know, the way that the Passive House structure works is that you're basically the house will maintain whatever you put into it. So if you need to heat it, it'll stay warm. If you need to cool it will stay cool. So that like really simple idea having this variant when we haven't talked about the the different elements of passerby up but basically like having this really thermally insulated house is perfect for this kind of environment. And I think, as a second home for families in New York City or Wherever really, it's perfect because you don't have to maintain a lot of these complicated systems like HVAC systems that typical houses have, you know, you're not really worried about all that. You don't have an air compressor on the outside sitting in the snow,
Atif Qadir 15:13
and making a lot of noise along the way,
Jenny Peysin 15:16
hearing away the wildlife.
Atif Qadir 15:18
So I think it's about time that we talked about Passive House. It's actually a pretty popular design strategy that I've heard other architects talk about. So we had an Roland, who's a Partner at FX Collaborative on earlier this year, and we focus on a school project, but she had talked about the increasing interest amongst her residential clients for passive house. So I think it's something that a number of firms are looking at are interested in.
Jenny Peysin 15:44
Yeah, that's so great to hear, I definitely see that interest starting to like become more and more popular, but the way that my passive house instructor Ed may have, he works for a company called building type markussi created a company called building type, he said, basically, what you're doing is you're building a thermos and that a coffee cup. So it's, you're super insulating the building. So the walls have a lot more insulation, the windows have triple three panes of glass instead of two. And the exterior frame of the Windows is really specifically detailed to minimize thermal bridging. So that word thermal bridging is another thing comes up as an overall concept of Passive House.
Jenny Peysin 16:20
So basically, where you have insulation gaps, such as where the structure of a floor meets the structure of a wall, you want to eliminate that thermal bridge, so you want to make sure that the insulation is continuous across that barrier, right. So those two things, and then you are creating an airtight envelope. So that is another kind of important value of Passive House, where you really want to make sure that there's not a lot of air going in and out of the wall, kind of passively. And then finally, because
Atif Qadir 16:50
that's the name of
Jenny Peysin 16:53
the name, basically, because of that air tightness of the building, you have to provide mechanical ventilation. So that really brings in, you know, constant 24 hour fresh air. So you have this really, really great quality of indoor air.
Atif Qadir 17:07
So a few things that I want to dive into in case or a user aren't necessarily familiar with some of the terms that you use. When you say envelope. What does that mean?
Jenny Peysin 17:17
Yeah, it's just basically the exterior parts of the house. So the slab that your house is sitting on the walls and the roof, and any kind of openings that go into that become part of the envelope. So the windows, the doors, any kind of duct penetrations, plumbing penetrations, you know, so you really have to be mindful when you're building a passive house, that all of those penetrations are attended to really specifically and sealed up so that you have this continuous, airtight membrane that goes around the entire shell of the house.
Atif Qadir 17:51
And then you mentioned thermal bridging as being something that you look to avoid, what is thermal bridging? And why is that an issue?
Jenny Peysin 17:59
Yeah, thermal bridging is basically like I said, where you have a gap in insulation, and so we're keeping cold, can flow in and out of the building more easily. So you're saying, Oh, I have, you know, six inches of insulation on my wall, like that's it, that's great done. But if you think about it, like where the beams come to meet the exterior wall, there's a beam pocket, and you know, and then you have a gap. And the installation only dwindles to like two inches. And so you have to think about that as being you just have to address those really carefully in the detailing. So when you're drawing through the building, you have to think, Okay, where are my points of thermal bridging going to happen? It's in it's usually where two things come together, right? So one like a window frame and a wall come together, that can create a thermal bridge. So you have to think about how are you going to address the insulation in meeting the window frame, like you want to make sure that there's overlap all the time.
Atif Qadir 18:48
And those are interesting. Also, the places where buildings tend to fail from moisture as well. So it seems like that those are really important points, both from a heat management as well as moisture management to 100%. And then the third thing was triple pane. So the concept is three panes of glass, what's between those panes? And why is it better than say like double pane or single pane,
Jenny Peysin 19:13
it's really just the more panes of glass who add and they have an Eric is argon and between each pane, basically, the more panes you add, the higher your thermal rating of your window is. So the better the window is able to keep the cold out a heat out. And with triple pane just through the research or Passive House they were able to find that that is kind of the right range for the level of insulation that needs that Passive House standard basically
Atif Qadir 19:40
perfect. And then since Passive House is a relatively new concept, in this kind of modern iteration of it, what are some of the ways that you have developed to communicate the ideas of Passive House to your clients?
Jenny Peysin 19:56
Right so like I said, I only got my passive house certification Should like right before the pandemic, you're relatively new as well. And we are trying, we are trying to introduce all of our clients as well as every client whose project has any possibility, basically to become a passive house. And that includes, you know, brownstones in Brooklyn like those. It's really like so Passive House has like a separate branch called enter fit that's perfect for retrofitting existing buildings.
Atif Qadir 20:24
Oh, so doesn't necessarily have to be new construction. Oh,
Jenny Peysin 20:28
yeah. I mean, it's much harder, you can't really do it within like an apartment building, it's a little bit harder. Although I feel like I have seen an example of that once in like a case study. But basically, it's not really something that works too well. But you can absolutely take an existing building and retrofit it to be passive. And so basically, you know, eyes do glaze over a little bit when we bring a passive house. But we try to start to kind of tell them, here's what the slightly higher upfront cost is going to get you. And what it is going to get you is very comfortable houses that are easy to operate, you're going to have a completely sealed envelope. So you're not going to have those lovely New York City cockroaches getting into your building, you're going to have basically a 24/7 filtered fresh air. So very good indoor air quality that you can constantly control, which is great.
Atif Qadir 21:18
And the fresh air is through fans. Is that the idea? Yes.
Jenny Peysin 21:22
Yeah, so it's like a heat exchange fan. Got it. And so basically, it just takes the stale air out. Usually, the fence out there that goes in would be in like the kitchen or the hallway, and then the freshmen will be piped into the bedrooms and the main living spaces. So the other benefit is having very even temperatures. So basically, you don't have a cold spot next to the window. So if you're leaning against the window, you're not going to feel that cold, you know, against the glass, basically, the whole house has like a very even comfortable temperature. And then also, I mean, you really get a 70 to 80% savings on heating and cooling expenses, which is huge. 70 to 80%. Yeah, because it just takes a drop, it does not take, you know, like it's really a massive savings in the long run. Because all it takes is like one little mini split unit to heat and cool a house,
Atif Qadir 22:14
a mini split would be like a through wall unit that does both heating and cooling. Yeah.
Jenny Peysin 22:19
Yeah, exactly. Then basically, you could do that same unit, but ducted. So you evenly spread out the air. But But the nice thing about Passive House. So you don't need to have like radiators in front of every window to mitigate the coldest coming from the windows, the grills that you place can be really anywhere they work with the design. So they have a lot of flexibility from that perspective, too.
Atif Qadir 22:38
There's something that's it's so ironic about the way that buildings are traditionally designed in the idea being that heating is put right in front of the windows in order to essentially heat the windows because that's the area the largest amount of heat loss. I don't think many people that are homeowners realize that's what they
Jenny Peysin 22:57
are. It's nuts. Like that's what I guess that's the trade off, we're having like,
Atif Qadir 23:04
that's true for a long time. And so this has become popular as I think what you describe the 70 to 80% savings is something that is incredibly interesting to people that don't necessarily have the opportunity or the option for energy saving systems, say like geothermal or solar because of where they're physically located, or perhaps because of the energy company in their area, they may have something, they may be subject to a very cost fluctuating fuel source, like for example, propane. So my parents live in a Princeton area. And that particular utility uses propane. So their bills can wildly swing up and down. So this sounds like something that a lot of people probably in this area would be interested in.
Jenny Peysin 23:48
Yeah, it's actually very interesting that you bring that up, because the origins of passive house, when it started out in the 70s. A lot of the research was by North American builders who were responding to the oil embargo and wanted to build houses that use very little energy. So that's, that was the impetus for it. So you're absolutely right. It's completely applicable to today's environment and kind of global environment.
Atif Qadir 24:12
I think there's something very important about this, the value of independence of that particular building that you mentioned, when we were talking about the Hamptons projects earlier as well, in light of climate change. This very rapid move that we need from oil and gas to alternative fuels is this notion of how can you live with the fewest amount of inputs in your house? I think the large portion is what you describe, but I know many of my friends have also taken some of the smaller tinier versions of it, which is like having a COVID garden in their backyard, but it seems like a theme that is very resonant with people in 2021.
Jenny Peysin 24:53
Yeah, and actually waste is very true. And I wanted to bring up the fact that if you're doing Passive House you don't even need to do to you thermo, you know, you just you don't you're using so little energy that that's overkill solar panels will will be more than enough. And you'll probably be like selling energy back to the grid at that point, if you're using solar panels.
Atif Qadir 25:12
That's interesting, because I feel like energy saving methods and processes may get bucketed in people's brains in the same place. So they assume that if it's Passive House, then you're doing geothermal and you're doing solar, and you're doing this and you're doing. But really, I think as people as this knowledge becomes more available, and it's more commonly used, that there probably is way more nuance to it. And people understand that, if you do this, you don't have to do this, too.
Jenny Peysin 25:37
Yeah, I think what's what makes it passive is that you're doing this thing once. And it just it operates as it is like that is the thing that you build. It's just, it's doing its thing, and you don't have to like give it all this input, which is great. It's like exactly where we need to be.
Atif Qadir 25:51
So let's take a step back. And now that we understand the fundamentals of what Passive House is about, and how people are receiving that, and how that's, that's a very valuable strategy to pursue, what are the origins of the modern Passive House movement?
Jenny Peysin 26:05
Right. So as I mentioned, it started out in the 70s, in the 1970s, to the 1970s. Yeah, and the US and Canada, basically, with these builders trying to find ways to build very low energy buildings in response to the oil embargo. And then it kind of traveled over across the ocean to Germany, where researchers started kind of putting together like the actual tenants of the actual Passive House movement. So in the 70s, it wasn't quite defined yet for what it was. And then in the 80s, in Germany, basically, these two researchers started to put together the actual kind of building science numbers behind this idea of passive house. And that's actually where the majority of passive buildings exists today is in the German speaking world. Yeah, so that's kind of how it started out. And very slowly, it's this movement, I want to call it a movement. But it's basically like a style of building, it's not prescriptive, it's a type of building that's based on goals. So basically, they give you like, the amount of air exchanges, like the maximum amount of air exchanges that you're allowed to have, with the interior of the house and the exterior of the house, like the number of the you value that you have to hit for your walls, the value that you have for your ceiling like roofs. Now, there's no specific kind of benchmarks. And you do it however you want to do it. However, it makes sense in your, you know, location with whatever bits building materials you have. That's the beauty of it, too. It's very adaptable.
Atif Qadir 27:36
I think what's so fascinating is that in the context of what you're describing there also earlier or say, historic references to that. So this year, for example, I've been doing a number of road trips across the Northeast. And what I've seen really frequently, particularly in rural areas of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina, is this idea of, for example, using a stream water to actually provide cooling for farm goods, or siting a house to take advantage of what the predominant wind flow is in a particular location. And it feels like the what you've described as the origins and the tenets of the movement encompasses a number of other things that probably have earlier, more historic references to them. Because when you didn't necessarily have the optionality of different things, you would have to make do with what was available to you in order to survive and be happy.
Jenny Peysin 28:36
Yeah, and solar gain was definitely one of those things. And originally, when they started researching how to make this really low energy use house, the first idea or one of the first kind of ideas was to have these really large windows and allowing like all of the sunlight and have like a big thermal mass that will collect the sunlight during the day and then let it out during the night, heating the space. Through this research, actually, in the 80s, they realized that the better way to do that the more efficient way is to actually just super insulate, you still have solar gain that you're trying to get. But there were they were finding that buildings were actually overheating. It was kind of like a greenhouse, and it wasn't a comfortable living environment. So by Super insulating and being a little more specific and controlled about your solar gain and solar shading. That's kind of how they came to this standard.
Atif Qadir 29:27
We talked earlier about the LEED program and the the aspects of that that's something it's pretty widely understood and widely recognized in our industry. How do you compare lead to Passive House? What are the ways that someone can understand that to in context?
Jenny Peysin 29:43
Yeah, I mean, I think that those are both programs are very much aligned. And early in my career because I was first exposed to lead. I was kind of all in I did, I did my LEED certification. I took the test. It was a great program and it is a great program. Basically the way it works with LEED is that you're working towards points and points add up To a certain kind of LEED certification, so you get a certain amount of points, you get LEED silver, a set amount of points, you get LEED Gold. And as I was mentioning to you before, there's like areas of different ways that you can get these points. So like material sourcing, how efficient your plumbing fixtures are, how efficient your HVAC system is, making sure you don't have enough, a lot of like off gassing in your paints, things like that.
Jenny Peysin 30:24
So like little by little, all those things add up, and you get a certain kind of certification for your building, which is very good, but it's a little bit different. And I think it's a little more applicable to kind of commercial projects, where frequently there will be somebody who's collecting all this data and making sure that and keep staying on top of it. And really cataloging all of that. So frequently, you'd work with a consultant on a bigger project, like the one that we worked with on Carnegie Hall was called the Daris. Okay, New York City, they're great at that process. You know, I went through that process with Carnegie and it was interesting. And then when I started my own firm, and started working for Blaze and seeing kind of more single family residential work, I couldn't really put it together in my mind how that would be applicable to these projects. And so I started thinking about what are some other systems out there for achieving, you know, these very energy efficient houses.
Jenny Peysin 31:14
And a friend of mine, actually, the the friend that we bought the property with, introduced me to passive house and she was like, there's this passive house training class, you know, we're in the middle of this pandemic, or nozari, before that pandemic, she was just kind of like, why don't we take this class and see if we can learn and, you know, maybe kind of do something different? And yeah, it was great. We took it was a one week long class, and just a full day's on and there was a exam at the end, that was run and graded by somebody in Germany. Okay. It's very much still centered there the whole? Yeah, but it was, I mean, just being in that class was like, Wow, this can apply to basically, you know, like, at least 50% of the work that we do in my office just seems like a no brainer. And I can't even imagine building any other way now. So yeah, it was it was really wonderful to see.
Jenny Peysin 32:05
So the Passive House just answer a question between the differences. Like I said, it's more of a standard that you're trying to hit. And it's less of a collection of checkmarks. And so it's a little more flexible, like if you're working in upstate New York, the builders more comfortable with stick build wood structures, well, you can achieve Passive House with that, if you're working somewhere and they want to do sips panels, you know, you can achieve Passive House. With that, you know, you can do retrofits in New York City, there's just a lot of flexibility there to get to that standard without having a prescriptive method.
Atif Qadir 32:35
Great. And then for our listeners, you mentioned that there were a courses that you've taken and particular instructor for folks that are designers themselves that want to go down the same path that you did, could you direct them to certain resources, then for anyone that's a listener that is interested in having this in their own home? How like a layperson can find out more about this, what would you suggest?
Jenny Peysin 32:58
Yeah, international Passive House, just Google it, it'll come up, they'll direct you to your local chapters. New York has a passive house chapter. They do conventions, they do kind of trade shows that educate designers. They also do training courses for builders, which is a huge elements to this, because you really need full buy in from the GC. For these projects. It's not just something that's going to happen. It's going to be somebody there on site all the time being like make sure you seal that gap makes your seal that gap. But yeah, I would say international Passive House organization is really the place to start. And they're the ones that are based in Germany.
Atif Qadir 33:34
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