Retrofit Power: EnerPHit and the Buildings We Already Have
Passive House 2026 puts retrofit front and center, with case studies that span a Manhattan dormitory, a rural metal shed, a Greek island stone home, a London school district, a NYC building conversion, and Marcel Breuer’s Brutalist Armstrong Rubber Headquarters itself, now reborn as the EnerPHit-certified Hotel Marcel hosting the event.
In High-Density Results, FXCollaborative and New York University present the design, construction, and post-occupancy data for Rubin Hall, a 17-story former hotel that has been converted into an EnerPHit-certified dormitory serving 700 first-year students in Greenwich Village while meeting NYC Local Law 97 requirements. Material Thoughts features 475 High Performance Building Supply on a foam-free nail-laminated timber retrofit in New York City, including first-year operational data from the certified Passive House office.
Step-By-Step pushes the EnerPHit standard to its edges. Buck Moorhead Architect shows how to convert metal buildings into affordable rural workforce housing on a tight budget, while RACE-Studio presents a phased decarbonization strategy across three London public schools, using PHPP not just as a model but as a decision-making framework aligned with real funding cycles.
Pride of Place and Material Matters add two more stories: a renovated Greek island home wrestling with masonry, climate, and tradition, and a conversion and infill of a tight Brooklyn lot with mass timber demonstrate that bespoke design and Passive House rigor belong together rather than apart.
And throughout the conference, docent-led tours of Hotel Marcel let you experience the largest project of its kind in the United States. Walk the building, meet the suppliers, see the details, the high-performance windows, and the all-electric mechanicals that make a Brutalist concrete landmark hit Passive House numbers. For preservationists, institutional owners, campus planners, and anyone responsible for an existing portfolio, this conference is a working library of strategies that already deliver measured results. June 4 and 5, New Haven. Register at passivehousenetwork.org.
