Across the Network
With Marcy Conrad Nutt
Licensed Architect, CPHD, LEED AP, and Founder of Yarrow Architecture, Marcy Conrad Nutt is also a Leader of Passive House Minnesota. Based in Minneapolis, Marcy has 25 years of architecture experience in residential, commercial, and institutional projects. We sat down with her for an interview to learn more about her work, activism, and Passive House firm. See the video above, or read on for the full transcript.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
PHN: How did you first hear about Passive House?
MCN: I am not honestly sure when I first heard about Passive House, I think it was just a process of reading and looking for information on websites. I’m not exactly sure, but I know that I was picking up books probably like eight or nine years ago. At that time was kind of hard to find information on Passive House. Then, I met a local expert in Passive House, Tim Eian of TE Studio. Our kids happen to go to the same school and so we just started talking as you do at a bus stop, and found out that we were both architects, and that’s how I found the Passive House connection.
From there, Tim got me roped into Passive House Minnesota pretty easily. I’ve been involved for about seven plus years now.
PHN: What made you want to become an Architect?
MCN: You know, I’ve been interested in architecture for a long time. At first, I wanted to be an artist when I was really little. So it started from the art background, just drawing and doing all sorts of things like that. I would also tour historic homes. If there was a house that was being built in my neighborhood, I’d ride my bike over, walk over and just walk through a construction site or old farm buildings that were falling down, that kind of thing. I had a little clay house that I ended up making floor plans for and imagine what the space would be like inside. So it’s just been something I’ve always been interested in. I actually didn’t know any architects until I went to university. I joke that I wanted to be an architect probably since I was 8. Luckily, I liked it once I found out what it was.
PHN: Do you have any favorite Architects or Artists? What about their style inspires you?
MCN: One of my favorites is Alvar Aalto. I like how he took the international style of the time and made it Finnish. That the cultural regionalism was something that always appealed to me. He’s really thoughtful about applying the vernacular of regional architecture and has a focus on textures and the human experience in his architecture, and that’s something that I love. I also like Carlo Scarpa. The sculptural aspect of making the everyday things that you need for a building, like a gutter or, you know, taking care of stormwater, making something like that beautiful and sculptural.
From the Passive House side, Opal Architecture does some really great work and Archietype too. And then there’s some local artists that I love too, like Richard Serra. I have a love of COR-TEN and the spaces that are created with those simple bent forms. And there’s a local artist, Tia Keobounpheng, who does some beautiful work with thread on paper and just had an exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. So all those kind of very textural, beautiful modern and vernacular types of work are really appealing to me
PHN: Can you tell us about your new firm, Yarrow Architecture?
MCN: We’ve just founded Yarrow Architecture in September this year. When I was looking for a name for the architecture firm, I was searching for different prairie plant names and just thinking about the kind of qualities that I really valued in architecture and wanted this firm to create. Yarrow is a native prairie plant that’s super resilient to pretty extreme climate conditions. It’s very versatile. It’s something that’s been around forever, that, you know, our ancestors have used in many different ways. And it’s also beautiful. Those are qualities that I wanted to express in the name.
I think the what really sets Yarrow Architecture apart is the ability to really look at the vernacular in the local climate. On top of that, it’s applying the higher tech, latest building science of Passive House and doing energy modeling from the beginning, which is not standard practice at all in architecture firms. That is part of every a project at Yarrow.
PHN: Can you tell us about your work in community advocacy? How is that related to your work as an architect?
MCN: I feel like I’ve always been doing some kind of community advocacy. For a long time I did affordable housing advocacy, but with advocacy for Passive House it’s really just getting out there and telling people how important it is to build better. We’re gonna have really extreme weather. Our buildings are going to need to be able to handle those extreme conditions whether it’s wildfire or drought, higher temperatures, or humidity. Even in places like Minnesota, Passive House is an excellent solution to that. So it’s just a lot of education, and that’s the nice thing about Passive House Minnesota—we get a chance to go out there and give people a Passive House 101 and introduce what it is and communicate how important it is to build better than code and better than how we’re building now.
PHN: You spent a lot of time this summer talking to people at the Minnesota State Fair during the Minnesota State Fair Ice Box Challenge. What did you learn about how the general public things about buildings? What was the message that resonated with people the most?
MCN: The Icebox Challenge was really interesting. For those who might not know, there’s two different boxes and one is built to code and the other one is built to an example of the Passive House standard. The stark difference of the performance of the two boxes really stood out for people who saw the results. By the time the ice all melted out of the code built box, the Passive House box still had like 60% of its ice remaining. It really communicated to people what code gets you and what our existing built environment is really like. I think there’s a misconception by a lot of people in the public that they’re getting better buildings than they are, and that architects and builders in general, when there’s talk about sustainability, are delivering more than I think is really getting built from an energy efficient standpoint. We can do better. When people know that there’s going to be a difference between the code built and the Passive House built, and they see how much of a difference it makes, that’s the part that really stands out to people. It’s so drastically different.
PHN: What’s your approach to communicating this difference with your clients? What can a client expect from their Passive House building at the end of the project?
MCN: You can’t make any of this happen without good collaboration with your clients. At first, it’s a lot of listening and really understanding what the client needs, what their concerns are, what their desires are, and taking that, along with the climate considerations and energy modeling, to create a good building.
At the end of the project, you should have building that you’re excited about, that is meeting all of those qualities and goals that you set at the very beginning. And there’s so many good tools I’m really excited to dive into.
With retrofitting, with phasing, pre certifying a phasing plan, I’m really interested in sitting down with people, listening to where they’re at and creating road maps. Let’s say you can only do two-thirds of what you’re planning on doing to get to a Passive House level retrofit. Is it possible to do the remaining one-third later on, and what does that look like? And that’s actually something the Passive House Institute has worked on a lot and they’ve done pilot projects.
PHN: When it comes to our built environment, what do you hope to see in the next 10 or 15 years?
MCN: One of the reasons I formed my firm is because I wanted to play a part in making Passive House mainstream. That’s really the fundamental reason. And so what I would like to see in the next 10 or 15 years would be to see Passive House as something that people understand more—that there’s more recognition of what it is and more people asking for it, building these type of buildings, and gaining the expertise. I hope to see Passive House as the mainstream way to build.
Many thanks to Marcy for spending some time with us and answering our questions! If you’re ready to join her quest in making Passive House more mainstream, be sure to register our next Certified Passive House Designer Cohort.
