Joe is no stranger to our Passive House Community but we have asked him to share a little about himself and his goals with our members.
“I’m Director of WEL Architecture, a Homestar Assessor & trainer for NZGBC, a Certified Passive House Designer & I have led the Auckland PHINZ Chapter since its inception. I’m dad to three ‘lively’ Kiwis, and husband to my amazing wife Sarah.
Originally from North Yorkshire in the UK, I grew up exploring the rural farms, moors and woodland around my childhood home. Through this experience I have a deep love of nature and the outdoors. After almost pursuing a career in sculpture, I moved to London in 2007 to study and work in Architecture, which added a love of urbanism & the built form to my passion for hands-on creating, before heading to NZ with my wife in March 2016 ‘to travel for a few months’!
We swiftly decided to stay and started our family; but after watching our children get sick in cold, mouldy, minimum code buildings, my passion grew for building performance and occupant health. To provide a better, healthier life for us I embarked on a journey to create our own Passive House Certified home – Lower Saddle Passive House, on a minimal budget. I believe that homes should achieve a standard far above what the NZ Building Code achieves, but that this doesn’t necessarily mean significant additional cost if this is prioritised and considered holistically throughout the design process, as we proved with our own project.
My passion, and the primary aim of my practice, is to get more people into healthy, low energy and low carbon homes and buildings through my own designs, through helping others as a consultant, and through teaching. I feel that Passive House is one of the best ways to achieve low energy, durable and comfortable homes, supported by other pathways and tools such as Homestar and Living Building Challenge, to cover the wider project context and elements such as water use, embodied carbon, biodiversity, healthy materials, the list goes on.
I have presented, lectured and taught building performance and energy modelling, and enjoy enabling others to learn. I have aimed to use the PHINZ Auckland Chapter events to educate and demystify building performance and Passive House, while also utilising my own experiences and journey to help others connect with and understand both elements.
In joining the PHINZ board, I hope to break down some of the perceived barriers around Passive House, show that healthier buildings can be achievable to those who feel that they are out of reach, demonstrate how Passive House is an appropriate way to achieve energy efficient, climate resilient buildings for New Zealand; and push for more education to allow more people to achieve Passive House Performance through their designs and work.
I have hands-on real-world experience with designing, building, and living in a Passive House, so can show that I’m not just talking the talk but also walking the walk. Through this I can discuss the positives and negatives of each stage, and how to approach them based on personal experience, all of which I hope to bring to the role.”
