Passive House Conference 2024 Speakers

Canberra-born and raised, Alex Slater understands the necessity of a well-insulated home. Sometimes the weather can knock your socks off through frostbite! A registered architect and certified passive house designer, now living in Melbourne, Victoria, Alex walks with both the architectural and building physics worlds, together.

His typical approach is to de-label and re-assess the requirements of a building envelope based on a project’s priorities. This approach has been used effectively to work with standards and conversations about building physics in Australia and Alex is on a mission to confirm that good buildings are not rocket science, they just require some upfront thinking.

With professional experience in architectural drafting, Excel business tools and shop drawing, along with a love for music and creative arts, Alex thrives in the world of the grey area, combing both thinking hemispheres to deliver good, healthy buildings.

20 years of experience working across not for profits and the built environment. Alexia has built a strong reputation as an individual who is able to navigate legislative, contractual, operational and strategic issues.

Understanding and navigating the nuances of both the marketplace, and the individuals within the marketplace, she is able to speak the many languages across the Architectural, Engineering and Construction community, connecting the dots and negotiating solutions for a broad range of complex issues across the industry.

With extensive experience managing all facets of membership associations, she is able to strategically lead drawing upon the strengths of employees and members to execute day to day activities.

A passionate advocate, collaborator, mentor and strategist, who enjoys connecting industry with ideas, and for this reason she is a regular contributor and trusted advisor to industry forums. A published writer, public speaker and an experienced non-executive board member.

Most recently Alexia held the role of General Manager of Strategic Innovation & Enterprise at the Australian Institute of Architects, in July of 2022 Alexia was appointed as the CEO of the Australian Passive House Association, under her leadership the organisation has grown by 40% in two years, and has made substantial strides in its advocacy.

Alvin Abon is a Building Energy Modelling Analyst at Sustainable Engineering. He puts his mechanical design expertise to work across a wide range of work including detailed thermal analysis of junctions and windows as well as supporting Passive House certification review. Alvin particularly enjoys working in our more advanced detailed thermal modelling tools for both two and three dimensional heat transfer as well as zonal cooling loads for complex buildings.

Carlin Osborne is a Senior Building Energy Modelling Analyst who recently joined the Sustainable Engineering Ltd team from a background in building services and sustainability consulting. He has experience in hydraulic and mechanical services design, and with a range of energy modelling tools. His building services and systems expertise is expanding the scope of dynamic and zonal energy modelling undertaken by Sustainable Engineering. He is passionate about holistic sustainability, as well as creating healthy and energy efficient home environments.

Dr Casimir MacGregor is Principal Social Scientist and Programme Leader of the Transition to a Zero Carbon Built Environment research programme at BRANZ. His research is focused on enabling innovation, systems and behaviour change within the construction sector to address climate change. His current research focuses on accelerating skills development for zero carbon construction.

He has served on a number of expert advisory groups, such as the Construction Sector Accord’s Construction Sector Environment Roadmap for Action and UNESCO-UNEVOC’s BILT programme on construction and vocational education.

With 17 years’ experience in the built environment and sustainability field, Clare’s career focus is on equitable access to healthy, high performance and low-carbon buildings. Previously founder and Chair of the Australian Passive House Association, and of specialist sustainability consultancy Grün Consulting, Clare is a Passivhaus Certifier and Designer and has worked on hundreds of Passivhaus projects including many of Australia’s most significant.

For Delia, Architecture has always been about people; not just creating spaces for people to inhabit, but also making spaces that have positive impacts on communities and society as a whole: Architecture can either reflect the values of its time or influence change by demonstrating other ways to live and other values to live by.

Delia studied Architecture at Edinburgh University and worked in London & Dublin on a range of projects, before emigrating to New Zealand over twenty years ago. Here, she gained extensive work experience, predominantly based in Queenstown (Archimedia, Crosson Clarke Carnachan Chin Architects and Anna-Marie Chin Architects), and was involved with a wide range of projects from high-end housing to the master-planning of commercial developments.

Recognising the need for good design to be made more accessible to the wider community, Delia established her own architectural practice, Design & Make Architects in 2012. Since then, her work is increasingly focused on low-carbon, high performance buildings with a particular interest in natural building materials and techniques.

Delia recently became Chair of the Earth Building Association of NZ (EBANZ), a network of professionals and owner-builders practising all forms of natural building techniques. Delia is leading the organisation through a period of growth and transition as it seeks to provide ancient solutions to today’s problems, including housing affordability, building quality, occupant health, economic circularity and community empowerment.

Dr Emina Kristina Petrović is Senior Lecturer in Sustainability in Design, Wellington School of Architecture, Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. Petrović recognised for her expertise on toxicity, sustainability, and healthiness of building materials. Petrović emphasises the importance of informed building material selection for both the built and natural environment, calling for a more detailed consideration of building materials for the totality of their impacts, from ecosystem health to ethics of production. This especially relates to synthetic materials and plastic pollution. By asserting the relevance of the interrelatedness of these issues, Petrović is providing a critical leadership in a transition to less impactful construction. Because knowledge itself is not enough for the needed change, Petrović has also contributed a new sustainability transition framework, and researches aspects of behaviour change in building industry.

Jane is on a mission to improve the performance of the building and construction sector. In 2005 she helped found the NZGBC, then became the CEO of the World Green Building Council, and more recently back in NZ as the Innovation Lead in the Construction Sector Accord. She used to say if we did our job well we would not be needed in 20 years, as these benchmarks would become business as usual. It’s Almost 20 years, so how are we doing? What are the theories of change that have and have not worked? We will take this opportunity to synthesize international and local market dynamics, and outline some likely paths for NZ in the next 10 years.

Jason Quinn is the founding director of Sustainable Engineering Ltd. His work focuses on the intersection of physics and building design and he has outspoken views on New Zealand housing. He has degrees in mechanical engineering (George Washington University, USA) and aerospace engineering (Florida Institute of Technology, USA) and is a registered International Professional Engineer (USA) and a Chartered Member of Engineering New Zealand.

Jason spent a decade as a rocket scientist at NASA before he and his family relocated to New Zealand in 2009. He soon became one of New Zealand’s first certified Passive House designers and in 2016 travelled to Germany for further training and exams to become the country’s first Passive House certifier. Jason is an in-demand speaker at Passive House conferences in Australasia and has taught courses for PHINZ, the Passive House Academy and the NZ Green Building Council.

Jess Berentson-Shaw is the Co-founder and Director at The Workshop, a not for profit organisation based in Whanganui-a-tara. The Workshop researches how people think about complex issues, and helps organisations frame their communications to deepen understanding and build public support for action. Jess is a social scientist by training, with a PhD from Victoria university. Throughout her career she has worked across government, business and not for profit sectors, advocating for the use of best knowledge to achieve more inclusive, healthy and connected communities.  As Director of Narrative at The Workshop, Jess works with people in local and central government, kaupapa Māori organisations, business, academia, and social and environmental movements to find and use more effective ways of framing to unlock wise decision-making across a wide range of public good topics. Jess is author of A Matter of Fact. Talking Truth in a Post-truth World (2018). A BWB text

Jessica Eyers is a building Analyst and Educator with a decade of experience as a certified Passive House designer. She has a MSc in architecture (UEL, 2006) and is a design LBP. Jessica has deep expertise in natural building materials, especially strawbale construction. She and her family live in New Zealand’s first certified strawbale Passive House. Jessica was most recently running her own architectural design practice; she has also been a NZGBC assessor and Eco Design Adviser.

Jessica Grove-Smith is joint managing director and senior scientist of the Passive House Institute in Darmstadt, Germany. A physicist by training, her areas of expertise include highly energy efficient building solutions to the Passive House Standard around the world under different climate conditions, interrelations between efficiency and renewable energies (PER method) and application of Passive House concept to indoor swimming pools. Jessica frequently participates in conferences and conducts training internationally.

Joe is an Associate Registered Architect, Certified Passive House Designer and Homestar Assessor with expertise in high performance, new build and renovation design in the UK and NZ. Originally from North Yorkshire in the UK, Joe studied and worked in London from early 2007 before making the move to New Zealand in 2016, when he joined Respond Architects

After watching his family get sick in cold, mouldy, minimum code buildings, his passion grew for building performance and occupant health. He produced his own project Lower Saddle Passive House to ensure his families health, and show that healthier, lower energy and affordable buildings are possible for everyone in New Zealand, at standard budgets. He has since used the project as a pathway to test approaches to achieving better buildings, and as an education tool for the wider industry.

Joe is extremely passionate about education, performing lectures for universities, internally for the company and externally for the wider industry. He is a trainer and co-writer of the new Homestar Designer Course for NZGBC, and was lead author on the Homestar Design Guide – A Practical Guide to Lower Carbon, Healthier Buildings. He is also the lead of the Auckland PHINZ Chapter.

Katie Symons is Principal Advisor, Engineering, in MBIE’s Building System Performance Branch. She has lead the technical side of MBIE’s work to reduce whole-of-life embodied carbon emissions, including the development of the whole-of-life embodied carbon framework (published in 2020) and technical methodology (published in 2022).

Katie is a chartered professional structural engineer in New Zealand and the UK, and has over 15 years’ experience designing building structures in both countries. She has particular expertise in assessing the embodied carbon of buildings and construction materials. She is the author of a number of academic papers on the subject and also wrote the New Zealand wood design guide on timber, carbon and the environment.

Lloyd Alter has been an architect, real estate developer, prefab housing entrepreneur, and writer. He teaches Sustainable Design at Toronto Metropolitan University. He has contributed to many publications, including The Guardian, Green Building Advisor, Corporate Knights and Azure Magazines, and was a contributor and editor at Treehugger.com for 15 years. Lloyd is the author of Living the 1.5 Degree Lifestyle from New Society Publishers. His new book, The Story of Upfront Carbon, describes “how a life of just enough offers a way out of the climate crisis.” has just been released.

He recently was a keynote speaker at the International Passive House Conference in Innsbruck, Austria, about “The Case for Retrofit” and spoke at the Buildings and Climate Global Forum in Paris about strategies for sufficiency.  He currently writes a popular Substack newsletter, Carbon Upfront!

With a background in mechanical engineering and sustainability consulting, Joe now serves as the Technical Manager of the Green Star team at the NZGBC. He helps projects achieve their sustainability targets and develops new standards, including the new Green Star Buildings tool, to continually challenge the construction industry to strive for more environmentally friendly buildings.

After completing his degree in Building Engineering in Montreal, he spent almost a decade working in the consulting roles on a wide range of projects across New Zealand and North America, including what was at the time Canada’s largest Passive House project. Initially focusing on mechanical engineering, his passion for the environment quickly drew him into the world of sustainable building design.

Mingtong completed Bachelor and Masters’ degrees at Shenyang Agricultural University, majoring in Electrical Engineering and Automation. She is now a PhD student at the University of Canterbury, where her research primarily focuses on leveraging building structures for short-term thermal storage, for both heating and cooling, to improve building performance and lower carbon emissions.

Michael Jack is a theoretical physicist with 18 years of experience in sustainable energy research. Current interests include understanding patterns of electricity use, such as, peak demand and how demand patterns match with renewable electricity supply.

He is particularly interested in how energy efficiency and new technologies might influence these patterns, and how flexibility in energy end use, via smart appliances or battery storage, might enable greater uptake of variable renewable supply.

He is director of the Energy Programme at the University of Otago and co-convenor of the Otago Energy Research Center a large multidisciplinary network of energy researchers at Otago.

Nicola leads the development and implementation of Fletcher Living’s sustainability strategy and oversees place and community functions. With a breadth of experience in the built environment industry stemming from her background in urban planning and design, she drives initiatives to enhance regenerative and circular practices while supporting sector decarbonisation. In 2024 she was named Outstanding Leader of Year (Office-based) by the National Association of Women in Construction.

Rachel specialises in communicating Passive House stories to technical and general audiences.

Professor Robyn Phipps, Dean, Faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation, has 30 years of experience researching healthy and low energy buildings, and teaching building science. Robyn is a Fellow of RICS and NZIOB, on the Board of Directors, NZGBC and Trustee of the NZ Property Foundation.

Sarah Lewis is a passionate advocate for sustainable architecture and design. As Research, Policy and Education Director for the UK Passivhaus Trust, she works to promote sustainable building practices and reduce the environmental impact of the UK built environment. Sarah is a Passivhaus Trainer at Coaction, authored PHPP Illustrated, and was named Sustainability and Environmental Woman of the Year at the European Women in Construction and Engineering Awards. She has extensive experience in building performance monitoring and evaluation projects and has lectured at international conferences and served on MIT’s Climate CoLab Sustainable Buildings Contest’s judging panel.

Tim Ross is a Registered Architect and Principal of Architype, an award-winning New Zealand architectural practice specializing in the design of passive house buildings. He is the architect of many passive house and high performance homes and numerous certified multi-unit residential projects. Tim is passionate about creating design solutions which are technically integrated, economically achievable and visually compelling.

Certified Passive House Designer, Green Star Accredited Professional, Engineer of Architecture (IKS SRB), Engineer of Energy Efficiency (IKS SRB) with international experience of many decades in the field of Sustainable Architecture, Passive House Design, Urban Planning Construction, and Project Management.

Passionate about Energy Efficient buildings with several awarded designs for Hotels,

Commercial, Industrial, and Multi-apartment buildings