Members of the BioBE center attended a public presentation given by members of and partners with the Cascadia Green Building Council, including St. Vincent de Paul and the University of Oregon. Construction is now underway on 12 new low income housing buildings, one of which will be built to “greener” Passive House specifications.
Passive house construction typically involves an upfront environmental cost which is believed to be “paid back” through the increase in energy efficiency over the lifetime of the building. University of Oregon Professor Erin Moore and Graduate Student Brook Waldman verified this for the Stellar Apartments in their presentation: “Shifting to Passive House: Life Cycle Assessment of the Stellar Apartment Upgrade”.
These new buildings, projected for completion in July of 2013, could provide a potential research opportunity for the BioBE center to study the impact of this cutting-edge, environmentally-friendly architecture on the indoor microbiome.