PODCAST · arts
The Building Science Podcast
by Positive Energy
The Building Science Podcast is a show hosted by MEP engineering firm Positive Energy principal Kristof Irwin. The show covers everything from the basics of building science to adjacent scientific disciplines to more fully understand how the built environment shapes our lives as human beings on planet earth.
Episodes
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The Progress Paradox: How Codes Create Carbon
An interview with Kelly Alvarez Doran Why do our building codes encourage carbon pollution? How have we landed in a "progress paradox," where older buildings often outperform new ones in both operational and embodied energy? In this episode, we sit down with Kelly Alvarez Doran, co-founder of…
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Demystifying Decarbonization: Data Driven Design
In this episode, Kristof sits down with sustainability expert Josh Jacobs to demystify the ins and outs of Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs), Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), Product Category Rules (PCRs) and ISO Standards that are causing a decarbonization to happen around the world....
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Perspectives on Hydronics in the Real World
An interview with Robert Bean and Lance MacNevin In this episode we unpack the rapidly transforming world of hydronic heating and cooling. We are joined by two seasoned veterans of the industry, Robert Bean and Lance MacNevin. With many decades of real-world experience and hard-earned perspective...
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(Un)Healthy Homes
An interview with Dr. Eva King Our homes are indoor environments of our own making. These environments exist to make our lives better but often unintentionally expose us to contaminants—chemical and microbial—that harm our health and wellbeing. For genetically susceptible individuals, these…
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Our Second PSA, The Humid Climate Conference in Austin May 4th & 5th!
The Humid Climate Conference (HCC) is officially back in Austin this May 4th & 5th, and we have a fantastic line up of speakers and topics for our 10th anniversary. It’s time to step away from the Zoom screen and have some live 3D human interaction! Today’s episode is a public service…
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Our Hidden Roommates
An interview with Dr. Sarah Haines The Indoor Microbiome is the complex, invisible world of trillions of microorganisms living within indoor environments. Its residents include bacteria, archaea, fungi and viruses. We live immersed in this ecological niche, for good or ill. A typical home can…
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Hydronics: The OG HVAC - Part 2
An interview with Benjamin Jewell. This is Part 2 of our latest series to familiarize our industry with the world of hydronics systems and air-to-water heat pumps. In Part 2 we’re rejoining the conversation to look at controls - the "central nervous systems" of these hydronics. We’re moving…
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Buildings as Habitat: Biodiversity-Informed Investments in Public Health
An interview with Helena van Vliet. “First we shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us.” - Winston Churchill (attributed) The natural world is humanity's original habitat. This habitat supports our physiological energy efficiency and is an important health intervention for the AEC industry....
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Hydronics: The OG HVAC - Part 1
An interview with Benjamin Jewell. In this episode we are once again diving into the world of hydronics systems and air-to-water heat pumps. These systems are poised to transform how we heat and cool homes and buildings in the US. In this Part 1 of a two part series, we’ll be tracing the…
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Beyond the View
An interview with Andrew Dryden. Windows are pivotal to the lived experience of a home. They impact the basic aesthetic and provide natural light, views, ventilation, and safety. However, they are also nearly always the largest single source of heat loss and gain - it's hard to overstate the...
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Cementing Carbon
An interview with John Mead. This is a crossover episode with the Spring Street Passive House education and advocacy series. Welcome to a pivotal conversation on the future of our built world. The concrete industry, indispensable for modern infrastructure, is facing an urgent mandate: reconcile…
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Systems Thinking to Save the World - 50 years of Serious Commotion
This may be the ultimate systems thinking interview. Beyond building science at the site scale, this is systems thinking to save the world. Gail Vittori and Pliny Fisk III have their fingerprints all over the structural ideologies for ways of thinking that underlie what we now think of as the...
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Navigating the Path to Passive
This is a crossover episode with the Spring Street Passive House education and advocacy series. How do Passive House enclosure decisions actually happen? There’s a stubborn storyline that passive house designs go “too far” and result in a wholly different, and painful, design and construction...
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Blurring the Edges Between Inside and Out
Why do we design indoor spaces the way we do? What are the unseen socio-cultural impacts involved and how do they impact other aspects of the indoor environment that we can not see? Today, we're unpacking the idea that our indoor environments are not just passive shelters - they are complex,...
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Commissioning Matters
Commissioning Matter - Establishing a Culture of Collaboration Who on the AEC team can deliver strategic guidance, direction, and leadership for the functional aspects of homes and buildings? This is the role of a Commissioning Agent (CxA) and it’s a role that matters now more than ever. The term...
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Architectural Epidemiology
How do we expand the positive impacts of our buildings? Now is the time. The building sector is looking at a once-in-a-generation opportunity to flip from being a major contributor to both chronic disease and climate disruption to becoming one of the primary solutions. The key is provide training...
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Design Matters: Aesthetics, Ethics and Architectural Impact
“It’s time to rethink the idea that architecture does not sully itself with social or ecological ills.” Jonathan Feldman (in conversation w/ KI) The practice of architecture is a place where ethics and aesthetics converge. We make decisions and lead our lives based on ethics. As such ethics is...
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Architecture of Risk: Managing Liability & Uncertainty in the AEC
Risk is real in the AEC. True risk management isn't about avoidance, but about informed engagement. Homes and buildings today measure success in many ways, each of these represent a potential failure mode. Managing risk means recognizing and embracing it, this is a core message from our guest...
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Building the Movement
In this special episode of the Building Science Podcast Kristof is joined by Ilka Cassidy of Passive House at NESEA's BuildingEnergy Boston '25. Ilka and Kristof are joined by the following inspiring speakers and organizers of NESEA 25: Jacob Deva Racusin, New Frameworks Natural Design/Build…
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Sustainability & Climate Wordcraft
Understanding climate action through the words we use Keep an ear out for an easter egg after the outro on this one. The words we use matter. Terms like "sustainability”, “net zero” and “resilience” signify our industry's evolving priorities and concerns. These “buzzwords” reflect current…
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Telling Better Stories
“The world is not made of atoms, the world is made of stories” Muriel Rukeyser “Where do buildings come from?” is a question that comes with a story. Less often asked, “Where do buildings go?”. The evolving story human society tells itself in answer to those questions is worth unpacking...
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Architecture Out of Balance
The tension between aesthetics and performance in architecture is a critical and complex issue in contemporary design. Architects are increasingly and appropriately being tasked with designing buildings that are not only beautiful but also functional in terms of impacts on owners, occupants,...
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An Architectural Optimist Wrote a Book - Part 3, Causing Good Design to Happen
Join Kristof and Corey Squire in this third and final installment of their interview series discussing Corey’s book People Planet Design. In Part 1, they opened the discussion at the logical starting place of the important Why questions. Why design matters to society and Why architecture is the...
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Designer Desiccants, Molecular Filters, and the Prospects of Dehumidification
What is the future of dehumidification? Turns out this simple question opens up an exciting view of the future of IAQ generally. The goal of a low energy method for removing water molecules from a flowing airstream boils down to some way of identifying, grabbing and holding onto them. Essentially...
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Unlocking Electrification with Passive Buildings
Passive house has become synonymous with the rapidly arriving new normal for our homes and buildings and offers layers of positive outcomes. Thermal comfort, IAQ/IEQ, durability, and low energy use are typically the incentives for owners, architects, builders and trades. As it turns out, there…
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More Influence, More Impact, More Satisfaction
Empowering the practice of architecture to achieve consistent, predictable, positive impacts on human well-being and planetary health is perhaps one of the most pressing topics in the AEC today. Starting with a review of the history of the search for Bioclimatic Law, this conversation with Dr…
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Tools For a Habitable Future
The work of the AEC is broader than buildings. On a daily basis we, collectively and individually, make decisions that have broad and lasting impacts on our lives, our health, and our world. These impacts can be either positive or negative; the choice is ours. This is the perspective of Gina...
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Rethinking The Wood Supply Chain
How can we build better supply chains for the built world? When it comes to the inconceivably vast amount of wood we use in our buildings, one “simple” way is to use less virgin material and use more wood that would otherwise not make it to market. Instead it would be destined to decompose and…
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Modular Part 2 - Working Skillfully Within Constraint
Today we’re continuing the conversation on modular construction w/ Rommel Sulit and Chris Krager. Buckle up for some quotable quotes and impactful ideas in this episode. A recurring theme from part 1 is present here. Could it be the case that because modular delivery must rethink basic…
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Modular Part 1 - It doesn't have to be so *$%! Hard!
How often do you think about modular construction? Is it an idea whose time has come? There are those who view it as the only path forward that realistically checks all the boxes - are they right? The potential is clear, modular project delivery can save time, save money, and positively impact…
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Pickleball Goes Passive
Who knew that an indoor pickleball facility could become a touchstone for high performance construction based on passive house principles? The backstory here is worth unpacking as it relates to a powerful force that is not often discussed - money. Return on investment is the aim of the game in…
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Is There a Passive House Aesthetic?
At a fundamental level, passive house practitioners are engaged in a rebellion against poor quality design and construction. It’s becoming quite clear that this rebellion has legs and will endure. Given this, a question worth unpacking is whether the durability of the passive house movement is...
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Our First PSA, Humid Climate Conference in Austin, May 6-7!
Big news! The Humid Climate Conference is coming back to ATX and it’s time for some appropriate FOMO. We’re just two weeks out. You will be so glad you made the decision to come to HCC in ATX. Both the technical knowledge and perspectives you’ll hear, as well as the realization and experience of...
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Ultrasonics Comes to Market
Today’s episode opens up the system of systems that delivers the materials, equipment and tools we use to deliver high quality homes and buildings to ourselves. The focus is on an novel ultrasonic leak detection system. This is potentially game-changing technology that impacts the ability to...
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Next Level Leverage
What if it’s true that “We can not solve our problems using the same level of thinking that created them”? - Attributed to Albert Einstein Could it be that our building science understanding is limited? Could it be that even the clarity of understanding we gain by viewing homes and buildings as a...
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Houses are Made of Stories
Josh Salinger Joshua Salinger is CEO and Founder of Birdsmouth Design Build, a residential Design Build company located in Portland OR. In 1999 Josh graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a double major in Zoology and Conservation. In 2007 he started Birdsmouth Design Build with...
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Entropy, Insight and Our Time to Shine
Luke Leung Luke is a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Fellow; He is also a Centennial Fellow from The Pennsylvania State University Architectural Engineering Department; Board of Directors for USGBC (United State Green Building Council), Illinois; Chairman of the ASHRAE...
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Wood is Good?
Chris Magwood Chris works with the Embodied Carbon Team in the Carbon Free Buildings Program. He brings focus on carbon-storing material and the residential sector to the team, using his experience with LCA studies and policy development to support the team’s work. Chris has been designing and...
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Circles All the Way Down
How do we design and build affordable net-zero, carbon-negative homes? That important goal is the subject of today’s episode and is the focus of a multidisciplinary team that includes PNNL, Virginia Tech, and Green Canopy NODE. On the podcast today you’ll hear from Patti Gunderson with PNNL who…
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Air-To-Water: Hydronic Hype or the Future?
You don’t have to be a building nerd or an engineer for a question like this to be relevant and important to consider. There are many reasons why AWHP systems make an attractive alternative to our batch of current “normal” heat pumps that rely on refrigerant for thermal distribution. Some of the...
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Not Your Grandpa's Home Improvement Show
We spend the vast majority of our time inside yet we actually know very little about what it means to live indoors. This is the case even though what happens indoors impacts us in nearly every way. Our comfort, health and overall well-being all are deeply impacted by what's in the air we breathe...
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Excuse Me, Your Coil is Leaking
Moving heat with a heat pump is an unsung superhero in the global energy transition. Chances are nearly 100% that you’re using a heat pump right now - to heat or cool yourself, refrigerate your food, or keep your car comfortable while you drive. The vapor compression process may be the...
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Healthy Home Revolution
As a society we are learning, slowly but surely, how to design and build healthy indoor spaces for ourselves and our loved ones. Seeing the need to both guide and accelerate this learning process, Paula Baker LaPorte and her wingman John Banta and Erica Elliot MD dedicated themselves to write a...
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Green Glop & Hair Shirts - Perspectives on Client Communication
Designing and building a sustainable passive house is a powerful moment for all involved - the client, the architect, and the planet. For the owners the process is deeply personal and emotional, with layers of financial impacts and the significant time investment involved. For architects the key…
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An Architectural Optimist Wrote a Book Part 2 - Design Excellence through Practice
Stated another way: Why is it that some firms produce a consistent stream of high-performing buildings, while others have trouble crafting a single project that moves beyond traditional practice? The answer is Practice; the environment and practices within which each particular firm carries out…
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Filter Feast Part 2
Topics include the basics of particulate capture, the tradeoffs between filtration efficiency, clean air delivery rate, and energy use, filter media types, and electret degradation. If you want to learn about the role of filtration in delivering clean indoor air for your self, or if your role in...
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Filter Feast Part 1
Topics include the basics of particulate capture, the tradeoffs between filtration efficiency, clean air delivery rate, and energy use, filter media types, and electret degradation. If you want to learn about the role of filtration in delivering clean indoor air for your self, or if your role in...
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The “Roaring 20s” for IAQ
The 2020’s have so far been a decade of abundance and progress for society’s awareness and understanding of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). Beyond and before the pandemic put IAQ on everyone's mind, researchers have been enjoying well funded support from various organizations, both public and private…
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An Architectural Optimist Wrote a Book
There are few roles in society with the broad and lasting power of Architecture. Architecture both reflects and directs the story of a civilization and its cultural milieu by signaling what’s important, who has value, and how society functions. Recognition of the power of architecture in society...
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Making Quality Homes A(a)ffordable?
In a Seattle neighborhood, close to public transportation, Dan Whitmore and his associates are putting the money where their ideals are and making affordable housing happen. Not just affordable but high-performance Passive House affordable per the Phius standards, plus they have an onsite PV…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
The Building Science Podcast is a show hosted by MEP engineering firm Positive Energy principal Kristof Irwin. The show covers everything from the basics of building science to adjacent scientific disciplines to more fully understand how the built environment shapes our lives as human beings on planet earth.
HOSTED BY
Positive Energy
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Building Science Podcast have?
The Building Science Podcast currently has 162 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Building Science Podcast about?
The Building Science Podcast is a show hosted by MEP engineering firm Positive Energy principal Kristof Irwin. The show covers everything from the basics of building science to adjacent scientific disciplines to more fully understand how the built environment shapes our lives as human beings on...
How often does The Building Science Podcast release new episodes?
The Building Science Podcast publishes regularly with 162 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to The Building Science Podcast?
You can listen to The Building Science Podcast on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Building Science Podcast?
The Building Science Podcast is created and hosted by Positive Energy.
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