From 23 to 26 May, Barcelona Building Construmat brings together the present and the future of construction. The Passivhaus standard has a space of its own, with PAPIK Group among the members of the Passivhaus Building Platform behind it.
From 23 to 26 May 2017, Barcelona hosts one of the events that best joins the present and the future of construction: Barcelona Building Construmat. The fair is organised into four areas, Industry, Future, Talks and Meetings, and it is in the Future area, devoted to high-efficiency, high-quality construction, that the Passivhaus standard has a space of its own.
Passivhaus arrives with two complementary presences. On one side, the Passivhaus consortium shows a built example of a passive house. On the other, the Passivhaus Building Platform (PEP) fills its stand with information, talks and activities open throughout the show, so that no visitor leaves without understanding how these homes are designed and built.
PAPIK Group takes part in this stand as a member of the PEP. Its participation is part of a programme of activities that runs across the whole fair, from the morning best-practice workshops to the afternoon product presentations.
The common thread of the workshops is the five principles that define a Passivhaus. Continuous insulation, high-performance windows, an airtight envelope, controlled mechanical ventilation with heat recovery and the absence of thermal bridges. Each one translates into concrete site decisions, and it is in that execution that the final result is settled.
Around these principles, the programme pairs theory with practice: the supervision of insulation, the fitting of windows within the envelope concept, the Blower Door test to verify airtightness, ventilation with heat recovery as an improvement on the CTE and the analysis of thermal bridges with calculation tools. The PHPP, the standard's own design and site-control software, ties design, planning and training together.
The programme sets aside time for an exhibition of Passivhaus projects in Spain, certified or in the certification process, with every autonomous community represented. There is also room for energy retrofit under the EnerPhit standard, with cases such as the El Garrofer school in Viladecans, which illustrates the challenge of bringing an existing building down to very low consumption levels.
For PAPIK Group, this shared presence confirms a way of understanding the work that goes beyond new-build Passivhaus construction and also takes in the energy retrofit of existing buildings.
A passive house is not defined by a label, but by the discipline with which five principles, simple to state and demanding to meet, are carried out.