A Midwestern Goodbye

Dear Reader,

I am a Midwestern boy through and through. And for those of you who are not familiar with the “Midwestern Goodbye,” let me (briefly) explain. 

Say you are at a Sunday evening gathering at grandma's house. You finished dinner about an hour ago, and the clock strikes 9 p.m., and you realize it is really time to go. After all, you have work tomorrow morning. First, you slap both your thighs and say, “Welp, it is about that time,” and start the goodbye sequence. You stand up, say your farewells to those in your immediate vicinity, and make your way to the kitchen. Grandma insists you take some food, and you chat about nothing in particular while you pack some leftovers for the week. On your way to the bathroom, you get stopped by your aunt, who insists you talk to her about some local news story. After the bathroom, you grab your bag of leftovers, and sit down to put on your shoes while your cousin shows you pictures of fish he caught last weekend. You exit the door, still talking to people, and think you have escaped, when your uncle appears and drags you to the garage to show off a new-to-him ATV he got some incredible deal on, and he passes you “one last beer.” You end up test driving the ATV around the block, and help him move some large object in the garage. Finally, you wave as you walk up the driveway and get into your car. It is now 9:55 p.m., if you are lucky, and you head home, far later than you anticipated. Despite my family’s heritage, no one seems to have mastered the Irish Exit.

I explain all this as a means of my own Midwestern goodbye, but by the time you are reading this I will have worked my last day at Phius, and it is a truly bittersweet moment. I started at Phius six years ago now, after I finished my master’s and graduated in the summer of 2020. I had no real employment prospects, and despite the uncertainty, the kind folks at Phius took a chance on me, and gave me an opportunity to get involved in the passive building sphere. 

I think "opportunity" is one of the most important themes here at Phius, because there is so much of it. Being a small, nimble organization, there is so much opportunity to learn new things, develop new tools, and get involved in the design and certification of truly amazing projects. I think I have capitalized on as much of the opportunity here as I could handle, probably at times more than I was capable of, but I never felt like I did not have the support of all those folks I work with. So, to my fellow Phiusers, thank you for the support, encouragement and opportunities.

While the passive building industry may seem fraught with the policy changes at the federal level, I am a firm believer that this opens new opportunities, and any of the constraints will force us to be more creative in our problem solving. I have enumerated a few of the opportunities I see below:

1. Computational opportunities: We have more computational resources at our disposal compared to any other time in history, and we should use them for good. Take some time to run additional optimization studies, or model in great detail an aspect of building performance outcomes you haven’t had time to do before. If you do not have a computational tool to perform a specific analysis, I am a believer that this is an appropriate use of an LLM.
2. Expanding the discussion: There is an opportunity to reframe passive building, and I know a lot of discussion has been had on the matter, but we should really be selling the other benefits such as thermal comfort, resilience, long term affordability, etc. I think we need better ways of quantifying these benefits, and measuring their success in situ, but I have started to think about ways of simulating some of it in this previous blog post.
3. More monitored data: Related to the above, in another previous blog I talked about low-cost monitoring and measuring of indoor conditions in our office, and I would love to see someone do the same in a passive building to validate our claims and modeling. I think that more measured data, not just validating the energy savings, but also indoor IEQ (environmental in more than just air) is a huge benefit of passive buildings. 
4. Push for passive: All of the above can support your advocacy for a better future for the built environment. Whether it is done through state and local policy, or just making a case to clients why to pursue better building, both will yield more high-performing buildings, which benefits us all.

To sum up this Midwestern goodbye, I am not going far, and will see you all at conferences and industry gatherings. Feel free to reach out to me for anything, I will be around.