Jessica Deem attended the Passive House tour in Philadelphia [2]!

Here are a few project features and her reaction:

Italian Market Passive House [3]
A two-story addition on top of an existing building. The architects have successfully worked with the Philadelphia Historical Commission to promote greater flexibility and blend passive house with preservation [4].

Stable Flats [5]
Fee simple townhomes by the same design build studio that created the (more affordable) Belfield Avenue Townhomes.

Whitehall [6]
Soon be the first multi-family Passive House project to receive low-income housing tax credits through the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency. In 2015, PHFA revised their selection process to incentivize developers to adopt more energy-efficient construction techniques - and it worked. 38% of applicants proposed building to the Passive House standard. The prefabricated Build SMART wall panels (from LAWRENCE, KANSAS!) are Passive House-ready and allowed the framing to be completed 2 to 3 times faster than conventional framing. Average utility costs are expected to be 60 to 80% less compared to a typical wood frame building. 

"Take home lesson from these projects … if local standards are holding you back, get involved and change them," says Deem.