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Dr. Wolfgang Feist, director of the Passive House Institute and Julia, reporter of Korea IT Times  discuss about Passive House.

The energy over-consumption is threatening the very existence of the human civilization on the planet is a view echoed by scientists – and indeed, everyday citizens – the world over. The question of course is what can be done about this most basic of existential threats.

The Passive House concept goes back to the late 1980s and early 1990s and is derived from the basic physical low conservation of energy. (Dr. Feist is a physicist by training.) Passive Houses aren’t so much architectural designs as they are voluntary standards that builders agree to adhere to in order to build extremely low-energy houses whose ecological footprints are tiny. The Passive House standard is a unified standard across the globe, based on solid science, but is not uniform for every country because the standards are wholly voluntary. Passive House Korea (PHIKO), for example, stipulates that Passive Houses use 5L of natural gas per square meter per year – as opposed to PHI’s (Passive House Institute based in Germany) recommendation of 1.5L. Still, Dr. Feist says, any improved standard, even if it is not passive house, is better than nothing.