Katrina Belle is the President and CEO of Maine Passive House. Her journey into building and passive house has its roots in a thesis she wrote on corporate social responsibility while studying human rights at College, coupled with the fact that most humans spend most of their lives inside buildings.

In this episode, we discuss the power of building science to improve people's baseline life experience, the benefits of having legislation that encourages building to better standards, the need to adjust your passive house talking points depending on who you're talking to, and much more.

Connect with Katrina and Maine Passive House:

• Katrina on LinkedIn => https://www.linkedin.com/in/katrina-belle-5216038b/

• Maine Passive House on LinkedIn => https://www.linkedin.com/company/maine-passive-house/

• Maine Passive House on Instagram => https://www.instagram.com/mainepassive/

• Maine Passive House website => https://www.mainepassivehouse.com/

• A great Passive House Accelerator article featuring a house built by Maine Passive House => https://passivehouseaccelerator.com/articles/inside-the-first-phius-certified-single-family-home-in-new-hampshire

Hans Breaux is an architect and the founder of Project CO+OP, a worker cooperative based out of Portland, Maine. Following Graduate School, Hans set off from his hometown in southern Louisiana to walk the Appalachian Way. He had no idea he would end up staying in Maine and founding his practice.

In this episode, we talk about the importance of talking to people, whenever and wherever, when it comes to spreading the word about Passivhaus, and Hans shares his view that Passivhaus is the "easy button" for creating buildings that use the most current best practices based on our sort of collective understanding of how to create shelter.

Connect with Hans and Project CO+OP:

• Hans on LinkedIn => https://www.linkedin.com/in/hans-breaux/

• Project CO+OP on LinkedIn => https://www.linkedin.com/company/project-co-op/

• Project CO+OP website => https://project.coop/

• A great Passive House Accelerator article featuring Hans => https://passivehouseaccelerator.com/articles/inside-the-first-phius-certified-single-family-home-in-new-hampshire

Alexander Gard-Murray is the Executive Director of Passive House Massachusetts, a nonprofit that educates advocates and supports passive house building in the Commonwealth. With a background in political science and climate policy, Alexander was pulled into building decarbonization via a Twitter thread.

In this episode, we talk about how Massachusetts has become a shining example of adopting passive house and passive building standards, why we need to think longer term when calculating the ROI of building efficiency, and how passive house buildings benefit everyone, whether or not they live or work in one.

Connect with Alexander and Passive House Massachusetts:

• Alexander on LinkedIn => https://www.linkedin.com/in/gard-murray/

• Passive House Massachusetts on LinkedIn => https://www.linkedin.com/company/phmass/

• Passive House Massachusetts website => https://phmass.org/

Naomi Beal is the Executive Director and a founding member of passivhausMaine, which opened an ambitious new public-facing workshop, showcase, training, and office space in downtown Freeport in 2025.

In this episode, we talk about the decisions behind the new space, the importance of outreach at the local, community, and school level, and an interesting community-based project they hosted to help low-income households lower their energy bills in the wintertime.

Connect with Naomi and passivhausMaine:

• Naomi on LinkedIn => https://www.linkedin.com/in/naomi-c-o-beal-52372427/

• passivhausMaine on LinkedIn => https://www.linkedin.com/company/passivhausmaine/

• passivhausMaine on Bluesky => https://bsky.app/profile/passivhausmaine.bsky.social

• passivhausMaine on Instagram => https://www.instagram.com/passivhausmaine/

• passivhausMaine's website => https://www.passivhausmaine.org/

Valentine Gomez is the founder of Gomex Engineering and the first certified passive house designer on PEI (Prince Edward Island, Canada's island province). He thinks of Passivhaus as a kind of gateway rabbit hole, which has since led him down further, deeper rabbit holes, focused on healthy building materials, and including his achieving a Living Future accreditation.

In this episode, we talk about Valentine's experience as the first to bring Passivhaus to a new area, his tactics for getting people on board, and why he thinks municipalities are missing a trick by not choosing to build publicly owned buildings to the Passivhaus standard.

Connect with Valentine and Gomex Engineering:

• Valentine on LinkedIn => https://www.linkedin.com/in/valentine-t-gomez-p-eng-cphd-lfa-4688572a/

• Gomex Engineering on LinkedIn => https://www.linkedin.com/company/gomex-engineering-ltd/

• Gomex Engineering on Instagram => https://www.instagram.com/passivehousepei/
  
  
• Gomex Engineering website => https://www.gomex-engineering.com/

Lindsey Love came to Passivhaus via bio-based materials, marrying the two and comfortably working with both. With her new venture, Regenerative Building Solutions, Lindsey steps further into the role of teacher, advisor, and consultant, helping people incorporate more natural materials into their own high-performance projects.

In this episode, we talk about the gap between builders and architects when it comes to Passivhaus (and what needs to be done to fill it), the power of curriculum-based affordable housing projects, how and when to let your inner building science nerd out, and much more.

Connect with Lindsey and Regenerative Building Solutions:

• Lindsey on LinkedIn => https://www.linkedin.com/in/regenbuilding/

• Regenerative Building Solutions on LinkedIn => https://www.linkedin.com/company/regen-building/

• Regenerative Building Solutions on Instagram => https://www.instagram.com/regen_building_solutions/

• Regenerative Building Solutions website => https://www.regenbuilding.com/

Dr. Wolfgang Feist is a professor and mathematical physicist who began his career in quantum mechanics and astronomy before becoming interested in energy efficiency in buildings and moving into engineering, which led him to the late Bo Adamson, a Swedish building scientist and professor at Lund University. Together, they co-originated and developed the Passivhaus standard in the late 1980s, with Dr. Feist going on to found the Passivhaus-Institut (PHI) in 1996, in Darmstadt, Germany.

In this episode, we talk about Dr. Feist's experience living in the world's first (and therefore longest-existing) certified Passivhaus, the changes in attitude and relevance he's seen over the years, the misconceptions that block people from embracing Passivhaus, what Passivhaus really is, and the best way he sees for the movement to continue to spread.

Connect with Dr. Feist and the Passive House Institute:

• Dr. Feist on LinkedIn => https://www.linkedin.com/in/wolfgang-feist-5287951b/

• Passive House Institute on LinkedIn => https://www.linkedin.com/company/passive-house-institute/

• Passive House Institute on Bluesky => https://bsky.app/profile/ipha.bsky.social

• Passive House Institute website => https://passivehouse.com/en/home/

• Passipedia website =>https://passipedia.org/

Tessa Bradley is the principal architect and CEO of the Artisans Group Architecture and Planning Company, a woman-owned, woman-led firm based in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Tessa was in the second round of PHIUS training, and Artisans Group completed the second certified Passive House in Washington State, so they've been in this space for almost as long as anyone in the US.

In this episode, we discuss the difficulties of talking about passivhaus and high-performance building in a way that's not so terribly unsexy, the value of having a place to show clients—whether it's a past client's home, an office or an apartment they can spend time in—and the importance of knowing when going for certification will be beneficial for all involved.

Connect with Tessa and Artisans Group:

• Tessa on LinkedIn => https://www.linkedin.com/in/tessa-bradley-96b49112/

• Artisans Group on LinkedIn => https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-artisans-group-inc./

• Artisans Group on Instagram => https://www.instagram.com/artisansgroup/

• Artisans Group website => https://artisansgroup.com/portfolio