A change in the air: The minneAppleseed Passive House

On a cool gray morning in early November, I meet Tim Eian, a young Minneapolis building designer, at the corner of Lowry and North Fourth Street in North Minneapolis’s Hawthorne neighborhood. “This is it,” he says, gesturing to a brick eightplex, his blue eyes lit with excitement. Every window in the building is covered with plywood or plastic. On one boarded-up window, someone has scrawled “R.I.P.” According to Tim, the building, like many houses in the neighborhood, will be demolished soon. But he is more concerned with the lot.

This is one potential sight where he and the minneAppleseed Association, a group of builders, engineers and experts in sustainable building practices, want to build Minneapolis’s first Passive House.

A Passive House is a set of requirements set by the Passive House Institute U.S. A Passive House must use no more than a specific, small amount of energy and emit only a tiny amount of polluting carbon dioxide per square foot. In other words, a Passive House has the strictest energy efficiency requirements and lowest resulting pollution of any building standard in the United States.

A Passive House can reduce a homeowner’s heating and electrical bills by up to 75%. Instead of pumping in large amounts of heat in winter and cool air in summer, a Passive House contains warm or cool air within its well-insulated walls with the help of special windows and doors and airtight construction. The house absorbs heat given off by people, appliances and, most importantly, the sun, and regulates that heat through shading and window placement. An energy- recovery air exchange system feeds fresh outdoor air into the house all year long.

The Passive House Standard was originally developed in Germany, where Tim Eian grew up. Thousands of Passive Houses already exist in Europe, and about a dozen homes have been built in the U.S.—but not in Minneapolis.

Appleseed House: A Pilot Project

Eian spent seven years with Locus Architecture, a sustainable architecture firm in Northeast Minneapolis, before branching out on his own. He designs new passive homes and retrofits, but is particularly passionate about his involvement in minneAppleseed’s pilot project, The Appleseed House, a sustainable affordable single-family home to be built in North Minneapolis in collaboration with the Hawthorne neighborhood.

MinneAppleseed sees the house as a replicable model that can help revitalize an unstable neighborhood and educate the people who live there about sustainable building and living. The Appleseed House, a “green” home, can also be used as a tool to teach “green” construction techniques to local contractors. MinneAppleseed has some seed money for the project, but right now Eian works for free. If the Hawthorne neighborhood approves one of the lots that Eian and his colleagues have chosen, fundraising for the Appleseed House can begin in earnest.

The Appleseed project is just one of a number of efforts begun in North Minneapolis to take trendy “green” architecture to people who cannot afford it on their own. The proposed site for the Appleseed house sits right inside the four block area slated for Eco-Village, Project for Pride in Livings’s demonstration project in a four block area between Lowry and Lyndale Avenues. Eco-Village will provide new housing using sustainable green building practices. “Project for Pride in Living embraced us,” says Eian.

“We want [people in Hawthorne] to have a good home that they can afford and be proud of,” says Eian. This is no easy task in a neighborhood where foreclosures and crime lead to dozens of abandoned houses. MinneAppleseed’s mission is to “bring families back together,” and “be an entry point for community involvement in green living.”

Eian admits that the Appleseed Passive House may not be for everyone in the neighborhood. Cost of construction is estimated at more than $250,000. “Townhomes and row-houses are much more appropriate. But this is where we start,” says Eian. Minneappleseed would like to offer the 1,650 square foot house as a gift or at the reduced price of $150,000 to someone in the neighborhood . “We’re really careful about who’s our audience. We’re working closely with the Hawthorne Community Council, neighborhood leaders, and PPL.”

What would this Passive House Look Like

The lots in the Hawthorne Neighborhood that hold Eian’s interest have sufficient southern exposure all year round. Ideally the lot would have alley access and enough room for a garage in back too, as well as space for a yard.

Eian’s design is still “mostly about concept,” and subject to change. Right now, the design is a simple box, the most efficient house shape to heat and cool. The roof has a steep pitch and is covered with solar paneling, and its overhang shades the abundant windows on the house’s south side. For a Passive House to have enough insulation in a cold climate, its walls need be built one to 1.5 feet thick, a thickness evident in doorways and window wells. There will also be a ventilation machine for air circulation and a solar hot-water heater.

When the Hawthorne Neighborhood Council and Housing Committee approve the project and site, Eian will refine the design.

As we walk around North 4th Street, past empty lots, abandoned houses and the occasional intact home with gardens and lawn ornaments, Eian stops.

“Smell the air,” he says.

There is a distinct burnt smell. Around the corner, we see a burned out house. Eian tells me that many houses in the neighborhood are torched before people leave them. This burnt odor is the smell of arson and abandonment. But things are changing in the Hawthorne Neighborhood. Efforts like the minneAppleseed Passive House could bring the clean smell of sustainable affordable housing and green industry to the neighborhood. At least, this is what Eian hopes.