ZEPHIR Passivhaus Italia is the official Italian institute accredited by the Passivhaus Institut to represent it in Italy.
Passivhaus is a building standard born from the intuition of Wolfgang Feist, a building physicist who, back in 1989, simulated a “simple” approach to the topic of living comfort, culminating in 1991 with the construction of the world’s first Passivhaus in a city near Frankfurt.
From then until today, successful and replicable implementations of this approach have multiplied, both in new constructions and renovations, in both the residential and non-residential sectors.
In Italy, after the foundation of the Institute in 2011, there has been exponential growth in the application of the protocol, also thanks to the extensive training program that ZEPHIR has carried out for both designers and construction site operators (surveyors, craftsmen, companies…).
As a research institute, we carry out promotional activities, consulting in terms of the development of innovative products, optimization of existing ones towards the Passivhaus standard (plant engineering concepts, windows and doors, European research projects), training and certification.
The search for the cost optimum for each project ensures clients the best investment, combined with a very high level of satisfaction derived from living in a super comfortable environment.
What is meant by PASSIVHAUS
The Passivhaus standard was created in May 1988 through a collaboration between Bo Adamson of Lund University in Sweden and Wolfgang Feist of the Institut für Umwelt und Wohnen (Institute for Environment and Housing) in Germany.
The Passivhaus Institut was founded in September 1996 in Darmstadt to promote and monitor the standard.
Since then, thousands of Passivhaus buildings have been built, surpassing 25,000 units in 2010, although the number is believed to be around 40,000 units. Most of them are located in Germany and Austria, but many have also been built in other countries around the world, and the number is also increasing in Italy.
What are the characteristics of a Passivhaus
A Passivhaus is a building that must meet certain criteria, including heating demand and cooling demand, which must remain below 15 kWh/m2 per year, primary energy demand which must be less than 120 kWh/m2 per year, and the n50 value, which must be less than 0.6 h-1 when measured on site.
These performances are achieved through very careful design, especially with regard to the sun, by adopting very high-performance thermal insulation on perimeter walls, roof and glazed surfaces, and by using controlled ventilation systems with heat recovery.
Here are the 5 key points required by the Passivhaus standard:
- Excellent thermal protection of all building elements of the thermal envelope, from the floor to the external walls up to the roof;
- Windows and French doors with double/triple low-emissivity glazing with a high solar factor g-value and very well-insulated frames; accurate design and control of passive solar gains by carefully designing the glazed surfaces, possibly differentiated for each side of the building, while at the same time ensuring the absence of summer overheating;
- Execution of thermal protection to the highest standards down to the smallest details, with the minimization of all thermal bridges;
- Airtightness of external building components verified through a Blower Door pressure test;
- Controlled ventilation with particularly efficient heat recovery to avoid heat losses while ensuring suitable indoor air quality.
We are here to help you seize the enormous opportunity of Passive Building
If you truly want to rely on a home with the highest energy efficiency and living comfort on the market, and not simply boast with friends and relatives about a house with an A listed under the energy class category, you are in the right place. If you want a house that makes you spend on heating and cooling bills the equivalent of one coffee a day, while at the same time ensuring the lowest possible environmental impact, because it is custom-designed and not simply conceived in a standard or even prefabricated way, then once again, we are the ones you should turn to.
ZEPHIR Passivhaus Italia
ZEPHIR Passivhaus Italia is in fact the No.1 Design and Training Institute in Italy in the field of Passive Building, which stands at the top of the vast range of Sustainable Building solutions. The Passivhaus Standard makes it possible to have buildings with unparalleled energy performance, with energy consumption 50% lower than A4 and nZEB classes and 90% lower than most traditional buildings, through a contained investment that can already be amortized in the first year after the intervention, on either a new or renovated building.
We are the Italian representatives of the Passivhaus Institut in Darmstadt, Germany, where the Passivhaus Standard was born in 1988, and affiliated with the International Passive House Association (iPHA), the international organization that coordinates all entities officially accredited under the PH protocol.
As a Consulting and Design Institute, we have created Passive Houses in every climate area and in every material, designing Passivhaus-certified buildings on 4 continents: in addition to Italy and Europe, we have worked for private individuals and public bodies also in countries such as Bhutan, Cameroon and Canada.
The founder and Scientific Director of ZEPHIR Passivhaus Italia, Dr. Phys. Francesco Nesi, is a Building Physicist who, after obtaining a degree in Physics from the University of Florence, completed a PhD in Physics at the University of Regensburg in Germany, and a post-doc in Building Physics at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, during which he had the opportunity to deepen his knowledge directly with Dr. Phys. Wolfgang Feist, creator of the Passivhaus Standard.
From a design and construction perspective, you truly could not turn to a more authoritative figure in the field of Passive Building. But that is not all, because even in the field of training, our organization stands as a national point of reference.
ZEPHIR Passivhaus Italia is also a Training Institute, and since its foundation in 2011, we have delivered accredited PH courses, training over 4,500 professionals, passing on expertise to Designers, Engineers, Architects as well as Construction Site Operators, Plant Engineers and Specialized Craftsmen spread throughout the Italian territory.
The ZEPHIR Team
The ZEPHIR Team, based in Pergine Valsugana, just outside Trento, designs and coordinates work throughout Italy and abroad, relying both on the international Passivhaus network and on the professionals trained over time. It is a constantly expanding team that passionately oversees every area and service of Passive Building: Building Physics, energy design, architectural design, plant engineering design, from taking on assignments to Construction Management and key delivery, while also internally handling all administrative aspects, communication and marketing activities, and those supporting the professionals it collaborates with and client companies.
Among the other activities in which our Institute is engaged are certainly also:
- Certification, since Dr. Phys. Francesco Nesi is one of the 40 Passivhaus certifiers> recognized and authorized in the world
- Research and Development, both for processes and components of third-party companies and for internal software and tools
- Outreach, developed through scientific and informative articles; participation in industry events, trade fairs and conferences; university seminars and educational opportunities in schools of every level; the publication of the Passivhaus best seller, namely the Italian reference manual on Passive Houses; and the organization of the National Passivhaus Conference, the largest event in our country dedicated to Passive Building and its enormous potential
