Forest Haus is the first PHI certified Passive House in the City of Boulder.
This home was conceived as a living laboratory and teaching tool, a place where builders, students, architects, and homeowners can experience the systems, details, and performance strategies that define Passive House. Built by a builder designing a home for himself and his family, the project functions as a “showroom”, allowing every component to be tested, explained, and demonstrated in real time. More than 500 visitors have toured the house since its completion in September 2024, with ongoing tours planned to support broader education in high-performance building.
The design pairs rigorous performance standards with a level of architectural ambition rarely attempted in certified Passive homes. The small, constrained lot—long north to south and narrow east to west—created conditions fundamentally at odds with ideal Passive House orientation. Achieving certification, meeting the restrictive zoning regulations and incorporating the family programmatic requirements required an origami-like approach to massing, careful calibration of window placement, and the use of Passive House–certified glazing to offset unavoidable energy losing north facing windows needed for street presence and livability.
Architecturally, the home makes use of a classic modern staple of visually carrying exterior materials inside, while solving the thermal-bridge challenges that make this impossible in typical Passive House work. Brick appears continuous through the window plane, yet the interior and exterior wythes are fully disconnected to maintain airtightness and eliminate conductive pathways, an approach made possible through precise detailing and advanced assemblies.
Functionally, the home supports modern family life with flexible rooms, efficient circulation, and low-maintenance outdoor spaces enhanced by native plants. Aesthetically, the home is modern and artful yet sensitive to the existing well established neighborhood.
By serving as an open-source classroom while achieving elegance, comfort, and world-class performance, this project offers a model for Colorado’s building future.