In this Encore Episode of the Passive House Podcast (originally aired as Episode 37 on May 3, 2021), guest co-hosts Mary James and Ilka Cassidy interview Katie Faulkner, founder of WestFaulkner, an office with a mission for sustainable design. She is also a director at PT-Tech, a division of Placetailor in Boston whose initial focus is on the design and prefabrication of retrofit panels for triple-decker homes.

Katie has been working as an architect for more than 20 years and was named to the American Institute of Architects College of Fellows in 2020. Her work is motivated by an interest in sustainable, modular construction, centered on the intention to reduce risk and improve cost control. She was a founding partner of the Boston-based firm NADAAA, where her projects included the Daniels Building at University of Toronto, Rhode Island School of Design’s North Hall, and the R+D Center at the Beaver School. More recently, she was a Vice President of Design for Katerra, focusing on a mid-rise mass timber housing prototype.

Mary and Ilka’s conversation with Katie ranges from the career opportunities that prefabrication opens up for women to the urgency of deep energy retrofits, and much in between. Her early work in healthcare design led to an abiding interest in optimized project delivery models, while always keeping sustainable design front and center. Katie’s decades-long experience is well suited to her current collaboration with Placetailor to bring to market cost-effective bio-based retrofit panels.

At the end of this encore episode, Mary, Matthew Cutler-Welsh, and Zack Semke discuss major Passive House conferences and events coming up in Fall 2021: 

• 25th International Passive House Conference (Passive House Institute) Part I: September 10-12; Part II: September 14+15: https://passivhaustagung.de/en/
• Tower Retrofit Symposium 2021 (Passive House Canada) September 22-23: https://www.passivehousecanada.com/tower-retrofit/
• PhiusCon (Phius) October 12-15: http://phiuscon.org/
• South Pacific Passive House Conference (PHINZ + APHA) November 25-27: https://passivehouse.nz/2021/06/09/spphc21-cfa/

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