Sustainable Homes: Energy Retrofits for Small-Middle Scale Housing

In the Spring of 2007, the City of Boston released its first Climate Action Plan: a document that laid out the City’s commitment to increasing energy efficiency and lowering greenhouse emissions by 80 percent by 2050. The plan identified five key categories for accomplishing these goals, which addressed the ways in which buildings and other structures contributed to these factors. At the time, 78 percent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions were related to buildings’ heating and cooling and electricity. Today, after 13 years and 4 updates to the plan, the City has sustained its commitment to making our buildings more efficient.

The triple-decker, notorious for its cooling and heating leaks, is a particularly interesting building type when it comes to deep energy retrofits, but what exactly are the barriers to sustainably transforming this and other similar building types?

Join the BSA and Boston’s Mayor’s Housing Innovation Lab in a conversation about the key issues and opportunities for deep energy retrofits for existing triple-deckers, as well as important guideline considerations for future-deckers and other small to middle-scale buildings.

Speakers:

Katherine Eshel
Carbon Neutrality Program Manager
Boston’s Mayor's Office of Environment, Energy, and Open Space

Galen Nelson
Chief Program Officer
Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC)

Corey Thompson
Founder & Principal at Mobius

Moderator:
Wandy Pascoal
Housing Innovation Design Fellow, BSA and iLab

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The exhibition is curated by Pat Falco, Boston Artist-in-Residence, and Wandy Pascoal, Housing Innovation Design Fellow with both the Boston Society for Architecture and the Boston’s Mayor’s Housing Innovation Lab. Exhibition partners include Wentworth Institute of Technology students and Local Voices Network.

Future-Decker Conversation Series

Join the Boston Society for Architecture for a virtual conversation series as a part of the upcoming exhibition, Future-Decker. The series will feature discussions with residents, architects, designers, and other practitioners as they share and learn from one other about the past, present, and future of the iconic building type: the three decker.

Speakers and participants will build upon the architectural, economic, and ultimately social value of triple and future deckers in the City of Boston and the region.