Passive energy-powered buildings are becoming more popular, although most of those that pass the requirements to be a passive building are small homes.

A new passive apartment building, however, is being built in New York City and will be 26 stories high, making it the largest passive building in the world.

"It's been an exploratory process for us, partly because nobody has done anything of this scale," said Blake Middleton, partner at a firm called Handel Architects, the firm that designed the building, in an interview with FastCoexist. "There are a good number of low-rise passive house buildings in Europe and a lot of freestanding houses. But when you get into something that's 10, 20, or in this case almost 30 stories tall, it's a whole different ballgame in terms of how you put it all together."

Passive buildings are defined by how much energy they consume, with a passive building being required to use 60 percent to 90 percent less energy than a normal efficiency building of a similar size. Because so much energy is put into heating and cooling, passive buildings are often built with an envelope around the outside that is as resistant to the elements as possible.

"If you wrap the building up really tight and you seal it really well, the amount of energy required to heat or cool is drastically reduced," continued Middleton. "You basically only need to provide little bursts of heat."

Of course, it's one thing to design a building with that tight of a seal, but it is another thing entirely to actually build it. Not only that, but the bigger a building gets, the harder it is to construct. Much of the process involves pressure tests around the building to find out if and how air is escaping. Larger buildings mean that more tests need to be conducted at the same time.

The team behind the building, in fact, is still trying to figure out how to best conduct these tests. When they do figure it out, however, it is likely that it will be easier for other architects and building managers to follow.

Not only is the building far more energy-efficient than others, but it is also far cheaper to build than the next-cheapest passive high-rise, which is a 20-story building in Vienna. To cut down on costs, designers cut down on how much glass is used, which is typically a big factor in the cost of a building. While designers made sure to use windows that were big enough to provide enough natural light, they are smaller than some would expect from a luxury apartment building. Extra-thick walls are also being used, but they are sealed in the factory, meaning that there is less work for builders to do.

As time goes on, it is likely that we will see more passive buildings being built, with this one setting a new bar for high-rises that are also extremely energy-efficient. 

Via FastCoexist