Reframed Lab schematic designs are in!
October 24, 2022
Pembina Institute’s Reframed Lab has wrapped up and the designs schemes are set to cut 400 annual tonnes carbon emissions while minimizing embodied carbon inputs and making the buildings safer, healthier and better prepared for the coming impacts of climate change. See for yourself!
United to fight the climate emergency
July 29, 2022
Pembina Institute’s Reframed Initiative is a British Columbia-based program aimed at developing replicable deep retrofit solutions and scaling their implementation. Reframed teamed up with BC Housing and Metro Vancouver Housing Corporation to commission deep retrofit designs for six multi-unit residential buildings and invited multi-disciplinary teams to participate in a six-month Reframed Lab to design solutions for these buildings. What follows is an account by one of the Lab participants, Ruffy Ruan, a mechanical engineer and Passive House consultant with Impact Engineering.
When it comes to home resiliency, Canada can’t afford to wait
July 11, 2022 (original publication July 7, 2022 in The Hill Times)
As Canada begins consultation on the National Adaptation Strategy, Canadians must demand governments invest in making our existing housing net-zero. We believe federal and provincial governments could make the biggest impact by making a major investment in improving Canada’s existing housing stock. This could be accomplished by providing funding and incentives to renovate a third of our country’s buildings to net-zero emissions by 2030, and developing a plan for the remaining stock to meet a 100 per cent net-zero target before 2050.
Canada and British Columbia invest in 14 CleanBC infrastructure projects across the province to create cleaner, stronger communities
May 27, 2022
“The investment will also help improve housing options for vulnerable seniors with upgrades to the building envelope, ventilation system, space, and water heating for 26 supported housing units in Victoria, in partnership with Pacifica Housing. The project will decarbonize the building and improve comfort in extreme weather events like heat waves and wildfires.”
Plotting Retrofit Paths
May 20, 2022
In this issue of Passive House Accelerator, we dive into how Passive House design will play a vital role in the future built environment, particularly by focusing on case studies from a wide range of building typologies in North America and beyond. These include the Pembina Institute’s Reframed Lab, a British Columbia-based program aimed at developing replicable retrofit design packages backed by solid information on incremental costs, while fostering a local community of practice.
Reframed Lab picks six design teams for retrofit projects
March 28, 2022
B.C.’s Reframed Lab, a program launched to investigate innovative approaches to green building retrofits, has selected teams to perform renovations on six buildings across the province.
Consulting engineering firms join Reframed Lab to retrofit B.C. MURBs
March 26, 2022
Several consulting engineering firms are among the multidisciplinary design team members of Reframed Lab, a new project that aims to update select multi-unit residential buildings (MURBs) in British Columbia to save energy, reduce associated pollution, increase resilience to extreme weather events and improve health and safety.
Behind the Project: Reframed Initiative
March 24, 2022
Recently, we sat down with Salah Imam, Lindsey Kindrat, Kitty Leung, Timothy Wong, and Kenny Yip to discuss the exciting initiative they’re working on in British Columbia. Reframed is an initiative of the BC Non-Profit Housing Association, the City of Vancouver, Metro Vancouver Housing Corporation, and the Pembina Institute. Entuitive is the prime consultant on one of the buildings participating in the Reframed Lab.
New West apartment to be part of the Reframed Lab initiative
March 21, 2022
The province, along with BC Housing, the City of Vancouver, the Metro Vancouver Housing Corporation, the BC Non-Profit Housing Association and the Pembina Institute, have announced the next stage in the Reframed Lab initiative, a building retrofit design program launched in June 2020. Six design teams have been selected to develop retrofit designs for six low- to mid-rise social housing buildings in New Westminster, Kamloops, Coquitlam, North Vancouver, Vancouver and Victoria.
RJC joins the Reframed Lab – aimed to retrofit multi-unit residential buildings
March 21, 2022
RJC Engineers (RJC) is proud to be part of two design teams working on Reframed Lab. A project led by Reframed Initiative and in partnership with BC Housing, Reframed Lab aims to transform how to retrofit multi-unit residential buildings to remove climate pollution, decrease energy waste, improve health and safety, and increase resilience to extreme weather events.
Innovative housing retrofits will benefit residents, environment, economy
March 21, 2022
VANCOUVER – Residents of six buildings will soon benefit from renovations that will make homes safer, more energy-efficient, less polluting and more resilient to extreme weather.
“By supporting made-in-B.C. innovation in our building sector, we’re increasing the capacity of the B.C. building industry to meet the goals laid out in CleanBC, while providing good, family-supporting jobs. Our objectives are to increase the availability and affordability of made-in-B.C. low-carbon building solutions that can be scaled up to help achieve provincial climate targets and drive economic development.”
~Bruce Ralston, Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation
Passive House Accelerator Magazine: The Reframed Initiative
June, 2021
NEW YORK — Pembina Institute, a Canadian clean energy think tank, has ambitions to accelerate building retrofits that integrate carbon reduction, seismic safety, and climate adaptation, while increasing the lifespan of buildings and resident health and wellbeing, including allowing them to remain in place during construction.
Demonstration projects to make existing homes safer, more energy-efficient, less polluting
May 26, 2021
VANCOUVER — British Columbia’s design and construction community has a chance to contribute to next-generation housing retrofit solutions to make homes safer, more energy-efficient and less polluting, while reducing heating costs for residents.
Canada calling… get involved with the Reframed Lab
October 15, 2020
AMSTERDAM— Sanne de Wit, Head of Ideas at Energiesprong Foundation, said, “We are really happy to see that the Canadians are moving forward in terms of reducing the energy needs of old buildings. We love the idea of the Reframed Lab, launched by our Canadian counterparts. Pembina and the other partner organisations involved in the initiative really are frontrunners when it comes to energy transition. I can’t wait to see the outcomes of their design process.”
New partnership to make homes safer, more energy-efficient, less polluting
June 26, 2020
VANCOUVER — The Province, through BC Housing, and the City of Vancouver, the BC Non-Profit Housing Association and the Pembina Institute, are working together to find ways to make homes safer, more energy-efficient and less polluting, while reducing heating costs for residents.