Keep up with the Ice Box World Tour in Melbourne.

(or stick around and explore the Vancouver Challenge).

27 July–14 August 2017
Olympic Village Square, Vancouver

Take the #IceBoxChallenge and discover the benefits of high performance building and construction. Great prizes to be won!

About the Ice Box Challenge

The #IceBoxChallenge is a contest and an experiment to demonstrate how a home can be super energy efficient AND comfortable. The Ice Boxes are left outside in the sun for 18 days. When they are opened, the amount of ice left in each box will be measured. How much ice is left shows how well each Ice Box keeps out the summer heat. Better building design can help us reduce our carbon pollution without changing our behaviour. Energy-efficient homes are comfortable, quiet and healthy.

Olympic Village Square
South East False Creek
Vancouver BC

We have a fantastic line up of events taking place on site.

Why High Performance Buildings?

Quite simply, it’s how we build & feel better.

High-performance buildings are reliable, affordable, comfortable buildings that use energy efficiently, so you’re heating or cooling only your home and not the outdoors. They stay comfortable and quiet throughout the year, including through summer heatwaves, winter storms and power outages. The buildings use up to 90% less energy for heating and cooling than other buildings do, while maintaining good indoor ventilation and air quality. They are easy to maintain. They are also affordable to build, own, live in and work in.

Passive House Canada promotes the international Passive House (Passivhaus) high-performance building standard as a simple, quality-assured approach to designing and constructing better buildings. It is one example of the high-performance building model identified in the City of Vancouver’s Zero Emissions Building Plan.

About the Design

Vancouver has many unique aspects of building culture, which makes for a rich and varied tapestry of building styles.

Ultimately our buildings all try to capture the view. Vancouver is fortunate to be surrounded by the oceans and mountains.The design seeks to capture one such view, and present it in abstract form. The “Lions”or “Ch’ich’iyúy Elxwíkn”, which translates as “Twin Sisters” are unique to Vancouver and easily recognisable from much of Greater Vancouver. This easily recognisable Vancouver landmark, with its snow, that almost year-round tops these peaks, informed our Ice Box. The white painted plywood, and their faceted forms, works to deflect and reflect light away from them.

The challenge is provided by Passive House Canada, with the support of members of the local construction industry and the City of Vancouver. A Passive House approach is rapidly becoming a favoured and well-understood method of achieving high performance building enclosures in the City of Vancouver and beyond.

Passive House Canada is running the Ice Box Challenge, with support from the City of Vancouver, Vancity, and members of the local construction and design industry – 475 High Performance Building Supply, BCIT High Performance Building Lab, Britco Construction, Cascadia Windows and Doors, Cornerstone Architecture, Dick’s Lumber, E3 Eco Group, Echoflex Solutions Inc., Euroline Windows, Footprint Sustainable Housing Corporation, Golden Chateau Building Materials Inc., Kingdom Builders, MistyWest, MIZU Passive House Consulting, Modu-Loc Fence Rentals, Multivista, Naikoon Contracting Ltd., Naturally Crafted Contracting Ltd., Open Green Building Society, Polar Bear Ice, Portable Electric, Ritchie Construction, Ryder Architecture, Siga Cover, Slow and Steady Design, Small Planet Supply, Stantec Architecture, Stark Architecture, James A.V. Bligh, Simon Chan, Cu Nguyen, Ria Purnam, Ian Robertson

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