Passive House Pulse Toronto – Advancing Retrofit Excellence: Inside the Humber NX Project

Experience an inside look at Humber College’s NX Building retrofit — an ambitious project that elevated performance, comfort, and sustainability on campus. The event began with a detailed presentation from the project team, who walked us through existing site conditions, early key design decisions, final energy outcomes, and the Passive House strategies that helped to shape the retrofit. We watched with anticipation as the team shared insights and lessons learned to provide a rare, candid view into the challenges and triumphs behind a deep energy transformation and the teams that make them happen. The team helped to unpack all the mechanisms that make a deep energy retrofit possible and encouraged us to consider the spectrum of design choices that unlock a zero-carbon future.

After the presentation, we took part in a guided tour of the building provided by Humber College. Moving through the spaces, seeing systems up close, and observing how design choices translated into real-world performance brought the technical details to life. Conversations flowed easily as colleagues compared notes, asked questions, and reflected on how similar strategies could inform their own projects. Special moments of consideration were when we saw the overclad window assemblies, the special consideration of removing ALL thermal bridges from the project, as well as a peak inside the DOAS system at the fifth floor.

The evening continued over dinner, where discussions deepened around retrofit best practices, industry changes, and the future of high-performance buildings in Canada. Sharing a meal with peers offered a chance to exchange perspectives, debate ideas, and connect around the shared work of advancing zero carbon buildings in the space of deep energy retrofits.  There are few if any buildings that existing at the threshold of 64kWh/m2a in Ontario, and certainly even less at the documented 48kWh/m2a that is currently documented by Humber College for the Nx building. Truly a remarkable building—and a testament to Wolfgang Feist and PassiveHouse building principles.