The semester began with a 2 day competition (across all of the senior studios) for eight modular artists’ live-work studio units on Cape Cod.

For the first part of the studio, students conducted analyses of the houses restored by the Cape Cod Modern House Trust, focusing on building envelope material and assembly, and thermal and energy performance. Students analyzed the houses' performance against current North American Passive House Design standards, using PHIUS WUFI software.

Grounded in this analysis, students then designed a second house with an artist’s studio on the same site(s), that is both a critique and a complement to the original house. Their proposal should meet (or get close to) Passive House standards, but may also be an implicit critique of those standards or the associated digital modeling and evaluation tool, WUFI. 

Inspired by the Modern houses, with their qualities of human scale, simplicity, affordability, and connection to the site, students reinterpret those attributes for our current context, specifically standards for energy and thermal performance.

This studio is grateful to the Cape Cod Modern House Trust and to Sayo Okada, Certified Passive House Instructor.