Evanston Green Home Tour: Mid-Construction Passive House Project

Join Illinois Green and Phius Alliance Chicago for a green home tour on Sunday, July 23!

This modern home, located in one of Evanston’s historic districts, is on track to be Evanston’s first certified Passive House, one of the most rigorous building certifications for comfortable, energy efficient, and resilient homes. With tight construction and a highly insulated envelope, Passive House buildings operate on just one tenth the energy of an average home.

Arrive at 2:30 PM or 3:30PM for a tour of this mid-construction project, lead by Homeowner, founding CEO of the 2021 Championship Chicago Sky Women’s Professional Basketball team, Margaret Stender, and architect, Nate Kipnis of Kipnis Architecture + Planning.

Learn more about the project:

The design was carefully reviewed and approved by the Evanston Preservation Commission. It had to relate to the existing neighboring homes, which ranged from 100 to 130 years old. This was accomplished by carefully aligning the design’s various design elements, heights and proportions to its neighbors (see the diagram of the alignment’s, attached below)

The home is all-electric, which means there is no gas line and no combustion appliances in the house. The HVAC system, heat pump water heater, heat pump dryer and the induction cooktop are all electric. The home has a 12.6 kW solar array, which makes the home and electric vehicle charging ‘Net Zero Energy’ on an annual basis. A large battery backup is powered by the solar array, providing power at night and during any power outage.