PHA Live 101: Single Family Passive House
River Architects Featured on the Passive House Podcast: Sharing Our Journey, Lessons, and What’s Ahead
We’re excited to share that River Architects is featured in a new episode of The Passive House Podcast, now live on our website. In this conversation with host Mary James, partners James Hartford and Juhee Lee-Hartford reflect on more than two decades of advancing Passive House design across the Hudson Valley and beyond.
This episode offers a candid, behind-the-scenes look at how our practice has grown, what we’ve learned from delivering high-performance homes in a variety of contexts, and why Passive House continues to shape the future of resilient, low-carbon architecture.
In the interview, James and Juhee walk listeners through the evolution of River Architects, from a two-person studio to a ten-member team, unified by a commitment to making Passive House both achievable and aspirational for homeowners.
They revisit our first deep-energy retrofit, a home damaged during Hurricane Sandy, and how that project underscored the importance of durability, airtightness, and holistic energy planning in regions vulnerable to extreme weather. From there, they explore the growing momentum for Passive House in the residential market, fueled by clients seeking comfort, efficiency, and long-term value.
The conversation dives into the practical and financial realities of Passive House, what it takes to deliver high performance on real budgets, how we evaluate material choices, and why early-stage design rigor matters.
Juhee and James also speak to our involvement with Passive House Hudson Valley, where advocacy and peer collaboration have played a key role in helping grow regional adoption of high-performance building standards.
A major thread of the episode is the increasing relevance of prefabricated assemblies, especially in cold, variable climates like ours. Factory precision, reduced onsite labor risk, and predictable performance make prefab a powerful tool for achieving Passive House goals.
But experience matters just as much. As James emphasizes, the skill and familiarity of the builder can make or break a high-performance project. The episode highlights why assembling the right team - architect, builder, consultant, and trades - is essential to delivering consistent, long-term results.
The full episode is available now on our website.
For those interested in deepening their Passive House knowledge, we also recommend the Passive House Accelerator’s Best of Retrofit programming, available here.
And if you’d like to stay engaged with the broader Passive House community, be sure to join one of the Accelerator’s weekly Wednesday LIVE! gatherings.
