It also allows us to partner with local builders, giving more clients the benefit of our specialized expertise. We provide an airtight, super-insulated Passive House building shell; the local contractor handles sitework, foundation, utilities, and finishes—all of which can be executed with standard means and methods. 

We find this approach especially appropriate for projects on islands, where construction labor is often in short supply and lumberyard deliveries can be unwieldy and expensive. This current project, on a ferry-accessed Maine island, makes an especially strong case for our panelization system, even for relatively complex buildings on difficult-to-access sites.

Riley Pratt of OPAL designed the house, an ocean-view Passive House structure with large corner windows and a cantilevered upper level. GO Logic took the complex design and created a 3-D model of every element of the structure, from which we generated detailed shop drawings for use on our shop floor. We prefabricated all of the floor and wall panels in our facility, along with the pre-cut, engineered materials for site-framing the corner windows. The 2×8-framed wall panels arrived at the site complete with 6” of wood fiber exterior insulation, air-sealing gaskets at the joints between panels, and windows and doors installed and flashed. The roof structure consists of pre-manufactured trusses, which were craned into place.

Getting these large structural components from shop to site, though, required a considerable amount of planning. Not only is the island remote from the mainland, the site is on a remote part of the island. The ferry could handle our large panel truck, but once on the island, we had to transfer the cargo onto a smaller rig that could negotiate the winding, narrow drive to the building site.

Site visits and crew transportation required a parallel set of logistics, involving trips by ferry, water taxi, and small airplane. To safeguard island residents from potential coronavirus exposure, the GO Logic crew stayed overnight at the island’s only hotel and limited contact with other businesses. 

In spite of these logistical challenges, we completed the panelized shell in just two weeks. We spent the following two weeks building the non-panelized portion of the structure, installing the larger window units, and applying exterior trim. When the local general contractor has installed the roofing, completed the electrical work, and insulated the roof structure, the GO Logic crew will return to complete the air barrier and ensure an airtight enclosure.

The post Maine Island Passive House Prefab appeared first on GO Logic.

On March 18, as the gravity of the crisis became evident, we called a temporary halt to our operations and convened a company meeting. Dividing into working groups, we drafted a set of new safety protocols, which took effect when we reopened for business on March 22.

Back on the job, we’re limiting the number of people on any job site and dividing tasks to avoid sharing space, tools, and equipment. We’ve equipped every job site with a cleaning station stocked with disinfectant wipes, hand sanitizer, latex gloves, and other PPE supplies. We’re educating our subcontractors on the importance of working safely, and scheduling no more than one subcontractor crew on the site at a time.

As the crisis resolves, we’ll consider relaxing some or all of these restrictions—following the guidance of state and federal authorities—but we’ll err on the side of caution. Meanwhile, we’re supporting the income of staff who are working reduced schedules, using a combination of company resources and state and federal relief funding. When it’s safe to do so, everyone will return to full-time work.

For current and prospective clients, we continue to deliver general contracting services much as we are accustomed to doing. While we anticipate extending project timelines to some degree to accommodate our new safety practices and staggered subcontractor scheduling, lumberyards remain open, and supply chains have been largely unaffected. Our design team, working remotely using our company computer network, is producing and collaborating at full effectiveness. All of which means that now is as good a time as any to start planning a new GO Home or GO Logic renovation project.

Our focus on job site safety didn’t begin with this pandemic, and it will continue when the crisis has passed. For now, though, everyone at GO Logic understands that protecting our health as a group—as well as that of our families and our community—requires committing to a new set of best practices. We’ve learned a lot over the past month, not only about stemming the transmission of this virus, but also about our interdependence with each other, the importance of work in giving purpose to our lives, and the support of our clients, who make that work possible.

Stay well and safe.

The post Working Through the Pandemic appeared first on GO Logic.

Journalist and Author Sheri Koones, who has covered our work in her Prefabulous series of books, here brings Forbes readers quickly up to speed on Passive House, the standard we’ve applied to every project since our firm’s founding. Because it focuses exclusively on energy efficiency and healthy levels of fresh-air ventilation, she explains, Passive House presents an increasingly compelling response to climate change and concerns about indoor air quality.

First popularized in Europe, this fully mature, elegantly simple, cost-effective approach to design and construction has become firmly established in North America as well, supporting Koones’s characterization of Passive House as the “home of the future.” We might add only that when it comes to creating beautiful, livable, cost-effective, climate-friendly buildings, the future is already well underway.

The post Passive House—and the GO Home—in Forbes appeared first on GO Logic.

Available for decades in Europe, wood fiber insulation is a direct replacement for fiberglass and foam insulations, but with far lower environmental cost and greatly superior carbon performance. Its primary manufacturing input, a softwood lumber mill byproduct, is plentiful in Maine, especially since the steep decline in the state’s paper industry over the past decade. Those factors led us to target production here in our home state, and that initiative just got a $750,000 boost.

The funding comes in the form of a grant from Maine Technology Institute’s Emerging Technology Challenge for Maine’s Forest Resources program, a competitive grant program established in December of 2018. The grant represents a significant step toward our goal of purchasing and retrofitting the former UPM paper mill, in Madison, to manufacture renewable, recyclable, nontoxic building insulation from sustainably grown Maine wood fiber.

This a major vote of confidence, and from an important player in Maine’s advanced technology sector. Maine Technology Institute (MTI) is a private non-profit organization created and funded by the state of Maine to grow and diversify its economy and create high-quality jobs. In 2018, MTI invested $57 million in Maine companies, with an estimated economic impact of $1.4 billion and 5,350 new jobs over the next three years.

We are fortunate to live and work in a state—especially a largely rural state—that supports technological innovation as a means to build a thriving economy, create good jobs, and protect and restore the environment. GO Lab will play its part by reviving the now-shuttered Madison plant, employing 100 workers, and turning 180,000 tons of softwood sawmill residuals annually into a product with to potential to significantly improve the way buildings are made—here in Maine and across the country.

The post GO Lab Awarded State Technology Grant appeared first on GO Logic.

The proof of any project, though, is in the finished building, and we’re pleased to confirm that this one is performing as designed. Its Passive House building shell, photovoltaic panels, and high-efficiency HVAC system have reduced the school’s heating bill to near zero (compared with over $8,000 at its previous location). Just as important, the Cornerspring community is thriving in its new home, and the higher-visibility it provides has given the school a fresh, new presence in Belfast.

Further appreciation of the building’s aesthetic and practical virtues comes from Maine Home + Design magazine. MH+D featured the project in its annual Architecture issue, in a story entitled “Breaking New Ground: Twenty Residential and Commercial Projects that Push the Limits of Design”. We value the recognition, not only of our work, but also of Cornerspring’s willingness to invest in such a bold and technologically advanced facility.

The post Cornerspring Montessori School in Maine Home + Design appeared first on GO Logic.

The Architect 50 methodology for ranking firms combines hard data with the judgment of professional peers to award a final score in each category. In Design, 72 percent of a firm’s score is based on its design portfolio, but the criteria also include the percentage of the firm’s designers who are licensed, how much pro bono work it does, how many design awards it has won, and how much it invests in research.

We are proud of the work our team did to earn this honor, and proud also to find ourselves in the company of so many firms whose work we’ve admired over the years.

In addition to placing in Design, we narrowly missed a listing in Sustainability, taking 53^rd position (our rank on the Overall list was 93). Given the quality of the competition, we consider that result more than respectable, but we also take it as a challenge to improve our performance next year. Our practice is founded on the principle that sustainability and design excellence are inextricably linked, and we are dedicated to continuously raising the bar on both.

The post GO Logic Makes the Architect 50 List appeared first on GO Logic.

Our proposed conceptual design for the Sea Farm was inspired by its role as the base for Herring Gut’s saltwater aquaculture programs. Downhill from the central campus, on a saltwater inlet long ago dammed to form a lobster pound, the proposed new building reflects its working-waterfront setting in both form and materials. Its shed-like massing, while unmistakably modern, also relates to nearby industrial buildings along the shore, which Herring Gut leases to a seafood processor and an algae-biotech research company. Its cedar-screen cladding references fish weirs and other traditional maritime structures.

In construction, performance, and user experience, the new Sea Farm building would be thoroughly contemporary. Its lantern-like entry faces uphill, toward the central campus. Inside, a two-story reception area opens into an airy, glass-walled auditorium with views over the lobster pound and Port Clyde harbor, reinforcing the building’s maritime focus. Additional spaces, on two floors, are devoted to classroom instruction, research, and support functions.

Integral to our design is a Passive House-level building shell—with superinsulated walls, high performance glazing, and a heat-recovery ventilation system—which will minimize the building’s energy demand and consequent carbon emissions. Its long, sloping roof is oriented to support a large array of photovoltaic panels. Stringent analysis and careful selection of building materials will allow us to offset the structure’s overall carbon debt—encompassing not only the building’s operations, but also the energy consumed in its production—within within a conservative 50-year lifespan.

The post Herring Gut Learning Center Looks to the Future appeared first on GO Logic.

The November issue gives pride of place to GO Logic, with a cover story on our recently completed Maine Rural Modern. Located in our hometown of Belfast, and designed and built for the parents of GO Logic principal Matt O’Malia, this project represents some of the strongest themes of our residential work—site- and region-specificity, Passive House-level building performance, and super-clean design—and we are pleased that MH+D chose to feature it so prominently.

Writer J. Michael Welton’s story does a fine job of describing the finished building and site, and also of conveying the collaborative process that produced them. The house reflects not only the vivid personalities of its owners, Beverly and John O’Malia, but also their contribution to the actual construction process (John built the foundation facing himself, with stones he gathered on the site). And the photography, by friend and frequent collaborator Trent Bell, shows the house just as we like to see it. Nice job all around.

The post Maine Rural Modern in Maine Home + Design appeared first on GO Logic.

We’re proud of that accomplishment. We also realize that much work remains to be done.

In our efforts to minimize the energy consumption and carbon emissions that result from a building’s operations, Passive House practitioners—GO Logic included—have deferred addressing the environmental cost of the materials that make up the building.

A prime example is foam insulation, a component frequently used in Passive House wall assemblies. Wrapping a building shell in a continuous jacket of exterior insulation dramatically reduces thermal bridging, and foam insulation boards perform relatively well in that role—until one considers their full environmental cost.

Based entirely on fossil fuels as both the raw material and the energy source for their manufacture, EPS and other plastic foams are energy intensive to manufacture and impossible to recycle. Plastic waste clogs our landfills, fouls our oceans, and is now being detected in our food supply and even in our bodies. While foam will continue to play a role in energy efficient construction in the foreseeable future, especially in below-grade applications, there is good reason to seek alternatives when possible.

And foam is only one material. As the Passive House movement matures into an industry, we believe the time has come to account for the full environmental impact of all of our material choices, including plastics, metals, concrete, wood, and everything else that goes into constructing a building. To that end, GO Logic is taking advantage of newly available materials and sophisticated analytical tools that allow us to compare materials and building systems not only in operational performance, but also in LCA (life cycle assessment), which accounts for the energy consumed and carbon emitted in their manufacture and eventual disposal.

Case Study: EPS to Wood Fiber

GO Logic’s first generation of Passive House buildings employed a light wood framing system wrapped with a continuous layer of EPS foam insulation. Foam insulation has the advantages of light weight and relatively high insulation value per inch, and applying it to the exterior of the building allowed us to isolate the building’s structural elements, minimizing thermal bridging from interior to exterior. In light of the material’s considerable faults, however, we soon sought ways to minimize its use in above-grade construction.

A far better choice, we found, is wood fiber-based low-density fiberboard (LDF) insulation. Currently manufactured in Europe but not yet in North America, LDF is a direct replacement for rigid foam insulation in its form and comparable in its R-value per inch. LDF is easily handled and cut, durable, and unlike foam, it is vapor permeable—a crucial property in exterior applications. It is also renewable, recyclable, and nontoxic. Equally important, because LDF consists 96 percent of renewable, low-embodied energy, carbon-sequestering wood fiber, it delivers far better carbon performance over the life of the building.

Wood fiber insulation has been available in Europe for 25 years, but shipping it to North America is an inefficient proposition, given that the material consists almost entirely of low-value wood fiber and trapped air. To fill that gap—as well as others in the Passive House and high performance building materials market—GO Logic founded GO Lab, an R&D company devoted to developing high-efficiency, low-carbon building materials.

GO Lab’s first commercial product will be a line of wood fiber-based insulations, produced using softwood sawmill residuals from the Maine lumber industry, that will replace the energy- and carbon-intensive insulations that currently dominate the market.

Our LDF manufacturing facility—the first in North America—will be located in Maine and will utilize the state’s plentiful forest resources.

In addition to bringing a superior building material to the market at a competitive price, manufacturing insulation directly from wood fiber has the potential to greatly benefit the economy of rural Maine. The most heavily wooded state in the U.S., Maine has a long history of forest products manufacture and a highly skilled workforce. But changes in the pulp and paper markets have led to shuttered mills, layoffs for thousands of workers, and the loss of over $1 billion in annual economic activity since 2014.

Wood fiber insulation is made from the same softwood chips as paper, a lumber mill byproduct that is now in surplus by up to 4 million tons annually. Redirecting that stream of raw material and repurposing idle industrial capacity to the manufacture of a sustainable, high performance building material represents a golden opportunity to create clean, new-economy jobs and revive a declining rural economy.

For GO Logic and GO Lab, this effort highlights the linkages—among architecture, building science, climate science, natural resources, and industrial economics—that we must activate in order to create the coming generation of environmentally regenerative, carbon-negative buildings.

The post Wood Manifesto, Part 1 appeared first on GO Logic.

Matt’s profile highlights his leadership in environmentally sustainable architecture and construction and, through GO Logic’s affiliated R+D company, GO Lab, in manufacturing sustainable, high performance building products here in Maine.

We’re enormously pleased for Matt to receive this recognition. Reading about the other honorees—from Maine State Historian Earl G. Shettleworth, Jr., who directed the Maine Historic Preservation Commission for nearly four decades, to Nanci Boutet, who founded an organization that gives people with disabilities the opportunity to experience surfing—also reminds us of how much talent, drive, and good will resides in our neighbors and friends here in Maine. We now have 49 more reasons to feel proud and lucky to live here.

Christina Wnek

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