OPAL Earns Triple Decker Challenge Award
OPAL Earns Triple Decker Challenge Award
At OPAL, we recognize that addressing the climate crisis requires not only that we reduce or zero out the carbon footprint of the new buildings we create, but also that we dramatically upgrade millions of underperforming existing buildings. So we welcomed the chance to participate in the Triple Decker Challenge, a competition, sponsored by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), to design a replicable, cost-effective energy retrofit for the New England triple decker, a widespread and iconic regional building type that dates from the late 19th century. And we are proud to report that OPAL’s entry, Wood Fiber Modular Encapsulation, was awarded Honorable Mention: Lowest Embodied Carbon.
Developed as affordable housing for New England’s then-burgeoning industrial workforce, the three-flat triple decker was simple to construct and made efficient use of land in rapidly growing cities and mill towns. Tens of thousands were built across the region, many of which remain in service—nearly 9,000 in Boston alone—albeit with obsolete construction technology and correspondingly substandard building performance.
MassCEC, a state economic development agency that promotes the adoption of clean energy technology, identified the triple decker as a class of buildings ripe for a standardized program of energy improvements. The Triple Decker Challenge competition presented a typical triple decker and directed entrants to design a practical, replicable system of weatherization and electrification upgrades that, if broadly implemented, would significantly advance the agency’s efforts to achieve net-zero energy use in the state’s existing buildings by 2050.
OPAL embraced the Challenge as an opportunity to develop a fast, cost-effective system that upgrades older wood-frame buildings to near-Passive House performance with minimal disturbance to the existing structure and its occupants—while also sequestering enough carbon in its component assemblies to offset all project-related CO2e emissions.
Created in collaboration with our building products manufacturing affiliate, GO Lab, the system centers on carbon-sequestering, modular wood fiber insulation panels that are installed—along with energy-efficient triple-glazed window panels—from the exterior of the building, requiring only minimal finish work inside the building. Combined with electric heat pumps for heating and cooling, the building shell improvements reduce total energy use by 86 percent, to a level that can be completely offset by rooftop photovoltaic panels. The results are net-zero energy performance, a negative carbon footprint, and improved safety and comfort—using predesigned components applicable not only to triple deckers, but to virtually any wood-frame building.
To learn more about Wood Fiber Modular Encapsulation, see the detailed description on our Innovation page.
