Michael Hindle
Michael Hindle is the founder and principal of Passive to POSITIVE, a Building Enclosure and Energy Efficiency consulting firm specializing in PASSIVE HOUSE, Zero Energy, Low Carbon, and Resilient Design. He is also co-founder and principal of Common Ecology, a regenerative and permaculture-based design company, focused on regenerative community redevelopment projects.
Michael was trained formally as an artist and was a practicing artist and educator at the college level for 12 years. He began his inquiry into sustainable architecture as a member of an Architecture Design Studio faculty at Miami University of Ohio in 2003. While teaching painting and drawing at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD, he began working with Brennan + Company Architects in Baltimore, researching ways to deepen the firm’s commitment to environmental practice. He turned his attention to architecture full time in 2008, focused on sustainability and climate change impacts. Michael became one of the nation’s first Certified Passive House Consultants (CPHC) in late 2009. He has consulted on Passive House, zero-energy, and Living Building Challenge projects that include single-family and multi-family residential, mixed-use, and small commercial projects from Washington DC to New Hampshire. He has experience in both new construction and retrofits, and is committed to low toxicity, low Global Warming Potential, and carbon sequestering building methods.
In 2014, Michael founded Passive to POSITIVE. Since its founding in 2014, the company has achieved an impressive range of firsts and ground breaking projects: Weinberg Commons, in Washington DC, was the first Certified Passive House Retrofit apartment building in the country, and won the PHIUS 2017 Affordable Project of the year award; The Old Hopkins Rd. House in Clarksville, MD, won 2018 “Source-Energy Zero” project of the year from PHIUS; The Studio for High-Performance Design and Construction, in Newton, MA, is one of the first Passive House retrofit and positive energy office buildings in the country; and Gilford Village Knolls III, the first multi-family Passive House in New Hampshire, and the Dallas Street Passive House in Baltimore, has won numerous AIA design awards.
Michael is a former president of the Passive House Alliance and served on the Board of Directors of the Passive House Institute/US. He received his MFA from Indiana University, Bloomington, and his CPHC designation through the Passive House Institute/US (PHIUS), located in Chicago, Illinois.
He lives with his wife and business partner, Architect, Carri Beer, and 3 kids in a mid-century modern, deep energy retrofit, near net-zero home on a permaculture inspired lot in Catonsville, MD.
Iconic Projects (Flickr Album)
