What possible connection could there be between the Passivhaus methodology and Triathlon?

If you’re in the Passivhaus world then you couldn’t help but notice the split between The Passive House Institute based in Germany and the Passive House Institute US. I’m not going into the reasons behind the split (of which there’s stacks on the web) but splits of this type are not unusual and this split is still rumbling on. Even today this Twitter stream shows a Twitter ‘fight’ on this very subject. And here’s the original [POST] that kicked everything off.

Here’s the ‘Open letter’ from Wolfgang Feist on the subject

So, the triathlon analogy…

As a primer, here’s the Wikipedia entry on Ironman Triathlon

Notice the key line:

“Other races exist that are of the same distance as an Ironman triathlon but are not produced, owned, or licensed by the World Triathlon Corporation. Such races include The Challenge Family series’ Challenge Roth or the Norseman Triathlon.”

Up until 2001 the Ironman event at Roth [WIKIPEDIA ENTRY] was an ‘official’ Ironman event, but from 2002, the organiser of the event decided to split from the World Triathlon Corporation (the organiser of the Ironman events), set up their own company (Challenge) and now run 26 long distance triathlons in 15 countries.

What’s interesting however is the following:

• At identical distances the Challenge events are seen as an equal to the ‘official’ Ironman events.

• The Challenge events are very careful not to use the name ‘Ironman’ which is trademarked.

So where does this leave the split between the PassivHaus Institute and Passive House Institute US when we have the following:

• The Passivhaus standard is based on physics that works on a worldwide basis, from Ireland to Asia

• The word ‘Passive’ has been used in houses in the US since the 70’s

• The trademarks of Passive, Passivhaus etc… are interesting, here’s a post on that very subject by Green Building Advisor

If you think you can settle the argument, comment below…

ps Mark Stephens is a Certified Passive House Designer (and Chartered/Registered Architect) and completed Ironman Roth when it was an Ironman event and Nice International Triathlon when it wasn’t.