Ryan Abendroth

Ryan Abendroth is a senior lecturer in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, where he teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses and design studios focused on the impacts of climate, site, energy, detailing, and building information modeling (BIM) on the built environment. Previously, he taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, as both a visiting lecturer and critic, and has acted as a passive house consultant for Kansas University’s fifth year design-build program, Studio 804.

Abendroth is an experienced Certified Passive House Consultant (CPHC®) and the former certification manager at Passive House Institute U.S. (PHIUS). He has worked on hundreds of passive house projects including small residential designs and student projects to mid-sized commercial and nonprofit developments, and he has been at the forefront of research and design in passive houses for almost a decade. His first passive house experience was with Team Illinois in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon Competition in 2009, where the team took second place overall. Abendroth is a member of the PHIUS Technical Committee and a trainer for the PHIUS CPHC Program.

Abendroth also serves as the principal of Passive Energy Designs LLC, a St. Louis-based consulting firm specializing in achieving built high-performance and low-energy buildings that meet the passive house standard. He holds a Master of Architecture and a Bachelor of Science in architectural studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Boxy concrete single-story house with four projecting buttresses that serve as vertical gardens. The house is set on a very large deck filled with rows of garden boxes.

Crete House, 2017

South Facade. Photo: Washington University in St. Louis Solar Decathlon Team 2017.

Interior of a house with curving, cavelike white walls and roof, bright wood floors and partitions, and modern beige furnishings.

Techstyle Haus, 2014

Interior and Mechanical Core, Photo: Julia Hasse 2015.

Front view of single-story gabled house with vertical white slatted siding and tall garden boxes surrounding.

Gable Home, 2009

West Facade, Photo: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Solar Decathlon Team 2009.

Select Articles, Chapters, and Publications

“Homes for a Changing Planet on View at the 2017 Solar Decathlon,” in Architectural Record, Oct. 6, 2017, Jenna M. McKnight.
“Performance Based Simulations for Membrane-based Enclosures,” in Technology | Architecture + Design Journal, 2017, vol. 1, no. 2. Helen Bergstrom, Ryan Abendroth, Jonathan Knowles, and Derek Stein. Published by Taylor & Francis.

Select Exhibitions and Presentations

“Actionable, Cost-Effective Passive Building Strategies,” Ryan Abendroth; presented at PhiusCon, 2023, Houston, Tx.
“The Growth of Passive Building in Texas and Project Case Studies,” Ryan Abendroth and Stefan Goebel, 2023, Houston, Tx.
“Hot & Humid and Hot & Dry Climates: Single Family and Community Scale Case Studies,” Ryan Abendroth, Stefan Goebel, and Jonathan Bean; presented at PhiusCon 2022, Chicago.