Joseph Zimmer, Architect

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Joseph Zimmer is a sole proprietor Architect licensed in Wisconsin and Illinois with over 27 years experience in a broad scope of project types including custom residential, commercial, contemporary, adaptive reuse and historic renovations. Specializing in ULTRA comfortable and resilient buildings with exceptional indoor air quality and energy efficiency, my work is for customers who consider aesthetics, performance and function as equals. Design is simultaneously informed by a detailed energy model (simulation calculator), site parameters, customer desired purpose/function and inspired aesthetics to achieve best possible long-term results. Guiding principals result in beautiful, inspired and durable buildings that are exceptionally comfortable and have very low operational expense. As a Certified Passive House Consultant I design to the Passive House building energy standard, requiring meeting 3 simple, but challenging performance benchmark criteria that result in no lower energy demand of any standard on EARTH. Those 3 criteria set numerical values that insure: 1. Exceptional occupant thermal comfort and indoor air quality 2. Minimized annual indoor space conditioning energy use (typically the largest building energy use category) 3. Superior building envelope durability 4. Overall annual energy demand/cost commensurate with the world average (per person or per unit of building area). First minimizing demand through conservation, followed by provisions for future or immediate on-site energy production through small renewable energy collectors, has proven to be the most economically prudent path to net zero energy buildings. Net zero energy buildings are part of our not distant future & our children and grandchildren will know nothing other. By 2030, it will become the norm for all new building design and by 2060 it will be the norm for all existing building retrofits. As of 2002, the United States per capita CO2 emissions via energy use is the highest of any nation at nearly 20,000 tones. The world average is 3900 tones per capita, 1/5th that of the US. Because buildings in the US currently consume 48.7% of all sources of energy nationwide, reducing building energy consumption will make the largest impact on our personal and national energy budget and permanently reduce our individual and collective operating cost. The other smaller pieces of the pie include industry at 23.2%, auto transportation at 16.5% and other transportation at 11.6% - each with their proportionate potential impact. CUSTOM FURNITURE and other INTERIOR DETAILS and FINISHES DESIGN is another specialty for those customers who desire a more comprehensive project or just those special and unique elements. COMMERCIAL BUILDING CODE CONSULTATION is a specialty I developed through experience and offer fellow Architects, design/build contractors and building owners. As an International Code Council CBO, I assist in navigating the ever-increasing complexity of interwoven building, existing building, accessibility, energy conservation and mechanical codes so my customers can remain focused on other aspects of their project. Visit www.studiojosephzimmer.com to learn more.