Part 5 How we did it: Star Garments Innovation Center - Getting it Built: Sri Lanka Edition

Building according to Passive House standards in Sri Lanka came with its own set of challenges. The lack of local tradespeople with high performance building experience, lack of locally available materials, the high heat and humidity levels all called for ingenuity and flexibility on Circular’s part. 

Low Tech Materials

Many traditional Sri Lankan buildings are built with masonry and plaster, which is inexpensive, can be obtained locally and does not require highly skilled labor for installation.  This project uses masonry extensively for interior as well as exterior partitions, and the selected EIFS (Exterior Insulation and Finish System) cladding leverages many of these local skills.

While North American projects can benefit from a number of specialty component distributors, the absence of locally available Passive House materials called for sourcing most of the required items from global suppliers. 

These materials were procured directly from multiple manufacturers, each of which introduced logistical and transportation challenges. The windows were procured from India, the EIFS system from Turkey, air sealing tape from Germany and thermal bridge mitigating spray from the United States.