Design Your Own Passive Solar Greenhouse
Whether for personal or professional use, the Passive Solar Greenhouse Design course empowers anyone to draft plans for a year-round, secure source of fresh produce, inspiration, and joy.
✓ Learn from the Experts
✓ Ensure Food Security
✓ Enjoy Year-Round Harvests
Complete your custom design and bring your ideas to life!
We teach you to design cutting-edge passive solar greenhouses at any scale or level of complexity. By the end of the course:
- Individuals will be able to pass their design on to professional builders and contractors.
- Builders and Contractors will be ready to add custom greenhouse designs to their company’s services.
- Nonprofits will be empowered to design a life-changing project for their community and solicit bids for the build.
Protect your project from costly mistakes and delays.
From site analysis to solar optimization and beyond, careful calculations are required for a passive solar greenhouse design. It’s easy to hit expensive roadblocks, or worse, design a system which underperforms and needs to be rebuilt.
We believe everyone should have access to the powerful benefits of passive solar technology and guidance from the best experts in the field.
Surround your passive solar design project with expert guidance and support.
Learn from leading authorities in our comprehensive curriculum and gain every advantage needed to complete your own custom design.
Step-by-Step Approach
Our course is carefully designed to layer the knowledge you need one step at a time and make sure you don’t get overwhelmed.
Powerful Design Tools
Don’t let complexity curb your enthusiasm. Our exclusive design tool performs the most difficult engineering calculations required for your design.
Community Support
Find assurance and support from live Q&A’s, fellow designers in your cohort, and access to the Verge online community and bonus materials.
Create a customized design, and harvest a hopeful future.
Picture your greenhouse thriving in winter, teeming with the vibrant colors of fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Every family’s needs are unique, and a design that’s aligned with your goals grows deep, resilient roots for the years ahead.
Watch the case studies below to find inspiration and ideas for your greenhouse design!
200 sq. ft. Backyard Passive Solar Greenhouse
Check out Verge Permaculture’s first passive solar greenhouse in Calgary, Alberta, and the mistakes and successes that made in the design and construction of this greenhouse.
900 sq. ft. Passive Solar Greenhouse for Microgreens
Curtis Stone takes us through his passive solar greenhouse on his urban farm. Curtis is able to grow between 100 – 600 lbs per week or ~$1500 – $9000/week in microgreens.
Explore the 3000 sq. ft. community passive solar greenhouse built and operated by the Groundswell Network Society. The larger design opens up ways to improve systems.
Here’s how to turn your greenhouse dreams into reality.
1 | Sign Up!
Explore and register for the Comprehensive course package below.
2 | Create Your Project Design
Draft a design that’s ready to hand off to experienced builders and contractors.
3 | Bring Your Vision to Life
Build more than a greenhouse. Build a future that promises security, abundance, and the joy of growing fresh, nutrient-dense produce year-round!
Sign up for the Passive Solar Greenhouse Design Course!
Join the Waitlist
Comprehensive Course Package
A complete education for anyone looking to design, plan, and manage the build of a passive solar greenhouse of any complexity and scale. The course includes:
- 10-modules course with step-by-step instruction
- Verge’s proprietary greenhouse tool to make simplify the design process
- Introduction to Passive Solar Greenhouse e-book
Exclusive Bonuses
- Rainwater Harvesting for Passive Solar Greenhouses bonus session presented in our live course in March 2024
- Greenhouse Gardening Workshop presented in our live course in March 2024
$299CAD
(est. $216 USD)
Meet Your Instructors!
Verge’s faculty features leading experts in passive solar greenhouse design and the disciplines needed to manage one successfully.
Rob Avis
FOUNDER | PROFESSIONAL ENGINEER | LEAD INSTRUCTOR
After pursuing international training and certifications in renewable energy and regenerative design Rob, along with his wife and business partner Michelle, began Verge Permaculture, now a globally-recognized and award-winning design, consulting, and education company. In the last decade, he has helped more than 3000 students and hundreds of clients to design and/or create integrated systems for shelter, energy, water, waste and food, all while supporting local economy and regenerating the land.
Guest Instructors
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Carmen Lamoureux Master Gardener and Permaculture InstructorCarmen has had a varied career, working for the Alberta government in the fields of sustainable resource management, forestry and privately in silviculture, soils and horticulture. As founder and owner of Calgary’s URBAN FARM SCHOOL, as well as the Urban Farm Permaculture Project, she is dedicated to helping emerging gardeners and permaculture enthusiasts gain the freedom, confidence and skills they need to live more abundant, sustainable and resilient lives. Having grown food organically for over 4 decades, Carmen gets excited about helping others cultivate great food, and in turn, great selves. (Verge PDC Grad 2013)
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Michelle Avis Founder / Co-Instructor / Engineer
After pursuing international training and certifications in renewable energy and regenerative design, as well as a degree in Mechanical Engineering, Michelle, along with her husband and business partner Rob, began Verge Permaculture, now a globally-recognized and award-winning design, consulting, and education company. Since then, they’ve helped more than 1000 students and a growing number of clients to design and/or create integrated systems for shelter, energy, water, waste and food, all while supporting local economy and regenerating the land.
Their consulting firm, Adaptive Habitat is a property design & project management firm that creates resilient homes, acreages and farms for landowners, preserving tangible and enduring wealth by integrating innovative technology, engineered solutions and ecological design. She loves the complexity of working through holistic design challenges to create resilient, eco-sustainable homes, acreages and farms that produce their own energy and food, harvest water, cycle nutrients and restore the surrounding ecosystems. By integrating innovative technology with sound design, they engineer creative solutions that bring a positive benefit to the environments in which people live and thereby thrive.
Coupled with a deep connection to nature and a passion for growing nutrient-dense food, Michelle’s driving goal is to ensure that her work and actions leave this world a better place for future generations to inherit.
Explore the Curriculum
See the detailed curriculum below for the Comprehensive Passive Solar Greenhouse Design Course.
- Module 1: Goals and Contextual Analysis
- Module 2: Optimizing Site Potential, Orientation and Greenhouse Dimensions
- Module 3: Architectural Elements and Greenhouse Shapes
- Module 4: Structural Foundations, Ventilation and Base Construction
- Module 5: Harnessing Light through Glazing Techniques and Implementation Strategies
- Module 6: Construction and Insulation for Heat Efficiency
- Module 7: Maximizing Greenhouse Production and Efficiency
- Module 8: Heat Systems, Fuels and Integrated Design
- Module 9: Light Science and Water Strategies
- Module 10: Communicating Expectations and Initiating Your Project
The Design Tool
The Passive Solar Greenhouse Design Tool is an exclusive Excel spreadsheet that does all the complex calculations that factor into greenhouse design — climate data, energy consumption, heat loss, thermal mass, and more
Just look it over – and imagine trying to do these calculations yourself instead of having them instantly done for you when you enter the basic data for your property….
What You Will Learn in The Course?
I have learned a lot over the years from my experience designing and building my own passive solar greenhouse as well as designing greenhouses for my clients. In this course, I will share everything I have learned with you including the following:
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The Importance of Goal Setting
Goal setting is the start of any successful project. If you don’t have a set of realistic goals you will never get anywhere. In this session we break down what these goals might look like, how to set them and how to translate them into design directives that are actionable.
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Site Selection, Orientation, Aspect Ratio and Shape
The physical shape of the greenhouse is one of the most important aspects to get right, right from the start. We talk about dome greenhouses, hoop houses, walipinis and passive solar greenhouses. Each of these greenhouses has inherent pros and cons which we will discuss at length. By the end of this lesson you will know how to choose a greenhouse shape and orientation.
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Foundation, Kneewall and Ventilation
These three components are crucial to the long-term stability and usability of the greenhouse. The foundation design is crucial to supporting the greenhouse but also plays a crucial roll in keeping heat in the building. The knee wall will ensure that your greenhouse is ergonomic and that the ventilation continues to work. Getting the right amount of ventilation will ensure that you have healthy plants that grow almost effortlessly.
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Glazing and Light
Plants are super efficient solar collectors, greenhouses should be spaces that enhance solar collection of plants. Glazing is the transparent material that keeps in the heat but lets through the light. Heat and light have an interesting relationship in that the more light the glass lets in the more heat it lets out. Choosing the right glazing is crucial to making sure your plants get enough light energy while staying cozy inside. We will also talk about artificial lights, the different types, how many you might need and how much it will cost you monthly and yearly to run them. We have built a special section in our design tool that makes sizing artificial light a breeze.
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Insulation, Thermal Mass and Calculating Heat Loss
In this lesson we will teach you how to use the design tool to optimize the R-value of your greenhouse so that you are using the least amount of energy to keep it warm. We will show how you wall segments translate into the amount of energy and ultimately $’s that you need to spend on a monthly or yearly basis so that you can plan ahead.
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Internal Design Integrated Design
Lastly we will talk about elements that you can integrate into the greenhouse that will enhance the space. We love to integrate things like saunas, hot tubs, canning kitchens, root cellars and “relaxation infrastructure” that can make hard winters a breeze!
