Construction has begun on what is expected to be Ireland's first certified passive house pharmacy. The project in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, was designed by Paul McNally Architecture.

 The coming decades are expected to bring higher average temperatures, more extreme weather events – and possibly more cold snaps. But how are passive house buildings geared to adapt to a changing climate?

Progress on retrofitting Europe's building stock is sluggish, but there is a way out of the mire. 

A community centre in a deprived area of north London has become one of the few buildings in the UK & Ireland to get passive house certification with a renovation.

A house in south Dublin recently became the first Irish building to become EnerPHit certified. Architect Joseph Little describes the challenges of meeting the Passive House Institute’s standard for upgrading existing buildings.

One of the UK’s first nondomestic buildings to gain passive house certification, the Simmonds Mills designed Green Base centre is an embodiment of the environmental ethos it seeks to promote. 

With a target as exacting as the passive house standard, circumstances can conspire against meeting every criteria. Architect Sam Mays describes a Co Wicklow home that hit every passive target except one when the builder went bust. 

A stunning location, thoughtful design and a certified passive house: a new home in the wooded hills of the Scottish Borders manages to have its cake and eat it too. 

A new house in Wexford is the first in the country to achieve an A1 Building Energy Rating and certified passive house status – arguably making it the most energy efficient building yet built in Ireland. So why did a regulatory flaw risk rendering it non-compliant? 

Nothing drives innovation like adversity. Facing up to the prospect of scarce energy and other resources, we can take inspiration equally from the Inuit and the most avant-garde of passive house designers, as Sofie Pelsmakers reveals in her choice of six uniquely inspiring buildings from around the world.

Predicted energy usage seldom reflect actual consumption, whether in the case of typical stock or notionally low energy buildings. But how well does passive house turn theory into reality?

Do Irish buildings need the most heat when it's coldest, or when it's milder but windy? What consequences are there for how we build and heat them? And how airtight are Irish buildings anyway?

How do you make an old building liveable on Ireland’s wind ravaged Atlantic coast? The answer lies in the envelope, with airtightness, super insulation and the eradication of cold bridges

As Passive House Plus goes to press confirmation has come through that an extension to a nursing home in Celbridge, Co Kildare, has become the first healthcare building – and the first extension of any kind – to become certified passive.

What do certified passive houses in Germany & France, community centres in Austria and the USA and the 2011 Solar Decathlon winner have in common? Passive House Association of Ireland chair Martin Murray of Martin Murray Architects finds inspiration in each of the five ground breaking buildings