This home on the edge of the Cotswolds, built with cross-laminated timber, now holds the distinction of being the UK’s most airtight home, with the client even doing a significant chunk of the airtightness taping himself. What’s more, it demonstrates how passive homes that generate their own renewable power may escape the worst of the energy price crisis.
Rural Ireland has a crisis of dereliction, with numerous government policies aimed at breathing new life into thousands of old, vacant buildings. The careful transformation of one 19th century schoolhouse into a small, beautiful home shows a way forward for the sensitive, climate-conscious renovation of many of these properties.
Do thicker insulated walls, triple glazed windows, & MVHR ventilation systems tip the scales unfavourably for passive house when it comes to embodied carbon?
The world’s first passive house hospital has been certified by the Passive House Institute – showing that the standard can be applied to even to the most demanding building types.
The AECB conference 2022 will focus on practical solutions to decarbonising buildings, with a particular emphasis on timber-based approaches with the potential to deliver low energy, healthy buildings at scale while minimising the use of precious resources and impact on the environment.
The pioneering Cannock Mill development in Colchester is just the second cohousing project in the UK to achieve passive house certification, making it a leader not just in terms of its thermal performance, but in demonstrating the vital role shared living can play in both building vibrant communities, and in mitigating the climate crisis.
Since Erne Campus opened its doors in September, students of South West College in Enniskillen can now experience one of the world’s most environmentally advanced higher education buildings, and the largest building in the world so far certified to the passive house premium standard, in recognition of both its highly efficient building fabric and the large amount of solar energy it generates.
Run-down terraces are an all-too-common sight in towns and villages across Ireland, but an ambitious deep retrofit project in Tralee provides an inspiring blueprint for regeneration, taking a cold 19th century terraced office and turning it into a beautifully designed space with tiny energy bills, fit for the 21st century.
Marc O Riain explores how policy on both side of the Atlantic in the 1980s sabotaged a nascent revolution in renewables and energy conservation.
A new housing scheme designed by Coady Architects in Wicklow has achieved the highest green home certification – while suggesting that the convictions of one practice on a single project can help to transform the industry.
As the stringent fabric-first, low energy standard enters its fourth decade, Guy Fowler asks what sort of impact it has made on the world, and where it should go from here.
Latest climate report calls for more e cient use of floor space in buildings
The deep retrofit of this 1930s dwelling on the Hampshire coast provides a pitch-perfect example of how to transform old dwellings while preserving their original structure and minimising embodied carbon, utterly transforming the living space without the need for an extension, and creating a cosy home that uses two-thirds less energy than before.
Dulux Decorator Centre has committed to an ambitious carbon reduction plan to help specifiers reduce their environmental impact and provide a more attractive offering for climate-conscious clients.
A striking new oak-framed passive house in an area of outstanding natural beauty in the English countryside has just opened its doors to the public, and already there has been a flood of guests seeking to experience life in a passive house.
This Enerphit project in the suburbs of South Dublin has dramatically transformed and extended a dated 1970s dwelling by adding an extra storey, radically reducing its energy consumption and creating a smartly-designed, light filled family home and office.
Insulating our homes is critical and must be our first priority, but how do we get the rest of the way to zero carbon? Dr Peter Rickaby investigates the options…
The Welsh government has issued a new standard for social housing that requires an embodied carbon assessment, favours timber-based offsite construction, and bans fossil fuel boilers.
At COP26, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) recognised the UK’s Sustainable Development Foundation (SDF), along with South West College in Northern Ireland and the Construction Scotland Innovation Centre, as international centres of excellence for high performance buildings.
Most people think of cold, cramped and poor-quality buildings when they think of student accommodation, but two new passive house residences at King’s College, Cambridge are rewriting the rulebook, with their focus on occupant comfort, architectural quality, and an enlightened, long-term view of construction costs.
An intriguing new passive house in Dundee takes the traditional ‘box’ form associated with the standard and turns it on its head, using a series of pitched roofs and different claddings to make it feel more like a traditional city terrace than a single dwelling – built with a heavy emphasis on carbon sequestering materials.
Coventry University research has found that 40 per cent of primary school classrooms examined in a study did not have an adequate ventilation rate to combat the spread of Covid-19.