Radon is one of the most dangerous indoor air pollutants, yet there is little research on how it is affected by different forms of construction and ventilation. A new study, however, suggests that homes built to the passive house standard are significantly less at risk of radon build-up.
Despite the challenges of getting planning permission within a national park, a new passive house on a hillside in the South Downs managed to woo the planners with a sympathetic, discerning design inspired by a surprising source — two dilapidated old chicken sheds.
Industry-leading mechanical ventilation company BEAM Vacuum & Ventilation has launched a new mobile phone app for their award-winning, next generation HERU heat recovery ventilation range.
A beautifully detailed and rustic new passive house in the north of Scotland was built with a unique off-site construction system using local timber, and was created by a design-and-build firm that aims to put sustainability at the heart of everything it does.
It sounds like an impossibility: a high density, architectural, zero energy home on the tightest of back garden sites, adaptable to the needs of everyone from empty nesters to a family of six without opening a toolbox. But sometimes a project comes along that redefines what is possible.
This issue features an intriguing new passive house apartment building in north-west Spain.
How do ventilation filters work, and can they help to protect us against Covid-19? Toby Cambray weighs in on the physics of a subject that is more complex and interesting than you might expect.
In the early stages of the Covid-19 crisis, there was little official recognition that airborne transmission was a risk. Has that view changed, and what role will building ventilation play when winter approaches?
With governments across Europe looking for ways to jump start their economies following the early impact of Covid-19, attention is increasingly turning to deep retrofit. But while there is strong evidence that deep retrofit could play a major role, the devil will be in the detail – and the challenge of dramatically upscaling a nascent industry shouldn’t be underestimated.
Built mostly with clay blocks and sited above the sandy shores of Seaton, on the Devon coast, this new development of eight high-end apartments not only meets the passive house ‘plus’ standard — meaning it pairs the requisite ultra-low energy fabric with a substantial amount of renewable energy generation — but it also boasts serious attention to the use of ecological and healthy material.
This issue features the passive house ‘plus’ certified headquarters of Métropole Rouen Normandie, located on the banks of the Seine in Rouen, France, and designed by Jacques Ferrier Architecture.
NI still plans to tighten energy rules for new build
Before it was halted until January 2021, the Grenfell Tower inquiry heard a series of damning testimonies on the culture towards fire safety within leading building material manufacturers and certification bodies in the years leading up to the fire.
The Welsh government is set to introduce a new section of building regulations to deal with mitigating overheating risk, Part S.
Taking a temporary detour from his series of columns on the history of sustainable building and renewable energy, Dr Marc Ó Riain takes a look at Covid-19 from the perspective of Gaia theory, and at the relationship between collapsing ecosystems and the emergence of new infectious diseases.
This inspiring project may be exactly what the deep retrofit sector needs: an example of how to turn a bog standard, cold suburban home of little architectural merit into a climate champion delivering outstanding levels of energy performance, comfort and health, all while transforming the building architecturally.
RIBA has published a report urging the government, local authorities and the wider construction sector to adopt post-occupancy evaluation as standard practice to ensure all new buildings meet intended energy efficiency ratings and provide optimum value for money.
Even though its stunning views lay directly northward, simple design, good detailing and lots of insulation have turned this 1960s semi on the edge of Dublin Bay into a warm and light-filled low energy home.
Leading heat pump manufacturer Panasonic has welcomed the announcement of £2 billion in funding for the UK government's new Green Homes Grant scheme.
CO2 levels in rooms and other enclosed spaces should be used as a proxy for Covid transmission risk, a number of leading experts have said, as the evidence increasingly points towards airborne transmission being a major factor in the spread of the virus.
Architect Mel Reynolds's stunning new passive mews in South Dublin is featured in the new issue of Passive House Plus magazine. You can view a technically detailed virtual tour of the property below - including detailed descriptions and construction photos of the build. To view the case study in the digital version of the new issue click here (Irish edition) and here (UK edition).
In late 2018, the IPCC issued a stark warning. It highlighted that limiting global warming to 1.5 C is crucial to avoiding the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. It also clearly established that achieving the goals of the Paris climate agreement will require action at an unprecedented pace and scale. To maximise the chances of limiting global warming to 1.5 C, all sectors of the economy must achieve significant emissions reductions, and the building sector must fully decarbonise by 2050.
Cement is responsible for up to 8% of global carbon emissions, and in this guide, sustainable design expert Jay Stuart looks at ways to minimise its environmental impact through good design, and at some of the alternative, lower carbon cement and concrete products on the market.
When it comes to air pollution, we tend to worry most about things like traffic fumes and solid fuel burning — or when it comes to indoor air, condensation, damp and mould. But one of the biggest threats in the air we breathe comes from something we are exposed to almost every day, but rarely think about: cooking. John Hearne reports on the evidence for how cooking affects indoor air quality, and what we can do about it.
An extraordinary A1 upgrade in Cork City is Ireland's first developer-led Enerphit. The attention to detail taken in its construction is something to behold. See below for a detailed technical virtual tour, including tags showing sequences of construction shots that reveal what makes this building so special. To view the case study in our digital magazine click here (Irish edition) and here (UK edition.
In the early stages of the Covid-19 crisis, there was little official recognition that airborne transmission was a risk. Has that view changed, and what role will building ventilation play when winter approaches?
‘Architecture is the blissful moment when the site and brief come together,’ says architect Ruth Butler of the challenge she and her engineer husband faced in designing their family home, on a difficult urban site by the Hampshire coast. But it was a challenge they met and exceeded, because even though they hadn’t even planned to build a passive house, they soon realised the design was on course to meet the onerous energy standard anyway.
A ground-breaking new passive house in Bristol makes superb use of an urban plot to create a bright and spacious home built from ecological materials that — thanks to its huge solar roof and Tesla battery pack — produces more energy than it uses, making it one of the first UK projects to meet the passive house ‘plus’ standard, while also blitzing the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge’s targets for operational energy.
This ambitious renovation and extension of a single-storey Dublin redbrick, bringing it up to an A1 rating while far exceeding the new build NZEB standard, provides a beautifully-detailed blueprint for delivering warmth, comfort, and healthy indoor air — as well as extra space and living density — in historic city centre properties.