Passive Housing

Staggeringly airtight ecological home in Athenry set to meet the Passive House Institute standard

A striking new house in County Cork proves that meeting the passive house standard needn’t mean sacrificing good design

The Passive House standard, an internationally renowned approach to building that negates the need for conventional heating, has attracted considerable interest in Ireland recently as energy prices continue to rise. Vivienne Brophy, Dr Irena Kondratenko, Patxi Hernandez and Kevin Burke of UCD’s Energy Research Group look at the effect this approach could have on cutting Ireland’s energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

When residents of Hollywood solemnly and publicly state the need to combat climate change, it is easy to reject as self-righteous, opportunistic bleating. When it’s a resident of Hollywood, County Wicklow, and the environmental statement is in the form of a poroton-block house infused with sustainable features, it provokes an altogether different response, as Lenny Antonelli reveals.

For a building to truly be considered a passive house a vast range of criteria need to be met, as Niels Bjergstrom, founder of Zero-Carbon Solutions Ltd reveals.

Martin Murray, chairman of the Passive House Association of Ireland and founder of Martin Murray Architects, explains why the world’s leading energy efficiency standard is on the up in Ireland

Sustainable architect Simon McGuinness describes a project in Dublin which is set to surpass the onerous standard using structural insulated panels.

Beauty is only skin deep, or so goes the cliché, but is there more to 'grace' in a building than its exterior? Jason Walsh visited Rathnew, County Wicklow, to see how an ordinary office building was being transformed into a paragon of sustainability and spoke to two of the building's designers and occupants, architect Tomás Ó Leary and engineer Mark O'Brien

Few concepts in sustainable design have caught on like the passive house. Since the construction of the first passive house in Germany in 1990, an estimated 15 to 20,000 houses have been built to what is arguably the world’s leading low energy building standard. Drawing from his experience in sustainable building since the early 1980s, Bill Quigley of NuTech Renewables posits an alternative approach.

A new development at Grange Lough, Rosslare, reveals that passive houses can be made Irish – both in terms of what they’re built with, and how they look.