The extensive energy and ventilation upgrade of 12 run-down bungalows at College View sheltered housing scheme in Wexford town not only transformed the lives and comfort of residents, but an extensive period of post-occupancy study has yielded important lessons for future projects.
This issue features the University of Chicago’s Warren Woods ecological field station, which was the first passive certified building of its type in North America.
This all-wood passive-certified home in the village of Kippen was built directly by its architect owners, who not only achieved the passive house standard but did so with an ecological approach that sought to use building materials ultra-efficiently and make it easy to deconstruct and recycle the building at the end of its life.
A new passive house on Galway Bay beautifully blends vernacular design with touches of Arts & Crafts while still appearing thoroughly contemporary, but under its neat exterior is the thinking of an architectural practice striving to reduce the environmental impact of its buildings, inspired by the Architects Declare pledge.
The concept of building back better and greener, popular early in the pandemic, is now in danger of being abandoned in the rush to return to ‘normal’ — but we always have the power to shape what normal is, writes Dr Peter Rickaby.
In his latest column, Dr Marc O’Riain looks back at two American prototypes for the passive house standard that embraced heat pump technology as well as principles of superinsulation and airtightness.
Angle House in north London is a wonderful example of sustainable urban housing: modest in scale and built on a run-down site in the heart of north London, it boasts a passive approach to energy efficiency and some beautiful design touches.
With increasing attention turning to cutting carbon emissions from existing homes to meet carbon reduction targets, Duncan Smith, housing asset and energy strategy manager at Renfrewshire County Council in Scotland, argues that approaches which improve comfort and dramatically reduce energy bills must be front and centre.
It’s time to make the passive house standard a requirement of local development plans across Ireland, says Mel Reynolds.
Toby Cambray writes on the many lessons that the inimitable biscuit cake can teach us about how building materials deal with moisture.
Where basements are present in low energy buildings, they can prove a weak spot without particular care and attention, as Passive House Association of Ireland board member John Morehead of Wain Morehead Architects Ltd explains.
Proper ventilation has been recognised as an important quality for school buildings at least since the Victorian era. But, in the current pandemic, have we lost sight of the role of ventilation?
Lark Rise is an elegant new passive house in rural Buckinghamshire designed by bere:architects, but it is more than ‘just’ a passive house. Because it produces and stores so much of its own energy through on-site solar power, it is a certified passive house ‘plus’, and in this article, its architect Justin Bere explains how dwellings like this can play a key role in decarbonising our economies and societies in the coming decades.
Leading offsite timber construction specialist Lidan Designs recently completed a number of modular, low embodied carbon, nearly zero energy buildings (NZEBs) for public authorities.