Three years ago quantity surveyor Ross Cremin set out from scratch with the goal of self-building a passive house on a site in rural County Longford. Here he tells the story of his project and offers advice for others thinking of building their own passive house.

To read the full article, click here (Irish edition) or here (UK edition). 

This issue’s pick of international passive house projects includes an apartment block in China, social housing in Finland, an ambitious retrofit in New York, and an exciting new urban passive house district in Germany.

This issue’s selection features ultra low energy buildings from Mexico, Germany, New Zealand and Italy, and illustrates how widely the energy efficiency specification can vary in different climate zones.

This issue’s Eurocentric selection is drawn from the International Isover Energy Efficiency Awards, including a German renovation that generates an energy surplus, a Danish nature reserve, a Romanian Solar Decathlon entry and a Polish church.

This year’s international Passive House Awards featured 21 projects — out of about 100 entries — across six different categories, with shortlisted projects coming from across Europe plus New Zealand, South Korea, and the United States. In this issue’s international section, we pick four buildings from an exceptional selection.

This issue’s selection of international buildings include Spain’s first passive houses built from straw bales, an architecturally striking energy-plus office building in Denmark, and an Austrian family home that marries ecology, comfort and delightful design.

This issue’s selection includes an Estonian space-saving modular build that would see its space heating demand fall by eight if built in Dublin’s climate; a family home on a tight site that became Seattle’s first passive house; an ultra low energy Italian timber box that acts as a confident, sustainable response to a natural disaster; and a passive community centre in the Austrian Alps that makes stunning use of timber.

This striking new build passive house combines a traditional farmhouse form with ultra-low energy performance and a spectacular location — using two different forms of masonry construction. 

This ambitious and complicated project — a partial upgrade, partial rebuild of an old detached property in south Dublin — is on course to achieve the onerous Enerphit standard for retrofit.