Upgrading a historic home to the passive house standard typically means leaving the façade untouched to preserve the building’s historic appearance, but the team behind this fully passive retrofit in Kensal Green took a totally different approach. 

Ten years ago Brussels had some of the most energy inefficient building stock in Europe — now it boasts a groundbreaking policy that means all new buildings in the region must be passive. How did the city do it? 

The attempts to derail Dublin City Council’s proposed ‘passive house or equivalent’ planning requirement are bad news in the increasingly difficult fight to mitigate against and adapt to climate change – they risk being complicit in new buildings in the city breaching European law. 

In her second column documenting her family’s self-build passive house project, Nessa Duggan details the process of choosing a build system and finding an architect.

This pioneering deep energy upgrade of a 1960s home in Wicklow will take place in phases over at least five years, with the aim of making it more affordable to go passive by renovating on a step-by-step basis. 

Built from a simple palette of timber and concrete, this diminutive but architecturally unique home managed to meet the passive house standard despite a small and awkward site.  

As people get older, their thermal energy need increases: elderly people tend to spend more time at home, and to feel the cold more. As one new sheltered housing scheme demonstrates, passive houses may be the answer. 

This new home in Galway is inspired by local buildings but doesn’t look like anything else in the area, and delivers passive performance along with panoramic sea views.

One young Irish family has taken the decision to build their new home in Co Louth to the passive house standard. In the first of a series of columns, Nessa Duggan explains the thinking behind the decision to go passive. 

The latest in a long line of affordable passive house schemes from trailblazing housing association Hastoe, this new development at Outwell, Norfolk features 15 brand new passive homes. 

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown’s passive house policy also leaves the door open for alternative approaches, provided their equivalence can be demonstrated. But what does this mean? 

Thanks to fabric-first energy performance approaches such as passive house, heating demand is collapsing. So how does district heating stack up in buildings which need such little heat? 

A deep retrofit of this 1960s block-built home turned it into a modern ultra low-energy home that emphasises wood, light and natural materials.

The abandoned husk of a 1960s school building sounds a very long way from a comfortable, ultra low energy family home. Thanks to a remarkable upgrade effort – influenced by reading Passive House Plus – one Fermanagh family are reaping the rewards of one such transformation. 

With a number of trailblazing housing associations and councils building social and affordable housing schemes repeatedly to passive standards, the notion that the world’s leading low energy building standard is the preserve of the well-off doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, as Hastoe’s latest Essex passive house scheme demonstrates. 

This new timber frame home in the south of England met the passive house standard despite a less-than-optimum orientation, launched a brand new design-and-build venture between its architect and project manager, and embraced a subtle-yet-elegant design that maintains a simple passive house form while drawing inspiration from the local vernacular. 

This brand new light-filled passive house set in the countryside of north Kildare was inspired by local farm buildings, and features a striking and exposed oak-framed structure.

It may sound too good to be true, but a new scheme of semi-Ds in Co Wexford proves that passive houses can be remarkably affordable to buy – and that’s with net zero heating and hot water costs, and the soundproofing levels of a cinema.

The Living Building Challenge is arguably the world’s toughest environmental building certification program. In order to achieve the award, buildings must meet rigorous standards in seven different performance categories, also known as ‘petals’: place, water, energy, health and happiness, materials, equity and beauty. Our selection includes three American buildings that have been certified to one of these standards. 

There was a time when governments thought that simply offering grants for cavity wall insulation and heating system upgrades would be enough to stimulate mass upgrade of our building stock. But ‘shallow’ measures such as these may not be sufficient to drastically cut carbon emissions and make a real difference to occupant comfort and health, and convincing homeowners to upgrade their homes to a much higher standard will require a clever mix of psychology and smart financing 

Dublin is on the verge of taking a giant leap forward for construction, with two major authorities in the region set to make the passive house standard mandatory for new buildings. Can Ireland’s mainstream building sector rise to this challenge, and what can it learn from experience of big passive house projects across the water in the UK? 

Builder Conor Walsh undertook an ambitious partial rebuild, partial retrofit to this 1960s bungalow, delivering deep energy savings and turning it into a modern family home 

This unique energy retrofit in Bristol walked a fine line between ambition and pragmatism to deliver a healthy, comfortable and ultra-low energy home 

This remarkably low cost build in rural Co Meath adds to the evidence that it’s possible to meet the passive house standard on a tight budget – with a number of additional green technologies thrown in for good measure