In spite of a consensus that most buildings need deep energy upgrades, both Ireland and the UK have barely scratched the surface. Joseph Curtin – one of Ireland’s leading energy policy wonks –discusses how to kick start en masse upgrade work.

The vast majority of energy upgrade projects aim for low hanging fruit measures, and risk locking buildings and their occupants into needlessly high energy usage, environmental impact and discomfort. This recent home upgrade on the outskirts of Cork City shows what truly deep retrofit looks like.

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to live in a passive house, a B&B in Devon could be just the ticket. The winner of the private housing award at the 2013 UK Passivhaus Awards, this upgraded 1970s home proves that even existing buildings can be made passive.

While Ireland’s minimum energy performance regulations for dwellings have come on leaps and bounds in recent years, standards for non-domestic buildings have remained untouched. Which makes forward-thinking media production company TVM’s new ultra low energy HQ all the more impressive.  

A building doesn’t have to be designed as a cube to meet the passive house standard, but it helps. This as yet uncertified passive house in Carlow shows that, climate permitting, less compact designs can be made passive – by pushing the envelope.

When it comes to actual energy usage, modern buildings rarely perform as expected, with many notionally low energy buildings falling disappointingly short. As discussion continues about how to solve the performance gap, one pioneering Welsh passive building has a different kind of performance gap – it’s using 40% less energy than anticipated.

The winner of the Social/Group Housing award at the 2013 UK Passivhaus Awards, Lancaster Cohousing’s Forgebank development in Lancashire is riddled with green features. Not only are all of its 41 homes passive house certified – it scores top marks in the UK’s Code for Sustainable Homes too.

Virtually any building, anywhere can achieve certified passive house status, as these four transatlantic buildings show – including a Viennese skyscraper, an upgrade to an NYC home predating the Empire State Building, a German museum housing valuable works of art and a net zero energy home in New Mexico. 

Perhaps the most common argument against making passive house mainstream is that it costs too much to build. But as building regulations tighten and an increasingly competitive passive house sector emerges, does that argument hold water?

Turning an old Victorian home into a passive house is a painstaking job that would frighten many building professionals. But the team behind this innovative retrofit didn't just end up with a certified passive house, they got one of the lowest energy dwellings in the UK.

A recently completed pilot project by Cork Institute of Technology may be a model for bringing untenably inefficient and uncomfortable office buildings up to near zero energy performance levels.

Although preconceived notions about the existence of a passive house aesthetic still abound, trailblazing projects like the Ditchingham affordable housing scheme in Norfolk show that vernacular architecture & build methods can go hand-in-hand with passive performance.

Building a passive house school is a big achievement, but the team behind Oakmeadow Primary School in Wolverhampton have done something even more formidable — they built one when they weren't even asked to, and they did it for a conventional budget.

Built on a tricky site in the seaside town of Salthill, Co Galway, Ireland’s first semi-detached passive house development is designed to meet the needs of three generations from the same family.

A new timber frame house in Co Cork doesn't just meet the passive house standard, it does so for an impressive price.

Picking from some of the best current sustainable design the world has to offer, we profile a floating passive house currently moored in the Netherlands, a ground-breaking timber hybrid tower in Austria, a multi unit passive scheme in Malmö, and an Enerphit upgrade to a brutalist Connecticut home originally designed by one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s colleagues.

Construction has begun on what is expected to be Ireland's first certified passive house pharmacy. The project in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, was designed by Paul McNally Architecture.

 The coming decades are expected to bring higher average temperatures, more extreme weather events – and possibly more cold snaps. But how are passive house buildings geared to adapt to a changing climate?

Progress on retrofitting Europe's building stock is sluggish, but there is a way out of the mire. 

A community centre in a deprived area of north London has become one of the few buildings in the UK & Ireland to get passive house certification with a renovation.

A house in south Dublin recently became the first Irish building to become EnerPHit certified. Architect Joseph Little describes the challenges of meeting the Passive House Institute’s standard for upgrading existing buildings.

One of the UK’s first nondomestic buildings to gain passive house certification, the Simmonds Mills designed Green Base centre is an embodiment of the environmental ethos it seeks to promote. 

With a target as exacting as the passive house standard, circumstances can conspire against meeting every criteria. Architect Sam Mays describes a Co Wicklow home that hit every passive target except one when the builder went bust. 

A stunning location, thoughtful design and a certified passive house: a new home in the wooded hills of the Scottish Borders manages to have its cake and eat it too.