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From the magazine
Flat earth
What do you do when a building type is inefficient, common, hard to treat – and often used to house vulnerable people? Chris Morgan of leading passive house architects John Gilbert Architects tells the story of an extraordinary pilot project that may show the way to solve the stickiest of problems.
20-08-2025 Feature
Material matters - A palette for a vulnerable planet
In recent years, the drive to reduce the embodied carbon of buildings has led to a resurgent interest in timber and other biobased building materials. But peering into the future, if we are to think not just about carbon but also land, water, and regenerating nature, how might we build to meet our essential needs, and what might we build with? By Lenny Antonelli and Andy Simmonds
01-08-2025 Feature
Derelict to dream home
A couple breathes new life into a set of historic barns, creating an Enerphit dream home in the Gloucestershire countryside.
22-07-2025 Upgrade
Big picture - Points of access to resilient living
Mike Eliason, architect, founder of Larch Lab and author of the must read Building for People, reflects on how a series of personal and global crises – from pandemic lockdowns and climate disasters to urban housing challenges – shaped his mission to bring sustainable, community-focused, and climateadaptive neighbourhoods to North America.
25-06-2025 International
Storm breaker
Five years ago, a fabric first trailblazer took a dose of his own medicine – and delivered a family home that combines climate action, comfort, cost-effectiveness and resilience in the face of a record-breaking storm.
17-06-2025 New build
Reimagining the architect
It’s a radical idea: that to negate the environmental damage of construction, we don’t just need to build sustainably, we need to build less. However, most architects and building designers earn a living by doing exactly the opposite: by building stuff. So how can the design practice be reinvented for a world in which we need to do more with much, much less?
15-04-2025 Insight
Pump up the volume
Forgive the 80s hip hop house reference in the headline, but the volume of the walls in this volumetric modular school building in Birr was literally pumped up – with recycled newspaper insulation. Built to passive house principles, it’s a story of one Roscommon manufacturer reimagining the role that offsite methods can play in the delivery of highly sustainable permanent accommodation for schools – while delivering exceptionally low embodied carbon results. Additional words - Jeff Colley
15-04-2025 Feature
Just what the doctor ordered
What do you get when a clinician couple decide to build their dream family home? In the skilled hands of leading Scottish architects Paper Igloo, you get a forensically detailed, highly ecological, cosy home that wraps up low embodied carbon and passive house into a beautiful design.
25-03-2025 New build
Bay window
Designing a passive house is one thing. Designing a scheme of passive houses to make the most of the views on an extraordinary coastal site is another. And designing that scheme to tie into the local supply chains and architectural vernacular – while ensuring the homes are set up for changing, potentially disengaged occupants – is the stuff of magic.
10-03-2025 Feature
Big picture - Passive towers protect vulnerable Bronx seniors
How do you serve the needs of senior citizens who have fallen on hard times in the Big Apple? In Betances Residence, CookFox Architects have cooked up an extraordinary response, integrating the protective benefits of passive house with beautifully considered, user-tailored design.
10-03-2025 Big picture
Hot topic
The penny has yet to drop for many clients and designers about the risks posed by overheating in an Irish context. With the climate hotting up and building design typically uninformed by feedback on actual performance, is the industry heading for a hot mess, asks Dr Shane Colclough?
10-03-2025 Feature
Green shoots for green building
While tokenistic or poorly conceived attempts at supporting the decarbonisation and greening of buildings still abound in the finance sector, there are signs of structural changes on the horizon - changes designed to unlock widespread change. But do those changes go far enough?
26-02-2025 Feature
Pathway to passive or road to ruin?
As governments come under increasing pressure to make real and significant reductions in energy use and carbon emissions while tackling energy poverty, interest in passive house has never been higher. But short of expecting regulators to commit to certified passive house, is there a way of adopting the key principles that make passive house work? By Nick Grant and Peter Wilkinson
12-02-2025 Feature
Living proof
Sometimes a building comes along that does almost too much. Passive house stalwarts Kirsty Maguire Architects’ latest opus is an award-winning architectural, engineering, and sustainability feat – which asks questions not just about how we build, but how we live.
29-01-2025 New build
Ace of Herts
Fancy owning an energy positive, timber-based passive house in one of the most desirable locations in England, without the hassle of having to build it yourself? A new three-house development nearing completion in Hertfordshire may be just the ticket.
22-01-2025 New build
Passive breakthrough
In September Cairn Homes lit the fuse on a passive house explosion, publishing a position paper on passive house and announcing the construction of nearly 1,800 apartments to the standard. But what’s behind the company’s bold move?
06-12-2024 Feature
Airtight delight
The proof in the pudding with a notionally low energy building is in the eating. Since moving into their new passive house a little under two years ago, the Murray family’s heating costs have been scarcely believable – in a home that also blitzes the embodied carbon targets in the RIAI 2030 Climate Challenge.
04-12-2024 New build
Emma Stone show puts passive house up in lights
Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. And sometimes strange but breathtaking fiction subverts reality. In issue 47 we took a break from our normal approach to Big Picture, with good reason: passive house playing a starring role in an extraordinary US TV show.
20-11-2024 Big picture
Carbon first, fabric second
Rapidly decarbonising our cold, leaky dwellings is the greatest challenge facing the building industry, one fraught with complexity and risk. Given that the UK faces similar challenges to Ireland – in a similar climate, with similar housing stock – what can we learn from British efforts to meet this challenge? Leading UK green building association the AECB has put forward a proposal that could help to chart a new course through these choppy waters.
02-10-2024 Insight
Much ado about nothing
As the world edges ever closer to the precipice of runaway climate change, some sustainability terms have moved from relative obscurity towards the mainstream of marketing and public discourse – and none more so than zero carbon. But is zero carbon construction a real prospect, or is it just wishful thinking? Words by John Butler and Andy Simmonds
11-09-2024 Insight
Play to win
A site with a dilapidated building in Bristol has been transformed into a crucial social space by a husband and wife team of environmentally and socially engaged architects, aided by a polymath sustainability consultant.
21-08-2024 Feature
Handled with care
If thermal comfort is important for people of all ages, it’s even more so for elderly people, for whom the right living conditions can be a matter of life or death. Passive House Plus visited one award-winning extra care facility in Exeter to learn how the decision to go passive was working out for the residents.
16-07-2024 New build
Home from home
Few architects are tasked with knocking their old family home, but for John Morehead, once this difficult decision was made, it was a chance to create a future-proofed new passive house that embraces its stunning natural surroundings and exhibits remarkable attention to detail.
03-07-2024 New build
Bungalow Bills
What does it feel like to suffer the cold, mould and discomfort of a 1960s bungalow, and experience its rebirth as a passive house? The owner of one award-winning project spills the beans. Additional reporting by Jeff Colley
11-06-2024 Upgrade
News
Air tightness training course to launch in Carlow this March
Irish energy consultancy 2eva is set to run a two-day professional training course for air tightness testers this spring, aimed at both newcomers to the discipline and experienced practitioners looking to formalise their skills, as well as timed to meet what the company sees as growing demand for qualified testers in Ireland.
#BuildingLife Series: Director at CORA Consulting Engineers, John Casey
In each edition, Passive Plus Plus profiles leaders in construction and architecture who have endorsed the Irish Green Building Council’s call to address the environmental impacts of buildings across their entire lifecycle.
Green homes and finance join forces for growth
Certified green homes are becoming mainstream across Europe – boosted by collaboration from experts in green building and finance. Smarter Finance for EU (Smarter4EU), a pan-European initiative dedicated to the creation of a mainstream European green housing market, announced a range of new initiatives at the “Banking on Green Homes" event in Madrid, on 28 May.
Hotel demolition judicial review could set embodied carbon precedent
A Fingal county councillor has been granted leave to pursue a judicial review of the planning board's decision to allow demolition of the Deer Park Hotel on Howth Demesne.
ZEB Summit celebrates Irish passive progress
The rapid rise in the uptake of the passive house standard in Ireland in recent years was centre stage at ZEB Summit 2025 – with international visitors taken aback by Ireland’s progress.
Irish and British associations unite for conference as passive house explodes
The 2025 UK and Ireland Passivhaus Conference, themed Climate Emergency: The Passivhaus Solution, is set to bring together hundreds of sustainable building professionals in Belfast this October.
IGBC launches case studies to drive nature-led construction
The Irish Green Building Council (IGBC) will unveil a groundbreaking collection of Irish case studies showcasing best practices for integrating biodiversity into building projects and infrastructure development.
Circular roadmap aims to reduce waste and create new markets
Ireland now has a roadmap aimed at transforming the construction industry from a linear to a circular economic model by 2040.
Enniscorthy to host ‘make or break’ sustainable building summit
As global temperatures soar, an Irish organisation is bringing experts together this month for a summit on the future of sustainable construction.
Banks turn to green housing courses as EU sustainability rules bite
Help is at hand for European financial institutions scrambling to train staff in sustainable housing finance as regulatory pressure intensifies and customer demand for green mortgages accelerates across the continent.
Ecocem executive John Reddy becomes the first Irish President of the Institute of Concrete Technology
Reddy is the first person from Ireland to hold the role of President of ICT, which has a term of two years, and follows his term of Vice President of the organisation since 2023.
#BuildingLife Series: RIAI CEO, Kathryn Meghen
In the #BuildingLife Ambassador Spotlight Series, Passive House Plus is profiling leaders who have endorsed the Irish Green Building Council’s call to address the environmental impacts of buildings across their lifecycle.
Scotland to accept passive house as regs compliant
Certified passive house to be alternative means of compliance to proposed Scottish passive house equivalent.
Green homes key to climate and housing crises and rebuilding Ukraine
The Smarter Finance for EU consortium, which is aiming to unlock €100bn worth of green homes across Europe, announced the launch of a European centre of excellence to promote green home certification and investment across Europe at the Irish Green Building Council’s annual residential conference in Dublin.
Plain English book tells story of embodied carbon
Canadian green building writer and architect Lloyd Alter has published a book to explain the importance of embodied carbon in simple terms.
Green homes a “multi-trillion euros opportunity” – but greenwashing must end
Europe’s burgeoning green homes market is a multi-trillion euros opportunity – but lenders must be wary of facilitating greenwashing, a pan-European consortium has warned.
Study: gas cooking killing 40,000 Europeans per year
Gas cooking is killing 40,000 European people a year in Europe, a major new study has revealed, with an average of almost two years taken off their life in the EU and United Kingdom due to exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emitted during gas cooking.The countries with the highest burden were Italy, Poland, Romania, France and the UK.
Traditional homes retrofit grant pilot launched
The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland has launched a home energy upgrade for traditional homes pilot.
The PH+ guides
The PH+ guide to overheating
As awareness of the urgency of the climate crisis grows, efforts to kickstart en masse deep energy efficiency interventions are gathering apace. But poorly conceived low energy building efforts can lead to unintended consequences including overheating – a risk that’s bound to grow as the world warms up. Phi Architecture co-founder Claire Jamieson details the risks and offers some solutions on how to create low energy buildings that are comfortable in summer and winter.
09-04-2021 Guides
The PH+ guide to greener concrete - reducing the climate impact of cement and concrete in buildings
Cement is responsible for up to 8% of global carbon emissions, and in this guide, sustainable design expert Jay Stuart looks at ways to minimise its environmental impact through good design, and at some of the alternative, lower carbon cement and concrete products on the market.
30-07-2020 Guides
Timber frame & mass timber: the Passive House Plus guide to structural timber construction
Fuelled by the need to build quickly and to increasingly tight sustainability standards, the market for timber frame and mass timber construction is growing rapidly. This detailed guide covers many of the main established and emerging techniques, and looks at key issues to address if you’re considering a timber-based build.
05-07-2019 Guides
The PH+ guide to heat recovery ventilation
Heat recovery ventilation is an invaluable way to maintain indoor air quality in low energy buildings and minimise the loss of precious heat, but there are several issues to address to ensure optimal performance. Ventilation expert Ian Mawditt, a technical advisor on Part F of England’s building regulations, has decades of experience in field investigations of indoor air quality and ventilation effectiveness. His guide, which focuses on centralised or ducted whole house heat recovery systems, is essential reading to anyone considering such a system.
10-06-2019 Guides
Blogs
Retrofit redux: Catching up with A3
The upgrade of Ireland's retrofit target to A3 marks a critical step forward, bridging the gap between energy modelling and real-world performance, explains Dr. Marc Ó Riain.
Energy poverty and electric heating
As electricity decarbonises, the case for switching from fossil fuel boilers to efficient use of electricity to heat buildings via heat pumps has become overwhelming. But in markets like the UK where electricity is far more expensive than the European average, and people on low incomes may be chronically underheating poorly insulated homes, could a drive to electrify heating exacerbate energy poverty?
Three books and a taxi ride
Peter Rickaby looks back on an extraordinary career, the challenge of convincing people of the need for a new approach to buildings, and the people who helped him to do just that.
The transformative power of industrialised retrofit
The retrofit market is messy, scuppered by knowledge and skills gaps, and inconsistent approaches. Ele George makes the case for industrialisation to level up the retrofit market.
Tripling EU / UK Energy Efficiency Policy: the NZEB
One of Europe’s key climate breakthroughs came in the form of the EU’s nearly zero energy building target, as Dr. Marc Ó Riain explains in the latest part of his series on the history of low energy building.
Passive house doesn't care about materials
One stubborn trope in some corners of green building is that passive house is so focused on energy performance that its advocates ignoring materials. Not so, argues Toby Cambray.
We need to talk about women and retrofit
Our efforts to retrofit homes across the UK and Ireland will be severely hampered unless we engage meaningfully with and empower women homeowners and professionals, writes Ellora Coupe, founder of Her Retrofit Space.
Energising Efficiency
In the latest piece in his series on the development of low energy building, Dr Marc Ó Riain describes the evolution and Impact of EPCs in Ireland and the UK.
If passive house is Everest, we’ve left base camp
The construction industry is moving in great numbers towards the passive house standard. In an adapted version of a speech at the Construction Industry Federation Conference in September, Passive House Association of Ireland chair Caroline Ashe Brady looks at the trek ahead.
In defense of fabric
As the grid gets greener and the case for heat pumps as a decarbonisation silver bullet becomes increasingly compelling, questions are starting to be asked about how far we need to go with retrofitting building fabric – or whether we need improve fabric at all. We ignore fabric at our peril, warns Toby Cambray.
Out of the blue - a passive revolution
Near the peak of the Celtic Tiger – at a time when developers were throwing up often sub-standard homes at a record pace, one self-build project pointed to a different approach, writes Dr Marc Ó Riain.
Buy, hold or sell
Recent analysis has suggested a slowdown in the property sector for 2024, but what impact might a drop in inflation have? Mel Reynolds runs the numbers.