Passive Housing

For a building to truly be considered a passive house a vast range of criteria need to be met, as Niels Bjergstrom, founder of Zero-Carbon Solutions Ltd reveals.

Staggeringly airtight ecological home in Athenry set to meet the Passive House Institute standard

Sustainable architect Simon McGuinness describes a project in Dublin which is set to surpass the onerous standard using structural insulated panels.

Beauty is only skin deep, or so goes the cliché, but is there more to 'grace' in a building than its exterior? Jason Walsh visited Rathnew, County Wicklow, to see how an ordinary office building was being transformed into a paragon of sustainability and spoke to two of the building's designers and occupants, architect Tomás Ó Leary and engineer Mark O'Brien

The winner of the sustainability award at the 2011 Irish Architecture awards, Roebuck Castle student residence at UCD’s Belfield campus is also the biggest certified passive house project built to date in Ireland and the UK. Tony Rigg of Kavanagh Tuite Architects explains how such a significant building achieved passive results.

A striking new house in County Cork proves that meeting the passive house standard needn’t mean sacrificing good design

The Passive House standard, an internationally renowned approach to building that negates the need for conventional heating, has attracted considerable interest in Ireland recently as energy prices continue to rise. Vivienne Brophy, Dr Irena Kondratenko, Patxi Hernandez and Kevin Burke of UCD’s Energy Research Group look at the effect this approach could have on cutting Ireland’s energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

As interest in sustainable building continues to escalate, Construct Ireland is increasingly unearthing buildings that betray an ambition to break new ground under a plethora of green criteria. John Hearne visited one such house in County Louth, and found a project driven by passive house and BER scale-topping ambitions combined with on-site energy and water supply strategies and a commitment to the use of green materials

In the hands of the right architect, meeting the passive house standard needn’t involve compromising on design. Construct Ireland visited a recently certified passive house which shows that a seamless low energy architecture is possible

Martin Murray, chairman of the Passive House Association of Ireland and founder of Martin Murray Architects, explains why the world’s leading energy efficiency standard is on the up in Ireland