Architect Michael Green says that by building timber skyscrapers, we can meet global housing demand without increasing carbon emissions. Check out his TED talk below.

Tall buildings tend to be among the worst offenders in terms of energy and environmental profligacy – but one new Viennese project shows that high rise doesn’t have to mean high environmental impact.

Following on from my post on a two-week trip to Germany to study low energy building under the Phase Programme, I sent some questions to Torsten Windmueller, a timber engineer at Kompetenz Zentrum Holzbau & Ausbau, a centre of excellence for timber frame construction, to gauge his thoughts on the differences between building standards in Germany and Ireland.

Gloucestershire based Seymour-Smith architects are about to apply for planning permission for a bold new dwelling in the Buckinghamshire countryside that the firm says will go beyond the passive house standard in terms of energy efficiency. The project has already won the support of a Design Review Panel, which independently review the design of signficiant building projects. 

Check out this video from Saint Gobain on their technical academy in Kingscourt, Co Cavan. The academy showcases the company's products and provides training in their application. The company said that video is designed to provide an insight into the kind of courses that are available — most of which are free, and contain a mix of theory and hands-on training. Saint Gobain's brands included Isover, Gyproc and Weber.

It's not too hard to remember a time when 'passive house' was a rare, hallowed term. Of course it is still the zenith of low energy building. But there was a time only a few years ago, at our predecessor magazine Construct Ireland, when the possibility of featuring a certified passive house only came along every couple of issues.

Work is nearing completion at Stirley Farm, Green Building Store's design and build project to turn a derelict barn into an Enerphit-certified education centre for the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. Enerphit is the Passive House Institute's slightly less onerous standard for retrofit projects.

Watch this video of leading eco-architect Howard Liddell, who passed away three months ago, discussing his philosophy of eco-minimalism.

Readers of Passive House Plus will probably have noticed that we use the English 'passive house' rather than the German 'passivhaus'. Though it might seem like a pedantic grammatical issue, we actually put a lot of thought into this before launching the mag.

Not only is this home in Sante Fe, New Mexico a certified passive house, but architects MoSA say it cost 6.5% less to build than a conventional dwelling in the area too.

In this dispatch, Darragh McKiernan, a graduate of Sustainable Energy at Cork Institute of Technology, reflects on a two-week visit to south Germany to study energy-efficient building.

This from the Passive House Institute:
  
This year's Passive House Pioneer Award for groundbreaking achievements in the field of energy-efficient construction will go to the Zero-Energy House in Copenhagen, built in the 1970s under the guidance of the late professor Vagn Korsgaard (1921 – 2012).

In this in-depth post, Jurgen Huber details the story behind his energy efficient 'Bauhaus Barge' 

Designed to connect readers involved in sustainable building projects with advertisers offering sustainable solutions, the Passive House Plus enquiry system also provides a fascinating glimpse of sustainable building activity in the UK and Ireland. Editor Jeff Colley analyses the stats from the latest UK enquiries.

Check out this video from NBC News on a "zero carbon" house on the Shetland isle of Unst.

Energy efficiency expert Mark Shirley of 2eva.ie has just completed a whistle stop tour of ISH in Frankfurt, one of the world's largest building industry expos, where he found passive house solutions featuring heavily amonst the heating and ventilation solutions on offer.

We tip our proverbial hats to Cork-based timber frame manufacturer Eco Timber Frame who have posted time-lapse video of one of their recent passive house projects online.

Isover Ireland held their annual Energy Efficiency Awards in Dublin on Friday 1 March in Dublin. The awards recognise low energy renovation and new build projects in both the residential and commercial sectors. Isover award ceremonies are held in individual countries, with national winners going forward to Isover's European Energy Efficiency Awards. At the Dublin ceremony, Isover announced that the 2014 European awards will take place in Ireland.

The Equinox House house near Kavarna, Bulgaria is a passive building that "delicately interacts with natural phenomena on all levels from embracing local views to tracing universal solar motions," according to its designers, Ignatov Architects.

In this moving tribute, Paul Leech of Gaia Ecotecture pays tribute to leading ecological architect Howard Liddell, who passed away last week.