Issue 2 - passivehouseplus.co.uk

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. 

A new house in Wexford is the first in the country to achieve an A1 Building Energy Rating and certified passive house status – arguably making it the most energy efficient building yet built in Ireland. So why did a regulatory flaw risk rendering it non-compliant? 

Nothing drives innovation like adversity. Facing up to the prospect of scarce energy and other resources, we can take inspiration equally from the Inuit and the most avant-garde of passive house designers, as Sofie Pelsmakers reveals in her choice of six uniquely inspiring buildings from around the world.