Toby Cambray writes on the many lessons that the inimitable biscuit cake can teach us about how building materials deal with moisture.

Where basements are present in low energy buildings, they can prove a weak spot without particular care and attention, as Passive House Association of Ireland board member John Morehead of Wain Morehead Architects Ltd explains.

Proper ventilation has been recognised as an important quality for school buildings at least since the Victorian era. But, in the current pandemic, have we lost sight of the role of ventilation?

Lark Rise is an elegant new passive house in rural Buckinghamshire designed by bere:architects, but it is more than ‘just’ a passive house. Because it produces and stores so much of its own energy through on-site solar power, it is a certified passive house ‘plus’, and in this article, its architect Justin Bere explains how dwellings like this can play a key role in decarbonising our economies and societies in the coming decades.

With a decade of experience designing primary schools to the passive house standard under their belt, Architype have now designed the UK’s first passive secondary school — and all of the evidence suggests there is no better way to ensure a healthy, comfortable environment that is supremely conducive to learning.

Prestige Aluclad is the new brand name in Ireland for Viking Windows, the supplier of passive house and low energy timber and aluminium-clad windows from Estonian manufacturer Viking.

Facing the challenge of how to bring a Victorian home with damp old brick walls up to a modern low energy standard, architect Brendan O’Connor deployed an innovative solution: build entirely new and superinsulated timber frame walls within the old structure.

A stunning new passive house in Cork breaks the conventions of passive house form with a design that manages to be both dramatic yet discreet at the same time, inspired by a US project to contort itself beautifully into its steeply sloping site.

Dr Peter Rickaby writes on the varied and complex challenges of retrofitting older buildings.

This issue features a passive house ‘plus’ certified three-storey office building in Strasbourg, France.

Dublin City Council built just 45 social housing units in 2019. In his latest column, Mel Reynolds analyses the state’s surprising reluctance to build its own homes.

The second edition of the book Understanding Passivhaus by Emma Walshaw of First In Architecture is out now. The book is designed to provide a brief, clear and complete guide to building a passive home.

NuWave Sensors, developers of smart air quality sensors designed to continuously monitor airborne contaminants in industrial and commercial environments, has unveiled a new carbon dioxide sensor that allows schools to help prevent the spread of Covid-19, while also avoiding energy waste.

Pro clima have launched Aerofixx, an innovative handheld spray applicator for the Aerosana Visconn range of airtightness liquid paints.

Tegral, the Irish manufacturer of fibre cement roof slates, will now fall under the new Etex Ireland brand, while its classic roof slates will be marketed under the brand name Cedral.

NOVUS Windows have announced a new partnership with Idealcombi A/S, the largest window manufacturer in Denmark with over 100,000 square metres of production facilities.

Leading energy assessment experts BERCerts.ie are now offering ventilation validation services under Part F of the building regulations after two of the company’s employees were added to the NSAI list of registered ventilation validators.

Waterford Stanley has announced it latest line-up of renewable heating products, comprising air-to-water heat pumps, and room and central heating pellet stoves designed to meet Ecodesign 2022, the new European standard for lowering emissions from wood burning and multi-fuel stoves.

Kilcarrig Quarries has introduced a new low carbon dry mix mortar to the market that uses ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) to replace up to 35% of its cementitious binder.

Unipipe has announced the launch to the Irish market of underfloor heating and cooling systems from German manufacturer MFH Systems.

NZEB consultancy Evolved Energy Solutions is now offering ventilation validation services for domestic building projects after company director Brian Sweeney was added to the NSAI list of registered ventilation validators.

Building envelope specialist Passive Building Structures is aiming to substantially cut the carbon footprint of its projects in 2021 both by increasing the thermal performance of its builds and cutting their embodied energy.

The rebrand from Quinn to Mannok was announced in September, with the official name change completed on 16 November, marking a major milestone for the company on a rebrand journey which will take up to 12 months to fully complete.

We all know the value of good insulation in improving the energy performance of a building, so why then are attics often an afterthought?

Amvic Ireland, long-known for its dual-insulated concrete formwork (ICF), has announced the launch of its new ultra-energy efficient wall system for passive-standard buildings.

NI still plans to tighten energy rules for new build

On the five-year anniversary of the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the Irish Green Building Council (IGBC) launched a campaign to decarbonise Ireland’s built environment across its whole life cycle. The campaign is backed by Passive House Plus.

Embodied carbon is the next great challenge for the building sector. For the group’s latest update, Marion Jammet of the Irish Green Building Council discusses initiatives underway at both Irish and European level to further cut the carbon footprint of the built environment.