How do you solve a problem like decarbonising social housing, and do so rapidly, en masse, in a manner that lifts vulnerable people out of fuel poverty while delivering warm, healthy homes? River Clyde Homes may be about to pull off the seemingly impossible.

The historic Roman city of York is embarking on an ambitious programme to redefine council housing for the 21st century, building 450 mixed-tenure passive houses across eight sites in the city, and unashamedly prioritising walking and cycling, and shared outdoor green spaces, over cars. It may seem too good to be true, but a cityscape whose architecture still so manifestly displays its extraordinary history is now pointing to the future of urban design.

A new housing scheme designed by Coady Architects in Wicklow has achieved the highest green home certification – while suggesting that the convictions of one practice on a single project can help to transform the industry.

The Welsh government has issued a new standard for social housing that requires an embodied carbon assessment, favours timber-based offsite construction, and bans fossil fuel boilers.

Irish cellulose insulation manufacturer Ecocel is currently on site completing the installation of its cellulose insulation to a new social housing development in County Cork.

The extensive energy and ventilation upgrade of 12 run-down bungalows at College View sheltered housing scheme in Wexford town not only transformed the lives and comfort of residents, but an extensive period of post-occupancy study has yielded important lessons for future projects.

Duncan Smith reflects on the social and architectural significance of Glasgow's tenement flats, and their potential place in a zero carbon future, as the city prepares to host COP 26. 

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.

Early in October, Norwich City Council’s Goldsmith Street development become both the first passive house and the first social housing project to win the Stirling Prize, British architecture’s most coveted award, with the judges calling it “high-quality architecture in its purest, most environmentally and socially conscious form”. Leading building energy expert Dr Peter Rickaby visited the scheme for Passive House Plus to see this ground-breaking project for himself.

The outgoing Fine Gael government devised an off balance sheet scheme to deliver social housing, but will it deliver value for money? Mel Reynolds crunches the numbers and finds the scheme may almost double the cost compared to a direct build – with no asset left once the lease ends.

The redevelopment of O’Devaney Gardens in Dublin City has grabbed headlines. Commentary has focused on the low levels of social housing proposed, high prices for private homes, and developer profit. But what is the cost to the state, asks Mel Reynolds, and is this sustainable?

The dramatic conversion of 22 old bedsits on the north side of Dublin City into 11 passive-grade apartments offers an inspiring example of how to retrofit inner city housing while radically improving quality of life for residents.

Rights allowing the conversion of commercial buildings into dwellings, without planning permission, are potentially creating unhealthy living conditions.

Mark Twain popularised the saying “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics”. Mel Reynolds explains why Department of Housing statistics on HAP may be grossly inflating the state’s impact on tackling the housing crisis.

In the midst of a national housing crisis, this new development in Dún Laoghaire sets a hopeful and inspiring example: high quality, high density, rapid build social housing that needs almost no energy to heat and is within walking distance of shops, services and the seafront. No wonder it was one of the first projects to be certified to a rigorous new sustainability standard.

An award-winning social housing development in South Dublin points to a sustainable way out of Ireland’s housing crisis.

There was much talk of jobless recovery as economies picked up after the last global recession. Mel Reynolds detects signs of an analogous proposition in the Irish property market: a housing boom that may be close to peaking without much in the way of housebuilding to report.

Taking its cues from the original historic almshouse on site, St John’s Lichfield chose to build their new sheltered housing development for older persons to the passive house standard as part of high-quality design that emphasised community, calm and comfort.

A £2m passive house residential scheme has now been handed over to residents in Shropshire. The mix of one, two and three-bedroom homes in Callaughtons Ash, Much Wenlock, comprises ten homes for social rental and two in shared ownership.

The net effect of poor insulation levels, underheating and under-ventilation in buildings poses a major public health threat. Peter Rickaby describes one pioneering London project that’s taking a practical, methodical – and scalable – approach to solving the problem.

Two spectacular low energy social housing units looking out over Ulva Ferry’s breath-taking surroundings prove to be a superb response to local problems of fuel poverty and lack of affordable family housing.

Simultaneously tackling fuel poverty and climate change requires drastic action on deep retrofitting the existing housing stock – and fast. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown’s deep retrofit and renovation of Rochestown House may be Ireland’s most significant retrofit to date – a fact reflected in the project picking up the sustainability award at the 2017 Irish Architecture Awards.

A new development of passive housing on the outskirts of Norwich shows how to combine energy efficiency, ecology and affordability on one exemplary site — and why the city continues to be an unlikely leader in pushing passive house construction in the UK.

The first social housing scheme of any kind to top Ireland’s BER scale, this project is a timely reminder that in the midst of a national housing emergency, it is possible to tackle climate change and blitz the forthcoming nearly zero energy building targets, while housing the most vulnerable in society in healthy, fuel poverty-proof homes predicted to incur zero heating cost.

A sensitive development of social housing in Lambeth combines three new passive houses with six low energy flats delicately constructed inside an old Victorian terrace — and with the emphasis on good indoor air quality, residents are already reporting improvements in health & well-being since moving from their old accommodation.

The private speculative sector can’t build affordable housing, but there are other ways of achieving this, writes architect Mel Reynolds.

On 13 June, in an address about retrofit policy to the joint conference of the Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, I suggested that the UK retrofit industry is dangerously incompetent, and that is why we need to implement the Each Home Counts industry review. Little did I know that in less than twenty-four hours those words would come back to haunt me in the most horrific way, writes Dr Peter Rickaby.