Mixing modern standards of super-insulation with vernacular farmhouse architecture led to the creation of a very special home for proprietors Jeanette and Jon Fenwick — one that picked up a coveted UK Passivhaus Award in 2016.

Lenny Antonelli speaks to architect Fran Bradshaw of Anne Thorne Architects, who designed and built a straw-bale home for herself in Hickling, Norfolk two years ago — and aimed to meet the passive house standard while doing so, with only a single infrared electric panel as the building’s sole active heat source.

When it came to upgrading an old stone-walled building to the Enerphit standard — with all the inherent challenges such an upgrade poses for energy, airtightness and moisture — who better to have as your client and defacto site manager than a professor of physics?

Achieving building regulations compliance and a good energy rating is one thing. Delivering a genuinely low energy building is quite another. A new scheme by one of Ireland’s most decorated developers may help show the market a way forward.

Self-building with no construction experience, Eamon Fleming didn’t set out to build a passive house, but he managed to meet the standard while doing almost all of the work in conjunction with his father, while exceeding the targets of Ireland’s nearly zero energy building definition.

This issue feature a passive house cabin in the Rocky Mountains, and a jaw-dropping new passive house in Majorca.