The climate emergency demands that we minimise the energy we use to operate buildings, as well as the energy we use to construct new buildings, where new buildings are needed. A Passive House Association of Ireland-commissioned analysis may start to shed some light on the embodied carbon impact that different build methods can have.

Most people think of cold, cramped and poor-quality buildings when they think of student accommodation, but two new passive house residences at King’s College, Cambridge are rewriting the rulebook, with their focus on occupant comfort, architectural quality, and an enlightened, long-term view of construction costs.

An intriguing new passive house in Dundee takes the traditional ‘box’ form associated with the standard and turns it on its head, using a series of pitched roofs and different claddings to make it feel more like a traditional city terrace than a single dwelling – built with a heavy emphasis on carbon sequestering materials.

Complete with butterfly roofed extension, this fabric first renovation has turned a cold and uninspiring 1970s bungalow into a cosy A-rated modern home, with some clever design touches helping to open the house up to wide-angle views and dramatic coastal light.

Sometimes it takes the constraints of a challenging site to bring out the best possible design, and that was certainly the case for this Limerick City passive house, where the project team managed to deliver a unique, curving passive house in response to a tricky urban plot.

This issue features a new nursery school in Paris, built to the Passive House Institute’s low energy building standard.

In 2017 the government promised it would deliver 50,000 homes over the next five years as part of its Rebuilding Ireland programme. But figures from the first four years show it has fallen well short, writes Mel Reynolds.

While the Irish government is delivering CO2 monitors to schools to help prevent the spread of Covid-19, and some European regions have mandated the use of such monitors in all buildings open to the public, the UK has yet to introduce such measures and has removed the requirement for mask-wearing in schools.

The redevelopment of Agar Grove by Camden Council in London was the winner of the large project award at this year’s UK Passivhaus Awards, which were held on 30 June.

South West College’s new Erne Campus building in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, is the world’s largest, and the first educational building, to be certified to the passive house premium standard, the Passive House Institute has confirmed.

A detailed analysis of the embodied carbon of six common build types has indicated that dwellings built with business-as-usual build specs of cavity wall construction and strip foundations may be able to meet the revised embodied carbon targets for dwellings in RIBA’s 2030 Climate Challenge.

Nilan has developed a new app that allows users to control their ventilation system and heat pump directly from their mobile phone. The feature now comes as standard on all of the company’s popular Compact P combined heating and ventilation systems.

Ecological Building Systems recently hosted a series of thought-provoking presentations on the topic of going beyond NZEB and addressing the carbon blind spot of the construction industry: embodied carbon.

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.

Leading renewable heating supplier Unipipe says there has been a large increase in demand for exhaust air heat pumps for new local authority housing schemes.

Avantgard Agents, a leading supplier of porcelain and ceramics, is the new Irish agent for the Tarimatec range of sustainable decking, cladding and internal finishes.

The new Beam VentSmart app for the Axco Counterflow range of MVHR units is now available. Beam said that the app has been designed to make control of its heat recovery ventilation systems as easy and straightforward as possible.

Architects and self-builders who are designing bespoke dwellings often struggle to find bespoke glazing products that match their ideal design, but leading supplier Prestige Aluclad says consumers can find custom window and door solutions at competitive prices if they turn to specialist manufacturers.

Leading offsite timber construction specialist Lidan Designs recently completed a number of modular, low embodied carbon, nearly zero energy buildings (NZEBs) for public authorities.

The School of Architecture from Lancaster University and Ecological Building Systems UK formed a partnership in 2021 to award the best eco-design produced by first year students of the BA (Hons) Architecture at the university.

Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) systems are an efficient way of providing the necessary ventilation with very few heat losses for airtight dwellings. However, MVHR systems can also be used for space heating or back up heating.