Ahead of the Built Environment Summit (28-29 October) and COP26 (1-12 November), the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and Architects Declare have published a report demonstrating the critical role the sector must play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

In the #BuildingLife ambassador spotlight series, Passive House Plus is profiling leaders who have endorsed the Irish Green Building Council’s call to address the environmental impacts of buildings across their life-cycle..

Evidence is emerging of endemic non-compliance with ventilation requirements for new homes under Part F of the building regulations.

Almost a quarter of new nearly zero energy building (NZEB) homes may be non-compliant with Part L of the regulations, new analysis by Passive House Plus has revealed.

The winners of the international Passive House Award will be announced on Friday 10 September as part of the 25th International Passive House Conference, which is fully available online. Tickets to the conference are still available.

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.

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.

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.

Following its commitment to retrofit one quarter of dwellings in the country by 2030, the Irish government has now announced the establishment of four new centres of excellence for retrofit training, building on the training approach developed to help the industry meet the NZEB standard for new buildings. Workers from state-owned company Bord na Móna are among the first to undergo training as the company transitions out of peat extraction.

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.

This all-wood passive-certified home in the village of Kippen was built directly by its architect owners, who not only achieved the passive house standard but did so with an ecological approach that sought to use building materials ultra-efficiently and make it easy to deconstruct and recycle the building at the end of its life.

A new passive house on Galway Bay beautifully blends vernacular design with touches of Arts & Crafts while still appearing thoroughly contemporary, but under its neat exterior is the thinking of an architectural practice striving to reduce the environmental impact of its buildings, inspired by the Architects Declare pledge.

Angle House in north London is a wonderful example of sustainable urban housing: modest in scale and built on a run-down site in the heart of north London, it boasts a passive approach to energy efficiency and some beautiful design touches.

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?

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

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. 

Leading insulation manufacturer Xtratherm has announced the signing of an agreement in principle to purchase Ballytherm’s operations in Ireland and the UK.

On June 8, 2021 Passive House Plus, in association with Farrat, chaired a hugely informative roundtable on thermal breaks. If you missed it, the video can now be viewed online.

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.

Munster Joinery has published the first environmental product declaration (EPD) for a window under the Irish EPD system.

Irish low carbon cement company Ecocem has announced €22.5 million in equity investment from Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) and Breakthrough Energy Ventures-Europe (BEV-E), venture capital funds that are part Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy coalition, which seeks to accelerate the global drive towards net zero carbon emissions. 

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.