Medite Smartply, the leading manufacturer of oriented strand board (OSB) provided a rapid, reliable solution for a humanitarian project coordinated by Greenpeace UK to build emergency accommodation for homeless families in time for Christmas.

Stephen Fry has been announced as the special guest at Ecobuild 2016, the UK’s largest show dedicated to construction and energy. The erudite writer, actor and campaigner joins a lineup of industry leaders and experts.

This year’s Light + Building show, the leading European trade show for lighting and building services engineering, takes place from 13 to 18 March at Messe Frankfurt, Germany. In addition to its exhibition of the latest and most innovative products, the show will feature an extensive complementary programme of other events.

The AECB, the Association for Environment Conscious Building, is hosting a number of passive house courses this spring – ranging from courses to become certified passive house designers to “bite size” training sessions for designers who wish to familiarise themselves with the standard.

Industry experts Mark Siddall and Nick Grant will deliver a masterclass that examines the potential causes of overheating, and how to design, build and operate a passive building in order to prevent overheating problems, on 15 February in the Saint-Gobain Innovation Centre in London. 

Passive house is now 25 years old, and to celebrate this, the International Passive House Conference is returning to Darmstadt – the German city in which this success story began.

The digital versions of all previous issues of Passive House Plus are now freely available online.  The magazine is available in entirety in digital form, while many of the feature articles are also now available in HTML form - or in other words as regular web articles. The digital editions use the Issuu pageflipper software, which was chosen for its functionality, simplicity and the ability for readers to interact with magazine content - for instance by sharing links to articles in the magazine via social media or email, or by clicking links to websites contained in articles and adverts.

The thermal performance of the Kingspan Optim-R panel has now been independently verified as it became the first vacuum insulation panel to be granted a BDA Agrément certificate.

Smet Building Products, the agents for leading German manufacturer Casea, has introduced the latest in internal moisture regulating plasters: Casea Casucalc Klima and Casea Klimafeinputz KFP breathable fine finishing plaster.

Southern Housing Group, one of the largest housing associations in the south east of England, has delivered its first ever scheme built to the passive house standard. Built on a 1.5 acre site, Cameron Close is a £4.2 million development of 16 semi-detached family houses and 12 sheltered apartments in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight.

Stevens Institute of Technology won top honours overall at the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2015 by designing, building, and operating the most  cost-effective, energy efficient, and attractive solar powered house at the competition. Dubbed ‘Sure House’, the building also meets passive house standards for heating demand and airtightness and features heat recovery ventilation.

DVS (Daylight & Ventilation Solutions), rooflight supplier to Point6Projects’ outstanding Oyster Falls House in Devon, which is featured in the new issue of Passive House Plus, will be exhibiting at the 2015 UK Passivhaus Conference at the London Design Centre on Tuesday, October 20th.

The Passive House Academy, in association with Saint-Gobain, will run a Passive House Tradesperson course on 21 and 22 October at the Saint-Gobain Technical Academy in Erith, Kent. The course will cover passive house design principles, U-value calculations, thermal bridging and airtightness, insulation materials, passive house glazing, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery systems, and much more.

 The passive house standard may be acceptable as an alternative method of compliance with Ireland’s stringent energy efficiency regulations, according to a leading expert in energy and construction law, leaving the door open to a similar approach in the UK.

The Burnham Overy Staithe development in North Norfolk picked up a prestigious UK Passivhaus Award in October, and is profiled in depth on page 28 of the new issue of Passive House Plus.

The 2014 UK Passivhaus conference, held this year in Stevenage, was, like the previous such events, completely packed. Discussion centred around fine tuning of financing, delivery and performance — and on how to bring the wider construction sector on board the passive house agenda.

Hastoe Housing Association has released the findings of a two year study on its first passive house housing development, Wimbish in Essex. The study found that the development performs as designed and delivers very low heating bills for residents.

The winners of this year’s UK Passivhaus Trust awards have been announced. The awards recognise the best passive-certified building projects in the UK.

Sustainable building pioneers The Green Register will run a new half-day seminar in London on 27 June 2014 entitled ‘Achieving energy efficiency and preserving historic buildings - surely too good to be true?’

Oxfordshire company Green Unit has developed a new prefabricated, modular low rise building built to the passive house standard using natural and sustainable materials. 

The UK’s Passivhaus Trust has announced the finalists for its 2014 Passivhaus Awards, which are sponsored by Saint-Gobain.

West Midlands-based independent consulting engineers Encraft have organised a passive house conference in Birmingham on 30 May 2014. The event, featuring some of the leading speakers and projects in this emerging area, is supported by Climate KIC, Passivhaus Trust and Passive House Plus magazine.

Kensa Heat Pumps has announced Lord Taylor of Goss Moor as its new chairman. According to Kensa the peer's appointment will be instrumental in the Cornish company’s growth as the UK’s leading supplier of ground source heat pumps.

Four industry leaders will launch their drive for better retrofit standards across the UK at Ecobuild next week with a pledge to assure the post-retrofit performance of traditional solid wall buildings.

A new 100kW solar photovoltaic system is helping to cut carbon emissions at the Snowmountain Enterprises cold storage warehouse in Cambridgeshire. 

The Universiy of Leicester Centre for Medicine will become the UK's largest non domestic passive house building when it is completed in 2015. 

RainWater Harvesting Ltd has announce that both its direct feed and award winning gravity-fed Rain Director system have achieved Water Regulation Advisory Scheme approval, ensuring that they comply to all UK regulations.

A virtual, online green building trade fair will take place across Europe on 18 and 19 February 2014. 

The Lancaster Cohousing development of 41 certified passive homes, featured in issue four of Passive House Plus, has been announced as the winner of the UK National Self Build Association's Murray Armour Award. This comes on the back of the project picking up the social/group housing prize at the 2013 Passivhaus Trust awards.

The UK's largest passive house scheme, developed by the Broadland Housing Group and designed by Ingleton Wood architects, has been approved for a brownfield site in Norwich.