The 23rd annual International Passive House Conference takes place outside of Europe for the first time ever this year, with the Chinese city of Gaobeidian hosting the event on 9 to 11 October. This year’s conference was rescheduled after originally being set for 21 and 22 September.

The Dutch company Fresh-r has won the passive house components award at the 22nd annual Passive House Exhibition in Munich, for its decentralised residential ventilation system. Fresh-r worked together with the Scottish firm Collective Architecture on its submission for the award, which was presented at this year’s international Passive House Conference.

Report author Prof Diana Ürge-Vorsatz praises “fantastic” Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown passive house policy

Turning an old Victorian home into a passive house is a painstaking job that would frighten many building professionals. But the team behind this innovative retrofit didn't just end up with a certified passive house, they got one of the lowest energy dwellings in the UK.

Building with an eye to energy efficiency is not only cost-effective, it can also augment architectural design. This has been proven by the winners of the 2014 Passive House Award. Six buildings and one region were recognised today at the opening of the International Passive House Conference in Aachen: an apartment block in Berlin; a New York retrofit; a seminar building in Goesan, South Korea; an art museum in Ravensburg, Germany; a building complex in Espoo, Finland; a terraced house in Philadelphia; and an entire passive house district in Heidelberg.

The International Passive House Days, during which passive buildings around the world open their doors to the public, took place this year from November 8-10. This year marked the 10th anniversary of the event. 

See The Light, Ireland's passive house conference, takes place next Friday October 25 in Dublin. Passive House pioneer Prof Wolfgang Feist will be the keynote speaker. 

Wolfgang Feist, one of the creators of the passive house concept and a founder and director of the Passive House Institute, will speak in Dublin on 25 October at the 2013 See The Light conference.

The Passivhaus Trust is calling for entries to the second UK Passivhaus Awards – the only dedicated awards for passive house in the UK, with a focus on as-built performance. The deadline for applications is 15 May 2013.

Professor Wolfgang Feist has been awarded an honorary fellowship by the Royal Institute of British Architects. The award ceremony took place on 6 February.

The Passive House Institute has announced that it certified 134 products last year, a new record. These components included everything from sliding doors and dome lights to balcony systems.

Few concepts in sustainable design have caught on like the passive house. Since the construction of the first passive house in Germany in 1990, an estimated 15 to 20,000 houses have been built to what is arguably the world’s leading low energy building standard. Drawing from his experience in sustainable building since the early 1980s, Bill Quigley of NuTech Renewables posits an alternative approach.