The Passive House Institute has published a new study that looks at designing passive buildings for tropical climates. The study concludes that the key design criteria for such buildings include,"a very airtight building envelope, 10 to 15 cm of insulation, solar control glazing, fixed external shades for the windows and ventilation with both heat and energy recovery".

The Building Life Consultancy and Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics are providing a two-day Wufi Pro training workshop in Dublin on 14-15 December.

This is only the third English language workshop of its kind to be offered in Europe according to the Building Life Consultancy, and will train members of the construction industry to use Fraunhofer’s Wufi Pro software for hygrothermal (heat and moisture) simulations of building fabric.