Latest climate report calls for more e� cient use of floor space in buildings

The deep retrofit of this 1930s dwelling on the Hampshire coast provides a pitch-perfect example of how to transform old dwellings while preserving their original structure and minimising embodied carbon, utterly transforming the living space without the need for an extension, and creating a cosy home that uses two-thirds less energy than before.

Kilsaran has announced the signing of a new partnership agreement with CarbonCure Technologies to bring a lower carbon cement to its clients. The project represents a €1m investment by Kilsaran and will create an additional eight jobs in the areas of project support and R&D.

The Irish government has announced significant new grants designed to make it “easier and more affordable” for homeowners to undertake home energy upgrades.

A striking new oak-framed passive house in an area of outstanding natural beauty in the English countryside has just opened its doors to the public, and already there has been a flood of guests seeking to experience life in a passive house.

This Enerphit project in the suburbs of South Dublin has dramatically transformed and extended a dated 1970s dwelling by adding an extra storey, radically reducing its energy consumption and creating a smartly-designed, light filled family home and office.

We won’t be able to reduce the embodied carbon of construction fast enough just by switching to lower carbon materials, says Pat Barry of the Irish Green Building Council, so we urgently need smart design that allows us to build with less, and to create a genuine circular economy for building materials.

Under its new housing plan, the government wants the state to acquire more land for housebuilding. But why has it failed to use the vast land banks it already owns? Mel Reynolds runs the rule over the figures.

Passive House Plus editor and publisher Jeff Colley’s TEDx talk on the passive house standard is now available to view online.

The Welsh government has issued a new standard for social housing that requires an embodied carbon assessment, favours timber-based offsite construction, and bans fossil fuel boilers.

The Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (RIAI) has launched its 2030 Climate Challenge, calling for urgent action to be taken by architects and the wider construction industry to tackle the climate emergency.

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.

Ireland’s new climate action plan, which was published on Thursday 4 November, contains the country’s first official targets for limiting the embodied carbon of construction materials. 

Coventry University research has found that 40 per cent of primary school classrooms examined in a study did not have an adequate ventilation rate to combat the spread of Covid-19.

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.

In recent years, as energy efficiency targets for new buildings have tightened, attention has turned to cutting the embodied carbon of buildings by switching from materials like concrete and steel to lower carbon alternatives like timber. But if we are serious about solving the ecological emergency as well as stabilising the climate, we must look even further than embodied carbon, and think more deeply about the core values we apply to materials and buildings, and the manner in which we use them.

By Lenny Antonelli & AECB CEO Andy Simmonds