Open Source Content Management

This new award-winning two-building extension to a primary school in the south of Wales delivers healthy, ultra low energy school buildings – one of which is passive house certified – while pushing the boundaries of timber engineering. 

This issue’s round up of the best passive house buildings from around the world features a striking timber frame home in Oregon, a public library in the north of Spain, and a tennis academy in Sweden. 

This pioneering deep energy upgrade of a 1960s home in Wicklow will take place in phases over at least five years, with the aim of making it more affordable to go passive by renovating on a step-by-step basis. 

Old buildings are tricky to upgrade – especially if external insulation’s not allowed. Utilising a combination of cutting edge building physics and a carefully selected palette of insulation materials, one Victorian stone building has been upgraded to the Passive House Institute’s Enerphit standard, slashing heating demand by 90%. 

Built from a simple palette of timber and concrete, this diminutive but architecturally unique home managed to meet the passive house standard despite a small and awkward site. 

As people get older, their thermal energy need increases: elderly people tend to spend more time at home, and to feel the cold more. As one new sheltered housing scheme demonstrates, passive houses may be the answer. 

This new home in Galway is inspired by local buildings but doesn’t look like anything else in the area, and delivers passive performance along with panoramic sea views. 

This issue’s selection of international passive buildings features stunning homes in Melbourne and Barcelona, and an architecturally jaw-dropping new community centre in the suburbs of Paris. 

Issue 14

A deep retrofit of this 1960s block-built home turned it into a modern ultra low-energy home that emphasises wood, light and natural materials.