Client moves into York passivhaus

'Now that I have been in for a couple of months I can really appreciate how brilliantly

the house has been designed and built. Everyone who comes is amazed at how good it 

looks and feels, even with boxes still piled up everywhere’ 

client

Certification plaque was fixed up to applause and thanks to contractor Croft Farm Construction

"It’s been a great job to work on -  a pleasure to work with both client and Contractor. 

Congratulations city of York to your first certified passivhaus, and may there be many more!

We hope the house will be open again for interested visitors, at next year’s Passivhaus Open 

Day in November”

Fran Bradshaw

Fran to speak at Brighton Green Architecture day on saturday 19th march, see www.brightonpermaculture.org.uk

'Green Architecture Day is an annual event Brighton Permaculture has run in partnership

with Low Carbon Trust since 2002. Since then, the event has attracted over 2,000 participants 

to hear inspiring talks about how we can live and work in greener buildings. It has featured 

talks from speakers as varied as Ben Law, Christopher Day, Pooran Desai and Satish Kumar.

At Brighton Permaculture Trust, we believe that we need to give equal weight to sustainability 

in the built environment and regenerating our landscapes’

Passivhaus Conference 2015

We are proud to have participated in the UK Passivhaus Conference 2015 at the Business Design Centre. Organized by Passivhaus Trust and BRE

Our stand as part of the 15-40 Collective in the exhibition hall

Our display featuring Akerman Road, a 15-40 collaboration

Fran Bradshaw talks about "Initial design challenges - Form factor, layout and system choices"

First project by 15-40 starting on site

Akerman Road started on site!

"Now the heritage protected buildings are being restored by construction firm Sandwood Design and Build and architects Anne Thorne Architects with 15-40 Collective to provide social rented homes for local people."

Lambeth News

Different kind of living

The RIBA Journal published an article about cohousing and it includes our Cannock Mill Cohousing Colchester project. 

Exciting times getting to grips with the details!!

Cannock Mill has also been featured on the UK Cohousing Network :
http://cohousing.org.uk/news/spotlight-cannock-mill

Strawbale building, hickling, norfolk, passiv house

A special thank you to all the people who have come to help over the last few weeks, great progress!

1 roof rafters in place

2 dormer cheeks craned in

3 foamglass upstand

4 straw arrives - summer wheat

5  so far

6  fire boarding, taped

 

7 dressing bales

8 'the pursuader' a very useful piece of equipment

9 Paul Jennings explains!

10 moisture monitors in place

11 monitor with fixed probes

12 compression with car jacks

13 Twisting the hazel stakes in to pin the straw bales together

14 thatcher's fixings and reed thatch

15 thatcher setting out verge

Eco-Hub article on low-tech / high-tech fusion

... by Amanda Birch, worth a read!

17th International Passivhaus conference: highlights from Fran Bradshaw

ABG plenary talk, ABG are like the Co-op but operate in housing -  private and social, and everything else you can build  - car parks, offices, banks, police stations, nurseries. Apparently a quarter of Frankfurt's population live in one of their houses/flats, they've built 2000 passivhaus flats/houses and have 4000 more in the pipeline. Their slogan is 'passivhaus rechnet sich', (passivhaus pays).

The equivalent to the Head of Building Control - from Heidelberg City, describing how they are building 1700 new passivhaus flats/houses with mixed use development for 5000 jobs on an old goods yard site. All buildings are required to be developed to Passivhaus standard, PHPP is required with details as building control drawings are submitted, with follow up and site inspections. True it did look from the images as if white render/cladding was obligatory, but my prejudice!

ATA at the 17th International Passivhaus Conference

... And Fran will be talking about retrofit.
See you in Frankfurt 19-21 April 2013!

Trees before buildings in Norfolk

We thought we should share more of our other projects -  apart from the much blogged about Eco Hub! - that we have on at the moment. This is a site in Norfolk where we are designing a new Passivhaus, straw bale, thatched roof cottage. Trees before buildings - so some apple trees being planted, and willow hedges chosen. Exciting times ahead!

Never mind the stalls, it's the people that matter

Overdue Ecobuild reviews by Kate and Fran

Last week's Ecobuild was an interesting few days. Fran's discussion of the use of natural materials in retrofit demonstrated that a more thoughtful choice of material and method creates a tailored approach which is far more successful. Fran was joined by Mark Elton of ECD Architects whose Wilmcote House is a nice example of resident inclusive retrofit design. However he also showed some worrying photos revealing the implications of rushed retrofits and ignorant funding schemes. Also of note was Francine Houben of Mecanoo Architecten with her inspiring account of their approach to sustainable public spaces, a culturally challenging debate on retirement co-housing, and some well attended PassivHaus seminars.
Kate, Part I at ATA


Ecobuild its usual self, in that the pleasure is all in the people - those I hoped to see, and the unexpected and joyful meetings. Star of the show for me was Sabine Leribaux, of Architectes Associés who designed Aeropolis, 'the largest operational passive energy building in Brussels' who spoke at the Passivhaus evening celebration. She talked about 'freedom and human rights'  arguing for our responsibility for global sustainability and the ethical choice we make as building professionals. This was a world away from techno discussions about thermal bridging and air tightness, and a wonderfully sane and lucid talk.

Of course I think thermal bridging and airtightness detailing are are both essential -  and gripping subject matter, and was talikng about them myself at the seminar on 'What can we afford to spend on our existing buildings'.  Mark Elton make a powerful case 'can we afford NOT to'.  Seminars were lively, and discussions varied - never mind the stalls, it's the people that matter!

Fran 

58 Thermal Images at Eco Hub

Many many thanks go to our AECB friend, Andrew Pratt at RETANE Thermal Images. He has come over to the Eco Hub with his thermal image camera. The thermal images can identify inconsistency on the thermal envelop. 

The contrast could be because of the construction geometry, which nothing is wrong to have, moisture content, emissivity, reflected temperature, atmospheric temperature, distance, heat loss at air/moisture leaks, or missing insulation. The building was not heated for a long enough period (just 8 hours almost for the first time. A heavier structure had not had time to heat up yet) so that it will be very useful to take images again soon at the same positions, well, at 58 locations! The room temperature was just 18.5 degrees. Outside was 9.9 degrees.
Thank you for your detailed advice too, Andrew!
- Junko

UK Passivhaus Conference 2012 visits

The UK Passivhaus conference #UKPHC12
was full of tantalising glimpses into projects one wants to know much more about!

What did you think about our presentation of the EcoHub?

Conference exhaustion was followed by site visits - see people above - listening to the Headteacher at Architype's charming school. I found most interesting the stories about less use of athsma inhalers at the school, and at Interserve's office, they had just checked statistics and found significantly reduced sick leave. 

Also the cool (rather than warm)  boiler room at Oak Meadow school was impressive!

Don't forget this year's Passivhaus conference!

This year's Passivhaus conference, taking place on 7 - 9th November in Nottingham, will surely be another great event, possibly the best of the year for sharing experiences and learning from great minds about all things passivhaus. We look forward to the fantastic line-up of knowledgeable speakers and site visits. Fran will be there discussing the Ecohub project. More info and programme here. We hope to see you there!

Open House London 2012 Update

On the 22nd September, we will be at Centre 404 (Islington) and Eco-hub (site plan, Lordship Recreation Ground, Haringey) between 1-5 pm for Open House 2012. We are looking forward to seeing you.

We had expected the completion of the Eco-hub by now but Vinci Construction UK Ltd have been there for final touch. Therefore, the cafe has not been ready yet, but there will be our guided tour , presentation sheets and a lot of fun and food in the park by the Lordship Rec Festival.

See beautiful new river in the park! Also, the nearest Open House, which you may visit, is the Bruce Castle Museum along with a fantastic lion scaffolding sculpture, 'Park Art in Haringey' in the garden.

Eco-hub shortlisted for sustainability award

The Eco-hub at Lordship Park has been been shortlisted in the category of 'Sustainable Project of the Year' by the Builder and Engineer Awards 2012! Good choice!

External Porch

 

A well ventilated & beautiful porch - reminded me about a Passive House. An external porch should be clearly outside the thermal envelop and ventilated in order to avoid condensation.

Photographs from my summer trip in Japan.

Junko

AECB conference 2012

Detailed and wide ranging workshops featured at the annual AECB conference this year, as well as the best opportunity to meet up with the most knowledgable green people around. Having been involved in organising it, I still managed to enjoy it enormously - the only problem was wanting to go to workshops that were happening at the same time!

On the wide ranging, I heard Blanche Cameron from Resit talking about unusual partnerships for change, she had some great examples of action where one would least expect it - and Chris Baines also talked about working on the Elephant scheme to retain a huge mature tree canopy as a starting point for redevelopment while Neil May talked about an 'uncertainty principle' approach to retrofit.

On the detail, some great discussion of ventilation from Mark Siddall and WARM Associates, retrofit and dealing with moisture by Andy Simmons among others. It will all be on the website soon, so do go and have a look at those you missed.

Have a look at the AJ's Footptint blog on this year's conference.

The Passivhaus masterclass on saturday with Wolfgang Feist was also a great success.
Thanks to Nick for the picture!
Fran

site visit

Last week I have been busy taking part in the AECB Certified Passivhaus Designer Course - and inevitably kept thinking about our Passivhaus Environment Centre. During last week the site made remarkable progress as ever - amongst other things, the cellulose fibre insulation has been injected into the roof and floor voids. Straw Works and the volunteers, who have been looking after every layer and corner of the render and plaster, were giving a final touch before they leave the site for two weeks at the end of today. Next week, the floor will be cleared to receive the air-tightness membrane. 

As many migrant birds fly over, I wonder whether they will recognise a new land mark in the reborn Lordship Recreation Ground!
Junko

London UK is the best place in the world for passivhaus!

‘London UK is the best place in the world for passivhaus!‘ says Wolfgang Feist at this years International Passivhaus conference.

Researchers demonstrate that passivhaus works pretty in much every climate, except for some exceptionally cold spots like in Siberia and Greenland, and in the Australian desert.

Wolfgang reported back on the impact of hot and humid climates, or extremely cold climates, and showed that in parts of the world  triple glazing will be appropriate not to keep the heat in but to keep it out (see climate map).

Pos-architecture described the new Austrian embassy in Jakarta which has sensors which close windows which have been left open too long to maintain temperatures, and beautifully designed shading.

AJ footprint visits the environment centre

Michelle Price from the AJ's sustainability blog Footprint spent a morning on site with the design team, contractors and volunteers and reported back on what she saw. Read the full article here.