£100m LSE retrofit to headline as passive house conference returns to London

Want immediate access to all back issues of Passive House Plus and exclusive extra content? Click here to subscribe for as little as €20, or click here to receive the next issue free of charge

The masterclass, hosted by the Passivhaus Trust, takes place on 17 November, followed by the UK Passivhaus Conference on 18 November at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster. Both events can be attended in person or online.

Designed by David Chipperfield Architects, the Firoz Lalji Global Hub will transform an existing post-war building on Lincoln's Inn Fields into a new academic hub for the LSE. The project is targeting Enerphit certification, the Passive House Institute's retrofit standard, alongside net zero carbon, BREEAM Outstanding and WELL Platinum. More than 60 per cent of the existing structure and its principal façades are being retained, with new teaching spaces, conference facilities, digital laboratories and a 350-seat theatre integrated within the upgraded building envelope.

The retrofit is currently under construction, and the masterclass will examine the project as it is being delivered, rather than as a finished case study. Members of the project team, including representatives of David Chipperfield Architects, building services engineer Max Fordham and project manager 3PM, will set out the rationale for adopting the Enerphit Component Method, along with fabric design, services integration, procurement, material selection, circular economy principles and the practicalities of delivering deep retrofit on a constrained city centre site.

The session is aimed at architects, engineers, passive house designers, contractors and clients, and delegates attending in person can apply to join a guided site visit to the project.

The conference itself is expected to draw more than 500 professionals from across the built environment, with designing for robustness and affordable long-term resilience as its central theme. More than twenty speakers will present projects and case studies spanning housing, education, commercial and public buildings, reflecting the widening range of building types to which the standard is being applied in the UK.

The programme combines technical presentations with sessions on policy, research and measured building performance, and organisers say delegates will hear directly from practitioners delivering buildings with very low operational energy demand alongside improved occupant comfort and resilience. A fringe programme of events, Passifest, runs alongside the main conference.

The return to London marks a shift for the event, which has been held outside the capital for over ten years, and comes as retrofit rises up the agenda for UK construction. Extending the life of existing buildings while cutting their operational energy demand and carbon emissions is increasingly seen as central to meeting climate targets, and the Trust says the Firoz Lalji Global Hub offers evidence of how demanding performance standards can be met on complex, large scale projects.

"The UK Passivhaus Conference has always been about sharing knowledge, challenging assumptions and learning from the people delivering outstanding projects. Returning to London creates an exciting opportunity to bring together an even wider cross-section of the industry as Passivhaus becomes increasingly mainstream and learning from the exciting large-scale development underway in the Capital,” said Ann-Marie Fallon, co-director of the Passivhaus Trust.

For certified passive house professionals, both events carry Passive House Institute CPD credits: fifteen points for the conference, four for the masterclass, and a further two for the site visit, allowing delegates attending all three elements to earn up to 21 points across two days.

Early bird tickets for both events are on sale now, with discounted rates for Passivhaus Trust members and a limited number of sponsored places for eligible public sector delegates.

Booking details are available from the Passivhaus Trust at www.passivhaustrust.org.uk, with conference information at www.ukphc.org.uk.