The best architecture responds skilfully and sensitively to its surroundings, so when a long and narrow plot beside a busy road became available in the Somerset village of Chew Magna, architect David Hayhow set out to design a passive house, inspired by nearby farm buildings, that would be both private yet filled with light — quite the challenge given the site’s tight restraints.
Designed in a traditional farmhouse cluster on a greenfield site amid the hedgerows of rural Cork, this new passive home by the River Sullane pays deep attention not only to energy efficiency but also to natural light, elegant design and preserving the ecology of its sensitive setting.
Fuelled by the need to build quickly and to increasingly tight sustainability standards, the market for timber frame and mass timber construction is growing rapidly. This detailed guide covers many of the main established and emerging techniques, and looks at key issues to address if you’re considering a timber-based build.
Hiding in woodland in an area of outstanding natural beauty, the Fishleys passive house manages to be both strikingly contemporary yet deeply sensitive to its rural setting. It also boasts a masterfully crafted timber frame structure with one of the best airtightness results this magazine has ever published.
The Deerings, a large new certified passive house in the Hertfordshire village of Harpenden, is the stunning result of meticulous attention to design, energy efficiency and ecological materials by its architects, builders and a homeowner so taken by the experience that it led to an investment in an innovative passive house start-up.
Choosing newly-harvested green oak — which shrinks and moves as it dries — for the millimetre-precise demands of passive house construction was a bold move by Phil Garnett and his wife Yvonne, but one that ultimately gave them one of the most unique and ground-breaking passive homes in the UK.
This skilfully designed new passive house in Blackrock manages to be lightfilled and strikingly contemporary while taking its design inspiration from the very ordinary Dublin street on which it sits.
Leading low energy timber frame manufacturer MBC Timber Frame has completed work on another project aiming for the passive house standard.
This unique sports and drama hall, inspired by the architecture of local buildings, was built to a new standard that aims to ensure buildings deliver all round health and comfort to their users.
With low electricity and gas bills and a feed-in tariff from its solar photovoltaic array, this simple, ecological timber frame passive house near the Welsh border manages to make about a £50 profit on annual energy costs.
This cellulose-filled timber frame house in the Suffolk countryside combines a rustic timber aesthetic with a simple contemporary form to rest lightly on the land.
A sensitive development of social housing in Lambeth combines three new passive houses with six low energy flats delicately constructed inside an old Victorian terrace — and with the emphasis on good indoor air quality, residents are already reporting improvements in health & well-being since moving from their old accommodation.
With an intricate design based on the concept of two pitched-roof sections that overlap, this eye-catching timberframed Sussex home proves you can meet the passive house standard with just about any shape.
Built with a timber frame insulated with straw-bale, and featuring an extensive suite of ecological and recycled materials, this stunning North Yorkshire home also produces more energy than it consumes, making it the first straw-bale building in the world to reach the brand new ‘passive house plus’ standard.
Designed around an existing timber chalet, this striking contemporary house managed to go passive on a budget for one lucky family of six, all while inadvertently blitzing Ireland’s forthcoming nearly zero energy building standard.
While embracing traditional farmstead design made it trickier for this new build home in the Scottish Highlands to meet the coveted passive house standard, mixing modern standards of super-insulation with vernacular farmhouse architecture ultimately led to the creation of a very special home for proprietors Jeanette and Jon Fenwick — one that picked up a coveted UK Passivhaus Award in 2016.
Ecological Building Systems will host an event in London on Thursday 11 May, titled Insulating & Achieving Airtightness with Cross Laminated Timber.
The need for experienced contractors who can be depended upon to deliver the high quality product that a passive or indeed low energy house demands cannot be undervalued, leading timber frame manufacturer Kudos has claimed.
Leading timber frame manufacturer Cygnum picked up five awards during one week in October, in recognition of some of the high profile passive-certified projects it has completed in recent years.
MBC Timber Frame has announced the opening of its new manufacturing and design premises at Quedgeley Court, Gloucester. The company told Passive House Plus that it has the capacity to manufacture 50,000 to 60,000 square metres of passive housing per year at the new facility.
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.
This new timber frame home in the south of England met the passive house standard despite a less-than-optimum orientation, launched a brand new design-and-build venture between its architect and project manager, and embraced a subtle-yet-elegant design that maintains a simple passive house form while drawing inspiration from the local vernacular.
This brand new light-filled passive house set in the countryside of north Kildare was inspired by local farm buildings, and features a striking and exposed oak-framed structure.
A Galway-based timber frame construction firm established last year that specialises in passive house has committed to using 100 per cent ecological building materials and advanced technologies to keep its environmental footprint to a minimum.
This stylish new passive house in Cork City managed to achieve one of the best airtightness results Passive House Plus has ever witnessed using an innovative new Irish-manufactured airtight timber board
Leading Irish timber frame manufacture Cygum has said that it is possible to tackle the housing crises in the UK and Ireland by mass-producing high quality timber passive houses on a large scale.
Bristol City Council have appointed Gale & Snowden Architects as lead consultants on a scheme of 23 dwellings aiming for passive house plus certification.
Ecohouse Developments, a new low energy design and build service, has launched in Ireland. The company employs a team of architects, engineers and builders, and can deliver turnkey passive houses to its clients, or simply build the principle passive structure if the client prefers.