CONTENTS COVER STORY
10
28
50
28
CASE STUDIES COVER STORY: A1 passive house overcomes tight Cork City site
08
COLUMN
Government ‘Help to Hoard’ scheme: why we’re not building homes
With Ireland’s housing crisis continuing to escalate, government policies may be further exacerbating the problem, argues Mel Reynolds.
10
INTERNATIONAL
18
NEWS
24
Designing a dwelling to take advantage of the sun’s free heat is a big part of what makes a passive house passive. So how do you meet the low energy standard when your narrow site faces away from the sun and is overshadowed by neighbouring houses and trees, while simultaneously hitting an A1 building energy rating – and with a stunning, architecturally expressive design?
40
Ballymun boiler house reborn as green building exemplar
50
North Dublin sheltered scheme makes A1 breakthrough
A selection of passive & eco builds from around the world, this issue features a Buddhist temple in Tokyo and a net zero energy passive house in San Francisco.
The latest passive house, eco building and construction news.
COMMENT
Self builder Nessa Duggan asks if her planned passive dream home is too big, English architect and sustainable housing expert Peter Rickaby asks what the Grenfell Tower fire means for retrofit of high rise buildings, while Dr Marc O’Riain completes his triptych on the evolution of energy performance standards in Ireland.
6 | passivehouseplus.ie | Issue 22
If the reduce, reuse, recycle mantra has a built embodiment, it’s arguably the recently completed Rediscovery Centre in Ballymun – a 1960s boiler house for a much maligned early district heating system that’s been transformed into a sustainability education centre, and that makes use of a remarkably large palette of green materials and sustainable technologies.
The first social housing scheme of any kind to top Ireland’s BER scale, this project is a timely reminder that in the midst of a national housing emergency, it is possible to tackle climate change and blitz the forthcoming nearly zero energy building targets, while housing the most vulnerable in society in healthy, fuel poverty-proof homes predicted to incur zero heating cost.