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The Passivhaus Standard sometimes gets confused with a passive solar design approach, particularly when it comes to solar orientation. This often means people assume that solar orientation is critical for passivhaus, like it is for passive solar design.

On the other hand, sometimes those who particularly favour a passive solar approach assume that the opposite is true. That solar orientation doesn’t matter at all for passivhaus. And if you pick up a book on passivhaus, such as the one I reviewed last week, solar orientation doesn’t feature in the list of key methods or principles.

So which is it?

The key to passivhaus is an integrated approach to design. Solar orientation does matter for passivhaus. However, it doesn’t need to be the driving factor.

Solar orientation impacts on solar gain. The importance of solar gain depends on the type of building. (Passivhaus isn’t just for houses, remember?) And windows have other purposes besides heating!

009 Passivhaus Solar Orientation

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This blog post is a review of An Introduction to Passive House by Justin Bere published in December 2013. Justin Bere, a pioneering passivhaus architect in the UK, wrote and compiled this slim and beautifully presented volume.

This is first and foremost a book addressed to the architectural industry, as Dr. Wolfgang Feist writes in the foreword:

Justin Bere uses the language of an architect … and shows how Passive House opens up new possibilities for creative design.

The two key themes for the book are set in the Preface:

  • Integrated Design for the 21st century, that is to say, for the anthropocene, and
  • Building Physics – using the right tools & process to eliminate guesswork

The following sections of the book pack in a wealth of interesting and useful context, history, introductory technical guidance and wide-ranging inspirational case studies.

Throughout the book there are reminders, directly and indirectly, that architecture must also be beautiful to be successful.

008 Passivhaus-Architects-Intro-JBere

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Integrated design is a key element of successful passivhaus design, as I wrote about in a previous post. Certified passivhaus designers and consultants are often architects, building services engineers or sustainability specialists. So how important to the integrated design process is the structural engineer? The answer is: vitally important!

There are significant benefits in having a structural engineer who is also a certified passivhaus designer on the team as this post explores. Where this isn’t possible, at the very least the structural engineer needs a good understanding of passivhaus and the importance of their role in the design process.

Structural engineering has a significant impact on design simplicity, thermal continuity, airtightness and more.

007 Passivhaus-Structural-Engineering

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Is passivhaus a niche pursuit for ‘energy geeks’ and ‘treehuggers’? It may have started that way but it is rapidly gaining momentum in the UK and becoming highly relevant to the mainstream construction industry.

My friend Darren Lester, the founder of SpecifiedBy, invited me to write a guest blog for his site. (If you haven’t discovered it yet, SpecifiedBy is an incredibly useful resource, the online Building Regulations section have been a life saver for me!) The readers of his blog are from a broad spectrum of the UK construction industry, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to discuss three reasons why passivhaus is highly relevant to the mainstream UK construction industry.

The reasons I discuss are:

  • Climate Change
  • EU legislation
  • Making a difference

Please visit the SpecifiedBy.com blog and have a read.

And please share the blog with friends, colleagues and acquaintances in the UK construction industry so they can learn why passivhaus is relevant to them.

Thank you!

SpecifiedBy passivhaus-geeks

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Passivhaus buildings are sometimes criticised by environmentally minded designers as being “hermetically sealed” boxes that can’t “breathe”. These designers have the best intentions of creating healthy and energy efficient buildings where people have direct control over their indoor environment and a close relationship with the outdoor environment. And they fear the passivhaus standard won’t allow a building to provide this. Luckily, their fear is unfounded. Let’s take a closer look at the two aspects of this criticism:

What does it mean for a building to be “hermetically sealed” and does the Passivhaus Standard require this?

What does it mean for a building to “breath” and does the Passivhaus Standard allow this?

006 Passivhaus Hermetically Sealed Continue reading →