London mid-scale Passivhaus social housing

The Jean Desforges House project at Leather Gardens for the London Borough of Newham demonstrates a can-do approach to building Passivhaus social housing. It is a Passivhaus first for the building contractor, which has subsequently undertaken five more Passivhaus projects. The five storey building comprises 21 affordable rent homes with a mix of three, four and one bed flats and two wheelchair accessible homes.

Under Newham Council’s ‘Climate Emergency Action Plan’ the borough has committed to targeting Passivhaus Classic standard for its affordable housing developments. Jean Desforges House was delivered under a design and build contract. An additional driver to adopting the Passivhaus standard is the low energy bills which address Newham Council’s desire to address fuel poverty.

The project benefited from a good form factor. The fact the design had no external walkways lent itself well for a tight thermal envelope, and thermal bridging was carefully considered to minimise leakage.

PHT member Kind & Co. was the building contractor on the project, with PHT Patron WARM acting as Passivhaus Certifier.

Key stats

Construction: Reinforced concrete frame, with brick and block façade
Number of homes: 21
TFA: 1660 m²
Form factor: 1.4
Build start date: 2021
Completed: 2024
Certified: Passivhaus, 2024

Jean De Forges House, Leather Gardens, Newham. Image credit Kind & Co

This is the first Passivhaus project that Kind & Co worked on. The scheme achieved Passivhaus Classic certification, exceeding the minimum airtightness requirement, with an almost 20% improvement on requirements. In addition, there was a 33% improvement in annual heating demand.

Building on this experience, Kind & Co. are continuing to deliver Passivhaus developments across London for clients, and have now delivered over 100 units to the Passivhaus Classic standard.

Gemma Gallagher, Kind & Co.

Jean Desforges House is the first of four Passivhaus projects completed by Kind & Co for London Borough of Newham. They rose to the challenge admirably, sending the site manager and other key staff for Passivhause Tradesperson Training. Their on-site Passivhaus Champion ensured that all details were correctly constructed and airtightness measures were completed in the correct sequence. Attention to Passivihaus matters was also reflected in the high quality of work elsewhere. The site team were rightly proud of achieving Passivhaus Classic certification, and their experience has been shared on other projects.

Peter Ranken, Certified Passivhaus Designer, Tooley Foster

Construction

The five storey residential social housing development was constructed in reinforced concrete frame with brick and block façade and included extensive external landscaping works creating a new public realm and play area. Balconies were external to the thermal envelope and thermal breaks used for each to maintain thermal properties and overcome cold bridging.

The project was delivered on a complex and logistically challenging site, requiring early collaboration and careful planning to consider the health, safety and wellbeing of adjoining neighbours living near the site.

U-values

Roof: 0.150 W/m²K

Warm roof deck insulation

Wall: 0.147 W/m²K

Insulated brick & block, with independent wall lining system

Floor: 0.152 W/m²K

Insulated concrete slab

Building performance

Designed energy performance

Airtightness n₅₀ (≤ 0.6ACH @ 50 Pa)

0.48 @ 50 Pa

Space Heating Demand (≤ 15 kWh/m².a)

12 kWh/m².a

Heating Load (≤ 10 W/m²)

8 W/m²

Primary Energy Renewable (PER) Demand (≤ 60 kWh/m².a*)

62.4 kWh/m².a

Primary Energy Renewable Generation

27 kWh/m².a

*+/-15 kWh/m².a allowance if offset by energy generation. See Passivhaus criteria.

Services

Heating strategy: A communal ambient loop heating was set up, with individual flats having electric heating units to boost to required temperature. Waste water heat recovery was installed on baths.

Ventilation strategy: Each apartment had a an individual MVHR unit and system ventilating all rooms.

Summer comfort: The ensure good summer comfort, the project was designed with a good shading strategy including the use of a brise-soleil and deep window reveals.

Jean De Forges House, Leather Gardens, Newham. Image credit Kind & Co

Challenges & lessons learned

Constrained site: The site boundary directly adjoined an existing high-rise block of flats, through construction this required close liaison with residents with careful consideration for the privacy of surrounding tenants when planning crane operations and access and egress to the site.
Focus on early design stage: The building contractor was heavily involved in the design process, focusing on early engagement on key procurement activities such as MEP design, window manufacture, below ground substructure details and insulation. This ensured the external thermal model was completed early in the design process to inform design decisions, including using thermal modelling skills to calculate the shading and heat loss of each pane of glass.
Training: The building contractor heavily invested in in-house Passivhaus training, including airtightness training for key operatives on site. This ensured that achieving optimum results at critical points in the development of the project. Monitoring performance is a key element of the building contractor's quality assurance procedures and played a vital role in achieving excellent airtightness results, with results reaching almost 20% improvement on the minimum target of 0.6 air change per hour.
Specification: To choose the front entrance external door required close collaboration with Secure by Design, Fire Engineer and client to ensure regulations were met and that the doors met Passivhaus requirements.

Key team

Client: London Borough of Newham
Architect & Passivhaus Designer: Peter Ranken/ Tooley Foster
Contractor: Kind & Co.
Structural engineer: Graphic Structures
M&E consultant: David J Higgins Consulting
Passivhaus Certifier: WARM

Leather Gardens was the first Passivhaus project for the building contractor Kind & Co, which has gone on to build five more mid-scale Passivhaus projects in London to date, totalling more than 100 units. The project demonstrates how builders are easily managing to make the switch to Passivhaus, thanks to a can-do commitment to training and quality assurance on site.

The Leather Gardens development, known post construction as ‘Jean De Forges House’ was delivered under a design and build contract by Kind & Co. for the London Borough of Newham, as part of the council’s affordable homes programme, designed to meet the councils target to tackle both the housing crisis and their plan to deliver highly energy efficient Passivhaus homes for residents.

The development comprises of a five storey block of 31 affordable rent homes with a mix of three, four and one bed flats and 2 wheelchair accessible homes. The scheme was constructed in reinforced concrete frame with brick and block façade and included extensive external landscaping works creating a new public realm and play area.

The scheme was delivered on a complex and logistically challenging site, requiring early collaboration and careful planning to consider the health, safety and wellbeing of adjoining neighbours living near the site.

The scheme achieved Passivhaus classic accreditation exceeding the minimum air tightness requirement of 0.6 with an almost 20% improvement on requirements, in addition there was a 33% improvement in annual heating demand.

This project completed in 2024.

20th February 2026

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