2012 Conference highlights the successful uptake of Passivhaus in the UK
The UK Passivhaus 2012 conference, the definitive conference on all things Passivhaus, took place at the EMCC in Nottingham on 7th and 8th November 2012. More than 350 delegates attended over the 2 days of the conference, which included more than 20 sessions featuring 70 speakers and an extensive exhibition on Passivhaus products and systems. This was followed by a third day of site visits to three certified Passivhaus projects in the midlands. The Conference was organised by lead partners the Passivhaus Trust and the BRE together with their supporting partners and affiliates.
The main themes of this year’s conference were -
- How Passivhaus affects design creativity
- How to deliver Passivhaus at standard cost
- Technical aspects of Passivhaus delivery
- Performance feedback from completed UK projects
Mark Gillot, University of Nottingham and Chair of the Conference opened the first session on ‘Passivhaus & Policy’, which covered updates on EU and UK policy and lessons learned from the city of Vorarlberg, Austria on how they adopted the Passivhaus standard and now prescribe that all new public buildings are built to the Passivhaus standard. The debate after the talks brought up crucial issues of quality assurance and the recognition of Passivhaus in the Building Regs.
Peter Warm, Warm: Low Energy Building Practice bemoaned the fact that having to comply with UK Building Regs is an additional burden for Passivhaus projects, “We are certifiers and we struggle with the additional load for clients, of doing Passivhaus certification and meeting UK regulations. Passivhaus doesn't suffer from the problems associated with lack of quality assurance elsewhere as QA is part of the Passivhaus process. We want to be recognised for what we are already doing, rather than being subjected to additional box-ticking.”
The session ‘Passivhaus Learning Journeys’ highlighted key lessons learnt across residential, non-residential and retrofit projects. Read a summary of the session on AJ Footprint here.
Day One also saw the presentation of post occupancy monitoring data from projects including Camden Passivhaus, Oakmeadow and Bushbury Passivhaus schools, Hastoe’s Wimbish social housing project, and Y Foel, the UK’s first certified Passivhaus building. Read a summary of the sessions on AJ Footprint here. Feedback from occupants who have been living in a Passivhaus for 2-4 years now has been very positive and monitoring results reveal that the buildings are performing as designed, and even better in some cases.
James Pickard, Cartwright Pickard Architects said “Building Performance Evaluation is critical. The industry is dominated by a few major housebuilders who are failing to deliver to the standard designed. The UK has the highest levels of asthma in the world, and there are links to air quality in homes. BSRIA has evidence that 75% of ventilation systems are failing. There is no regulatory requirement to test homes, and the industry is getting away with it."
The ‘Passivhaus and Design Creativity’ debate at the end of day one also sparked interesting reactions on whether or not Passivhaus affects good design. Read some of the comments from the panel on AJ Footprint here.
Day Two packed in a number of technical presentations ranging from analysis of thermal bridges and achieving airtightness through to case studies and performance monitoring data and including a demonstration of how BIM can be applied to Passivhaus.
The Conference saw the launch of the much awaited ‘The Passivhaus Handbook’ by Adam Dadeby and Janet Cotterell, an extremely useful resource which brings together current thinking and best practice in building to the Passivhaus standard, and is written in English! The book has received rave reviews from the UK Industry and Prof. Wolfgang Feist himself. Jon Bootland, Chief Executive, Passivhaus Trust said, 'I'm delighted to see everything about Passivhaus and its application in the UK collated for the first time, in The Passivhaus Handbook. The first-hand experience of the authors provides an excellent grounding for the book.'
The conference also included a Special Feature- ‘Spot the Difference- Live’ of two prefabricated student bedroom pods, one built to Part L 2006 specifications and the other in accordance with Passivhaus principles. Student volunteers stayed in the bedrooms during the first evening of the conference and energy consumption was monitored. The results were shared at the final session and as the temperature in the pods stabilised, early readings showed an initial average energy consumption level of 180kWh/m² for the Part L 2006 pod, compared to just 50kWh/m² for the one constructed in accordance with Passivhaus principles. The pods are now being moved to the Energy Technologies Building, a specialist research centre at The University of Nottingham, where monitoring and testing will continue.
The Saint-Gobain Nottingham H.O.U.S.E (Home Optimising the Use of Solar Energy) was also an attraction at the Passivhaus Conference. Designed by students from the University of Nottingham, the house demonstrates how low energy architecture can lend itself to the mass market. The Saint-Gobain H.O.U.S.E is now situated on Green Close at The University of Nottingham, where it is being reconstructed to Passivhaus standards in preparation for assessment by BRE for Passivhaus Certification.
The final part of the conference involved a coach trip to a series of three site visits, including Interserve’s Passivhaus office in Leicester, Orbit Heart of England’s Sampson Close social housing project in Coventry, and Architype/ Thomas Vale’s Oakmeadow School in Wolverhampton. All were well received, and the feedback from the occupants about the quality of the environment they provide was welcomed by all the attendees.
Speakers at the conference showed how the Passivhaus standard is now being applied to a number of new building typologies being built with different materials including a co-housing project, a care home, a strawbale community centre and an Archive building. Figures also highlighted that the UK now has around 150 Passivhaus buildings that are completed and certified, with many more under construction – a significant increase on the 50 or so buildings that were completed by last year’s conference.
Andrew Yates, Ecoarc the architect on the Lancaster Passivhaus Co-housing project talked about how he came around to the Passivhaus standard, “I have been anti-Passivhaus for a long time. I have always preferred natural buildings with fresh air. But I seem to have ended up here by accident .... as there was nowhere else to go, really. In the past I worked on some lovely eco-houses at Findhorne, which were very draughty and cold, despite lots of insulation.”
A number of common lessons emerged across the conference:
- Keep controls simple and use manual controls where possible
- The benefits of Passivhaus in providing a healthy environment for building occupants are important and should be highlighted more widely
- A committed team is needed throughout the process from start to finish, with constant supervision of site during construction.
Presentations over the two days demonstrated that Passivhaus can deliver a higher quality product than other energy standards, and that this can be achieved at standard cost in some cases. The final session highlighted that the emergence of a UK supply chain and development of more off-site solutions should help to drive costs down further, making Passivhaus an even more attractive proposition for those seeking a quality building that will perform as intended over a long time period.
Image by Anita de Dominico Copyright UK Passivhaus Conference
Further Information:
16th November 2012
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