Passivhaus Trust celebrates 1st Anniversary
The Passivhaus Trust celebrated its 1st Anniversary in style at the Residence of the Austrian Ambassador in London on 5th July 2011. The who’s-who of the Passivhaus movement in the UK including architects, energy consultants, products suppliers, housing associations, came out in full force to show their support for the Trust that has been through a very successful 1st year since its launch last year.
The event saw an afternoon of talks, presentations and video clips of the past year’s Passivhaus experience from the Trust and its members. This was followed by an evening of drinks and canapés.
Chris Herring, chair of the Passivhaus Trust gave an overview of the Trust’s progress over the last year. The Trust now has 27 Founder members and 74 Standard members - a total of 101! The Trust has also developed 2 Technical briefing documents which were launched at the event, titled ‘Passivhaus and Zero Carbon’ and ‘Claiming the Passivhaus Standard’ – these are available for download at the Trust’s website.
Jon Bootland, CEO of the Passivhaus Trust talked about the state of play for Passivhaus in the UK. He highlighted that there are currently 18 certified Passivhaus projects completed and 60 underway in various stages, which indicates the growing interest. There are also 4 Passivhaus Certifiers, 3 Certified Passivhaus Designer courses and over 80 Certified Designers.
Sarah Mekjian from iPHA talked about how the UK was placed in the global context of Passivhaus. The UK ranks 4th in the list of countries with the most number of Passivhaus Projects, after Germany, Austria and France respectively, but there are currently 10 certified Passivhaus components and not one of them is from the UK. The next event to look out for is the International Passivhaus Days (11th – 13th November 2011), which will display 20 years of Passivhaus experience across projects worldwide. Sarah also highlighted a pilot course for Certified Passivhaus Tradesman, which is planned for Autumn 2011.
John Barnham from Orbit Heart of England and Jonathan Hines of Architype presented exemplar housing and school projects respectively. The Sampson Close scheme in Coventry will have 23 apartments and houses. Jonothan Hines demonstrated how Passivhaus was a more robust way to reduce carbon emissions and achieved reduced running costs for schools in Wolverhampton at no extra construction cost.
The evening was a grand social occasion, accompanied by keynote speeches from the Austrian Ambassador, David Craddock from EBS Elk, David Adams from Willmott Dixon and John Lefever from Hastoe Housing Association.
Next steps for the Passivhaus Trust include engaging with UK Policy regarding Part L 2013, the UK Passivhaus Conference 2011 (24th, 25th Barbican, London), UK Passivhaus Open Days 2011 (11th – 13th November) and Ecobuild 2012. The Trust is also compiling a database for Passivhaus Projects in the UK. If you are working on a Passivhaus projects let us know by contacting Tanisha Raffiuddin at tanisha@passivhaustrust.org.uk.
All the presentations can be downloaded here.
A selection of images from the event can be viewed here.
7th July 2011
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