Unlike in many other countries throughout Europe, Passivhaus development in the UK is still at an early stage of development. We only saw our first accredited Passivhaus building completed in the Spring of this year (2009). This is a community centre/office located in Machynlleth northwest Wales designed by JWP (John Williamson Partnership) architects. Only a few years ago, a mere handful of enthusiastic architects, engineers, designers and builders had heard of Passivhaus in the UK. But in the last year the aspiration to build to Passivhaus standards has been moving into the mainstream. Whilst the term Passivhaus is coming onto the UK construction industry radar, there are still many misunderstandings about what a Passivhaus building actually is. These are accompanied by all the associated fears and questions that have been confronted in other countries during the early stages of the emergence of standard. All the same questions and more will have to be answered in English if the UK is to really begin to understand Passivhaus. There are many potential barriers to the uptake of Passivhaus design in the UK which include our general lack of understanding of energy use in buildings, poor construction and design skills cultural factors and last but not least, our regulatory framework. Partly in response to the requirements of the EPBD (European
Performance of Buildings Directive), the last few years have been a very active time for the UK Government in terms of the production of new legislation and guidance relating to energy use and the construction of our built environment. In 2006, with the introduction of the last iteration of our Building Regulations Part L, which relates to the consumption of fuel and power in our buildings, the Government announced plans to introduce a new environmental assessment method for housing called the Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH). This was actually introduced in 2007 and is a tool that allows for the assessment of housing designs in relation to 6 levels of environmental performance with level 6 being the highest or ‘zero-carbon’ category. With the introduction of the CSH came the announcement of the ambitious and challenging Government targets that all new homes should be ‘zero-carbon’ by 2016, (this target is 2011 for Wales), and that all new non-domestic buildings should be ‘zerocarbon’ by 2019. Since then the UK construction industry has been debating exactly what these definitions of ‘zero-carbon’ really mean in terms of energy performance and whether they are realistically achievable, financially viable or indeed desirable is this the least cost effective way of reducing energy use and the associated CO2 emissions from buildings? In the UK, Passivhaus is represented by two organisations these are BRE and the AECB. According to research undertaken by the AECB, Passivhaus relates roughly to CSH Level 4-5 in terms of energy performance or a 44% reduction in CO2 emissions against the mandatory requirements of the Building Regulations Part L 2006, although the achievement of Passivhaus standard
It’s moving in UK
Creating a passivhaus culture Text
Liz Reason, Carine Oberweis, Henrietta Lynch
Maison et bureau à Londres Architecte: bere:architects
Contact :
AECB > www.aecb.net BRE > www.bre.co.uk CarbonLite > www.carbonlite.org.uk/carbonlite/
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It’s moving in UK
CSH > www.communities.gov.uk