Mole Architects’ flexible and thoughtful 15-home Dovehouse Court later-living scheme in Cambridgeshire provides a welcome alternative to the stigmatising nature of some almshouses.
Quantifying the greenness of construction products: the rise of environmental product declarations
Climate breakdown and global ecological crises mean that our efforts to make buildings sustainable must go far beyond operational energy use – including number crunching and drastically reducing environmental impacts of building materials. John Cradden reports on progress in the uptake of the building blocks of life cycle analysis of buildings: Environmental Product Declarations.
This article was originally published in issue 30 of Passive House Plus magazine. Want immediate access to all back issues and exclusive extra content? Click here to subscribe for as little as €10, or click here to receive the next issue free of charge
Sea change luxury passive scheme on the Devon coast
Built mostly with clay blocks and sited above the sandy shores of Seaton, on the Devon coast, this new development of eight high-end apartments not only meets the passive house ‘plus’ standard meaning it pairs the requisite ultra-low energy fabric with a substantial amount of renewable energy generation but it also boasts serious attention to the use of ecological and healthy material. One apartment, based on 10 months monitored data Building: Five-storey block of eight luxury apartments, 101 m2 to 138 m2 each Location: Seaton, Devon Standard: Passive house plus certified
The county of Devon has been a hotspot for passive house development for more than a decade. Exeter City Council, in particular, has backed numerous schemes, including affordable housing schemes and a leisure centre with a swimming pool. Recently, the £3 million Seaton Beach development on Devon’s coast became the first multi-unit r