Sub-slab insulation
This site is on a small side street in the middle of Rathmines, in Dublin’s southern inner suburbs. The brief was to accommodate two dwellings and a commercial use all to Passive House standard. Additional complications were that a six storey building was directly to the south, and that the scale changed dramatically from the rear garden of a two storey house on one side to a four storey office building on either sides of the site.
We’re very proud to say that in late 2012 our deep retrofit & extension of a Monkstown semi-D was certified to 'EnerPHit' standard by the Passivhaus Institute of Germany. It is the first ‘Passive House’ or ‘EnerPHit’ retrofit of any building type to be certified in Ireland, & only the fifth ‘EnerPHit’ in the world. To add to this it was voted Green Residential Building of the year in 2013 at the annual Green Awards: a series of great achievements.
It always seemed as if this 1929 detached house and garage had landed on this site from outer space. Seen from the road it made sense - as they fill the site to front - but to rear it meant the house seemed pushed into one corner of a garden that grew and grew the further from the road one went. We learnt the builder had deliberately squeezed other plots to enlarge his own, but he didn't take advantage of the result: we put right an 84 year old missed opportunity!
A lot of Passive House design look foreign, portraying origins in central Europe. We want to show that you can design a compact house to this standard, look modern but also within the Irish housing idiom.
The timber frame house has a simple compact plan. The south elevation is 45% glazed (to maximize solar gain) while glazing on the other elevations is minimised (to reduce heat loss). It is an Irish interpretation of the central European Passive House design.