London PassivHaus Planning Approved
Our Brockley Passive house was granted Planning Approval by the London Borough of Lewisham in November 2023. We’re excited to be driving forward Passive House design in our corner of South East London and we’ve been encouraged by the council's support for a scheme that addresses climate issues.
A fantastic plot, but not without its challenges, the site is prominent within the Brockley Conservation Area and adjacent to a Grade II listed villa. Our planning experience, careful design development and collaborative approach with Planning Officers mean that we’ve added 120 square metres to the previous approval.
The house includes a basement level and two further storeys. Above ground, the building will constructed from an offsite manufactured timber frame, which will be delivered to site in pre-insulated panels. The highly insulated external envelope will provide the exceptional level of thermal performance required to meet the Passivehouse standard which is defined by the amount of energy required to heat the home per square meter, per year.
To achieve Passivehouse standard, demand for heating must be less than 15 kWh/m2 per year. Let’s look at what this means. 1 kWh is 1 kilowatt-hour, a unit of energy. These are the units clocked up by an electricity meter. Big houses need more heating, so the floor area must be taken into account.
The space heating demand of the average UK home is currently about 145 kWh/m2 per year and an average new-build home about 50 kWh/m2 per year* which compared with the Passive House limit of 15 kWh/m2 per year illustrates the potential savings offered by the Passive House approach.
#passivehouse #passivhaus #modernmehtodsofconstruction #offsitemanufacture #timberframe
