The opportunity arose to enter a competition to design a 7 classroom School for Phoenix Integrated Primary school in Cookstown. Furthermore, we decided to design a PassivHaus School, a first of this kind in Ireland. This decision came as an obvious choice as this standard exceeds all others in the construction world for low energy consumption. Our experience with education buildings suggests things are best kept simple, concentrating on the basics such as building orientation, good daylight aswell as implementing passive measures to achieve comfort. This strategy delivers good value, is environmentally effective and provides durable, adaptable buildings that will continue to be useful and comfortable well beyond the outlook of any Government policy agenda. View our competition entry here.

A design competition in which entrants design to build 70 of Northern Ireland’s most energy efficient homes. The groundbreaking development of social and affordable homes, in Killynure near Carryduff, is being built to the Code 5 rating for Sustainable Homes. This will be the first of its kind in Ireland and one of only a handful to achieve the Code 5 rating across the UK. View our Code 5 Submission here.