Completion is scheduled for the end of February for this energy efficient retrofit to Passivhaus standard. Works are progressing well, with the windows having arrived in December. The building is a three-bedroom end of terrace, which will get a new lease of life for a young family. Aiming for the highest of energy efficiency standards the house will be comfortable and have very low running costs.

For the third time Alchemilla Architects have been successful in the Zumtobel Photographic Competition. The winning shot this time features home-made pasta on an equally home-made drying rack in our kitchen. The winners lunch was held at Quaglinos Restaurant back in June 2018.

Alchemilla Architects are pleased to announce that their office building for the Devon Business and Education Centre in East Devon has just been granted the seal “Certified Passive House”. The building passed its final air-test with a result of less than 0.6 air changes per hour. The heating demand is limited to 15kWh per square meter of living area and the total primary energy demand is less than 120kWh per square meter of floor area per year. The main source of heat in addition to the sun is a small wood-burning stove, with some complementary heaters for the teaching rooms for particularly cold, overcast days.

The new building for the Devon Business and Education Centre was pre-opened on the 1 September 2017. We designed it and it was constructed to Passivhaus standard, certification is currently pending. The project took two years from inception to completion, a large part of this was the planning process. The super-insulated and air-tight building, which was constructed in timber frame, features a sedum green roof and is heated almost solely by the mechanical ventilation with heat recovery unit. A small wood-burning stove provides extra heat on exceptionally cold and overcast days. The contractor, JH & AL Hancock, worked meticulously to provide this exceptionally well executed building.