Passivhaus is a best practice comfort and energy standard. It underpins all the work KMA undertakes, whether you choose to certify your building or simply use the performance modelling as a design tool. There are 2 key roles in the passivhaus process:

1. Passivhaus Designer –  your consultant who is embedded in the design team and works to optimise your design, including helping you choose a suitable performance target
2. Passivhaus Certifier – an independent consultant who assesses the design and provides separate QA of the design and construction, as well as assessing if the building may be certified as Passivhaus.

On any one project, these two roles must be undertaken by separate consultants to ensure independence.

We offer:

Passivhaus Designer Consultancy:

• In-house: For our own architectural projects this is fully integrated into all projects and this allows you to make informed decisions about building performance and comfort throughout the process. You can choose whether or not to certify your project and we work with you to choose an appropriate performance target for your new building. These include Passivhaus – classic, plus and premium; Passivhaus Low Energy Standard and the AECB Building Standard. All of these act as benchmarks and work hand in hand with wider eco and sustainability priorities such as responsible material specification
• External Consultancy: We can also provide passivhaus consultancy for projects by other designers and can lead you through the design process, including optimisation workshops and performance modelling as well as working with your certifier.

Both of these passivhaus designer roles are undertaken by our team at KMA. We cover a range of building scales from one off houses through to larger projects such as schools, multi unit housing and office buildings. All of our team are passivhaus trained and our collective experience focusing in this sector since 2008, with Kirsty having also undertaken certifier and PHPP Expert training in 2021 to further develop expertise.

Please get in touch direct with any queries.

Passivhaus Certification – What is it and why should you consider it?

What is certification?

It is a rigorous and independent QA process. Supporting documentation from the design and construction process provided by the design team and contractor is reviewed to assess whether your project meets the standard and will perform as you expect. The Passivhaus Trust has an excellent certification guide.

Why certify your building?

Clients know that they are getting the building they expect that is comfortable and fresh, easy to heat, has a low impact on the environment and, as passivhaus closes the ‘performance gap’, the building will do as it says on the tin. This is becoming more and more important to clients at all scales especially as energy markets become more volatile. Comfort in buildings is something that everyone should be able to take for granted and passivhaus has been shown to deliver this. In different settings this has different benefits. For example, in schools and offices attainment is shown to increase. Certification provides the independent QA that demonstrates a building has been designed and constructed to achieve this and keeps a focus on building performance as part of the wider project process.

Designers gain from the certification process as a second set of eyes to review the project and share their expertise during the design stage with a pre-construction check for peace of mind. Designers can also gain or renew their ‘certified Passivhaus Designer’ certificate by completing a certified project.

Our roles

We work with the certification process:

• as passivhaus designer: preparing projects for certification in our role as Passivhaus Designers. We work with a range of different certifiers, depending on your building type and requirements.
• certification assessment: In addition to this, Kirsty works as part of the WARM team for assessing certification of projects.

Get in touch

Please call us at KMA to discuss passivhaus consultancy and passivhaus certification to see which service is right for your project, and we will direct you from there.