The Dundon Passivhaus has been shortlisted in the 2024 Architecture Today Awards Individual House category for buildings that stand the test of time. The house is now 10 years old and we have a lot of post-occupancy data from measuring electricity use, internal temperature and humidity. Post-occupancy evaluation (POE) is essential to understand whether buildings perform as predicted, and allows the modelling method to be tweaked on future projects. See here for more about the project.

Graham was the jury chair for the South-West region of the RIBA Awards 2024. With fellow judges Claire Miller, Lucy Barron, Jane Fowles and Aoife Houlihan Wiberg, a long-list of 30 projects was whittled down to 15, which were visited over a 4 day trip in March. 10 projects were awarded at a dinner in Bristol this week. It was a great privilege to be able to visit so many interesting buildings and to celebrate the wide range of exceptional quality architecture in the southwest.

Prewett Bizley Architects are part of a team with 10 Design, Kinrise and the National Retrofit Hub, shortlisted in an ideas competition to propose an alternative use for the Marks & Spencer building on Oxford Street. Organised by the Architects Journal and SAVE Britain’s Heritage, the competition aims to highlight how the building could be revitalised through alternative uses rather than being demolished. In March M&S won an appeal against the government’s refusal of planning permission for demolition. A final six entries will now be chosen to take part in a day-long charrette later this month.

We received planning and listed building consent this week for alterations to drastically improve the thermal performance of a grade II listed house in the Quantock Hills AONB. The Retrofit works include replacement of the existing render with insulating lime render, secondary glazing and installation of an MVHR system. It is calculated that the programme of work would result in a 75% reduction in space heating demand.

We are very pleased that the 80% House we completed 13 years ago for a far sighted client was recognised by Architecture Today in their 'test of time awards'. It picked up the Editor’s Award for Education and Research. It certainly changed the way we approach our work and has demonstrated that deep (80%) carbon reductions are possible for the existing stock. 13 years on, Retrofit seems to be coming of age. See here for project details.

Phase 3 of Robert’s retrofit of his own 1960s house in Sydenham, South London has been completed. The project was featured in the July-August edition of Selfbuilder & Homemaker. To see the article click here. For more project details click here.

The 80% House is a finalist in the 2023 Architecture Today AT Awards for ‘buildings that stand the test of time’. Completed in 2010, the project aimed to show that carbon emissions from historic homes can be reduced by 80%. The performance of the house has been monitored over the past 13 years and the data shows that an 80% reduction has consistently been achieved.

Robert will be taking part in a panel discussion at the Building Centre in London as part of Retrofit 23 which showcases research and ideas on the residential retrofit challenge. The panel features guest speakers presenting a project or provocation, followed by a Q&A session with the audience. Join us on Wednesday 12 July 6:00 - 7:30pm for a thought-provoking session and meet and share with others involved in the retrofit puzzle. Tickets are free and available here.

We received planning permission this week for a new house on the edge of a village in the Quantock Hills of Somerset. The house will be timber framed and built to Passivhaus standard. More details to follow.

Three of our projects are featured in an exhibition at the Building Centre in London entitled Retrofit 23: Towards Deep Retrofit of Homes at Scale which looks at how we achieve residential retrofitting at scale and focuses on how improving the performance of a home brings economic, social, and environmental benefits. The need to retrofit existing buildings is currently one of the biggest challenges in the built environment and will be for the next 20 years if we are to meet the government’s target of net zero by 2050.

The exhibition runs from May 10 - September 29th.

Bob will be presenting at this year’s CIBSE technical symposium in Glasgow on Friday April 21st 2023. He will discuss ‘lessons learnt’ from our Mews House Deep Retrofit. The project has already picked up gongs at the 2022 AJ Retrofit awards and with the RIBA before making it to the last 7 on Channel 4’s house of the year.

Our Deep Retrofit of a Mews House in a central London conservation area was featured on last night’s Grand Designs RIBA House of the Year. It was one of two projects chosen to go through to the final in December. Thank you to Tom Graham Workshop who made the staircase, and interior designer Hannah Carter Owers. You can watch the programme here.

Robert will be one of three speakers at an event at the Arnolfini in Bristol on October 27th 2022, hosted by Design West looking at how we can become more resilient in the face of climate change and the global energy crisis. The talk will cover the importance of measuring before and after, the relationship between energy, carbon and comfort, making fabric and services work together, lifecycle carbon, relating embodied and operational carbon, and moving from ‘one off’ to archetyping.

For more information and tickets see here.

Mews House Deep Retrofit, which has won a RIBA London Regional Award, an AJ Retrofit Award and is longlisted for RIBA House of the Year, has also been longlisted for the Dezeen Awards in the interiors category. The project was completed with interior designer Carter Owers. It is featured in issue 12 of Design Anthology UK. See here for project details.

Fig Tree Retrofit has been shortlisted for a Camden Design Award. The project involves the low energy retrofit of a Victorian terrace in the Inkerman Road Conservation Area in North London. Three new rooms were added without extending the envelope of the existing building: a garden reading room, a mezzanine sleeping deck and a ‘crow’s nest’ desk space over the existing stair, these spaces were articulated using birch plywood and OSB Joinery.

In this month’s AJ Climate Champions Podcast, Robert is interviewed by Architects’ Journal Sustainability Editor Hattie Harman. ‘Passivhaus pioneer Bob Prewett shares insights from Prewett Bizley Architects’ long track record of low energy retrofit, and explains why Passivhaus is often too much for heritage buildings’. Follow this link to listen.

The Mews House Deep Retrofit has won a RIBA London Regional Award and an AJ Retrofit Award in the best house over £500k category. The project is a deep retrofit of a Victorian Mews house in the Ladbroke Conservation Area of central London that achieved an 82% reduction in total energy use based on measured data. See here for project details.

Prewett Bizley Architects have been highly commended for our Notting Hill Mews House in the best small project category of the 2022 Retrofit Academy Awards. The Academy is a centre for excellence offering training, support and guidance on whole house retrofit. See here for project details.

The shortlist was announced today for the 2022 RIBA London Regional Awards and we were one of only a few practices to have two projects on the list. Both are deep retrofits of Victorian houses in conservation areas, and both meet LETI and many of the RIBA 2025 targets. The Mews House Deep Retrofit (pictured above) achieved an 82% reduction in total energy use based on measured data. The 80% House was completed in 2010 and now has 11 years of data showing an 80% reduction in total energy use has been achieved, better than predicted using PHPP modelling. Juries will visit the projects in the March.

Planning permission was granted this week for remodelling and extension of a house in Cambridge. The new work picks up on the arts and crafts details of the 1920s house, enlarging it by adding another gable and a single storey brick extension at the rear. External insulation will be wrapped around the upper volumes, disguising the boundaries between old and new, binding it into a new whole. The building will be extremely well insulated and air-tight to Passivhaus standard. Construction is due to start in Summer 2022.

The Malmesbury House in Wiltshire has been chosen as a finalist for the AJ Retrofit Awards 2022, within the ‘Listed Building up to £5m’ category. The works included significantly re-organising the layout, adding a ground floor rear extension, repairing the original building fabric and improving the space heating demand through fabric improvements. The winners will be announced on the evening of the 3 May 2022. The house has already won an RIBA regional award. For more information see here.

The London Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI) today published a guide showing how we can retrofit our homes to make them fit for the future and support the UK’s Net Zero targets. Robert Prewett has contributed to writing the guide and two of our projects, the Bloomsbury House and the 1960s Terrace House are featured in it.

The Guide defines energy use targets for existing homes and provide practical guidance on how to achieve them. It is useful for architects, engineers, Local Authorities, social landlords, energy professionals, contractors and clients looking for guidance about best practice retrofit.

We received planning permission this week for a new house on a small infill site in the Somerset village of Evercreech. Located in the middle of the conservation area, the house will replace a disused mechanic’s workshop. Work is due to start on site in October.

We are delighted to announce that the Malmesbury House has won an RIBA regional award. The project involved extension and refurbishment of a listed Georgian house in a dense town-centre site. For more information see here.

Robert will be speaking at the Housing 21 Conference on Tuesday 7th September, representing the RIBA Sustainable Futures Group, speaking about Net Zero and the road and challenges to getting there.

Planning permission was granted this week by Sedgemoor District Council for extension and remodelling of a 1960s house in the Somerset village of Ashcott. We are trying to retain as much of the existing fabric as possible, adding external insulation to the walls and opening up the roof spaces to make use of the full volume of the house. The garden will be re-ordered by two new extensions that will divide it into distinct areas with different qualities.

We gained planning permission this week for a new house on a beautiful two acre site near Frome. The house has been designed around a series of sheltered outdoor spaces that blur the distinction between inside and outside. Internally the floor levels step to follow the contours, an interior landscape that reflects the topography outside. See here for project details.

Our recently completed project in Malmesbury, Wiltshire is featured ion the *Wallpaper website - see here, and on the Architecture Today website - see here, with photographs by David Grandorge. The project involved complete reorganisation and renovation of a grade II listed Georgian house and a new entrance, hallway and kitchen-dining room in an extension to the rear. For more information on the project see here.

Robert Prewett was on Sky News this morning as part of a feature on Build Back Better, a campaign which aims to change the direction of government policy to decarbonise the economy, invest in public services and build solidarity across communities. Robert showed the low-carbon, deep retrofit project he is carrying out on his own 1960s house.in south London. For more on the project see here.

As part of the @architecturefoundation #100daystudio Graham talked with Niall Maxwell of Rural Office for Architecture and Steve Larkin of Steve Larkin Architects about our responses to landscape. You can listen to the talk on Youtube here.

Our refurbishment of a Victorian terrace in Kentish Town has recently been granted planning permission. The low energy retrofit involves improving the performance of the building using insulating lime plaster with embedded cork, and the installation of an ASHP and PV panels.

A series of ‘joinery’ interventions to the existing house are also proposed, including a crow’s nest study over the hallway half landing, a sleeping deck to what was previously a small ‘box’ room, and converting a storage/utility space into a garden room with a pop-out window seat.

Rob Prewett will be taking part in a Grand Designs Live From Home webinar this evening with Tara Gbolade about Sustainable Retrofit . Discover whether it is possible for retro fit period properties to have high sustainability standards? What are the challenges and how realistic is it to aim for Passive house standard? Join our panel as they discuss the pros and cons of aiming for the highest sustainability standards in a retro fit. You can tune in at 8:20pm Thursday May 21st on Instagram @granddesignstv - click here for a link.

We received planning permission this week for conversion of two redundant Victorian barns to a house in the Vale of Pewsey in the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The design aims to preserve as much of the existing fabric as possible to maintain the agricultural character and atmosphere of the place.
See here for project details.

Graham’s review of the Newt, a new country house hotel on the Hadspen Estate in Somerset is in the March issue of Architecture Today. You can also read it in our Journal here.

In a RIBA Professional Feature published this week Robert Prewett calls for a reduction of the VAT rate to 0% on domestic refurbishment projects that include a deep energy retrofit of the whole house.

“If a house extension project had a cost of £150k to £200k, the 20% VAT saving could be around the same cost as a deep energy retrofit. In some cases, a homeowner could be getting the energy-saving upgrade for free.”

The feature also sets out the current rules for VAT on energy-saving measures. See the full article here.

Our project for the full refurbishment of an early 20th Century semi-detached house on Clapham Common has been longlisted for Don’t Move Improve 2020. The works included a half-hip roof extension to provide a lofty and light filled master bedroom with shower, a new bathroom at first floor level and structural alterations at ground floor level to transform the existing diminutive kitchen into an open and generous space.

Demolition work is almost complete in time for Christmas at our low energy retrofit of a Victorian mews house in West London.

The project involves the low energy retrofit of a Victorian mews house The house will be reconfigured around a new two storey open stair which will flood light into the previously windowless and dark corner of the dwelling.

On December 5th 2019 Graham Bizley will be in conversation with The Modern House co-founder Albert Hill giving an intimate account of how Graham created two outstanding houses for himself and his family.

Hear how, even on a low budget, simple materials can be raised into something special through detailing and careful construction, why Passivhaus criteria are important, and how your surroundings should be used to your advantage.

The talk will begin at 7.15 pm and will be followed by a drinks reception.

See here for tickets

We have gained planning permission for a new house and artist’s studio in rural Wiltshire. The house will replace a 1960s dwelling and will be built to Passivhaus standard. Its form was developed to give specific views out to the landscape from the upper floor living, kitchen, dining and master bedroom areas. The angle of the house creates two distinct zones of the garden, a sheltered south-facing area between the house and the studio, and a west-facing area that includes a shady dell, with a view north up the paddock and north-west to the sunset. See here for more project details.

In August we gained planning permission for the low energy retrofit of a Victorian mews house in West London.

The house will be re-configured around a new two storey open timber stair which will flood light into a previously windowless and dark corner of the dwelling.

Work started on the site of our barn conversion project in Berkshire last week with repairs to the brickwork of the 1970 barn. The 450 sqm house is in the green belt and is being built to Passivhaus standard under Permitted Development Class Q. Completion is due in Summer 2020. See here for more project details.

We have just received photos of a house we designed 15 years ago and that was built in 2013. It was recently sold by The Modern House and they have generously allowed us to use their images. It is a project close to our hearts as it was the second house we designed after setting up the practice, for a lovely client who subsequently sold the site to a couple who commissioned us to obtain planning permission for a slightly altered design.

The house replaces a single storey vehicle repair workshop in a street of Victorian terraced houses and 1960s flats in Hackney, north London. A rich sequence of interconnected spaces unfolds around a central staircase to create a four bedroom house with a double-height living area on a tiny 90 square metre site.

See here for full project details.

We are very proud that Patrick McEvoy of our London office is one of 3 winners in a competition organised by the London Festival of Architecture to design a temporary public space for a site within the square mile of the City of London. Architects, designers and artists were invited to submit a design proposal for a parklet that will transform a kerbside area into a place to rest, relax and admire the City – bringing additional life and greenery to the City’s streets and public spaces during the world’s largest annual architecture festival. The proposal will be in place from June 1st - 30th on St Martins Le Grand. See our journal here for more information.

We were delighted to see our Enerphit project in Sydenham achieved 0.67 in air tightness testing this week. The project involves the full retrofit of an existing 1960s terraced house including the super-insulation of walls and roof, replacement of existing windows, installation of two light shafts through the house and construction of a guest bedroom/study at roof level. Many thanks to Paul Jennings for completing the test.
See here for full project details.

Graham Bizley will be speaking in Frome on April 2nd 2019 at the Architecture Club under the title ‘In Search of a Rural Architecture’.

A relationship to the rural landscape is deeply embedded in the British consciousness, yet the debate on architecture and the built environment focuses almost entirely on the city.  In this talk Graham will explore the contemporary identity of rural areas, how ideas about the countryside evolve in the face of social, economic and political changes, and how we might build in the countryside in a way that is sustainable and enhances a sense of place.
Do come along.
See the Architecture Club Facebook page for details and tickets.

The concrete work and timber framing are almost complete at our refurbishment of a grade II listed house in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. In the new hallway, three in-situ-cast concrete portals frame the front door and the openings into the rest of the house. At the rear a new extension is being made from an exposed spruce timber frame on a concrete plinth that retains the higher garden levels behind. The extension will be clad in zinc and is due for completion in Summer 2019. See here for more project details.

We are delighted that Prewett Bizley Architects have reached the longlist for the 2019 Ashden Awards. The awards highlight some of the boldest thinking and biggest breakthroughs in sustainable energy and are globally recognised as a mark of excellence in the field of green energy.

Upgrading the UK’s existing buildings is the most effective way of quickly decarbonising our built environment, Retrofitting is becoming more widespread across the UK, despite a lack of government policy to encourage it. 

Winners will be announced in July. See the Ashden website for more details.

We received listed building and planning consent last week from Mendip Council for repairs and extension to a grade II listed farmhouse near Pilton in Somerset. The corten steel-plate ceiling of the extension is proposed as a contemporary take on the 15th Century cross-beam ceilings elsewhere in the house.

Robert Prewett will be talking at the Espacio Gallery in Bethnal Green on 14th December 9:00 - 10:30am.

Wishing your home wasn't so drafty and so expensive to heat? Dreaming of comfort, low energy bills and a tiny carbon footprint? Then do come and listen to the expertise of two architects who can help you make your home full of comfort and joy.

Tickets are available here.

Our refurbishment of the Common Room at the Oxford university Department of Education opened this week. The space has been re-imagined as a ‘garden room’, enhancing the qualities of the 1960s building and better connecting the room to the garden outside. For full project details see here.

Work is underway on our refurbishment of the Common Room at the Department of Education at Oxford University. This is the final sample board. The design aims to improve the social and learning environment by enhancing the qualities of the 1960s building and better connecting the room to the garden outside. Completion due in September, in time for the autumn term.

Works are proceeding quickly on site on our certified Passivhaus project in Somerset. The first phase of spray-insulation has been applied and the Internorm windows were installed in August. The first air-test was carried out this week and achieved 0.36 ACH, well below the Passivhaus requirement. Congratulations to our hands-on client! See here for project details.

We're delighted that Patrick McEvoy, who works in our London office is one of ten winners in a competition organised by the London Festival of Architecture to design a bench for a public space in the City of London.  Installed in Jubilee Gardens, Houndsditch, the bench is a memorial to a dog called Geoffrey Barkington. Cast in self-compacting concrete the bench weighs over a tonne.

The Dundon Passivhaus is included in the latest edition of Country Living Modern Rustic, and in the July issue of Red, featuring the wonderful photographs of Polly Wreford.

Graham's review of Feilden Fowles' Food Production Campus for Charlie Bigham's is in the June issue of Architecture Today. Set in an abandoned quarry, not far from our office in Wells, the building breaks the mould of the typical shed with a bold response to its post-industrial surroundings.

On April 28th architecture critic Owen Hatherley will be leading a walking tour of Poundbury, the Prince of Wales' model extension to the Dorset town of Dorchester. Following the tour Graham will be taking part in a panel discussion in the Brownsword Hall. I'll be trying to get past the issue of style to explore whether it is a real model for sustainable development. Tickets are available from the Architecture Foundation here. 

Planning permission and listed building consent were granted this week for our proposals for repair, refurbishment and extension of a grade II listed town house in the Bloomsbury Conservation Area. The house has been empty for 20 years and is on Historic England's Buildings at Risk Register.  See the project page here for more information.

Planning permission and listed building consent have been granted by Camden Council for extension and complete refurbishment of a grade II listed Georgian house in the Bloomsbury Conservation Area. We are currently working on detailed design and work is due to start in Spring 2018

The Bloomsbury Townhouse has been selected in a competition for the annual Don't Move Improve! exhibition organised by New London Architecture (NLA). The exhibition runs from 27 January to 29 March at The Building Centre, 26 Store Street, London WC1E 7BT.

The competition showcases projects completed in the last two years across Greater London, seeking designs that demonstrate exceptional innovation and cost-effectiveness in the delivery of better living space for Londoners.

The Dundon Passivhaus was featured in the Evening Standard Homes & Property section this week.  Thank you to Philippa Stockley. See here for the website version. The house was deisgned in collaboration with Interior Designer Emily Bizley.

Our proposals for alteration and extension to a grade II listed house in Malmesbury, Wiltshire have been granted planning permission and listed building consent. For more project details see here.

The Dundon Passivhaus, designed with Emily Bizley Interior Design is featured in the September issue of House & Garden.  Thanks to Paul Massey for great photos! See here for more details.

Prewett Bizley Architects have been appointed by Oxford University Estates Services to carry out a Feasibility Study for improvements to the buildings occupied by the Department of Education in Norham Gardens, north Oxford.  The Study will look at how the buildings could be altered to provide more flexible, modern and convivial spaces that might encourage a fertile exchange of ideas and project an identity commensurate with a world-class institution. Read more here.

We are delighted to announce we have been named Sustainability Architect of the Year at the 2017 BD Architect of the Year Awards. Thank you to all our employees and collaborators for your hard work, and our clients for your determination to make a difference through commissioning us.

Our retrofit and refurbishment of a grade II listed townhouse in Bloomsbury, designed in collaboration with Emily Bizley Interior Design is featured in The Evening Standard this evening.

Our extension and retrofit of a terrace house in north London has been completed. The project has reduced the energy use of the house by almost 80% via breathable and ecological insulation approach. See here for more details.

Rob Prewett will be presenting a mini-masterclass on Retrofit at the 2016 UK Passivhaus Conference,focusing on small & large scale retrofit, EuroPHit and moisture control.

The conference takes place at the Business Design Centre in Islington on Tuesday 25th October and tickets are available here.

Our retrofit of a grade II listed Georgian house in Bloomsbury is featured in the Architects' Journal this week.  Carried out in collaboration with Emily Bizley Interior Design the project involved conversion of the building from offices to a single family house with an almost EnerPHit level of energy performance. Click here to read the article.

As part of Open House London The Kyverdale House will be open for tours from 10am – 1pm on Saturday 17th September.  The Kyverdale house was designed in 2003 and shows how a light and spatially inventive home can be made on a small and awkward shaped site.  Around 750 buildings will be open to the public during Open House London over the weekend of September 17 – 18th.

The scaffolding is down on our almost-Passivhaus project in Devon.  The house is clad in larch, with triple glazed windows from Green Building Store.  The external porch and terrace structures are built using oak and Douglas fir from trees felled on the site prior to construction.

Our recently completed retrofit and restoration of an 1820’s Listed Georgian townhouse in Bloomsbury has made it to the shortlist for the AJ Retrofit Awards, ‘Listed Building less than £5million’ category.

As part of the Venice Biennale 2016 Graham will be discussing the rich history of architects creating their own living spaces with Albert Hill of The Modern House at 11am Friday May 27th in the Ballroom of the Bauer Palazzo. All welcome.

We are pleased that the recently published RIBA book 'Renovations: an inspirational design primer' by Richard Wilcox, includes our 80% house completed in 2010.

The house is living up to its name year in year out, requiring even less energy than we predicted. For those who are interested it uses around 70 kWhr/m2 annually (primary energy excluding the PV), well below the passivhaus target we were aiming at during its design!

We are delighted to be included in New Architects 3, a book commissioned by the Architecture Foundation to celebrate the work of the most interesting architectural practices established in the last 10 years. The book is published by Merrell and was launched at an event at the Barbican this week.

Very exciting to see the interiors of our almost-Passivhaus project in Devon coming together as the timber frame goes up.

Rob Prewett will be speaking at Switch to a Renewable Future, an all day event at the Cheese and Grain in Frome on Saturday March 5th. The speakers will explore how emissions can be cut from buildings, how energy can be generated cleanly and how Frome can move towards becoming a renewable town. Tickets are availablehere.

We are delighted to announce the Dundon Passivhaus has won the Best Eco House category in this year's Daily Telegraph Homebuilding & Renovating Awards.

The Dundon Passivhaus is featured in a new 4-part TV series looking at the most inspiring homes completed in the past year. We are in the first programme, Country Living, on Wednesday 4th November at 9pm.

We were delighted that our retrofit to a 1960’s house in Sydenham achieved an air tightness test result of 0.6 ach. Congratulations to the build team from Borisa Ristic & Co and to Paul Jennings who kindly carried out the test. Here's to completing the project and proceeding to passivhaus certification next year!

Work started on site this week on a new timber frame house on a beautiful sloping site in Devon. The house is being built to Passivhaus standard for a young family who work from home, so the house provides a series of living, playing and working spaces over 3 stories.

Very pleased to announce that the Dundon Passivhaus has been short-listed for the RIBA Stephen Lawrence prize, an annual award set up in memory of the teenager who was setting out on the road to becoming an architect when he was murdered in 1993. The prize rewards the best examples of projects that have a construction budget of less than £1 million.

The house is also a finalist in the Private category of the Wood Awards and the Private House category of the Structural Timber Awards.

After lengthy negotiations with the local planning authority, we are delighted that secondary glazing has been permitted for a grade II listed building project in Bloomsbury.

This will allow this deep retrofit of a Georgian townhouse to be completed on site later this year, and will mean that the space heating requirement of the house will be within passivhaus retrofit design standards.

The photo realistic view alongside indicates how subtle we expect the secondary glazing to be.

The Dundon Passivhaus has won an RIBA National Award! You can see all 37 winners on the RIBA's website here.

The finalists for the 2015 Passivhaus Awards were announced today and the Dundon Passivhouse is one of two finalists in the Small Project catagory. Voting is by Passivhaus Trust members (who know their stuff) and the winner will be anounced at an event to celebrate the Passivhaus Trust's 5th Anniversary in London on July 7th.

The house was featured in the Architects Journal in April and in the March issue of Architecture Today.

The London Office of Prewett Bizley has moved into the City of London. Our new address is 118a London Wall, EC2Y 5JA. Our new phone number is 020 7256 2195.

The results of the RIBA South West Awards were announced at a ceremony in Bath on Friday evening. We are delighted that the Dundon Passivhaus has won an award.

The house was featured in the Architects Journal on April 24th and in the March issue of Architecture Today.

The Dundon Passivhaus has been shortlisted in the annual RIBA awards.

Prewett Bizley Architects has gained planning permission for a new low-energy house on a beautiful wooded site on the banks of the river Exe in Devon. The timber-framed house will be built to near-Passivhaus standard, with large areas of glazing to take advantage of solar gain and the view across the river. Work is due to commence in the Summer.

We received planning permission today for an extension to a grade II listed house in Bruton, Somerset. The project involves reconstruction of the rear portion of the house with a new zinc-clad upper storey and reconfiguration of the external spaces to better connect the deep-plan interior to the rear garden. Work is due to commence in the Spring.

The Retrofit Coordinator Diploma that has been developed by CoRE is now taking off. Having recently presented at the FMB Bob will repeat the Risk Management module on Tuesday 2nd December.

We were delighted to see so many people attend the launch of the 15-40 architecture collective on 28th October at the building centre. For information on what that is go to www.15-40.co.uk.

The scaffolding has come down on our latest project in Somerset, a house in the hill-top village of High Ham. By enlarging some openings and replacing the windows with single pane sliding doors the connection between the house and the landscape has been transformed. The house now enjoys magnificent views across the Somerset Levels.

We are delighted to announce that our retrofit and extension project to a house in Kentish town has been granted planning permission. As well as being underpinned by a fabric first low energy approach, there is a strong ecological bent to this project. This ambitious project includes internal wall insulation throughout and a modest extension to the rear that transforms the internal planning at ground floor.

Bob presented a 20 minute seminar entitled 'Retrofit- how far to go?'. This was a personal reflection of our experience to date. He is pictured here answering questions following his presentation.

We will again be taking part in the annual International Passivhaus Open Days. The Dundon Passivhaus will open to visitors between 1 and 5pm on Sunday November 9th. The open days offer a chance to see how a Passivhaus works and speak to the owners about the experience of living in one. Graham will be leading tours on the hour and will be available to answer questions. The house is very nearly finished but hasn't been certified yet. To book a visit please contact Graham at our Somerset office.

Bob delivered a retrofit seminar with Marion his partner to a great audience with lots of pertinent questions. We hope to repeat this event in due course.

The west London mews house we designed in collaboration with Jill Scholes Interior Design is featured in the September issue of Homes & Gardens magazine.

The house we designed at Kyverdale Road in Stoke Newington is featured in the September issue of Grand Designs Magazine.

Graham's review of Hauser & Wirth's new gallery at Durslade Farm near Bruton is in the July/August issue of Architecture Today.

There is also a post about it on our blog here.

In April we gained planning permission for an extension to a Somerset farmhouse. A new kitchen-dining room with a dramatic tilted roof will re-orient the house towards its garden, providing a tall, glazed, open space to contrast with the more enclosed traditional rooms of the farmhouse. The steelwork went up this week and completion is due in September.

Robert will be leading a workshop on 1st May with Mark Elton ofSustainable by Design for the Passivhaus Trust entitled Masterclass - Passivhaus Retrofit. The workshop will focus on what to look out for when designing, specifying, building and commissioning EnerPHit projects. The event will be held at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. Places are still available - see the Passivhaus Trustwebsite for details.

Rob will be leading another Masterclass on Whole-house Retrofit on 28th January with Russell Smith of Parity Projects at the CoRE Conference and Demonstrator Centre in Stoke-on-Trent. This masterclass explains the strategy of whole-house retrofit embracing the building fabric, building services and renewable energy systems, in order to achieve deep cuts in the fuel use, fuel costs and carbon dioxide emissions. For tickets & availability please visit CoRE Training Courses.

After many years of deliberation and plain old not-getting-round-to-it we are pleased to announce the launch of our new website! There are still things to tweak and more to add but at least it no longer looks like we died in 2007. We’re very pleased with it - a big thank you to Tracy & team at Somerton Computing.

Both the 80% House and the Retrofit for the Future House are included in a new book Residential Retrofit: Twenty Case Studieswritten by Marion Baeli. Published this week by RIBA Publishing the book presents a series of innovative and best practice case studies of residential low energy retrofit projects, and illustrates what has been achieved in practice in the UK.

Marion is an architect and associate at Paul Davis + Partners. She has received three awards for her work on 100 Princedale Road, the first retrofit in the UK to be certified to the full Passivhaus standard.

The Dundon Passivhaus will open to visitors as part of the UKPassivhaus Open Days between 2 and 5pm on November 10th. The open days offer a chance to see how a Passivhaus works and speak to the owners about the experience of living in one. Graham will be leading tours on the hour and will be available to answer questions. The house isn’t finished yet but it’s a good time to visit as some of the ductwork and air-tightness measures are still visible. To book a visit please contact Graham at our Somerset office.

Planning permission was granted this week for retrofit and extension of a house designed by Walter Segal - our second in 2 months! The two storey house in Walter's Way, Honor Oak Park will be extended and re-organised internally to simplify circulation and make better use of space. Externally the house will be insulated and overclad with new horizontal timber boards, spaced to leave the vertical battens visible behind to preserve the module of the original Segal cladding system.

Rob will be leading a Masterclass on Whole-house Retrofit on 3rd October with Russell Smith of Parity Projects at the CoRE Conference and Demonstrator Centre in Stoke-on-Trent. For tickets & availability please visit the CoRE Events page.

Robert will be leading a workshop on 24th September with Bill Butcher of Green Building Store for the Passivhaus Trust entitled Masterclass in Retrofit. The event will be held at the Saint Gobain Innovation Centre in central London. Places are still available - see thePassivhaus Trust website for details.

In June Graham submitted an exhibition proposal for the British pavilion at the 14th International Architecture Venice Biennale. The title of the 2014 Biennale is “Fundamentals” and overall Director Rem Koolhaas has called on national pavilions to respond to the theme “Absorbing Modernity: 1914-2014”. The competition to curate the British pavilion is being run by the British Council. Submitted in collaboration with Rob Gregory , Programme Manager at the Bristol Architecture Centre, our proposal entitled “Landscapes of Modernity” was to explore the character and presence of modernity in rural, suburban and urban contexts by charting changing attitudes and architectural responses to landscape in the period 1914-2014. Ours was one of 4 proposals short-listed. We attended an interview last week but were not successful. The winners are a team comprising FAT Architecture, Crimson Architectural Historians and Owen Hatherley. We greatly enjoyed researching the proposal and Graham will be exploring the subject of landscape and rural architecture further through his blog.

We received planning permission this week for an extension to a house designed by Walter Segal in Honor Oak Park. The proposals include retrofitting the existing single storey house with external insulation, a new lounge-dining space and external terrace. The house is part of a development of 7 houses in Segal Close built in the early 1980s by a group of self-builders on land sold to them by Lewisham Council. Walter Segal's approach aimed to simplify the methods of building using standard, off-the-shelf components so that it could be undertaken by anyone. His work is a continuing inspiration to self-builders. We are currently working on extensions to two other Segal houses nearby. The house at Segal Close is currently for sale with The Modern House.

Five of Graham’s detail drawings feature in Eric Parry Architects - Volume 3, the monograph series on the work of Eric Parry’s officepublished this week by Artifice Books. Four of the drawings were specially commissioned for the book. We are great admirers of Parry’s work, particularly the way materials are brought together through meticulous detailing in a way that is highly inventive but also part of a lineage of historic architectural forms and cultural associations.

Throughout 2013 Robert will be presenting a seminar with Frances Bradshaw of Anne Thorne Architects as part of the RIBA’s Core CPD programme. Entitled Climate: Building physics and retrofit design, the seminar will be held in 13 different venues across England and Wales. Places can be booked either through the regional RIBA offices or online here.