UK Passivhaus Retrofit: Fixing our homes for comfort, cost and carbon

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The UK has some of the oldest and least efficient housing in Europe. Much of it is in poor condition, increasingly expensive to heat and a major source of carbon emissions. Around six million people live in fuel poverty, and rising energy costs are deepening the problem. Retrofit is no longer optional: it is a public health, economic and climate priority.

Classic British crescent with restored Victorian red brick houses on a local road with small garden in front

This session shows how the Passivhaus standard, and its retrofit counterpart EnerPHit, offers a rigorous, evidence-based response to all of these challenges at once. By prioritising airtightness, high-performance insulation, thermal bridge reduction and ventilation with heat recovery, Passivhaus retrofit cuts heating demand dramatically, improves comfort and indoor air quality, and protects occupants from energy price volatility.

Drawing on real UK case studies, they will share what was achieved in measured performance, what it cost, what they learned and how the approach can be scaled.

Key takeaways

  • Why the scale and urgency of the UK retrofit challenge demands a fabric-first approach
  • How Passivhaus principles address condition, running costs, carbon and fuel poverty together
  • What measured, in-use results from completed projects show
  • Practical lessons on design, delivery, cost and risk for owners, funders and policymakers

Speakers

Marion Baeli.jpg
Marion Baeli

Principal, Retrofit & Adaptive Reuse, 10 Design

Marion is an architect with over 25 years of experience designing and delivering retrofit projects, with a particular focus on homes. At 10 Design she helps owners, investors and developers upgrade existing buildings so they are warmer, cheaper to run and ready for tightening energy and carbon requirements.

She is the author of RIBA's award-winning Residential Retrofits: 24 Case Studies, and its second edition includes a 10-year evaluation of how retrofitted homes actually perform, giving her a rare evidence base on what works, what it costs and what buyers and occupants experience. Marion advises the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on retrofit and contributes to Westminster City Council's Design Review Panel. She is a board member of the UK Passivhaus Trust, lectures at leading universities including UCL, Westminster and Imperial College, and judges architecture awards for RIBA, the Architects' Journal, CIBSE, CTBUH and Architecture Today.

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Ann-Marie Fallon

Co-Director, The Passivhaus Trust

Ann-Marie is a Co-Director of the Passivhaus Trust and Associate Director at Architype. She is a chartered member of RIBA and ARB.

Retrofitting low energy buildings in the UK and Ireland has been part of her almost 20 year portfolio of practice. Having qualified as an architect in TU Dublin Ireland, she went onto gain a Masters with Cardiff University in Environmental Building Design, and still supports third level education today in environmental design and external examining. Her work at the Passivhaus Trust focuses on development, policy and external affairs. She has been involved in supporting government and local authorities in shifting the dial on retrofit, enabling quality assurance levers to better serve the clients and home owners of the built environment.

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