Our Latest News
16 April 2026
Passivhaus Plus
Grade II listed building on track for Enerphit after airtightness retrofit
A Grade II listed building on the edge of Birkenhead Park is on track to become what is believed to be the world’s first Enerphit certified listed building, after an airtightness intervention brought it well within the retrofit standard’s threshold.
4 April 2026
Passivhaus Trust
From Victorian villa to EnerPHit exemplar: Hampstead's heritage retrofit
A Victorian semi-detached villa near Hampstead Heath has been transformed into a compelling deep retrofit projects in London - achieving certified EnerPHit standard within a Conservation Area, and shortlisted for the RIBA London Awards 2026.
7 May 2025
RISE Podcast
Retrofit case studies with Ecospheric
Kit Knowles, Managing Director at Ecospheric Ltd., talks to host Sarah McClelland about his background and experiences in the retrofit sector.
Kit breaks down what he terms the ‘triangle of constraint’ when it comes to retrofit, and what important tools and approaches can be used to overcome these constraints by those planning their own retrofit projects.
6 January 2025
Grand Designs Magazine
World-first Passivhaus church conversion offers luxury stays in sustainable green retreat
A world-first Passivhaus church conversion in Northumberland showcases the best of sustainable renovation and green tech. Available for holiday lets, the owners hope it will give anyone considering their own green build the chance to ‘try before they buy'
9 December 2024
Historic England: Heritage Counts
The Embodied Carbon Emissions of Construction and Retrofit Materials for Traditional Buildings
This article explores the role of heritage retrofit in contributing to embodied carbon emissions for the built environment sector. It cites research carried out by Ecospheric's technical director Ben Riddle in collaboration with Dr. Haniyeh Mohammadpourkarbasi, Senior Lecturer in Low Carbon Architecture at the University of Liverpool.
1 May 2024
Towards a Carbon Neutral Future
Global warming potential comparison of lime and cement-based masonry repair mortars
Ecospheric's industry-based PhD researcher Luke Dickens has published a chapter about his research comparing the global warming potential of lime vs. cement based mortars in the context of heritage retrofit.
21 December 2023
Passive House Plus
Play To Win: Creative Play Cafe Brings Passive Benefits for Bristol Families
A site with a dilapidated building in Bristol has been transformed into a crucial social space by a husband and wife team of environmentally and socially engaged architects, aided by a polymath sustainability consultant.
7 December 2023
Homebuilding & Renovating
Real Project: Eco Retrofit
Homebuilding & Renovating magazine interviews Ecospheric client, Aline, about the retrofit of her 1960s modernist house to create a highly energy-efficient and sustainable home of the future. The project has won HBR's Best Green Home award for 2023.
1 December 2023
ASBP Awards 2024
Goldfinch Create & Play Shortlisted for Best Project Award
Goldfinch Create & Play is named as one of three finalists in the Project category for the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products awards. Ecospheric supported this project to become the world's first Passivhaus certified art cafe.
30 October 2023
RIBA Journal
Toughened standard for government-funded whole house retrofits
This article about the changes to home retrofit requirements under a national PAS 2035 standard features our Passivhaus project in Manchester. The focus shifts to a whole house approach rather than individual measures and a medium-term retrofit plan.
1 October 2023
Energy and Buildings: Volume 296
Life cycle carbon assessment of decarbonising UK’s hard-to-treat homes
Ecospheric's technical director Ben Riddle co-authored this comparative study of conventional retrofit vs EnerPHit, heat pump first vs fabric first and ecological vs petrochemical retrofit approaches. The research was carried out in collaboration with the University of Liverpool School of Architecture.
24 July 2023
Zero Ambitions Podcast
Fabric second, not fabric first: impact, heritage, retrofit, and strategy, with Kit Knowles (Ecospheric)
Ecospheric director Kit Knowles is featured in this podcast about sustainability and the built environment hosted by Jeff Colley (Passive House Plus), Dan Hyde (Everything is User Experience) and Alex Blondin (Everything is User Experience).
4 May 2023
Passivhaus Trust
Modernist EnerPHit Plus
A 1960s 'Modernist' London home, originally designed by architect Michael Blackstock, has undergone an EnerPHit Plus retrofit makeover. Passivhaus retrofit standards were implemented to allow the home to face the challenges of the future and future-proof the house against rising energy bills.
21 April 2023
Passive House Plus
Modern Love: 1960's Lambeth modernist gem gets Enerphit treatment
Where does the balance lie between conservation of buildings, energy and nature. One deep retrofit to a London modernist house may point the way ahead, bringing light, form and avant garde energy performance to old ideas about contemporary living.
31 March 2023
RIBA Journal
Retrofitting a 1960s modernist house to Passivhaus standards
A 1960s modernist house had not been touched for 40 years before RDA Architects reconfigured it and brought it up to the EnerPHit standards – the Passivhaus criteria for retrofits. Practice director Richard Didzucki explains the process
21 January 2023
Passive House Award
3rd Passive House Architecture Award: Award Recipients & Finalists Book
Ecospheric's Zetland Passive House project was awarded the Swisspacer award for "Living Comfort" at the 2021 International Passive House Awards. The winning projects have been commemorated in this book.
9 September 2022
The RIBA Journal
How to make sure your in-use sustainability sums add up
The RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge is asking architects to check their buildings' energy performance against sustainability targets. This first of a mini series sets out why operational energy calculations matter and how to go about them on a live project
17 February 2022
ASBP Awards 2022
People's Prize Winner: Zetland Passive House
The Zetland Passive House project is the UK’s first certified EnerPHit Plus building. Originally built in 1894, this Passivhaus project is intended to provide a blueprint for retrofitting the UK’s 8 million pre-1930’s, hard to treat homes. Using natural, breathable materials and reusing all the recoverable, original fabric, the project is a pioneering example of sustainable low carbon retrofit.
25 March 2021
Historic England
New Report: “Greening” Historic Homes Could Save up to 84% in Carbon Emissions
Carefully retrofitting our historic homes could save up to 84% in carbon emissions, according to this year’s Heritage Counts report, published today (25 March) by Historic England on behalf of England’s leading heritage organisations which make up the Historic Environment Forum.
16 January 2020
RIBA: Professional Feature
How hard is it to retrofit a house to zero carbon levels?
It's one thing to design and construct new, exemplary zero-carbon buildings, but quite another to tackle the huge carbon footprint of the existing built environment. RIBA's Professional Feature writer Neal Morris interviews Kit Knowles.
16 July 2019
Blueprint Magazine
Ay-up? Manchester
Manchester is booming with so many city centre developments that the sky is a forest of construction cranes. But caution and chill are tempering the city’s confidence. What does the proliferation of residential projects say about Manchester’s future? Words by Herbert Wright
2 June 2019
The Modern House
Insight Report: sustainable living at home
Modern House magazine looks at how the idea of sustainable living at home is coming to the fore of multiple fields, keeping designers, architects, developers, and homeowners’ minds busy with how to reduce emissions, cut energy needs and, in some cases, achieve rarefied ‘carbon negative’ status.
30 April 2019
House Beautiful
Property: Eco Victorian
New-builds are usually thought of as warm, fuel-efficient and ecofriendly, while period homes are seen as cold, draughty and expensive to heat. But now there's a way of renovating older homes to make them as efficient as their younger neighbours - so much so, they don't even need central heating. Words by Jayne Dowle.
14 February 2019
Architecture Today
Taking Stock: A pair of Victorian semis have been renovated to the Enerphit Plus standard by Guy Taylor Associates and Ecospheric
Kit Knowles, founder of eco consultant Ecospheric bought two adjoining semi-detached houses, then divided into flats and dilapidated, in Chorlton, Manchester. His ambition was to create an exemplary pilot project using old building stock.
22 January 2019
The Fifth Estate
Graphene stars in Passivhaus retrofit of Victorian townhouses
Passivehaus homes often have a distinctive look but with the help of a few new technologies and materials such as graphene there’s now more variation in shape and style than ever before – even Victorian-era townhouses are getting the Passivehaus treatment.
21 December 2018
Passive House Plus
Industrial Revolution: Manchester retrofit may be the greenest ever
With obsessive attention to preserving and restoring the original fabric of these two Victorian townhouses, and a commitment to shunning petrochemicals and using only natural materials, could this be the most wildly ambitious and sustainable passive retrofit ever undertaken in the UK?
3 December 2018
BBC R4 Beyond Today
Can Manchester mend the planet?
World leaders are meeting in Poland for the latest round of United Nations-sponsored climate talks. The meeting is the most critical on climate change since the 2015 Paris agreement. Since the US pulled out of that deal the scale of the problem can seem overwhelming – as we hear in this episode the Swedes call it “climate angst” and have some radical solutions to address it. But there are plenty of more practical solutions to tackling climate change much closer to home. We travel to Manchester, which plans to go carbon neutral in the next twenty years.
30 March 2018
Manchester Evening News
The Chorlton homes which generate their own electricity and require no gas or central heating
On completion, later this summer, they will be Europe’s first-ever ‘Passive House Plus’ homes - an ecologically-friendly property which is so firmly insulated and tight it doesn’t need a centralised heating system.
31 May 2016
Renovations: An Inspirational Design Primer
RIBA publishing. By Richard Wilcock.
The UK’s housing stock has proved to be remarkably durable, as houses from the 18th and 19th centuries are still adaptable to the requirements of modern living. However, the need to respect the environment and to reduce energy costs presents a new set of challenges for the owners of period properties.
In Renovations, Richard Wilcock analyses a host of cutting-edge projects to examine the challenges of adapting traditional house types; retaining historic features whilst introducing modern interventions. The book brings together more than two decades of research to showcase the best examples of domestic extensions and internal remodelling in the UK today.
31 August 2012
Greenbuilding Magazine
SuperHomers embrace passive solar
Passive solar design is no longer limited to Passivhaus and new-build housing projects. It is creeping its way into domestic retrofit too. Homeowners, with the freedom to extend their properties and glaze a south facing façade, are starting to take greater advantage of the sun’s light and warmth. This is reducing the need for artificial lighting, heating and cooling in their homes. Gordon Glass reports ...
