INDUSTRY VIEWFINDER 17
Do you believe that Passivhaus design is becoming more popular in the UK among architects, clients & contractors in the past year or two? Yes No Unsure
technologies in Passivhaus, and respondents’ construction methods of choice.
Comparing views in 2021 & 2025: Drivers We asked a series of questions which were identical to those posed in 2021. There was a marked increase in the number of architects saying they have worked on Passivhaus projects, demonstrating a reassuring uptick, on the evidence of our two survey samples at least. Most (65%) had not done a Passivhaus scheme in 2021, and only 19% were currently working on a Passivhaus-certifi ed building. In 2025, the responses were divided 50/50, with 50% saying they have worked on a Passivhaus project. In both surveys we asked our respondents what they believed the most important drivers were for Passivhaus projects, and client engagement was on top in 2025, but also very near the top in 2021, showing their buy-in is one of the most, if not the most important factors for making Passivhaus happen. Despite this, clients’ specifi c CSR policies were not one of the most important motivators of projects, only chosen by 18% in 2025 and 20% in 2021. Low carbon policies and the low carbon agenda in general was climbing the list of priorities in the 2025 survey, chosen by 56%, compared with 45% in 2021. Architects’ own ecological and design aims were important, with 46% in 2025 choosing this, although it had dropped slightly from 56% in 2021. The Future Homes (and Future Buildings) Standard was somewhat more important, as it has manifested more clearly as a target (52% in 2025 versus 30% in 2021). Unfortunately for specialist organisations like the Passivhaus Trust, the impact of their advocacy on driving schemes had dropped, according to our survey group, with only 36% picking this factor this year compared with 63% in 2021.
Remaining stigmas With certain presumptions on Passivhaus design arguably being a stumbling block for many clients and developers, we wanted to know to what extent they agreed with some commonly heard statements on perceptions of how designs looked and functioned ‘in the fl esh,’ and the prognosis for potential evolution of views to bring Passivhaus further into the mainstream. We asked whether architects believed that resistance to the ‘Passivhaus aesthetic’ (due to more compact building forms) will decrease as we approach
ADF MARCH 2025
Chosen by 56% of respondents was the preconception among clients that windows could not be opened in Passivhaus buildings
2050 net zero goals,’ and it was the top answer for respondents in 2021, with 93% saying they agreed with this. It was even further ahead of other options in 2025, albeit with a lower overall tally of 64% (in 2025 respondents gave fewer scores across the board to the ‘preconceptions,’ suggesting that stigmas are slowly receding). In second place in 2025, agreed with by 56%, and perhaps surprisingly given the other serious issues (‘radically or dramatically different’ aesthetics, and developers’ acceptance levels), was the preconception among clients that windows could not be opened in Passivhaus buildings, for fear of their energy performance being compromised. This was a stubbornly high fi gure, only dropping slightly from the 2021 survey in which 58% thought that these assumptions were extant among clients.
The issue around whether buildings needed to look radically different was seen as a common misconception by 43% of our cohort in 2025, a welcome reduction from the 65% saying this was the case in 2021. This allowed the positive conclusion that for our two samples, there were somewhat fewer knee-jerk reactions to Passivhaus based on assumptions around how these buildings may look, in an overall improving picture.
Developers were generally more accepting of Passivhaus construction techniques, according to our latest survey, 41% said that they were coping with the changes required in construction, and this was double the previous fi gure of 20% in 2021. There was one exception in the list to the conclusion that respondents were fi nding fewer stigmas still persisting, namely the positive assertion that Passivhaus has ‘restored the importance of integrated design and strengthened the architect’s role.’ With Passivhaus design necessitating both an unusual degree of design rigour and a truly holistic focus on all of the services within a building and how they interact with the structure, there is a view that the architect’s role is both expanded and strengthened. However while a substantial 83% agreed with this in 2021, the
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