Passive House &
High-Performance Homes

A Passive House (Passivhaus) is a home designed and certified to an international performance standard: exceptional insulation, airtight construction, no thermal bridges, high-performance glazing, and continuous fresh-air ventilation with heat recovery. The result is a home that needs almost no active heating - and proves it with measured targets, not marketing.

Typically a modest premium over an equivalent well-built home, concentrated in windows, airtightness detailing and the ventilation system - and partly offset by simpler heating. The premium shrinks with good early design decisions, which is why passive homes should be designed to the standard from day one rather than upgraded to it later.

Arguably more than anywhere - our housing stock is famously cold, damp and draughty, and our climate is mild enough that a passive envelope gets you to year-round comfort with very little energy. In Wellington specifically, airtight construction also means a home that's calm and quiet in the wind.

Certification means the design is energy-modelled, the airtightness is physically tested, and an independent certifier verifies the result. "Principles" means applying the same design logic without the formal verification. We design both, but we'll always tell you honestly what a given budget can verify.

Yes - the retrofit standard is called EnerPHit, with slightly relaxed targets that acknowledge the constraints of existing buildings. Even partial deep-retrofits (insulation, airtightness, ventilation, glazing) can transform how an older home performs.

Not necessarily - Passive House is a performance standard, not an aesthetic - it can be a modern pavilion, a gable form, or a renovated villa. Compact, well-oriented forms certify more easily, which tends to produce better architecture anyway.