Passivhaus Premium 'Campuses of the future'

Northern Ireland's Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) is proposing to rebuild two of its campuses to the Passivhaus Premium standard. Following in the footsteps of nearby Enniskillen's South West College's Erne Campus project, all the buildings on the new College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprises (CAFRE) Greenmount and Loughry campuses will target Passivhaus Premium.

Greenmount Campus

Greenmount Campus delivers education and training in agriculture, horticulture, land-based engineering, and veterinary nursing. The new buildings on the campus will include:

Central Hub: with reception area, conference centre, dining facilities and staff offices.
200-bedroom student accommodation: with self-catering facilities and communal areas, including a fitness suite and social spaces.
Teaching building facility: comprising 15 classrooms, a state-of-the-art teaching and projects laboratory, a specialist practical classroom for teaching veterinary nursing and a lecture theatre for 70 students.

Loughry Campus

Loughry Campus delivers education, training, business and technology programmes in food technology and innovation to meet the needs of the food processing industry. The new buildings on the campus will include:

100-bed student accommodation: with self-catering facilities, communal areas including a multi-functional room and social space
Hub: comprising a front-of-house reception area, a dedicated conference centre, and dining room
Laboratories: incorporating food microbiology, food chemistry, and food packaging/robotics
Staff/teaching building: comprising a mix of classrooms, and a tiered lecture theatre

PHT member Bennett Freehill is acting as Passivhaus Consultant & M&E Designer on both campus projects, with PHT member Mosart acting as Passivhaus Certifier.

Key stats

Number of buildings: 6 in total (over both campuses)
TFA: 30,000 m² (over both campuses)
Expected build start date: 2026/27
Certification: Aiming for Passivhaus Premium

Science Building, Loughry Campus, Image credit: Gregory Architects

Student accommodation, Greenmount Campus. Image credit: Hamilton Architects

A key aim of the CAFRE redevelopment project is to build the most sustainable campuses in the UK and Ireland by utilising the latest building design and renewable energy technologies to create exemplar buildings, which achieve BREEAM Outstanding and Passivhaus Premium accreditation.

CAFRE website

Construction

The ambitious large-scale 'Campuses of the future' project aims to create a replicable campus strategy, delivering Passivhaus Premium buildings across student accommodation, teaching blocks, laboratories and community hubs. The buildings will take a fabric first approach, alongside electrification including ground source heat pumps. Campus-scale solar PV renewable generation is combined with large-scale battery energy storage systems.

U-values (Central Hub, Greenmount Campus)
Roof: 0.15 W/m²K
Wall: 0.14 W/m²K
Floor: 0.18 W/m²K

Building performance

Designed energy performance (Central Hub, Greenmount)

Airtightness n₅₀ (≤ 0.6ACH @ 50 Pa)

0.6 @ 50 Pa

Space Heating Demand (≤ 15 kWh/m².a)

14.3 kWh/m².a

Heating Load (≤ 10 W/m²)

9.7 W/m²

Primary Energy Renewable (PER) Demand (≤ 30 kWh/m².a for Premium)

24.2 kWh/m².a

Overheating %

Services

Heating strategy: Heating and hot water will be provided by a vertical borehole ground-source heat pumps (GSHP) sized for low-grade emitters. Free cooling is available via a ground loop bypass in summer.

Ventilation: High-efficiency MVHR with 80% heat-recovery efficiency and automatic summer bypass will be specified.

Renewables: The strategy has been sized to satisfy ≥ 120 kWh/m²a renewable generation to achieve Passivhaus Premium. For the Greenmount Campus, the roof-mounted solar PV will incorporate 700 modules @ 595 W (≈ 387 kWp). Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) are proposed to utilise surplus generation and manage export constraints.

Summer comfort: A comprehensive shading strategy will be implemented to deliver summer comfort and keep overheating risk to a minimum.

Teaching Building, Greenmount Campus, Image credit: Hamilton Architects

Entrance View, Loughry Campus, Image credit: Gregory Architects

Key team (Greenmount)

Economic operator: Hamilton Architects

Architect: Hamilton Architects

Passivhaus Consultant: Bennett Freehill

Contractor: Out to tender

Structural engineer: RPS

M&E consultant: Bennett Freehill

Passivhaus Certifier: Mosart

Key team (Loughry)

Economic operator: Hood McGowan Kirk

Architect: Gregory Architects

Passivhaus Consultant: Bennett Freehill

Contractor: Out to tender

Structural engineer: Taylor & Boyd

M&E consultant: Bennett Freehill

Passivhaus Certifier: Mosart

Find out more about the project at the UK & Ireland Passivhaus Conference 2025 on 8 October 2025, where James O’Boyle from DAERA, Jonathan Greig from Hamilton Architects, and Cormac Freehill from Bennett Freehill will be speaking about the Greenmount Campus phase of the project in the 'Keynote projects - non-domestic' section of the Conference.