University of Aberdeen's Rocking Horse Nursery presented Passive House Certification

3rd June 2016

The Rocking Horse Nursery at the University of Aberdeen has been formally recognised as the first Passive House nursery in Scotland and the first building of its kind in the Scottish higher education sector.

Professor Wolfgang Feist, co-founder of the Passive House concept and Director of the Passive House Institute in Darmstadt, and his colleague Dieter Herz presented the nursery with its Passive House certification last week, as well as a celebratory plaque.

Professor Jeremy Kilburn, Senior Vice-Principal, said:

“The University was delighted to host Professor Feist, an acknowledged pioneer of sustainable buildings and a lifelong advocate of energy efficiency.  We are very proud to have secured certification to the exacting Passive House standard for our new Nursery, and pleased that it is the first Nursery to be so certified in Scotland and the first such building in the Scottish higher education sector.”

Professor Feist also hosted a talk in the university's King’s College Conference Centre and an earlier session at the School of Engineering which proved very popular with lively Q&A sessions with knowledgeable audiences.


Passive House buildings are designed with quality components, high-levels of insulation, and systems to recycle heat and circulate fresh air around the building.  Passive buildings are extremely energy efficient, requiring significantly lower levels of energy for space heating than regular buildings.  Certification to this standard requires that the building comply with a range of key performance indicators, including air-tightness, thermal performance, and energy demand.