Interiors: Why home design is getting smart, sustainable and health conscious

The term “passive house” is often incorrectly used to describe energy-efficient buildings. In fact, it’s a highly specific construction standard developed by Swedish and German scientists and engineers. The name comes from the German ‘Passivhaus’. In Ireland, passive houses are relatively rare. The Passive House Association of Ireland records just 45, although there may well be more unregistered buildings.

Passive houses can be built and designed in different ways, so long as they reach the required standard. They don’t depend on eco-gadgets, apart from a Ventilation Heat Recovery system (VHR), which removes the stale air and circulates clean fresh air throughout the house. They have excellent insulation and are thoroughly airtight and sealed to prevent heat loss. The windows are triple glazed and the building is orientated for summer shade and winter sun.

“Sometimes when you’re forced to make sustainable decisions, you make more interesting choices,” says Sara Cosgrove, interior designer and principal of Grove & Co. “It takes more time, but the results are richer.” She’s just completed the showhouse interiors at Drumnigh Oaks by Barrymore, a development of 25 passive houses in Portmarnock, County Dublin.

For the record, passive houses are not necessarily more expensive to build than other new homes that meet the required minimum BER rating of A2, but Drumnigh Oaks is a high-end development. The houses are priced from €860,000 with interiors to match. “The coastal location inspired the palette,” Cosgrove says. “But the interiors were also influenced by the landscaping, which is very nature-orientated. Some of the houses have mature trees in their gardens.”

The materials used in the interiors are as sustainable as Cosgrove can make them. “The sheer curtains are made from recycled plastic bottles and the countertops are sintered stone. No petroleum-based materials are used in its construction.”

She emphasises the importance of interrogating the ingredients used in composite materials and in making choices that use as few chemicals as possible. “It’s like bread. People don’t think about what goes into it but when you look at the list of ingredients, a lot of them have nothing to do with bread.”

The rugs come from Rugs.ie, an Irish family business based in Cork. All of them carry the Care & Fair label, an initiative to combat illegal child labour in the carpet industry across India and Pakistan. “For me, sustainability is about the environment but it’s also about knowing where stuff is coming from,” says Cosgrove.

Almost all the interior paint comes from Enable Ireland’s collaboration with the Rediscovery Centre by which discarded paint is reclaimed, remixed and resold. A 5.6-litre tub of paint costs €15 from Enable Ireland’s charity shop network. “We created a custom colour for Drumnigh Oaks,” Cosgrove says. “The feedback from the painters was very positive. The paint is recycled but the quality is excellent.”

Pollutants emitted by furniture, fabrics, and household materials are an increasing cause for concern. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) many pollutants are two to five times higher inside homes than outside. Common pollutants include formaldehyde and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are damaging to human health. Paint is one of the culprits.

Prestige by Fleetwood (from €105.95 for a five-litre tin), a new range of air-purifying paint, aims to be part of the solution. According to Fleetwood, the water-based, low-VOC, low-emission paint: “removes up to 80pc of airborne formaldehyde … meets ISO 16000-23 standards for indoor air purification and has been independently tested and certified by Eurofins, a globally recognised laboratory.”

Prestige by Fleetwood, which launches at the Ideal Home Show in April, is designed in collaboration with Róisín Lafferty, an interior designer known for expert and adventurous use of colour. For Lafferty, believing in the product and the company that makes it is as important as the colours.

“Fleetwood’s values and the quality of their product is something I truly align with,” she says. “Prestige is a luxury paint that’s easy to use, long lasting, and extremely high quality. The palette is diverse and there’s a wonderful velvety texture to the paint. It has great coverage, which is especially helpful in the rich jewel tones.”

Also at the Ideal Home Show, interior designer Tiffany Jones of Beach House Interiors, will take the stage at the DFS Interiors Theatre to talk about “Wellness: by Design”.

Her concerns include chemical pollutants which come into our homes through fabrics, the foam in mattresses and seating, and the particle board of which much low-cost furniture is made. Some of these release chemicals through a process known as “off-gassing” and can continue doing so for years, long after the obvious chemical smell of new items has gone.

“It’s an absolute minefield,” Jones says. “It’s talked about a lot in fashion but nobody’s talking about it much in interiors. I want to help get the conversation started.

Considered one by one, the materials we use in our homes don’t seem significantly toxic, but Jones hopes to raise awareness of the cumulative effect of pollutants in the home.

While awareness of what’s healthy and what isn’t has yet to be sufficiently defined and regulated, she suggests looking for the FSC mark on furniture and the OEKO-TEX® certification on fabrics. “If a brand uses that certification you know they’re serious about the processes they’re putting into production.”

​See drumnighoaks.com, phai.ie, groveandco.com, enableireland.ie, rediscoverycentre.ie, fleetwood.ie, beach-house.ie. The Ideal Home Show runs from 11 to 13 April at the RDS, Simmonscourt. See idealhome.ie.