06 October 2026 – Leading construction firm GRAHAM has handed over Weavers’ Hall, a 16-storey, 459-bedroom Purpose Built Managed Student Accommodation (PBMSA) development on Dublin Road in Belfast, built to the Passivhaus standard for Queen’s University Belfast. It combines cluster apartments with studio units, alongside quiet study spaces, communal lounges, dining areas, laundry and reception facilities.

The building is the first student accommodation in the city built to the Passivhaus standard and the largest Passivhaus student scheme on the island of Ireland. At 16 storeys, it sits above the 35-metre tall-building threshold, making high-rise Passivhaus delivery the project’s central technical challenge.

Passivhaus certification demands outstanding fabric performance across the whole building. Weavers’ Hall’s key performance figures are:

Weavers’ Hall surpasses the Passivhaus airtightness requirement by almost a fifth. Delivering that result across 16 storeys and thousands of metres of façade interfaces required extensive thermal bridge modelling, façade reviews and installation workshops before construction began.

The team adopted an external self-adhesive airtight membrane and treated the steel frame system (SFS) as part of a service zone, so the continuous airtightness layer sat beyond the SFS line. A semi-centralised ventilation strategy let individual mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) units serve apartments stacked vertically, reducing supply and extract penetrations through the external façade.

The university appointed GRAHAM under the Major Works Framework managed by Pagabo, bringing the contractor in before design development began. Running cost planning, design and planning in parallel let every decision be tested through a Passivhaus lens. The scheme moved from Stage 0 in May 2023 to breaking ground in August 2024, reaching completion and handover on 11 September 2026, just over two years on site.

The building is fully electric with no fossil fuels, using air source heat pumps for heating and hot water. Switching to a CEM II cement with limestone fines cut embodied carbon by 166 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, and the scheme targets a BREEAM Excellent rating.

 

Ciaran Leahy, contracts director at GRAHAM, said:

“Achieving Passivhaus standards in a 16-storey building is a significant challenge, and Weavers’ Hall is testament to the fact that this can be, and is achievable without compromising cost or programme.

“To deliver a scheme of this scale and complexity in just over two years on site, and to this standard, took everyone involved working to a single goal. Because we were in from day one, we could design out risk at the fabric level, from the external airtight membrane to the ventilation strategy, rather than trying to retrofit performance and the Passivhaus principles thereafter.

“The methodologies we validated here give the wider industry a route to high-rise Passivhaus, and a blueprint for the next generation of sustainable buildings across the UK and Ireland.”

Professor Sir Ian Greer, president and vice chancellor at Queen’s University Belfast, said: 

“Accommodation can add so much to the student experience and Weavers’ Hall is perfectly located for Queen’s students to make the most of this vibrant city. It has transformed the landscape of Belfast’s Dublin Road and acted as a powerful catalyst for economic regeneration in the area through student city-centre living.“What we’ve achieved through this partnership with GRAHAM and a wide specialist supply chain is testament to the pooled expertise of construction and University colleagues. I wish to congratulate all colleagues and partners whose hard work, dedication and collaboration have made this milestone opening possible.”

GRAHAM appointed RPP Architects, Etive Consulting and Bennett Freehill and assembled the wider consultant team, delivering the scheme through a single integrated structure from the outset. The success of this project is not without the invaluable support of the Passivhaus Certifer Mosart.