From the Construct Ireland archives

With the building of a new house in Greystones, County Wicklow, Ireland has become only the third country to feature the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. Jason Walsh visited the site to see if Wright's designs might just represent the kind of thinking required in today's energy-conscious buildings.

Creating the right comfort in buildings for elderly people involves ensuring a warm internal environment, which typically results in high energy consumption. John Hearne visited the new Castle Gardens Retirement Village as it approached completion and found a project that combines complimentary low energy technologies, materials and design to deliver high levels of comfort whilst also keeping running costs, energy consumption and carbon emissions low

Everyone knows that the cheapest way of doing something can turn out to be very expensive in the end. The decision to make Ireland ’s electricity system so reliant on gas is about to bear this principle out. By Richard Douthwaite.

External insulation examined: the reasons why placing insulation outside makes most sense, with six example projects

As more and more people upgrade their homes to make them more energy efficient, it’s crucial for them to consider installing some sort of ventilation system to keep them healthy. Astrid Madsen compares heat recovery ventilation to a relative newbie on the Irish market, demand controlled ventilation.

It has long been anticipated that the cost of sustainable building will come down as it enters the mass market, benefiting from economies of scale and greater industry confidence in low impact techniques and technologies as they become more familiar. Jay Stuart, managing director of integrated sustainable design consultants Delap and Waller EcoCo reveals a Kildare housing project which is likely to rapidly accelerate this process, and convince even the most conservative elements of the industry that low energy, low carbon building can be achieved at little or no additional cost

Four years ago the construction industry was focused on building big and fast — but at the same time, a small team was carefully and ecologically retrofitting a terraced Dublin house on a tight budget according to passive house principles.

In terms of 1972 money, oil prices averaged about six dollars a barrel between 1987 and 2000. Last October they reached $40. They are now around $50 a barrel which means that they are beginning to climb back into the territory which caused the global economy to crash in 1979/80.

The introduction of smart metering later this year presents a great opportunity to engage Irish people en masse into substantially reducing their energy consumption, simply by showing them how much electricity they’re consuming, and how much the cost varies at different times of the day. However, as Richard Douthwaite warns, there is a real risk that smart metering may come in a form that benefits the electricity companies and not the end-user.