As the new-build sector grinds to a halt a window of opportunity has opened for builders, architects and other construction service providers – refurbishing Ireland’s existing housing stock. Jason Walsh visited an end-terrace house in inner city Dublin to see just how significant the improvements can be.
Ireland's largest passive house development to date, Shanganagh Castle, is proof that with proper planning and collaboration, delivering high density housing doesn’t mean compromising on quality or climate action – without increasing costs or causing delays.
The building is the first all timber office complex in Ireland. It covers almost 2,300m2 of floor space and provides accommodation for almost 100 staff working in a wide range of forestry related disciplines.
The desire for better insulated, more environmentally friendly homes is driving ever more Irish self-builders to investigate alternatives to traditional block building. Jason Walsh visited a contemporary style factory-built timber frame house built in County Waterford in 2005.
In the third installment of a new feature on international green buildings, Lenny Antonelli takes a look at more innovative, sustainable and striking buildings from around the world.
If achieving eco buildings is challenging for new build, it is doubly so for renovation projects.
Philip & Delphine Geoghegan of iCon Architecture & Uban Design describe a low impact renovation that balances these apparent tensions with great success.
Building a visitor centre at such an evocative site as the Cliffs of Moher, one of Ireland’s greatest tourist attractions must have been something of a challenge. By attempting to cater for visitors, the centre could so easily have ruined the rugged, barren landscape which makes people visit in the first place. John Hearne visited the new interpretive centre to discover a building which addresses this problem by becoming part of the landscape, whilst using eco technologies to reduce the building’s strain on the broader environment.
In the second installment of a new feature on international green buildings, Lenny Antonelli takes a look at four innovative, sustainable and striking buildings from around the world.
Jason Walsh visited the Green Building, a pioneering sustainable development built in Dublin's Temple Bar in 1994, to find out how one of Ireland’s most ground breaking eco designs has been performing over the last decade.
Adding to the list of developers aiming to deliver energy efficient housing, Cronan Nagle Construction are currently on site with 188 highly insulated, airtight homes in Ennis, co. Clare. The development, which also incorporates heat recovery ventilation and condensing gas boilers is surpassing the thermal requirements of Building Regulations by up to 45%, as John Hearne discovers.
Our ethos at Ecological Building Systems is to achieve 'Better Building' by adopting a 'Fabric First' approach to design.
