International Green Buildings

In the first installment of a new feature on international green buildings, Lenny Antonelli takes a look at five innovative, sustainable and striking buildings from around the world.

Box-like, small windows, primary colour renders - there is a common misconception that building to the passive house standard involves sacrificing design freedom for the sake of thermal performance. Not so, argues passive house guru Tomás O’Leary of MosArt and the Irish Passive House Academy, as his selection of architecturally diverse buildings reveals.

Nottingham passive house enters Solar Decathlon

With 36 years experience in ecological architecture, Paul Leech of Gaia Ecotecture possesses a formidable knowledge of international green design. Fresh from picking up the best ecological building 2010 Lama award for the pioneering Navan Credit Union  – and a favourable review in Prof George Baird’s Sustainable Buildings in Practice: What the Users Think - a global survey of green buildings - Leech describes a handful of inspirational green exemplar projects from around the world.

Lenny Antonelli takes a look at some of the entrants of the 2009 Solar Decathlon, a competition that challenges university teams from around the world to design and build homes that capture the sun’s energy.

Solearth partner & Éasca board member Mike Haslam profiles five inspiring English and US projects that share a similarly considered green design approach.

Green architect Minka McInerney profiles six unique green buildings including a cardboard school building, a globe-trotting recycled museum & the tallest timber building in the world

Do termites apply building science better than humans? Award winning architect Sean Harrington takes a characteristically left-of-brain approach to our international feature, leading to some humbling lessons.

When Construct Ireland asked Vivienne Brophy of the UCD Energy Research Group to select projects for this feature she suggested that the second year UCD Architecture students make the selection, using UCD’s sustainable building rating system tool to verify their choice

Innovative low energy construction is rarely recognised on a European scale. The Isover Energy Efficiency Awards are one exception — here are nominations from across the continent that were celebrated at the European awards ceremony in Barcelona on 2 June