The Twin Crises

Feasta Economist Richard Douthwaite on Greenhouse Emissions and the Oil Peak
Welcome to the archive of Construct Ireland, the award-winning Irish green building magazine which spawned Passive House Plus.
The feature articles in these archives span from 2003 to 2011, including case studies on hundreds of Irish sustainable buildings and dozens of investigative pieces on everything from green design and building methods, to the economic arguments for low energy construction.
While these articles appeared in an Irish publication, the vast majority of the content is relevant to our new audience in the UK and further afield. That said, readers from some regions should take care when reading some of the design advice - lots of south facing glazing in New Zealand may not be the wisest choice, for instance.
Dip in, and enjoy!

Construct Ireland tracked down the busy director of Limerick Civil Trust to talk about the sterling work already done, current projects and to ponder the implications of recent FAS cutbacks.

Interhabs, a company who build to the highly energy efficient Canadian Super E programme, have recently entered the Irish house building market.
Jeff Colley speaks to Ronan Long , General Manager of Interhabs Ireland, about the reasons why he believes Interhabs will bring energy efficient, comfortable, healthy homes to people across Ireland

Mixing excellent thermal performance with renewable heating, efforts to boost biodiversity and plans for micro-generation, a new timber frame house in rural Cork shows that both appealing design and low environmental impact can be achieved with one-off rural housing.

Kirk Shanks, Senior Researcher at the Sustainability Research Development Group, the Focas Institute, DIT describes the development of this new sustainable generation.

Ramon Arratia, sustainability director for InterfaceFLOR in Europe, Middle East, Africa & India


Energy upgrade specialists Eaga are responsible for technical training on SEAI’s Home Energy Saving scheme. Eaga technical manager Paul Wilson answers some key technical questions on the installation of boilers and heating arising from the recent contractor training.

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.
Achieving building regulations compliance and a good energy rating is one thing. Delivering a genuinely low energy building is quite another. A new scheme by one of Ireland’s most decorated developers may help show the market a way forward.