From the Construct Ireland archives

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

An indepth look at the forthcoming Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings by Jeff Colley.

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.

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RICHARD DOUTHWAITE proposes measures including energy upgrade of the housing stock  which could help to avoid economic meltdown, and JAY STUART outlines some energy saving measures which could be rolled out.

Ireland — along with much of the western world — relies on the International Energy Agency‘s oil production forecasts. But are they reliable, asks Lenny Antonelli?

An ambitious new community initiative aims to run Clonakilty on 100% renewable energy — and with similar projects sprouting up across Ireland and Europe, it offers one local example of how our Energise Ireland campaign can achieve its primary goal: weaning Ireland off fossil fuels and on to green energy.

It could be a reflex response to the shockingly poor construction standards that came to define Ireland’s boom years, but the world’s leading low energy building standard is starting to thrive in Ireland. As the several case studies following this article reveal, a groundswell of Irish clients, designers, contractors and manufacturers are starting to recognise the opportunities available in becoming early adopters of a standard destined for exponential global growth.

If the Irish construction industry is truly to rapidly embrace the concept of sustainability, leadership from the public sector will be paramount in setting the right example. John Hearne spoke to the design team of the Opus and RIBA award-winning Cork Civic Offices, a development which keeps carbon emissions and fossil energy consumption to a minimum, and once more puts the public sector at the forefront of innovative sustainable design

Jason Walsh visited the recently refurbished offices of Wicklow County Council to see an approach that achieves energy conservation, carbon reduction and dramatically increased occupant comfort by lowering electricity and heat demand and avoiding unwanted overheating