From the Construct Ireland archives

Richard Douthwaite explains how inadequate conventional energy generation is and reveals the potential that combined heat and power & energy service companies can offer.

Cork city split level timber frame house with passive solar design, rainwater harvesting, renewables & green material

Construct Ireland’s Jason Walsh visited the Brooklodge in Macreddin, County Wicklow, to find out about how one hotel has found rising fossil fuel costs the perfect reason to invest in a sustainable future.

Public private partnership schemes have come to dominate many aspects of Irish infrastructural development, from toll roads to urban regeneration schemes. Jason Walsh asks if they amount to privatisation by stealth and whether they come at too high a social and environmental cost.

In this adapted extract from his new book Natural Building: A Guide to Materials and Techniques, seminal eco architect Professor Tom Woolley outlines some of the reasons why natural building is necessary.

Why the Greenov project may be the key to success for Irish SMEs in energy upgrade market

In the hands of the right architect, meeting the passive house standard needn’t involve compromising on design. Construct Ireland visited a recently certified passive house which shows that a seamless low energy architecture is possible

In a comparatively short time, district heating and cooling have emerged as an ideal sustainable solution for mixed use, residential, commercial and industrial developments. Far from being a new technology, district heating systems have been commonplace across Europe since the 1960s. Noel Walshe BE of district heating specialists Noel Walshe ltd explains what is required to deliver the most effective solution.

Few concepts in sustainable design have caught on like the passive house. Since the construction of the first passive house in Germany in 1990, an estimated 15 to 20,000 houses have been built to what is arguably the world’s leading low energy building standard. Drawing from his experience in sustainable building since the early 1980s, Bill Quigley of NuTech Renewables posits an alternative approach.

Until recently the York Street flats had been a living legacy of failed past approaches to social housing – a slum of mainly north-facing flats dating from Victorian times, and poorly rebuilt in the year Ireland became a republic, 1949. John Hearne visited the recently redeveloped York Street and found a thoroughly sustainable set of buildings that should inspire thoughts of future progress rather than past failings.