From the Construct Ireland archives

Hugh Dorrian, member of the Main Committee of the recently launched Building Limes Forum Ireland reveals lime is regaining ground as a key material not only in conservation projects, but in new build.

More and more businesses are looking to alternative energy sources to light, heat and cool their buildings but few have made a commitment to cutting carbon emissions to match Newbridge Silver, a silverware manufacturer in County Kildare. Jason Walsh visited the factory to find out more.

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 September, Sustainable Energy Ireland launched a major energy efficient housing development in Tuam, Co Galway. Houses in the development are over 70% more energy efficient than houses built to standard Building Regulations requirements. Construct Ireland’s John Hearne describes.

The rendering industry in Ireland is in a process of change and thus has been the centre of much heated debate between renderers, the meat industry, Irish livestock farmers and the Department of Agriculture and Food.

With the building of a new house in Greystones, County Wicklow, Ireland has become only the third country to feature the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. Jason Walsh visited the site to see if Wright's designs might just represent the kind of thinking required in today's energy-conscious buildings.

With an economy fuelled by a government approach to planning that many people equate to a road building and house building free for all, it should come as no surprise that quality of life suffers

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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‘‘We have a body of extremely experienced and competent staff who will be able to hit the ground running”

Richard Douthwaite reveals that oil and gas peak are barely mentioned in the Government's recent energy Green Paper.