From the Construct Ireland archives

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.

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.

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

A new public park on the northside of Dublin combines wind power and sustainable water management with environmentally sound materials and strategies to boost biodiversity, making it a standard-bearer in urban design. Lenny Antonelli visited the site

With money leaving local economies across Ireland to service debt and significant drops in local authority revenues, towns such as Dundalk, Ennis and Kilkenny are investigating the possibility of bringing in electronic currencies to keep money circulating locally, as Richard Douthwaite reveals.

Jeff Colley spoke to Commissioner Piebalgs about key issues affecting Ireland’s energy future  and the importance of local initiatives such as Fingal County Council’s groundbreaking introduction of sustainable building requirements

The government recently announced a fund of e100 million for energy upgrading Irish houses in 2009, to be divided equally between low income and middle income earners. Focusing on the latter, Jason Walsh looks at the details of the Home Energy Saving scheme and speaks to key figures in the industry to get their views on the ingredients needed to make the scheme a success

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

There’s rather more to designing a sustainable building than specifying low-embodied energy materials and making sure it will require little energy and maintenance in use. Low water demand and the ability to get the nutrients discharged in the sewage back to the land are important too.

The advent of central heating improved the comfort of life for countless Irish people over the past century, but as energy efficient building grows, some pioneering homeowners think they can live without it. What’s life like for them?