From the Construct Ireland archives

Renovated agricultural barn marries its traditional look with modern green features

Brian Homan, Joint Managing Director of leading consulting engineers Homan O’Brien Associates describes a nursing home currently being built that is adopting a sustainable building approach to deliver healthy, comfortable accommodation at low running costs.

Box-like, small windows, primary colour renders - there is a common misconception that building to the passive house standard involves sacrificing design freedom for the sake of thermal performance. Not so, argues passive house guru Tomás O’Leary of MosArt and the Irish Passive House Academy, as his selection of architecturally diverse buildings reveals.

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.

It is hoped that the lessons learned from the construction and monitoring of these buildings will assist in reducing the energy usage of future school designs.

Richard Douthwaite proposes a new bank-free, debt-free way of financing property purchase and development to get the market working again and clear up the mess left by the bubble.

There are surprisingly few truly iconic buildings, structures that dominate their environs, not to mention the country's intellectual landscape. Halla Chontae Chorcai, Cork County Hall, is one such building. Construct Ireland's Jason Walsh visited to find out about the building's environmental credentials.

Green architect Minka McInerney profiles six unique green buildings including a cardboard school building, a globe-trotting recycled museum & the tallest timber building in the world

Bank of America Tower, to be located at One Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan is a US$1 billion project that has been designed to be one of the most highly efficient and ecologically friendly tall buildings in the world. The building, currently under construction, is expected to be complete in 2008.

Jason Walsh got in touch with Cook + Fox Architects in New York, designers of the Bank of America Tower to see how the practice plans to square the circle of designing an environmentally sound high-rise building.

Up till now, the activities of semi-state energy companies like Bord na Móna, ESB & Bord Gais have not won the favour of environmentalists. Richard Douthwaite explains how that situation is destined to rapidly change, and exclusively reveals details of the ambitious new green direction being adopted by Bord na Móna.