From the Construct Ireland archives

Sustainable Dundalk housing project designed to prolong the independence of older residents

Lenny Antonelli visited a recently refurbished complex of social housing flats in Galway city that has combined excellence in urban regeneration with energy efficiency and major strides towards sustainability

An increasing number of sustainable homes are being built in Ireland but many of them are in rural areas, and yet, Ireland is an increasingly urban society. Jason Walsh looks at one recent attempt to renovate a small terraced house in inner-city Dublin, bringing it up to modern environmental and energy efficiency standards.

Ambitious companies in the Irish sustainable building sector should look to the US, says Century Homes founder Gerry McCaughey. As chief executive of LA-based green building business consultancy Infineco, McCaughey is witnessing first-hand how the land of opportunity is waking up to green construction.

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.

Located in Oldtown, a hard to find country town in County Dublin, is a stunning new one-off house that not only manages to bring open-plan living to rural life, but also meets the onerous passive house standards using low impact materials. Jason Walsh visited the site as the house neared completion to find out more, an opportunity that Construct Ireland couldn’t pass up

While the principles of low energy building apply equally for new build and upgrades, the reality is that htting passive levels becomes much trickier when retrofitting. The Passive House Institute have taken this on board and created a retrofit standard that is ambitious but achievable.

Recently sold by private tender for over e1.3 million, the ECO House in Shankill, Co. Dublin exceeded auctioneers expectations, an indicative example of the shift from public curiosity to eagerness to invest in contemporary sustainable building.

Why Ireland may default on debts, & what to do next

Independent integrated sustainable design consultant Xavier Dubuisson explains why heed must be paid to a recent study on the threats that misjudged energy upgrade work can pose to indoor air quality.