From the Construct Ireland archives

Creating the right comfort in buildings for elderly people involves ensuring a warm internal environment, which typically results in high energy consumption. John Hearne visited the new Castle Gardens Retirement Village as it approached completion and found a project that combines complimentary low energy technologies, materials and design to deliver high levels of comfort whilst also keeping running costs, energy consumption and carbon emissions low

Sligo estate house adds hemp lime extension & renovation with vertical bore-hole heat pump

Innovative low energy construction is rarely recognised on a European scale. The Isover Energy Efficiency Awards are one exception — here are nominations from across the continent that were celebrated at the European awards ceremony in Barcelona on 2 June

Part of the Mater Hospital redevelopment, the recently completed Mater Orchard building is a first class example of how to integrate sustainable building strategies into a substantial building whilst keeping extra cost to a minimum.

Often regarded as a comfortable stopover for those travelling between Limerick and Killarney, the town of Adare has seen it’s profile upped considerably in recent years with the wonderful restoration and overhaul of the nearby Adare Manor Hotel

If the Irish construction industry is truly to rapidly embrace the concept of sustainability, leadership from the public sector will be paramount in setting the right example. John Hearne spoke to the design team of the Opus and RIBA award-winning Cork Civic Offices, a development which keeps carbon emissions and fossil energy consumption to a minimum, and once more puts the public sector at the forefront of innovative sustainable design

Construct Ireland’s John Hearne discovers the growing shift towards making sites independent in terms of both water supply and wastewater treatment.

Little did we know when campaigning for the Fingal energy standard in 2005-06 that Construct Ireland would have a direct impact on Ikea’s first Irish store. Driven by a combination of Fingal’s requirements and their own renewable energy policy, the Swedish retail giant has invested in the largest ground source heat pump installation in Ireland and the UK, along with a well-thought biomass system fed by an onsite waste stream and a host of other green measures, as John Hearne reports

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.

A recent study instigated by the American Environmental Protection Agency has identified indoor air quality as one of the top five urgent environmental risks to public health.