From the Construct Ireland archives

An energy conscious renovation and extension in south Dublin breathes new life into a typical semi detached home — the house is now wrapped with external insulation and boasts breathable and ecological materials too.

A striking new house in County Cork proves that meeting the passive house standard needn’t mean sacrificing good design

Conventional wisdom dictates that higher construction costs — for instance to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions — would either squeeze developers’ profit margins or increase house prices. Tom Dunne, Head of DIT’s School of Real Estate and Construction Economics, reveals how misguided this view could be...

As policy makers start to set mandatory low energy and renewable energy requirements as conditions of planning, the ability of the construction industry to find sound low-cost ways of achieving the new standards is becoming a key factor. John Corless speaks to leading sustainable building consultant Jay Stuart of Delap & Waller EcoCo and Paul Gilmartin of Ecobead to discover an approach with enormous potential for en-masse usage.

Jason Walsh visited the recently refurbished offices of Wicklow County Council to see an approach that achieves energy conservation, carbon reduction and dramatically increased occupant comfort by lowering electricity and heat demand and avoiding unwanted overheating

“Electrical waste is one of the fastest growing waste streams in Ireland. It is a source of valuable materials which can readily be recycled and which we must divert from landfill”, Minister Martin Cullen, 19 February 2003.

Heat recovery ventilation, a technology that has become a standard building application in Scandinavian countries, is rapidly gaining recognition in Ireland as a solution to both problems.

When residents of Hollywood solemnly and publicly state the need to combat climate change, it is easy to reject as self-righteous, opportunistic bleating. When it’s a resident of Hollywood, County Wicklow, and the environmental statement is in the form of a poroton-block house infused with sustainable features, it provokes an altogether different response, as Lenny Antonelli reveals.

Invest NI has itself invested in a new headquarters in central Belfast that it hopes will be seen as a model for sustainable development, as Richard Linger, Sustainability Director, White Young Green Ireland explains.

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.