From the Construct Ireland archives

In the first installment of a new feature on international green buildings, Lenny Antonelli takes a look at five innovative, sustainable and striking buildings from around the world.

As fossil fuel prices rise, the need for energy efficiency in achieving both is increasingly leading Irish people to an approach which combines both ventilation and heating,

A new development at Grange Lough, Rosslare, reveals that passive houses can be made Irish – both in terms of what they’re built with, and how they look.

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.

If you’re not assessing the environmental performance of your suppliers and their products, it’s rapidly becoming a case of “caveat emptor”. Many of the world’s biggest companies are now buying green, and the Irish government is about to follow suit. Ignore the issue and you put your company at a competitive disadvantage, argues Brian O’Kennedy, managing director of Clearstream Solutions

Germany has a reputation for high quality craftsmanship, an attention to detail and a positive attitude to sustainable and healthy housing. Jason Walsh visited a new German-built house in County Dublin to see if the expertise can be exported.

Thanks to the ESCo model, one school in Donegal has gone green, seen its heating bills reduced by 15% yet has not had to outlay one cent in capital expenditure. John Hearne investigates an emerging trend that is bringing low carbon energy into another realm.

The HARP database allows Building Energy Rating assessors to enter real performance data for heating appliances when calculating Building Energy Ratings rather than low default scores - but few renewable appliances are listed, and the industry appears confused and deterred by the application process. Lenny Antonelli investigates.

Built on stilts, entirely encased in recycled newspaper insulation on all sides, and designed to be easily taken apart so that its constituent elements can be reused once it reaches its end of life, Portlaoise Locomotive Drivers Building could hardly be more green. But it is – it’s a certified passive house. Iarnród Éireann senior architect David Hughes explains how such a sustainable exemplar came to be.

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