Green building seminars, Ireland's land banks & more

Conference season is upon us — I attended See the Light 2010, the joint SEAI / RIAI passive house conference last week, and was impressed to see how far knowledge and expertise of the passive house standard has come in just a few years. There were discussions on planned passive-certified schools, excellent low energy housing projects and on the importance of accurate climate data when planning and certifying passive houses (and any building, really). Hopefully it's a sign that overall knowledge of low energy design is spreading — what's vital now is that associated knowledge of making sure low energy buildings are healthy, properly ventilated and built with minimal risk of condensation grows too.

 

Speaking of conferences, there's a few more ahead. Later this week, the Institute of International and European Affairs hosts one on the energy upgrade of buildings — details here. I'm hoping to get along to blog about some of the sessions — the afternoon ones that focus on international experience of retrofit programmes look interesting, and our own Jeff Colley will be chairing one of thse.

 

The Sustainable Building Show on October 7-9  in Dublin will also host a diverse series of seminars, and the details of Rebuilding Ireland 2010 at Plan Expo Green, to be held the first week of November in the new National Convention Centre, will be announced soon. 

 

In other news this week (and there's a lot of it):

 

Rob Kitchin asks how the government can use the land bank its establishing for the public benefit, and he also writes about the end of Ireland's fifth office building boom

 

More than half of jobs in the construction industry have been lost 2007

 

In more positive news, DIT has announced plans for the development of its new Grangegorman campus in Dublin 7, with the creation of up to 1500 jobs

 

The massive wind farm planned for Clare faces its first appeal

 

In the UK, energy secretary Chris Huhne  has announced 250,000 green jobs, apparently

 

 A new synthetic foam that soaks up carbon dioxide is getting a lot of attention

 

This work pod from Sustainia looks rather cool

 

GreenBuildingAdvisor.com's 9th green building priority - creating resilient homes

 

Why China is leading the way in green energy.

 

House For Everyone — a timber-wrapped architectural masterpiece 

Yahoo's new energy efficient data centre is modeled on a chicken coop

Gorgeous and green Amsterdam townhouse 

 

Five sustainable towns the world's cities could learn from

 

Seven rules for sustainable communities 

 

Lessons learned from 30 years of designing green roofs 

 

That's all for now — I should be back with more at the aforementioned IIEA conference this Friday. I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of the above stories.