From the Construct Ireland archives

Public private partnership schemes have come to dominate many aspects of Irish infrastructural development, from toll roads to urban regeneration schemes. Jason Walsh asks if they amount to privatisation by stealth and whether they come at too high a social and environmental cost.

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

Why Ireland’s failing treatment systems & septic tanks must be tackled

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

Can sustainability and social housing be married in one development? Construct Ireland investigates a ground breaking social housing project in West Cork.

Semi-state business Bord Gáis have placed green innovation at the centre of their business strategy. As CEO John Mullins reveals, pay as you save and renewable energy will shape the company’s future.

When it comes to redeveloping old buildings, green designers face two choices: replace existing structures with modern, energy efficient buildings or refurbish and avoid the embodied energy and waste of demolition and new construction. Lenny Antonelli visited a redeveloped convent in Booterstown, County Dublin that combines the best of both approaches.

“The thing to bear in mind is that even though it got knocked down, every single window sill went into another house, all the flooring and slates went into another house”, says Stephen Porter of Stonebrokers on the recent demolition of Lough na Vale in Sandymount.

In this fifth & final article in the series, Joseph Little compares simulations of several internal insulation options on common wall types, with worrying conclusions.

The Sun in Action by Paul Dykes, Marketing Manager of Sustainable Energy Ireland.