From the Construct Ireland archives

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

Two years ago Construct Ireland ran a case study on Mater Orchard, a Mercy Sisters convent building that successfully balanced cutting edge technologies with pragmatic green design. Such was the success of that building, its architects were commissioned by Mercy Sisters in Limerick to repeat the feat. John Hearne visited the freshly completed building to find out how they fared

Jeff Colley spoke to Commissioner Piebalgs about key issues affecting Ireland’s energy future  and the importance of local initiatives such as Fingal County Council’s groundbreaking introduction of sustainable building requirements

The Dwelling Energy Assessment Procedure (DEAP) is now the national methodology for creation of Building Energy Rating (BER) Certificates for new dwellings in Ireland, and is an important desk top tool for predicting the performance of projects at outline design stage.

A recent study undertaken by Dublin City Council could serve to shatter many commonly held misconceptions about how existing buildings can perform when compared to new build, even simply just in terms of running costs.

Architect Eva Murphyova creates a modern and sustainable take on the traditional farm settlement with the addition of a new envelope, timber frame extension and sustainable heat sources

Sustainable Urban Drainage System by Padraig Doyle, Brian Hennelly and Don McEntee.

With the threats posed by anthropogenic climate change now accepted as a key international issue, efforts to curb carbon dioxide emissions are becoming manifest around the world in spite of – and even as a response to – the global recession. But any such efforts may be in vain if the focus on carbon dioxide distracts from the need to curtail methane emissions, as Richard Douthwaite explains

“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.

Richard Douthwaite explores the best options available to solve the intermittency problem of wind energy and help Ireland to harness its famously abundant natural resources