Welcome to the archive of Construct Ireland, the award-winning Irish green building magazine which spawned Passive House Plus.
The feature articles in these archives span from 2003 to 2011, including case studies on hundreds of Irish sustainable buildings and dozens of investigative pieces on everything from green design and building methods, to the economic arguments for low energy construction.
While these articles appeared in an Irish publication, the vast majority of the content is relevant to our new audience in the UK and further afield. That said, readers from some regions should take care when reading some of the design advice - lots of south facing glazing in New Zealand may not be the wisest choice, for instance.
Dip in, and enjoy!
Responding to the Department of Communications, Marine & Natural Resources’ Green Paper “Towards a Sustainable Energy Future for Ireland”, Mark Coyne, Technical Director of Dalkia Ireland, outlines the challenges and responses to the three main pillars of the Green Paper – sustainability, competitiveness and security of supply.
On Tuesday the 15th of March a passive house, a house that does not need to be heated, was built a few miles outside of Galway. The brain child of Lars Pettersson of Galway based Scandinavian Homes Ltd, it is believed to be the world’s first standardized and factory made passive house.
RICHARD DOUTHWAITE proposes measures including energy upgrade of the housing stock which could help to avoid economic meltdown, and JAY STUART outlines some energy saving measures which could be rolled out.
As energy prices continue to rise, the Irish construction industry is moving into uncharted territory, where all elements that affect energy performance—from orientation, to building design, to specification, to standard of workmanship—are increasingly recognised as key concerns.
The building is the first all timber office complex in Ireland. It covers almost 2,300m2 of floor space and provides accommodation for almost 100 staff working in a wide range of forestry related disciplines.
The first scheme of renewable energy grants for Irish homeowners, the Greener Homes Scheme, was launched on Monday 27th March 2006 and will make grant funding available to homeowners looking to install renewable energy heating technology
Construct Ireland tracked down the busy director of Limerick Civil Trust to talk about the sterling work already done, current projects and to ponder the implications of recent FAS cutbacks.
Intended as a landmark not only architecturally, Áras Chill Dara sets an example for large scale sustainable building, as Construct Ireland’s Jason Walsh found out.
In the hands of the right architect, meeting the passive house standard needn’t involve compromising on design. Construct Ireland visited a recently certified passive house which shows that a seamless low energy architecture is possible