From the Construct Ireland archives

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

Hugh Dorrian, member of the Main Committee of the recently launched Building Limes Forum Ireland reveals lime is regaining ground as a key material not only in conservation projects, but in new build.

Passive houses have long been considered the ultimate in low energy buildings. So when it comes to BERs, why don’t they always get a straight A? Lenny Antonelli investigates.

There’s rather more to designing a sustainable building than specifying low-embodied energy materials and making sure it will require little energy and maintenance in use. Low water demand and the ability to get the nutrients discharged in the sewage back to the land are important too.

Government incentives are crucial to sparking a massive energy upgrade of our housing stock, but practical examples are just as important. Keen to push his home's energy performance to the limits, one Dublin homeowner overhauled his entire building fabric and installed renewable heating systems and heat recovery ventilation. Lenny Antonelli visited the house.

Sustainable building at its best is about much more than just energy and carbon emissions, and involves considering location, form, orientation and the use of healthy, environmentally friendly materials. Mike Haslam of trail-blazing ecological architects Solearth describes a family home which scores highly on every front

Creating the right comfort in buildings for elderly people involves ensuring a warm internal environment, which typically results in high energy consumption. John Hearne visited the new Castle Gardens Retirement Village as it approached completion and found a project that combines complimentary low energy technologies, materials and design to deliver high levels of comfort whilst also keeping running costs, energy consumption and carbon emissions low

Newly elected Green Party Ministers John Gormley & Eamon Ryan talk to Construct Ireland about their vision for a sustainable future.

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

Plans for the first Irish eco-village have been in the works since 1999, but – finally – work is well underway at The Village in Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary. Following a site visit in December, Lenny Antonelli gives an overview of the innovative project’s renewable energy district heating system and sustainable planning and community design approach, before profiling four of the first houses to be built.