From the Construct Ireland archives

Lenny Antonelli visited a recently refurbished complex of social housing flats in Galway city that has combined excellence in urban regeneration with energy efficiency and major strides towards sustainability

Energy Directive
Construct Ireland and Century Homes present the need for Energy Labels before the Joint Oireachtas Committee

Jason Walsh visited the Green Building, a pioneering sustainable development built in Dublin's Temple Bar in 1994, to find out how one of Ireland’s most ground breaking eco designs has been performing over the last decade.

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In the last decade timber has come to be seen one of the leading sustainable building materials, primarily through the growth of the timber frame market. Jason Walsh visited County Wexford to look at a growing use for the material – solid timber construction

Chris Croly from BDP outlines the low energy and renewable energy strategies used in University College Cork’s new Environmental Research Institute, a test bed for the design and performance of sustainable buildings, which is ideally suited to housing the 200+ environmental projects carried out by its researchers.

Mandatory for virtually all building types since January of this year, Building Energy Ratings have been met with little fanfare. Construct Ireland proposes a cost-free method of levelling the marketplace by ensuring compliance and increasing awareness of the BERs legal status. Jason Walsh explains.

Set in the shadow of Macgillycuddy's Reeks, Killorglin, County Kerry is a dramatic and rugged location best known as a tourist destination and home to Puck Fair. It’s also home, however, to one of Ireland’s most successful companies, FEXCO, which has opened its new low-energy corporate headquarters in the town.

Ron and Collette Wardle started suffering ill health almost immediately after a sloppy energy upgrade. But reading a copy of Construct Ireland started a chain of events that led to the couple getting a brand new ventilation system — and seeing a marked improvement in their health.

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.

In the second installment of a new feature on international green buildings, Lenny Antonelli takes a look at four innovative, sustainable and striking buildings from around the world.