Design Approaches

A little foresight at the design stage can go a long way in determining a building’s success. If a building’s design fails to take into consideration the needs of any potential occupants and users, the risk of the need for corrective work, often at considerable cost, is greatly increased.
Construct Ireland’s Architecture Correspondent Lauren Kapusta reports

As Building Regulations tighten on carbon emissions, energy reduction and mandatory renewable energy targets, the task for designers becomes harder and harder. Bobby Gilbert of Bobby Gilbert and Associates explains how a new design tool is making sustainable design easier.

Leading conservation architect Paul Arnold highlights the need for a sensitive approach when fire proofing heritage buildings, to ensure that, wherever possible, the best practicable fire safety is achieved along with, rather than at the expense of, preserving the building’s fabric

Kevin O’Flaherty’s development overlooking Galway Bay combines impressive energy saving techniques with the sorts of features that buyers of high-spec homes have grown to expect, as John Hearne discovers.

Killiney is an area known for both its natural beauty and the desirability of the existing built environment. Jason Walsh visited two new houses in the exclusive south County Dublin village which show it as being at the forefront of the drive to create a lasting beauty.

As it nears completion, John Hearne visits what is anticipated to be one of the lowest energy buildings in Ireland's recent history.

Brian Homan, Joint Managing Director of leading consulting engineers Homan O’Brien Associates describes a nursing home currently being built that is adopting a sustainable building approach to deliver healthy, comfortable accommodation at low running costs.

The Department of Agriculture’s new Food Safety Centre is a deceptively simple building that combines natural ventilation and lighting with energy efficiency - all on a designed natural landscape that seeks to both boost biodiversity and prevent flooding. Lenny Antonelli visited the County Kildare site to find out more

Stricter air-tightness standards might be helping to reduce energy use in new build, but is it leading to higher indoor concentrations of chemical and biological toxins? Lenny Antonelli investigates an emerging approach to building that is combining attention to environmental impact with consideration for the potential health effects of modern building materials and practices.

A typical Irish bungalow built in the early 1990s has been transformed with a green-tinted extension built in the spirit of modernism. Jason Walsh visited Enniskerry, County Wicklow to see how the old and the new were integrated