From the Construct Ireland archives

Lorna Kelly, of the Irish Timber Frame Manafacturers Association, takes a look at IrishTimber Frame

Ernst Posthuma of Solarcon sheds light on a demonstration project in west Cork that combines passive and active solar gains to remarkable effect.

Mixing excellent thermal performance with renewable heating, efforts to boost biodiversity and plans for micro-generation, a new timber frame house in rural Cork shows that both appealing design and low environmental impact can be achieved with one-off rural housing.

When the two worlds of heritage and development collide opinions frequently become polarised and fraught with difficulty. There are few more vexed issues, as Tim Carey, Heritage Officer with Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council reveals

Germany has a reputation for high quality craftsmanship, an attention to detail and a positive attitude to sustainable and healthy housing. Jason Walsh visited a new German-built house in County Dublin to see if the expertise can be exported.

Buildings that are designed or refurbished to use little energy all too often fail to deliver the expected performance, if the building occupants aren’t able to use the building as intended. John Hearne reveals the crucial role that user-friendly heating controls play in ensuring that a theoretically low energy building delivers the expected results.

Designing sustainable buildings doesn’t always mean hi-tech solutions. From green roofs to living walls to constructed wetlands, sometimes it’s just a matter of embracing natural solutions. Lenny Antonelli investigates the emerging technologies and designs that use nature to improve the performance of buildings.

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

A new extension to the EPA's headquarters in Wexford lives up to the organisation's aim of environmental protection, boasting passive ventilation and lighting, a host of green technologies and a sustainable approach to landscaping.

A sustainable energy project in north Tipperary has the potential to create a pioneering green community – buildings are getting energy makeovers, grants are available for renewables and the ecovillage at Cloughjordan is under construction. But getting householders in the area to go green is still proving a hard sell, as Lenny Antonelli reports