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

Lime-hemp is developing as a bio composite construction material with serious ecological and energy advantages. Patrick Daly, lecturer in Environmental Design at DIT Bolton St. asks if this is the environmental material of the future and explores its mainstreaming potential.

For a building to truly be considered a passive house a vast range of criteria need to be met, as Niels Bjergstrom, founder of Zero-Carbon Solutions Ltd reveals.

Local authorities upgraded hundreds of houses last year under a €20m government scheme, and the Department of Environment has doubled funding for 2010. With local energy agencies playing a key role on the ground, the programme offers vital lessons for keeping quality high in energy retrofit schemes. Words: Lenny Antonelli

A new development in the historic town of Thomastown, County Kilkenny brings the cutting edge of green innovation into a setting known for its medieval heritage. John Hearne visited the site, where a commitment to the environment is evident in sustainable design combined with everything from airtight detailing to technologies such as factory insulated timber frame, low energy windows, solar thermal, photovoltaic and heat recovery ventilation

Do termites apply building science better than humans? Award winning architect Sean Harrington takes a characteristically left-of-brain approach to our international feature, leading to some humbling lessons.

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.

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.

Upgrading and extending a semi-detached house on a tight site in Limerick required ingenuity from architect Patti O’Neill.