From the Construct Ireland archives

Part of the Mater Hospital redevelopment, the recently completed Mater Orchard building is a first class example of how to integrate sustainable building strategies into a substantial building whilst keeping extra cost to a minimum.

Closed-panel timber frame home in Wicklow with impressive thermal performance and airtightness

Aine Mc Elhinney discovers that the threat radon poses to private water supply needs addressing to help prevent lung cancer deaths

World record oil prices are being shattered so regularly that breaking news stories on the matter seem cliché, with other fossil energy sources heading in the same direction. Richard Douthwaite describes the first significant signs that Irish banks may be starting to take the issue on board regarding property lending.

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 light of the failure of AER 5 and the widespread pessimism in the wind industry regarding converting AER 6 contracts into operating wind farms, we asked the six main political parties what their proposals are for the development of an Irish wind industry.

Landowners & Cement Producers Gain, Homebuyers & Taxpayers Suffer. By Richard Douthwaite

Award winning green architects Solearth have been at the vanguard of sustainable design in Ireland for over a decade. Solearth’s Brian O’Brien describes a highly ecological extension designed by the practice in west Dublin.

Heat recovery ventilation, a technology that has become a standard building application in Scandinavian countries, is rapidly gaining recognition in Ireland as a solution to both problems.

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